Chapter 1156: Strange Family Members

With almost no time spent thinking, many men went to sign up, and even women were asking if they could go along, as they also wanted an opportunity; after all, it is said that women hold up half the sky, so if women can farm and reclaim land, why can't they go out to execute missions?

But it was indeed not possible; Yishang did not agree, the reason being that the journey would take a relatively long time and there might be fighting, so only men had the advantage, not women, and what if a woman were pregnant and her belly grew larger on the road—wouldn't that be even more dangerous? It was better to forget it.

Everyone who wanted to go had already signed up in front of Ma, and Ma, based on his memory, recorded who was going.

The total population of the Western Development Group was not particularly large, and after nearly a year of living together, the several tribes had long since completely merged into one; everyone was familiar enough with each other that everyone knew which woman a little brat belonged to.

Now, the model of individual households was barely being pushed through here, and the relatively large resistance was that some men only had their eyes on the women, but did not accept the children the women brought with them, because those children had a very, very high probability of not being their own.

Although there was no shortage of food now, with Huaxia providing it, what about in the future? It was said that they would have to farm and support themselves; if it were just supporting their own women and children, that would be no problem, but having to support someone else's child was unacceptable to most men.

In the past, women belonged to everyone, and children belonged to everyone; everyone raised them together, and no one felt pressure, as everyone ate their fill when there was enough to eat, and everyone went hungry when there was a famine.

Now, it might be that because of one extra strange mouth to feed, one's own wealth would be less than others', and one would go hungry to raise someone else's child.

Fortunately, after various psychological counseling and persuasion by Ce and the others, the men who wanted to form families ultimately chose to accept the children who might not be their own, and they were not allowed to hit or abuse them.

In this era, and with these people, one cannot talk about family affection, only interests; tell the men that children only need to be fed for a few years, and by the time their appetites truly grow, they will already be a labor force.

It seems like you are raising one more child than others, but in reality, your household will have one more laborer than others; in the future, for the same size of land, you will have to do less work, and with more hands, you can cultivate more land and become wealthier.

Furthermore, what if the child you are raising is smart enough? If they can become an official in the future, wouldn't you, as the father, be able to enjoy the blessings? You might even be able to move to places like Huaxia City or Lema City to live.

You also don't need to fear that the child won't recognize you or care for you when they grow up; Huaxia has laws that will require them to, and regardless of whether they are sincere or not, as long as you treat them well, they must treat you well when they grow up, otherwise they are violating the law and will be punished.

After a series of persuasion and education, the men finally barely accepted it, and those who were slightly younger could even be considered to be in free-love relationships; after all, they had no children and were not married, and Ce would allow them to marry and be together once they reached the right age.

Now, to prevent them from creating children too early, they use myths, ghosts, and the like to scare them; for example, if they are not old enough and get pregnant, they will be unable to give birth due to some ghostly reason, and in the end, both the adult and the child will die.

In any case, it is just fabricating lies to prevent these children from trying things too early, because these people currently do not have a strong sense of shame; when herding cattle, if they see a patch of Grass that is quite suitable, they might just create a human on the spot.

There is not enough spacious room in the houses, and children live with their parents; when parents are creating humans, it is unavoidable, and the children might see it, just like wild beasts, just like monkeys in the forest.

Then, after learning it, they will imitate and try it; without anyone to teach them, it is just like this, relying on self-learning. Of course, wild beasts have an innate ability, and humans are still a bit different, otherwise there wouldn't be so many learning materials appearing.

The focus is still on scaring the girls, because if someone dies, it is the woman who dies, so as long as the girls are scared, they naturally won't do things they shouldn't before they are of age, because they might die.

But Ce might not have thought that when those children reach the right age, he will also need to go and persuade them, telling them that they are of age and there are no ghosts, otherwise, the girls who fear death might keep insisting on not having children, and the birth rate of the Western Development Group might drop severely.

The Western Development Group gets dark quite late, but because of the local time, even with the use of a simple Sundial, it seems that it gets dark when it is time to get dark; Changle did not feel that the daytime here was longer than in Huaxia City.

However, because the span was not too far, even if there were a unified time as accurate as in later generations, there would be no obvious difference in perception.

Once it gets dark, it is time to rest; there are almost no entertainment activities here. Although things like board and card games have spread throughout all of Huaxia, including the Western Development Group, people here have to work all day, are very tired, come back late, and basically have to sleep after eating dinner, so there is no time to play these games.

Even if there were time, there is no light for them to play, unless they go outdoors to borrow the light; just like in the villages of later generations, these people can only wait until Winter, during the agricultural slack season, to have the opportunity to gather together and play during the day. Now, they just sleep when the time comes.

Changle is the same; he was already very tired from traveling during the day, so after eating dinner and briefly answering some of everyone's questions, he returned to the room prepared for the two of them by the Western Development Group to stay; the Tent had already been set up.

Changle and Ayuduo have no strength to create humans now, but that is fine; starting tomorrow, it won't be this tiring, and they won't need to walk so much, so the two of them can create humans as soon as possible.

In this era, no one will reject pregnancy and childbirth; everyone thinks about passing on their genes as quickly as possible, and women are the same, as a woman's genes are also genes.

Fortunately, in this era, there are no philosophers or thinkers to ponder why humans must reproduce, who exactly is controlling them, why they must insist on continuing their genes, what the meaning of doing so is, or what the meaning of living is.