First Year of the Great Xia, April 1st, late night.
In the valley, the construction of the new wooden building was still underway with great enthusiasm.
Although only ten days had passed, the outline of the three-story structure of the new wooden building had already begun to take shape, and the focus of construction had shifted from the outer walls to the interior.
Unlike before, the outer walls of the new wooden building utilized a large amount of iron material. Some key parts were even reinforced and thickened, just judging by the naked eye, the new building’s defensive capability certainly surpassed the previous one by several times.
At the mouth of the valley, a group of several hundred people was gradually walking in.
This group, everyone wearing beast skin skirts, with some even having tattered ones, and a few children were simply wrapped in a piece of beast skin, clearly having travelled a long way, their lips blue from the cold.
After entering the valley, looking around at everything, they all stopped involuntarily, with expressions full of awe and excitement:
"We’ve arrived, this valley is where our Great Xia is stationed."
"So warm, without seeing any bonfire, how is the temperature so high."
"Must be burning coal, look at that white smoke."
"So much wood, the sides of this valley are almost filled with wood!"
"What wood, look at the ground over there, it’s all iron and coal."
"Gasp... look over there, it’s Cold Beast Meat, so much beast skin, there must be thousands of them, just lying on the ground like that?"
"These two wooden houses are so big!"
"Not just these two outside, look inside, there are three more buildings, that one being constructed, using so much iron on the walls?"
"Gasp... not just the outer walls, a lot of iron is used inside too."
"Are these stones on the ground all coal?"
The wooden building was still in the construction phase, and both temporary wooden houses were needed for accommodation, so all the resources obtained by the camp recently, whether wood, coal, iron, beast meat, beast blood, or beast skin, were basically piled on either side of the valley.
The resources hunted and mined over the past ten days, appeared ordinary to the people of Great Xia, but to others, it was different.
Standing at the forefront of the crowd at this moment, Zeng Fan was full of disbelief as he looked inside the valley, even pinching himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Upon confirming what he saw was real, a surge of joy and excitement appeared on his face, almost causing him to shout out loud.
"It’s true, Lord Shi didn’t lie to me, didn’t lie to us!"
Three days ago, listening to Lord Shi Ping’s impressive speech, he didn’t believe a word, thinking that no matter how strong Great Xia was, it couldn’t surpass the Three Tigers camp.
Having lived many years in Five Ape Mountain, the shadow of the Three Tigers camp made Zeng Fan unable to imagine any camp stronger than theirs.
Deciding to take the risk and merge over three hundred people into Great Xia was actually a helpless move for Zeng Fan.
Their base at Zeng Ping camp was just at Four Ape Peak, very close to the Three Tigers camp.
In recent years, as the atrocities of the Three Tigers camp were exposed, many small camps stopped being deceived but their days only grew increasingly difficult.
The reason being that while the Three Tigers camp previously used deceptive and enticing methods, now they didn’t bother pretending anymore, directly searching everywhere, and any small camp they found ended up extremely tragically.
With the cold snap approaching, the Three Tigers camp seemed to lack slave labor bait, increasing the frequency of their searches nearby, making the risk of venturing out to log even higher.
There were two occasions where the location of their base almost got discovered, which made Zeng Fan incredibly anxious and fearful.
He had learned quite a bit from others about the consequences if discovered by the Three Tigers camp, knowing the fate of his group would be utterly tragic.
Zeng Fan had considered finding a medium-sized camp in Five Ape Mountain to bring his people over, but he knew the two medium-sized camps at Four Ape Peak had neither the capability nor the willingness to take in their over three hundred people.
Aside from Four Ape Peak, he couldn’t make it any further, let alone find another camp to take them in. Even if he dared to find a third medium-sized camp, the result would likely be the same as the nearby ones.
At this critical moment, the appearance of Shi Ping was his last lifeline. Although he didn’t believe Shi Ping’s description of the Great Xia Camp and even harbored suspicions, he ultimately had no choice but to gamble on it.
Three days ago, after hesitating for a long time, he agreed with Shi Ping, arranged to notify the camp to pack up, and three days later in the evening, everyone would migrate to Great Xia with Shi Ping.
Actually, just before nightfall last night, upon seeing Shi Ping arriving with nearly thirty fully armed men, saying they were there to escort them for the migration, he had already started to waver in his heart.
Just from their aura, he could tell that nearly thirty people brought by Shi Ping all had the strength of the Earth-digging Realm, not to mention the exquisite clothing they wore and the various iron weapons they carried, things Zeng Fan hadn’t seen in all his years in Five Ape Mountain.
This Great Xia camp, even if its strength wasn’t above the Three Tigers camp, probably wasn’t far behind, that was Zeng Fan’s thought before departing last night.
At this moment, having truly entered the Great Xia Valley, seeing everything before him, he realized just how off-target his previous thoughts were.
Not to mention anything else, just the towering piles of wood, coal stone, iron ore, and the Cold Beast meat and various Cold Beast materials in the valley, along with that big barrel of red liquid he couldn’t comprehend, were enough to prove that Great Xia’s strength was far beyond compare to the Three Tigers camp.