Chapter 598 - 396: Competition

Chapter 598: Chapter 396: Competition

Feng Mountain was taken aback by the order to leave, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

’This woman’s moods change faster than a Blizzard shifts direction,’ he thought. ’She’s even more shameless than I am.’

’One moment she was making a deal about having a child, and the next she’s giving me the cold shoulder. She flips on a dime.’

But Feng Mountain didn’t linger. He quickly composed himself and rose to stand before the group.

Recalling that the tribe’s Fire Seed had raised the outdoor temperature, he realized no one had to stay miserably cooped up in the wooden house any longer.

He immediately walked to the center of the living room and clapped his hands.

"Everyone, I just came through the camp and noticed the temperature has gone up. The underground natural gas vents must be burning again. It should be fine to go outside if you dress warmly, but don’t leave the camp grounds."

At this news, the suppressed expressions on everyone’s faces instantly gave way to pleasant surprise, their eyes twinkling with excitement.

After all, they had been crammed into the wooden house for a long time. The air was stale, and there was little room to move.

Everyone had long been going stir-crazy from being cooped up.

Now that Feng Mountain said the temperature outside had risen and they could get some fresh air, they were howling with joy.

The wooden house instantly burst into a flurry of activity as people began rummaging for their animal-hide coats.

Then, they scrambled toward the main door, each trying to be the first one out.

The heavy wooden door was pushed open, and a biting wind carrying ice crystals rushed in.

Having been in the stuffy wooden house for so long, everyone’s heads felt a bit heavy. The blast of cold wind brought an instant, crisp clarity.

Looking up, they saw fine snowflakes still drifting down from the sky, but they no longer carried the same bone-chilling cold as before.

"It really is warmer!"

Someone was the first to shout.

Cheers erupted one after another.

Everyone greedily breathed in the fresh air, white mist billowing from their mouths and noses.

It condensed into tiny ice crystals in the cold.

Xiaohua and the other two from her country, along with Feng Jun and Sun Jia, stood at the doorway.

They looked on in a daze, the shocking scene before them reflected in their pupils.

The snow in front of them formed a slope, extending from shallow to deep.

Not far off, the snowdrifts were nearly as tall as an adult, piled up layer upon layer like frozen waves.

Farther out, rolling snow hills merged with the lead-gray sky, leaving only a vast expanse of white between heaven and earth.

Under Hu Zi’s watchful protection, never leaving her side, Xiaohua shouted excitedly, "Let me touch the snow! Just for a second!"

The thirty-odd people from the wooden house were crowded on the porch, making the wooden floorboards creak and groan under the strain.

Someone tried to walk onto the snow. The first few steps were fine, but then waist-deep snow instantly swallowed their legs, drawing gasps of alarm from the onlookers.

After all, there was a limited number of snowshoes, not enough for everyone to have a pair, so it was impossible for everyone to move around freely.

Feng Mountain took out the thermometer again to measure the temperature. The camp was now at a stable -30°C. As long as they dressed warmly, it wouldn’t really affect their activities.

But before they could do anything, they first needed to clear a path in front of the door.

He immediately called for Ma Wei and the old soldiers to go back inside and grab shovels and snow-clearing tools.

They lowered their heads and began to clear the accumulated snow.

The snow was much softer than they’d imagined. The shovels made a dull PUFF sound as they dug in, turning up large chunks of fluffy snow.

They then tossed the snow to either side.

The white mist from the men’s breaths mingled into hazy clouds, and the sound of shovels hitting snow echoed across the camp, one after another.

"This isn’t clearing a path, it’s digging a tunnel through the snow!" Feng Jun wiped the sweat from his forehead, but the moment it hit the cold air, the beads of sweat froze into tiny shards of ice.

His teasing remark drew a round of laughter, and everyone worked with even more vigor.

As time went on, a snow path over a meter wide appeared in the middle of the two-meter-high snowpack, winding its way forward.

The snow walls on either side were marked with shovel gouges of varying depths. At the end of this newly forged path, the buried camp was gradually revealing its true face.

It was the first time Xiaohua had ever seen a path being dug through snow.

She found it all exceptionally novel. She tiptoed onto the newly cleared path, the soles of her deerskin boots sinking into the semi-melted snow with a CRUNCH.

She reached out to touch the pristine white snow wall. The moment her fingertips brushed the fluffy surface, fine ice crystals trickled down.

Her face, red from the cold, was filled with a happy smile. The white mist she exhaled bloomed into a small watermark on the snow wall.

The excavated snow path had another benefit.

The high snow walls on either side acted as a natural barrier, blocking out the howling wind.

Leaning on his shovel, Feng Mountain wiped the thin layer of sweat from his brow. He watched Xiaohua and the children laughing and playing on the snow path, the air filled with their continuous gasps of wonder.

Just then, Yves strode over with a shovel on his shoulder.

"Boss, since we’re digging paths anyway, should we just keep going all the way to the restaurant and the tavern to connect the whole camp?"

"We could clear a path to the living quarters too. That way, everyone won’t have to be crammed into the wooden villa."

Feng Mountain looked at the outlines of the camp buildings, all covered in snow in the distance. ’Everyone is idle right now anyway,’ he thought. ’Let’s just treat it as exercise.’

"You guys handle it!"

Having gotten the go-ahead, Yves turned and started shouting orders. The men immediately shouldered their tools and headed down the snow path into the distance.

The sound of shovels digging into snow suddenly intensified, sending flurries of snow flying everywhere.

Ma Wei and the old soldiers, sticking to their military discipline, dug with precision, stopping from time to time to confirm their direction. The members of the Bear Tribe, on the other hand, had a clear division of labor: one person shoveled the snow while another moved it.

Before long, new snow paths appeared before them one by one.

Feng Mountain patrolled along the newly dug paths. The snow walls on either side had been trimmed straight.

Occasionally, a mischievous Xiaohua and two little rascals would be carving various patterns and grooves into the snow walls.

Gazing at the intersecting snow paths, which looked like an underground labyrinth, Feng Mountain was momentarily transported back to his childhood at the orphanage, watching the movie *Tunnel Warfare*.

The tribe’s Fire Seed was reignited, and its power now enveloped the ice-bound River Beach Camp.