Chapter 129: The Great Xia Calendar Is Officially Enacted

Yue Yuan’s birth added much glory to this great victory.

Counting the days, from the disaster on the mound to settling in the valley that absorbed Luo Ge’s camp, Xia Hong had been in this world for exactly one year.

During this entire year, not a single newborn had been born in Great Xia.

Before this, Xia Hong hadn’t given the matter any real thought—before the new wooden huts were built, Great Xia’s living conditions were simply too harsh.

No roof overhead, no inch of ground to stand on.

Under such conditions, he felt too ashamed to ask the camp’s people to have children.

He had never considered boosting population through encouraging reproduction.

But Yue Yuan’s birth likely marked a rising willingness among the camp’s people to have children, and Xia Hong began to take reproduction seriously.

Asking Lin Kai and others about their spouses wasn’t merely out of curiosity.

Xia Hong’s deeper goal was to learn how many people in the camp were of childbearing age, and whether he could stimulate reproduction through some means.

Lu Shang’s camp had already merged into another; thus, no other camps were known in this Redwood Ridge area. Given Great Xia’s current strength, they likely couldn’t leave this region for a long time, meaning the path of increasing population by merging other camps was temporarily closed.

If so, then stimulating reproduction was the only option.

Looking at the infant Yue Yuan, still with eyes shut, Xia Hong felt a rare softness rise in his gaze, and a deep joy swell in his heart.

Suddenly, an unexpected thought struck him—he turned to the others and smiled lightly: “Since the disaster on the mound until today, how long has passed? Who still remembers?”

“More than a year!”

“About one year and four months.”

“One year and five months.”

…………

Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, and the earliest members of Great Xia all spoke up.

Seeing everyone chime in with vague, conflicting estimates of time.

Xia Hong shook his head slightly, a look of helplessness crossing his face.

This was the lingering effect of civilizational collapse—the concepts of year, month, day, hour, minute, second were known, but without dedicated tools or record-keepers, everyone relied solely on memory and impression.

“If I recall correctly, the crystal fruits have ripened four times; when the fifth batch matures, we can determine roughly how long has passed.”

At Xia Hong’s words, everyone’s eyes lit up, and all nodded.

Yes, memory was unreliable—crystal fruit ripening cycles were stable.

The ice-boulder tree bore fruit every four months, a universally accepted fact—four batches meant sixteen months; when the fifth batch ripened, it would be nearly twenty months.

“Crystal fruits, blue-congealing grass, green-slime fruits, and other vegetation—all their harvest periods, and the ages of future newborns in the camp, require precise year, month, and day tracking. Vague timekeeping won’t do. Today marks our great victory, and with Yue Yuan’s birth, let’s settle it now!”

Others below listened calmly, but the foraging team’s members immediately brightened, nodding vigorously in agreement.

“Chief, if I remember right, the ice-boulder trees will ripen in the next few days—let’s fix the date now. Then our foraging and logging teams can plan expeditions by the calendar, vastly improving efficiency.”

Cheng Feng spoke up directly—he’d led the foraging team for so long that he was most sensitive to time’s passage and understood the importance of Xia Hong’s proposal.

“Then from today, the Great Xia Calendar is officially enacted. Today is Great Xia Year One, First Month, First Day!”

As Xia Hong spoke these words, his tone was tinged with excitement.

Others didn’t understand, but he was a man with two lifetimes of experience.

He knew clearly: calendaring was the beginning of civilization!

With Great Xia’s current scale and strength, it had nothing to do with civilization, let alone restoring human civilization—a grand goal.

But at least, this was a start.

Leaving aside the practical benefits calendaring would bring to future camp development, its symbolic meaning alone was immense.

At first, nothing seemed different—but when the Great Xia Calendar was fully integrated with the growth cycles of all vegetation, the activity patterns of cold beasts, even climate shifts, only then would its true value emerge.

“Yue Feng, Yue Yuan is your son. You are assigned to oversee the Great Xia Calendar. Besides refining the calendar based on reports from returning expeditions, you must record every major decision and event in the camp’s past and future.”

“Birds leave echoes, men leave names. Since we’ve lived in the Ice Abyss, Great Xia Camp must leave its mark here. If one day Great Xia truly falls to misfortune, at least we’ll leave behind a few words—making things easier for future generations, and proving we didn’t come here in vain!”

Xia Hong’s words opened a door for everyone.

Whether Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng, the Foundation Establishment cultivators, or the Logging Realm members, or even countless ordinary people, all wore expressions of deep thought.

Previously, their world had been simple: find food, grow stronger, survive.

But now, hearing Xia Hong’s words,

a new idea quietly stirred in their hearts.

“Birds leave echoes, men leave names!”

“Leave our mark in the Ice Abyss.”

“Leave a mark alongside Great Xia Camp?”

…………

Xia Hong didn’t bother explaining further.

How to live was a vast question.

If pressed, he couldn’t articulate it clearly.

But at least, Great Xia Camp now offered these people more choices, broadening the possibilities of their lives.

To truly understand this question, one must live it.

He himself, too, must do the same!

“Alright, get back to your tasks!”

Eighty-three carcasses needed processing, countless iron arrows required resharpening, and many wounded needed healing—so Xia Hong had halted all external activities for three days. But the most crucial reason was to avoid drawing attention from the sudden appearance of the Mirror Immortal Camp.

Landing in the Ice Abyss and being reborn in the Redwood Ridge area,

Xia Hong asked himself: his luck had been good.

Great Xia Camp, though weak, retained basic morality and ethics, and was deeply united—this was why, after Xia Ding’s death, he had never abandoned the group.

Later encounters—with Da Shi, Huang Zhao, Da Chuan, and even the recent merger of Chen Ye—all these camps, whether their leaders or members, regardless of strength, had decent dispositions.

Not to mention Luo Ming, who willingly surrendered the valley’s prime land.

Though Luo Ming’s motive was to protect his son, before leaving, he ensured the remaining camp members were properly settled—he still fulfilled the duty of a good leader.

From the mound onward, every camp and person Xia Hong met had been good.

He felt lucky, and this was the core reason.

In truth, given the Ice Abyss’s cruelty, Xia Hong had always believed that the norm should be people like Yang Ning and Li Hu—those who treated human life as worthless, calmly using others as bait to lure strange creatures.

=9+Book Ba

The harsher the environment, the greater the extremes of good and evil humans could unleash.

In fact, Yang and Li’s earlier words had confirmed his suspicion—in large, massive, or even larger camps, using human lives as bait was likely standard practice.

If they ignored human life, even worse acts would follow—nothing surprising.

Thus, the weaker the camp, the more it must conceal its presence.

This wasn’t just to avoid cold beasts and strange creatures—humans had to be avoided too.

“Any camp stronger than Great Xia—until their attitude and conduct are known, never make contact casually. One misstep could mean annihilation!”

Xia Hong returned to his third-floor room, sat on the chair, and stared at the gaping hole in his sole, shaking his head slightly.

Even the most potent golden wound powder couldn’t heal such an injury in a short time.

“At this recovery rate, it’ll take at least half a month.”

Xia Hong turned to the table beside his chair, where five pieces of cold beast meat lay.

His cultivation rations didn’t require trading contribution points like others’.

Xia Chuan sent a dedicated person to deliver fifty jin of cold beast meat to his room daily.

“Eighty-three Nieshu yielded roughly twenty thousand jin of meat, plus the several tengjiao we killed earlier—my cultivation rations are secure. With this injury, for the next half-month, I’ll focus entirely on cultivation, pushing my strength as close as possible to the thirty-thousand-jin limit!”

Though untested, Xia Hong estimated his base strength was already near twenty-four thousand jin; based on previous gains, adding six thousand jin in half a month would be difficult.

Moreover, his foot was injured—he couldn’t train normally, and his efficiency absorbing the cold beast meat’s essence would drop.

“Gain whatever I can. The Mirror Immortal Camp surely has Cold-Resistant-level experts—I must break through as soon as possible. Even if I don’t reach the limit, I must find a way to cross the Arrow Bamboo Forest and head toward Pingxi Plain!”

Even now, Xia Hong didn’t know how to break through to Cold-Resistant level.

From He Meng’s behavior and words, the sudden appearance of the Mirror Immortal Camp’s conduct was easy to guess—they’d already seized the Arrow Bamboo Forest, and He Meng had nearly crossed into Redwood Ridge.

Soon, the Mirror Immortal Camp’s range of activity would expand to the northern edge of Redwood Ridge.

When that happened, Great Xia would inevitably clash with them.

Breaking through to Cold-Resistant level was now the most critical task!

Chewing the cold beast meat, Xia Hong set his next major goal.

One leg was injured and useless—use the other. If that failed, use his fists. As long as he exerted force, there was always a way.

Yet Xia Hong’s high-intensity cultivation hadn’t lasted a full day.

The next day, before dusk, Xia Chuan arrived with others, interrupting him.

“Chief, urgent matter!”

Xia Hong frowned slightly, paused cultivation, and sat back on the chair.

“Come in.”

Xia Chuan entered first, holding a bundle of iron arrows, followed by two men—Tong Xinglong and Tong Xingsheng, brothers from the Camp Supply Office who handled carcasses.

Both clutched their palms, drenched in sweat, clearly in great pain.

“What happened?”

Seeing their agony, Xia Hong rose immediately and walked over.

“Big brother, the rat king’s blood—it’s Youwenti !”

Xia Chuan walked up and showed Xia Hong the bundle of iron arrows in his hand.

“Earlier, Brother, you lured the Rat King up the tree, wounded it with your knife, and then Zhao Long and the other two shot twelve iron arrows. When we returned last night, we retrieved all the iron arrows—including the twelve stuck in the tree.”

“Go on.”

Xia Hong had already taken the eight iron arrows from Xia Chuan’s hand. Seeing the deep red bloodstains on the arrowheads, he paused in surprise, then told Xia Chuan to continue, turning his gaze toward the two brothers, Tong Xinglong.

“Last night, we retrieved all ninety-six five-thousand-jin iron-bodied bows, Zhao Long’s three ten-thousand-jin iron-bodied bows, and every single iron arrow. We assigned Tong Xinglong and the other two to clean and polish them again.”

At that moment, the two brothers, Tong Xinglong, held out their palms to Xia Hong.

Both of their palms bore small patches of burns—the wounds had turned black and were still emitting faint wisps of smoke.

“These eight iron arrows must have struck the Rat King’s body. The blood on the arrowheads is his. We were just about to clean these eight arrows when our hands got burned the moment we touched the blood.”

(End of Chapter)