From Robinson Crusoe

Worried about rain, Chen Zhou first moved the "fishing gift package" to the camp at the foot of the mountain before continuing to move and organize the wooden and stone walls.

After finishing all these tasks, it was already four or five o'clock in the afternoon.

The rain never came, and there were only a few gray clouds in the sky that were torn apart by the wind, and above the clouds was a dark blue dome.

The sun was falling from the top of the mountain, casting its last rays of light on the world and lighting up the surging waves.

After adjusting the last brick, Chen Zhou was shocked to find that the building materials he had piled up on the shore had unknowingly accumulated into a small hill.

These materials were enough for him to build a house with a mixed wood and stone structure. If used to build the platform wall outside the cave, it could also meet more than half of the material needs.

Since discovering this "BUG", he has used time-space cutting to cut more than 20 batches of wood and stones, and each time produced a considerable number of finished building materials.

The subsequent consumption rate was far lower than the output rate, resulting in more and more wooden boards and stone bricks accumulating.

Today, the building materials piled in batches at the edge of the seaside woods look like a small building materials factory.

Chen Zhou had originally planned to build a new project to consume some building materials, but thinking about the many things piled up on his notebook, he gave up the idea. He did not find a new job for himself and went home honestly.

……

After staying on the island for a year and visiting the forests at the foot of the mountain and the rocky beaches on the slopes with Chen Zhou, Lai Fu became more and more courageous.

When it has nothing to do on weekdays, it always goes out alone, and sometimes you can't see it for the whole day.

It’s strange to say, but whenever Chen Zhou felt worried and angry about Lai Fu’s behavior, and even wanted to catch him and tie him up at home, this guy would stay quiet for a few days on his own, as if he could see through people’s minds.

The same thing happened on February 2th. After a day's work, Lai Fu still didn't come to the beach to find him. Chen Zhou was secretly accumulating anger in his heart.

I was planning to give Lai Fu a severe scolding after catching him.

Unexpectedly, before this anger had fully developed, when he was walking home alone on the mountain road, Lai Fu suddenly appeared from somewhere, and as soon as he saw him, he wagged his tail and came close to his legs to get close to him, as if he hadn't seen him for several years, and then jumped on him.

As the saying goes, "Don't hit a smiling person." Chen Zhou grabbed Lai Fu's neck and was about to scold him, but when he saw his expression, the words he had been thinking about for a long time came to his lips, but he couldn't say them.

Helplessly, Chen Zhou could only pat Lai Fu's head and tell it to follow him home and not run around anymore.

……

Since February 2, rainfall on the island has become more frequent.

There is always a light rain in the early morning, which stops for a while at noon, and then thunder and lightning in the afternoon, and there may be a heavy rainstorm.

The platform at the entrance of the cave is all sand and soil. It was originally repaired and relatively flat, but after the heavy rain, the loose soil flowed away with the water, and in a blink of an eye, it was full of potholes again, just like the surface of the moon.

When cooking in the kitchen, he couldn't help but glance out the window and see those large puddles of dim and turbid water. Chen Zhou secretly decided that after the rainy season, he must transport the bricks up and lay them in the yard.

This is not only for aesthetics, but also for convenience of walking.

At the same time, he also had ideas about what to do with the wooden boards and bricks piled on the beach.

That is to build a spacious, clean and beautiful toilet.

The toilet we are using now was dug out when we first moved into the cave. Although there is a simple rain shelter to block the rain from the sky, it cannot stop the "small river" gathering on the ground.

In the middle of the rainy season, the pit would be filled with water, which would splash up when people defecated.

If the splashing dirty water is not disgusting enough, there are sometimes live maggots in the splashed dirt. Even if they don't fall on people, it's disgusting when they fall at your feet.

It can be said that this toilet cannot be used normally during the rainy season, so he would rather solve his physiological problems in the forest in the rain than go to the toilet.

In order to improve his quality of life, Chen Zhou felt it necessary to put "better toilets" on the agenda.

Of course, that can only be implemented after the rainy season is over.

……

In February, due to rain restrictions, Chen Zhou's work area was moved from outdoors to indoors.

After the container refrigerator was built and put into use, he could finally drink a glass of iced rum or sugarcane juice when it was hot.

As the sugarcane field was not large enough, he was temporarily unable to produce his own sugar, so he rarely added sugar when making cold drinks.

As a result, sugarcane and oranges, which are relatively sweet crops, are still better, but the taste of lemons and grapes is a bit unacceptable.

Lemon, in particular, tastes like sour water, and it's still unpalatable even if you add more water to it.

But drinking every day would delay work, and drinking too much sugarcane juice and orange juice would make one feel greasy.

With nothing to do, Chen Zhou began to study dairy products and tried to make iced milk tea to satisfy his craving.

……

Speaking of this, we have to mention his domestication of wild goats.

The newly captured goats are slightly tamer than the female goats. Chen Zhou often brings them water and salt, and occasionally feeds them some barley grains.

Thanks to the corruption of sugar-coated bullets, he quickly became friends with these guys and could approach any sheep at will, as if he were also a member of the flock.

The female goat with the best performance was freed first. The rope around her neck was removed and replaced with a foot halter to limit her running speed.

The other sheep then succumbed to the sticks and sweet dates, forgetting all the large herds of goats on the platform, and peacefully grazing on the hillside, feeding their lambs and enjoying a peaceful life.

Chen Zhou milks the goat every other day.

Including the original female goat, there were a total of four sheep that continuously produced milk. He simply couldn't drink it all. Even drinking orange iced milk tea would make him sick of it, so he tried to make some dairy products.

……

The north where Chen Zhou is located can be said to be the northernmost part of the country. It is close to the border and very remote.

One hundred kilometers west of the town where he went to school was a vast grassland where many Mongolians lived.

These ethnic minorities, which once occupied vast territories, have gradually integrated with the Han people and, in line with the pace of development, have moved to cities to live.

There were several Mongolian families living in Chen Zhou’s grandmother’s home, a remote little mountain village.

One of the households was located just north of his grandmother’s village, with the sheep pen facing the path out of the village.

Every winter, when the herdsmen are no longer out grazing their sheep, they can climb up the old elm tree at the entrance of the village to look out. From afar, they can see the pen filled with gray sheep - they are dirty.

Chen Zhou's grandfather is very prestigious in the village and is a very upright person.

In the early years, when the villagers excluded the Mongolians from outside, he often spoke for the Mongolians. In addition, he liked to drink, was good at drinking, was good at speaking, and knew some folk remedies to treat livestock, so he was respected by the Mongolians.

Thanks to his grandfather, Chen Zhou found a Mongolian godmother when he was five years old.

When he was a child, the Mongolian people still maintained a simple and straightforward attitude towards life. When they met guests from afar, even if there were only two pieces of milk tofu or a sheep left at home, they would take them out to entertain them.

At that time, there was not much difference between Mongolian godmothers and biological mothers, they were all sincere in return of sincerity.

It’s just that Chen Zhou’s Mongolian godmother doesn’t speak Chinese very well. When he was being taken care of by his grandparents in the village, he was still young and was always confused when he heard his godmother speak Mongolian.

This communication barrier resulted in him rarely taking the initiative to go to his godmother's house to play.

But he could never refuse the routine visits during the holidays, or the invitations from his godmother's family to slaughter cattle and sheep.

Chen Zhou has learned a lot about the production methods of traditional Mongolian dairy products, among which the most familiar ones are traditional Mongolian butter, milk tofu, milk skin and other traditional delicacies.

The simplest method of making butter requires the use of a tall cylinder-shaped machine to stir fresh milk, which can destroy the structure of the dairy product and separate the oil and water.

The separated oil should be washed with cotton cloth or filter, then dried in the sun, and can be eaten after cooling.

If you want a prettier looking block of butter, simply press it into a mold, shape it, and refrigerate.

The goats on the island eat nutritious, pure natural grass. Their milk has a high fat content and their butter production is also considerable, adding a new seasoning to Chen Zhou's kitchen.

The production process of milk skin is more complicated.

According to Chen Zhou's experience, there are two types of milk skin.

One is a very ancient raw milk skin called "Tuhei Wurumu" in Mongolian.

This kind of milk skin has a strong fermented flavor and even a slightly smelly smell.

It is made by putting goat milk into a container and letting it sour naturally, then peeling off the thin upper skin. The production method is simple, but because of the taste, it is not popular among the public.

The other type of milk skin requires a variety of tools and takes more time and effort.

There are many steps involved, including filtering the milk, boiling the milk, controlling the heat, coagulating the milk skin, and drying it in the shade. It will take at least a day or two to complete.

But Chen Zhou liked eating this kind of milk skin the most, and he was happy to go through the trouble, so he concentrated on trying it in the cave.

……

Although the manufacturing process of milk skin is complicated, it is ultimately just a craft that can be passed down through word of mouth. In terms of complexity, it is far inferior to earthen rice hullers and foot-operated pestles, and it cannot be compared with the technology of bending wood into wheels.

Chen Zhou recalled and sorted out the sequence, worked hard to figure out a few details, and succeeded in making milk skin the first time.

Later, he became more and more skilled at making it, and apart from what he ate himself, he stored more than two kilograms of milk skin in a container refrigerator.

If it weren't for the sheep's milk production that limited his performance, he felt that he could have achieved dairy freedom on the island.

……

However, as the saying goes, things change unpredictably, and it is certainly gratifying to successfully seek benefits for one's taste buds by manufacturing dairy products.

Some unexpected events also catch people off guard.

As the lambs grow older and stronger, they dare to explore more and more places, and it is inevitable that some unlucky ones will appear.

The little guy who was castrated had suffered many misfortunes and had lost his roots. He was bitten on the leg by a poisonous snake at some point.

When Chen Zhou found it, its legs were severely swollen, especially the knee joints, which looked like a honeycomb. Even the hair had fallen off, revealing the red and black skin underneath, with two rotten ulcers on it.

It was the rainy season, and the lamb's wound was wet after it was injured. It soon developed symptoms such as inflammation, high fever, rapid breathing, and shock, and its life was hanging by a thread.

After discovering that its injuries were serious, Chen Zhou immediately took it back to the cave, cut open its wounds, and performed debridement and disinfection surgery.

But unfortunately, the lamb had already been injected with venom and was in a weak state. It was then exposed to the rain and could not survive this disaster.

Even though Chen Zhou tried his best to save his life, it was in vain.

Less than six hours after the debridement operation, its heartbeat stopped abruptly, and it stood still and stiff beside the wall of fire with its eyes wide open.

……

To be on the safe side, Chen Zhou did not eat the meat of the lamb, and did not even give the poison-testing rats a chance to come out. He simply dismembered the lamb and threw it into the compost pit.

It was already February 2th.

In the past, he only knew that there were snakes on the island, and that there were many species and a considerable number of them. Chen Zhou had never expected that these creatures, which were frightening just by looking at them, could pose such a great threat.

For two consecutive days, he kept thinking about whether he should lock up Lai Fu, Ti Zi, Hu Tou and Gang Dang, the little guys who often go out, at home to prevent them from being attacked by poisonous snakes and dying accidentally.

Among these little animals, Lai Fu was the one that worried him the most.

Cats are agile and quick to react, so unless they are extremely unlucky or careless, venomous snakes cannot touch them.

Moreover, Grape and the pair of hunting experts it trained usually go to high places and rarely go to places with dense grass and forests where visibility is poor.

At the same time, cats don’t like getting their paws wet, so they seldom go to mountain streams and rivers. Even when they encounter small puddles in the forest, they will take a detour.

This cautious character enables them to avoid many dangers invisibly.

Even if they do encounter an attacker, they can escape with their agility.

Lai Fu is different. Relying on his tall stature and big body, he often moves recklessly through dense grass and bushes. No matter how you look at it, he is the one most likely to encounter poisonous snakes.

In order to ensure its safety, Chen Zhou had no choice but to tie Lai Fu in the kitchen.

Chen Zhou did not allow Lai Fu to go out alone unless he was accompanied by someone.

This big, human-like dog is an indispensable companion in his life.

Before he could come up with a proper way to resolve the threat of venomous snakes, he could only resort to this last resort, at the cost of Lai Fu's freedom, to ensure its safety and reduce the probability of it encountering danger.

……

Lai Fu had no idea what he had done wrong, but he was tied up by Chen Zhou for no apparent reason.

It had been used to being outdoors for a long time and could not stand the feeling of being restricted in its activities, so it tried its best to please Chen Zhou.

What about wagging the tail, whimpering, clinging to the thigh, licking the hand, sitting on the ground and staring at people with tongue sticking out and laughing foolishly...

It has tried everything that has worked before.

The amount of coquettish skills she mastered surprised even Chen Zhou, her owner who was with her day and night.

But no matter how much it acts like a spoiled child, it is impossible to untie the leash. The most Chen Zhou can do is give it some material rewards, or play the "I throw, you pick up" game with it to let it vent its energy.

……

From a free elf to a kitchen watchdog, Lai Fu's mood became visibly depressed.

In the early morning of February 2, Chen Zhou, wearing a leather raincoat, was packing his hiking bag in the bedroom, preparing to go to the beach to pick up a package. When he saw Lai Fu curled up pitifully at the kitchen door, staring at the world outside the window in a daze, he couldn't help but feel soft-hearted.

He walked forward and untied the rope tied to the wooden stake. He decided to take Lai Fu down the mountain with him this time.

Of course, even if they go down the mountain, the rope around Lai Fu’s neck must not be untied.

This guy has been in jail for a few days and dreams of running away. If the rope is loosened, he will play like crazy all day and won't come back even if you call him back.

Chen Zhou just wanted to take it out for some fresh air, not to let it "out of prison".

However, regarding Lai Fu's mental state, he actually already had a suitable solution in mind.

He planned to build a doghouse for Lai Fu on the platform that was large enough to shelter him from wind and rain, and then prepare a long enough chain for him to allow him to move around and play outdoors in a restricted manner.

There are not even a few weeds on the platform, the view is wide, and there are usually sounds of human, cat and dog activities. Snakes never climb up there, so it is very safe for Lai Fu.

In the future, stone bricks will be laid and a wall will be built around it, so snakes will have no chance to enter. (End of this chapter)