From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 100 An unexpected gain
The sun has completely set, and the island, which has no light pollution, is plunged into a quiet darkness.

With the crisp click of the lighter, the flame in the glass lampshade swayed slightly, emitting a warm yellow light.

Fastening his shoulder straps, Chen Zhou returned the same way he came, using the light.

He opened his eyes wide and carefully identified the way up the mountain, climbing up the gentle slope and climbing up the stone steps from time to time.

Lai Fu followed closely behind, with his tail lifted up, and he lowered his head to sniff around as he walked, looking for interesting smells.

Without the guidance of wild pigeons, it is quite difficult to find the pigeon hole directly by traveling at night based only on the impression left by previous observations on the ground.

I got lost several times.

Fortunately, the mountain is not big, and Chen Zhou was able to return to the right path soon after getting lost.

The terrain became higher and higher, and the sea surface reflecting the stars and the moon in the distance became clearly visible.

Further away on the beach, the square walls made of wood and stone are blurry, as if melting into the quiet night.

The evening breeze blew from the sea, and a pigeon feather floated in from somewhere.

Going further, and bypassing an obstructive stone wall, the Pigeon Cave that Chen Zhou had been searching for for half a day finally appeared in front of him.

……

The entrance to the Pigeon Cave is a huge crack that props up the side of the mountain.

The crack is in the shape of an elongated diamond, narrow at the top and bottom and wide in the middle. It is seven or eight meters high and more than three meters wide at the bottom. The steep mountains on both sides are covered with a layer of sand and gravel, on which grow sparse shrubs and weeds.

The light from the oil lamp was not bright enough to see the details of the cave ceiling.

After a quick glance, Chen Zhou did not find any wild pigeon nests at the entrance of the cave, but he smelled a strong smell of bird droppings.

He was not surprised to think that there were hundreds of pigeons living in the hole, so he bent down, rolled up his trouser legs, and tucked them into his boots to prevent pigeon droppings from getting directly into his shoes when he stepped into the pigeon hole.

As he was rolling up his trouser legs, he looked back at Lai Fu.

The dim light illuminated Lai Fu's furry paws. The hair on them was slightly covered with dust, and it shone golden in the light.

Smiling maliciously, Chen Zhou had already anticipated that Lai Fu would follow him with his paws full of bird droppings.

Knowing that he could not persuade Lai Fu to stay, Chen Zhou was the first to enter the cave, thinking of taking Lai Fu to the river for a thorough bath after leaving the Pigeon Cave.

The entrance of the cave is wide, but it becomes narrower and lower as you go deeper. After about eight meters, the width of the cave is only two meters.

Fortunately, the width did not continue to shrink and is still more than enough for one person to pass through.

……

While entering the cave, what Chen Zhou felt most deeply was the ubiquitous smell of bird droppings.

But the feces under his feet was not as thick and sticky as he had imagined. There was only two centimeters of fresh pigeon feces on the surface, and below that was the hard, dried "old feces".

As expected, the soles of his boots were thickly coated with pigeon droppings.

Lai Fu was even more troubled. He took cautious steps, like an elegant model walking on the catwalk, avoiding the pile of bird droppings in front of him.

However, there is so much bird droppings that there is no way to step on them. The only difference is whether you get more or less droppings.

The more Lai Fu walked, the more bird droppings were on his feet. They were sticky and stuck to his fur, and he couldn't shake them off. He kept howling, expressing his depressed mood.

"You wanted to come in on your own, I didn't force you to do that!"

Chen Zhou reminded it and looked up.

Countless pigeon nests were stacked up one on top of the other like mortise and tenon joints, starting from about 1.8 meters above the ground. Under the light of the oil lamp, it looked like an eerie and grand palace.

The nearest pigeon nest was within reach. He held the oil lamp in one hand and used the other hand to touch the pigeon nest, but it was empty. When he reached his hand in, he only touched a few fallen pigeon feathers, but no pigeons or pigeon eggs.

Cursing his bad luck, he groped his way to the lowest pigeon nest.

Sometimes he would catch pigeons resting in their nests, sometimes he would catch nothing.

Sometimes I would touch a very agile and intelligent pigeon. As soon as my fingers touched the pigeon's back or wings, the pigeon would flap its wings and fly away.

Chen Zhou was so frightened that his arms trembled and he almost dropped the oil lamp on the ground.

Fortunately, the flock of wild pigeons were resting and would not flee collectively just because any one pigeon was frightened.

Moreover, pigeons have poor vision at night. Some wild pigeons may be frightened and flee in panic, even crashing into bird nests or rock walls. They may get injured on their wings or heads and fall into the bird droppings, allowing Chen Zhou to reap the benefits.

He has not washed the backpack since he got it. When he went to Dove Cave this time, he deliberately put a few plastic bags in the bag to avoid getting it dirty.

After all, it is new equipment and I haven’t used it many times, so I still need to take good care of it.

After catching the wild pigeon, he took out a dagger and let the pigeon bleed. After the pigeon was dead, he stuffed it into a plastic bag. He repeated this process and soon he had harvested more than a dozen pigeons.

It may be that pigeons in low places don't like to lay eggs, or it may not be the breeding season for pigeons, or it may be bad luck.

We dug out a lot of pigeon nests and caught many pigeons, big and small, but didn't find any pigeon eggs.

Chen Zhou already had a premonition that his plan to boil eggs was about to fail.

……

After about an hour, the backpack was filled with pigeon carcasses and the cave was filled with the smell of blood.

After finishing the massacre, holding the oil lamp and looking into the deeper depths of the Pigeon Cave, Chen Zhou developed a desire to continue exploring.

The mountain was dry and not suitable for snakes to survive, and he was not afraid because there were no large carnivores on the island.

To be on the safe side, after closing the backpack, he took out the long-handled axe he carried with him, held the axe in one hand and the lamp in the other, and led Lai Fu through the narrow passage in the cave.

The lights dispelled the darkness. The number of pigeon nests in front became increasingly sparse, and the road became narrower and narrower on the left and right, as if it was about to converge into a crack, blocking the road.

In the spirit of getting to the bottom of the matter, Chen Zhou put down his backpack, reduced his width, slightly turned sideways and continued forward.

After squeezing through a crack in the rock that was barely wide enough for one person to pass through, and moving forward a dozen meters, the passage became wider and wider, allowing Chen Zhou to figure out the internal structure of the cave.

It turned out to be a gourd-shaped cave, narrow outside and wide inside. When you go deep into the cave, it becomes clear.

At this time, the terrain under my feet has begun to extend downwards. The dim oil lamp can only illuminate the surrounding three or four meters. The high places in the deep cave cannot be seen clearly at all, and are completely shrouded in darkness.

The sound of water could be heard faintly from far away, and a cool breeze blew on my face from time to time.

Having read many tomb-robbing novels, Chen Zhou felt like a tomb-raiding lieutenant who had come to an emperor's tomb hidden in a Feng Shui treasure land.

It was late at night at this time. Walking in the cave with Lai Fu, the vision was severely obstructed and the atmosphere was still somewhat scary.

It was impossible to see anything from a high place, and the surroundings suddenly became unusually open. Worried that there might be cliffs or other dangers ahead, Chen Zhou slowed down his pace and tried his best to use the oil lamp in his hand to illuminate everything around him.

As he walked, he found that the ground was getting wetter and wetter.

The rock wall that he had been leaning against, in addition to the black and gray rocks, was actually covered with a layer of minerals that looked like large salt grains.

Chen Zhou had read many novels about farming in other worlds when he was killing time after get off work, and he felt that this mineral was somewhat familiar, so he squatted beside the rock wall and recalled it for a while. Although he usually followed the principle of "a good memory is not as good as a bad pen", his memory was not bad.

The design drawings he saw in school and the drawings posted by the brothers on the forum before the challenge started are deeply imprinted in his mind.

If the novel wasn't so long and the words hadn't left a rather vague impression on him, he wouldn't have needed to recall it carefully.

After pondering for a moment, he finally remembered that this salt-like mineral seemed to be natural saltpeter.

Saltpeter is potassium nitrate, which often appears in novels about time travel back to ancient times. It is sometimes used to make ice drinks in the summer to cool down and relieve the heat. More often, it is used to make gunpowder, glass, or as fertilizer. It is one of the important raw materials for industrial development and is also a regulated industrial raw material.

The method to verify whether this mineral is saltpeter is also very simple.

Simply grind the saltpeter into a powder, pour it into a container of water, and stir gently.

If this mineral is indeed saltpeter, it will absorb heat from the water as it dissolves, causing the water temperature to drop.

When the water temperature drops below freezing, it begins to freeze.

Generally speaking, the more saltpeter you use, the faster the ice will form.

When reading historical novels, Chen Zhou indirectly learned how the ancients used saltpeter to make cleaner ice cubes.

They usually use a larger pot inside a smaller pot, with both pots filled with water.

There is a lid on top of the two basins to reduce the impact of the external environment on the ice-making process.

The saltpeter dissolves in the large basin and affects the water in the small basin through the basin wall, causing the water to freeze.

Since saltpeter is toxic and a carcinogen, ice made in this way is safer.

Moreover, after making ice, the saltpeter can be extracted from the large basin again through cooling crystallization or evaporation crystallization, and reused to reduce damage.

In addition to making ice, saltpeter is also one of the raw materials for making black powder, and can also be used as a material for ceramics and glass glazes.

“Making black powder requires a higher purity of saltpeter.

Alas, it is a pity that I did not pay much attention to chemistry knowledge after entering university, and I have completely forgotten how to purify saltpeter. Now I guess I can only use it to make ice or glaze my shabby pottery. "

Chen Zhou flipped the hand axe and used the hammer head to knock off the minerals fixed on the cave wall. When he was about to put them into his backpack, he realized that the backpack was left at the entrance of the passage and was no longer with him.

"First collect some and place them beside the passage, and take them out when you leave the pigeon hole."

Thinking of this, Chen Zhou knocked off the salt-like minerals bit by bit, gathered them together, and placed them randomly at a location deep into the cave.

After collecting about three kilograms of minerals suspected to be natural saltpeter, he continued forward carrying the oil lamp.

The deeper you go, the wetter the ground becomes and the louder the sound of water.

After walking about a hundred meters, Chen Zhou felt that his altitude had dropped by at least 30 meters, but he still hadn't seen the end of the cave.

There was only the sound of water, an endless and increasingly surging sound.

"We can't go any deeper."

The sound of rushing water echoed on the cave walls. There seemed to be some danger lurking in the darkness. Chen Zhou felt alarmed and stopped.

Lai Fu tilted his head back with a serious expression. Some of the bird droppings on his feet had been washed away by the wet ground, revealing his light yellow hair.

Wang!
With a low growl, Lai Fu turned his head and looked at Chen Zhou, then cast his gaze towards the darkness in front of him, where the sound of water came from.

"Is there any danger there?"

Chen Zhou touched Lai Fu's head, and unknowingly, a thin layer of sweat appeared on the palm of his hand that was holding the axe handle.

In Robinson Crusoe, the adventurous man Robinson never went deep into the pigeon hole and arrived at such a place at night.

Since this is not a location described in the book, safety cannot be guaranteed and any danger or accident is possible.

A gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall. Without a weapon powerful enough to protect himself, Chen Zhou did not dare to go any deeper and decided to return home.

Besides, it was already late at night. He had gotten up very early today and should have rested long ago.

If you continue to endure it, you will become dazed and more likely to have an accident.

Besides, if the cave had not been so big and deep, and if he had not discovered minerals suspected to be saltpeter along the way, he would not have come all the way here.

……

After making up his mind, Chen Zhou returned along the cave wall.

He took off his coat, pocketed the knocked-down minerals, squeezed through the narrow cave wall, and left the Pigeon Cave.

That night, he fell asleep next to the woods at the foot of the mountain.

After a night of hard work and walking in the dark and depressing cave, Lai Fu was extremely nervous and only felt relieved after he got out of the cave.

Although Chen Zhou appeared to be stress-free on the surface, his subconscious mind was still affected.

Lying on the "bed" covered with fallen leaves and broken branches at the edge of the woods, Chen Zhou "personally experienced" many classic plots in tomb-robbing adventure novels.

Sometimes he surfed and sank in an old coffin, sometimes he climbed up a straight cliff with endless miasma below him, and sometimes he fought with a giant lizard three or four meters long...

Until noon on the morning of July 7, Chen Zhou was still immersed in his dream.

Just as the story in the dream was reaching its climax and was about to end, Lai Fu stretched out his big wet tongue and licked his face, destroying the feng shui and reminding him that it was time to get up.

After scratching his hair and lying on the ground with his eyes open for a few minutes, Chen Zhou finally got rid of the ups and downs of the dream.

After he cheered himself up, he felt hungry, so he made a fire on the spot and roasted a few pigeons for himself and Lai Fu.

The wild pigeons on the island were very small. Chen Zhou ate five in one go and was only barely half full.

Maybe because it had been stuck in the backpack all night, the pigeon he slaughtered last night didn’t taste as delicious as he had imagined.

Of course, this could also be due to insufficient seasoning.

There are very few ingredients in the world that can be turned into delicacies just by adding some salt. Even though wild pigeons are excellent as ingredients, they still need the help of other auxiliary ingredients, otherwise they will still have a fishy smell.

Lai Fu didn't mind these. He took two bites each and killed half of the pigeons in his backpack.

Considering that he had to bring some pigeons home to make soup, Chen Zhou forced an end to the feast, packed up the dead pigeons and minerals suspected to be saltpeter in his backpack, and started walking home.

On the way back, when they passed by the river, he did not forget to wash the bird droppings off Lai Fu's body. He also took off his clothes and took a shower himself.

Perhaps it was because the cool water dissipated the heat and cleared his mind, he suddenly remembered that in addition to wild pigeons and minerals suspected to be natural saltpeter, there was another overlooked resource in the cave - bird droppings.

He has been working hard on the composting, but he has not yet dug a big hole and the progress is slow.

But I didn’t expect that there was such a resource point full of high-quality fertilizer not far from the river bank.

All he needed was a cart, a shovel and a pickaxe to shovel out the old manure and put it to good use in his farming business.

　Uh oh, the chapter I owe will have to wait until tomorrow.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)