Chapter 30

With the woodcutting team increased to eight people, Xia Hong's mood improved quite a bit.

Of course, mood is secondary; the main thing is that the danger coefficient has been greatly reduced.

Not to mention the early days when he was alone, even later when Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng joined, and knowing that cold beasts sleep very soundly at night, they were still cautious everywhere, trying their best not to make loud noises, and would find locations far away from cold beasts to chop trees.

Now it's different; when Xia Hong walks on the snow, he is no longer so timid.

Under the cold night, the outskirts of Red Wood Ridge haven't changed much.

Snowflakes keep falling from the sky, and the cold wind scrapes past his ears from time to time.

Xia Hong led the team to the location of the first Ice-Fruit Tree, saw that the tree was still empty and hadn't borne a single fruit, and frowned slightly.

"It's been over two months and it still hasn't grown. It seems the growth cycle of crystal fruits is much longer than we expected!"

Xia Chuan is more meticulous. Upon hearing this, he immediately climbed up the tree, checked for a long time, and then came down to say: "The roots left behind from the previous picking have just sprouted. They are a bit stronger than what we saw a month ago, about the same as the other two trees. If nothing unexpected happens, it should take another two months to bear fruit."

Another two months to bear fruit, which means it can ripen three times a year, with each time having a yield of about six thousand jin. One tree is eighteen thousand jin, and three trees are fifty-four thousand jin.

After Xia Hong calculated this number in his mind, his frown deepened.

During this period, besides hunting, the thing he has done most is leading the team to constantly observe the growth of the three Ice-Fruit Trees.

The current Great Xia Camp naturally doesn't have the qualifications to use cold beast meat as food; it must be admitted that the main staple food the camp relies on is still crystal fruits.

Therefore, he must figure out the growth cycle of the crystal fruits.

Each crystal fruit is about half a jin. A normal person needs two fruits a day to maintain warmth and fullness. According to this calculation, it means the annual yield of the three Ice-Fruit Trees can only support about one hundred and fifty people.

The camp now already has one hundred and fifty-four people.

That is to say, as long as any accident happens to these three trees, the camp is very likely to face a food shortage.

Clearly, Xia Hong is not the only one who realized the shortage of crystal fruits.

After thinking for a while, Xia Chuan immediately asked a question in return.

"How did Father and the others support over two hundred people before?"

Xia Hong also thought of this point. When Xia Ding was there, the total population of the camp was over two hundred and thirty. Even if the crystal fruit quota wasn't as high as he stipulated now, relying on these three trees, it would have been impossible to let so many people eat their fill.

After thinking for a while, Xia Hong first cast his gaze toward the depths of Red Wood Ridge, then shook his head, and looked toward the west side, the territory of the Great Stone Camp.

"It seems that not only did the Great Stone Camp cross the boundary, but Father also crossed the boundary before."

This conclusion is easy to reach; with the strength of Xia Ding's group, they definitely wouldn't have dared to go deep into the inner side of Red Wood Ridge.

"I heard the population of the Great Stone Camp is over three hundred. Thinking about it this way, the Ice-Fruit Trees on their side should be much more numerous than ours."

As soon as Xia Chuan said this, Yuan Cheng immediately became interested.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's just go to their side and pick them. Before, when they brought people to our side to steal crystal fruits, they didn't show any mercy at all."

Yue Feng, Lin Kai, and others also nodded; they had also heard about this matter.

Xia Hong glanced at the inner side of Red Wood Ridge, and after thinking for a moment, he also nodded.

Currently, they don't have the strength to go deep into Red Wood Ridge, so they can only go find others to "borrow" some crystal fruits.

Judging from the fact that Xia Ding could support so many people before without breaking out into any intense conflict with the Great Stone Camp, it's clear that the crystal fruits on that side should have a surplus.

What's more, since Great Stone "borrowed" fruit first, there is even less psychological burden.

"Let's go over now and see the situation of the Ice-Fruit Trees on their side."

Xia Hong gave an order and led the seven people to walk over together.

Actually, it's not just that he wants to see the situation of the Ice-Fruit Trees on that side; Xia Hong also wants to see if he can run into people from the Great Stone Camp.

It's strange to say, but he hasn't seen anyone from the Great Stone Camp on this side of Red Wood Ridge for over a month.

Xia Hong is still skeptical about whether that bluff last time could scare the other party into not coming to his own territory for over a month. Being able to survive in this environment for so long with three or four hundred people, they can't be fools.

Xia Hong even suspects whether something happened to the other party.

Could the Great Stone Camp also have been found by that strange creature?

"Ouch, there's something on the ground."

Just as Xia Hong was thinking, he was interrupted by a loud shout from Qiu Peng.

Everyone stopped, turned their heads to look, and found that he had taken off his straw sandals and was clutching his sole, hissing as he sucked in cold air.

Everyone quickly gathered around him to ask what the situation was.

Qiu Peng let go of his hand, and only then did everyone discover that his sole had been cut by a wound about two inches long. Looking at the bleeding, the wound was quite deep.

Upon seeing the wound, everyone's first reaction was to be stunned.

Although the eight of them didn't have proper shoes and were wearing a kind of shoe woven from dry grass, they did have the cultivation of the Woodcutting Realm after all, and their physical bodies were definitely much stronger than ordinary people's. Not to mention cutting such a deep wound, even cutting the skin was rare.

"I don't know what I stepped on, it cut so deep all of a sudden, hiss..."

Hearing Qiu Peng's words, Xia Hong immediately lowered his head and began to search carefully in the vicinity under his feet.

The ground was covered with snow, and since it was night, it was hard to see clearly, but Xia Hong pulled out his stone axe and scraped the ground for a while, and soon hit a hard object.

After he swept away the snow on the ground, he was suddenly stunned.

He saw that lying on the ground was a bright, gleaming broadsword.

The blade was about a palm wide, and the sword body was about one and a half meters long.

"Isn't this the broadsword of that Wang Ming from the Great Stone Camp?"

Yuan Cheng exclaimed, recognizing the broadsword at a glance.

Xia Chuan beside him didn't speak, but clearly, he also recognized it.

When Xia Hong held the broadsword in his hand, a look of ecstasy appeared on his face, but he soon calmed down and looked at the area below the broadsword.

"Below, it seems there is something else."

Xia Hong first put away the broadsword, then pushed aside another layer of snow, and a corpse suddenly came into everyone's view.

"It's Wang Ming. The wound is on the head; he was killed by a punch. You guys split up and look around to see if there are any other corpses."

Xia Hong recognized Wang Ming at a glance. After examining the wounds on his body, his expression changed slightly, and he signaled everyone to split up and search again.

Everyone scattered, with Xia Hong as the center, and began to search the surroundings.

"I have one here. The wound is on the glabella; it's a... red dot."

"There is another one on the side."

"And another, three fatal wounds, all red dots on the glabella."

Only Lin Kai, who was searching on the west side of Wang Ming's corpse, made a discovery, and he discovered three corpses in a row.

Xia Hong examined the four corpses separately. Besides Wang Ming, one of the other three corpses was someone he had seen before when Wang Ming was stealing crystal fruits. Although he didn't recognize the other two, judging from their clothing, he could also judge that they were people from Great Stone.

"They are all people from the Great Stone Camp. Something really happened."

Before, he was guessing whether something had happened since he hadn't seen people from the Great Stone Camp for so long. He didn't expect that he had actually guessed right.

Not only did something happen to the other party, but it happened on Great Xia's territory.

"What did they run into? Were they killed by other people?"

"There are no traces of cold beast attacks; they should have been killed by others."

"That is to say, besides Great Stone, people from other camps have also broken into our Great Xia's territory?"

Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, and others looked at the corpses on the ground and guessed one after another.

Xia Hong listened to their guesses, glanced at the broadsword in his hand, his eyes narrowed slightly, and he spoke faintly:

"Who said it must have been killed by people or cold beasts."

Upon hearing this, everyone's expressions suddenly changed.

Not killed by people, and not killed by cold beasts, then it can only be...

"Follow me back first. We won't hunt or chop wood for this period!"

After Xia Hong finished speaking, he immediately led everyone to return in the direction of the camp.

However, just as everyone turned to leave.

On the snow more than a hundred meters to the west of where the corpses were just discovered, a corpse suddenly sat up, slowly turned its head, and looked at their backs.

(End of chapter)