Chapter 53: Winter Summary

After resting for two consecutive days, no one had any reason not to start working, and the Snow had also begun to melt gradually, making a squelching sound when walked upon.

Excluding the injured, pregnant women, and children, everyone else had to shovel Snow together. The wooden shovels were light and perfect for shoveling Snow. There were also large push-rakes made of wooden planks; they were blocked with ropes, with several people in front pulling and one person behind holding the handle to steer, allowing them to push away any thickness of Snow in one go.

The Baifeng Tribe settlement was large. Besides the residential area, there was a place for firing kilns. Baifeng planned to designate other open spaces as farmland. Although it was saline-alkali land, the degree of alkalization was not very high. Snow piled up in those places would act as a soil-washing process once it melted.

All kinds of ash produced by the tribe were also dumped there, including the feces continuously produced by hundreds of people. After mixing it with soil and piling it in the planned areas to mature and ferment, it would be plowed in the spring. Even if the salinity was slightly higher than elsewhere, the harvest would certainly be much better than anything growing randomly on the Wasteland.

The water in the water pipes could not be used. When Baifeng noticed the temperature had plummeted and there was thin ice on the outdoor water in the morning, Baifeng hurriedly had people seal the water intake at the Dahu to prevent the pottery water pipes from freezing and cracking.

What was being used now was water stored in advance in cellars. The temperature there would not drop below freezing, so it did not ice over. However, the cold was so intense that even the strongest person would be rolling on the ground with a stomachache within three minutes of drinking a mouthful of cold water drawn from the cellar.

The tribesman whose lower leg was sutured yesterday miraculously showed no signs of infection. When changing the bandages, it was unexpected that the wound was actually very dry with no exudate. If it remained like this for the next few days, it would truly be Heaven's blessing. Baifeng had already prepared medicine, just waiting to bring his fever down.

Surprisingly, he later showed no signs of infection at all. After lying in the infirmary for about a week, although he could not move vigorously, the wound had mostly healed. It was just sutured very uglily, but he regarded this scar as a symbol of a man and a mark of his own courage. Baifeng felt that a person with such a long scar in this era might not necessarily be brave, but they were certainly tough-lived.

However, two other injured tribesmen did get infected; both had deeper wounds. Fortunately, the symptoms were not too severe. Baifeng only gave them medicine to reduce their fever when they had one, and afterward, they relied entirely on their own super-strong immune systems to recover as before.

Ten days had passed since the Snow. After the temperature dropped briefly for a few days, it rose again. Only when the accumulated Snow across the entire Wasteland had completely melted, with only some Snow hiding in the corners of the shady slopes, did Winter arrive.

On the day of Winter, Baifeng did not let everyone work, but instead gathered them in the open space that Baifeng had designated as the plaza, lighting dozens of large bonfires to dispel the cold.

On this day, Baifeng was to hold a summary meeting to summarize the year's work, reward those who had contributed the most, distribute resources within the tribe, and set the work plan and construction progress for the coming year. This was a very important method for enhancing the tribe's cohesion, centripetal force, and sense of identity.

If asked why it wasn't held at the end of the year but chosen on the day of Winter, Baifeng had no way to conjure up the Purple Gold Mountain Observatory out of thin air, and he had even less ability to calculate which day the New Year fell on. He could only calculate the time of Winter. Although it might be off by a day, it could always be recalibrated through the sun's shadow on the Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice.

As for the New Year and the creation of a calendar, that would be left to Xuanyuan. The Baifeng Tribe could now fix the tasks to be done on the day of Winter; in terms of significance, it could barely count as a festival. Moreover, after today, the time tribesmen spent resting would gradually exceed the time spent working.

There was another day Baifeng also intended to fix, and that was the day for catching cattle. The day the wild cattle herd migrated to the Valley Grassland was roughly the same every year. The Baifeng Tribe could make hunting wild cattle one of their main sources of food. The day after the harvest, they could eat, drink, sing, and dance wantonly, just like this year.

Xiong was the person who had contributed the most to the entire tribe. After all, he had a certain leadership ability and was the peak of the tribe's martial strength. Just the prey he had brought back was countless. Baifeng did not have many good things to give him; after all, Xiong was not at all polite in front of Baifeng, taking whatever was good for himself.

Therefore, in a situation where the tribe had fewer men and more women, he could only be allowed to choose another wife. He could only choose one young one, while he could choose two of the older ones brought back in exchange. Under the tribe's nutritional supply, the older women were constantly becoming younger. Now, no one thought they would die in a few years, but Xiong still picked a young beauty.

The person with the second greatest merit was Zhi, the hunter who had discovered and autonomously decided to track the wild cattle herd, ultimately bringing huge benefits to the tribe. All Baifeng could give him was a wife and some cloth to make clothes. The main event was a large Steel Knife, a full half-meter long. Xiong had pestered Baifeng for this knife for who knows how long, but Baifeng still did not give it to him.

Seeing the Knife, Zhi was so happy he could not express it. The Knife was placed on the table, and Baifeng told him he could take it away directly, but he only rubbed his hands, looking left and right, wanting to touch it but retreating, not knowing what he was afraid of.

Watching his face flush red with excitement, Baifeng picked up the Knife and handed it to him directly, having to guard against being cut himself. To display this Knife, Baifeng had placed the scabbard to the side and had not inserted the Knife into it.

When Zhi received the Knife, his hands were shaking, trembling. Baifeng watched in fear and still helped him put on the scabbard so he could be at ease. After putting on the scabbard, Zhi took two heavy breaths, then hugged the Knife and ran away wildly without turning his head, rushing toward his own house, completely ignoring Baifeng's words about letting him choose a wife first.

Seeing that he loved the Knife more than women, Baifeng had no choice but to take it upon himself to choose two "older women" for him and let them take the cloth to find Zhi.

Afterward, there were other meritorious tribesmen such as the Shaman, the Carpenter Bun, the Potter Gao, as well as the tribesman who discovered the Iron Ore, the one who caught the most fish, the one who made the most mud bricks, the one who gathered the most wild vegetables, and so on.

Lu was also considered a meritorious official, mainly because he had led Baifeng to find the Dahu at the time, allowing them to settle here. Other aspects were quite ordinary. Baifeng did not reward him with a Knife; the first Steel Knife was already in his hands. Although he was only fifteen, in this era, he was already a grown man physiologically, so Baifeng let him choose a wife.

All those who had merit were also rewarded with some extra food. They did not have to share it with the Production Team they belonged to and could still continue to enjoy the food evenly distributed by the Production Team, which counted as truly obtaining private food.

It was just that some of the female tribesmen made things difficult for Baifeng. Steel tools were given as usual, and cloth and food were not treated with bias, but they couldn't just be allowed to choose men themselves, right?

He had intended to just compensate them with extra food, but unexpectedly, they actually requested Baifeng to choose men as husbands. After being stunned for a second, Baifeng agreed. Without exception, they all chose the most capable group of men in the tribe, all of whom had just been rewarded.

Regardless of ability or physical strength, these men were good choices. The men accepted them gladly, without the slightest unhappiness. After all, the union of the strong was the way of Nature. It was just unknown who was taking advantage of whom.

In any case, each of their newly formed small families seemed to have received their respective rewards, but in reality, they received a double portion; only Baifeng seemed like the sucker.