From Robinson Crusoe

The Challenger Camp, now in ruins, was eerily quiet, save for the sounds of the flowing river and the wind.

Paul gathered up the scattered embers, wiping the sweat from his brow from time to time, gazing absently at the receding figure of Chen Zhou on the riverbank—

For him, the battle, though brief, was far more dangerous and difficult than he had imagined. Several times, he nearly died at the hands of that American soldier.

He had never experienced such a life-or-death struggle before.

He had also never seen the gruesome sight of people being killed, or the stark white bone exposed when joints were broken.

……

A few minutes ago, Chen Zhou's defeat of the Japanese ninja completely ended the battle.

The American soldiers who had been fighting Paul for so long were no match for Chen Zhou.

When he broke free from Paul and stubbornly raised his hatchet again to try to kill the terrifying Eastern man, Chen Zhou kicked him in the knee and then broke his arm, giving Paul his first glimpse of his partner's fierce and violent side.

After seizing the axe, Chen Zhou kicked the American soldier next to the Japanese ninja, casually tossed the axe to Paul, and told him to deal with the two challengers. Then he stripped off his clothes and searched for all the spoils.

Paul, still fueled by adrenaline after the battle, decisively picked up the axe and walked panting to the two men.

Only then, the cold wind brought him to his senses slightly. He gripped the axe handle tightly, poised to strike, but hesitated to bring himself to do it.

No matter what, this was his first time killing someone.

Faced with the Japanese ninja lying on the ground with his limbs severed and the American soldier wailing and pleading for mercy in broken Russian, Paul's hand holding the axe trembled slightly.

"Can we spare them?"

After hesitating for a full two minutes, Paul lowered his head, sighed, and asked Chen Zhou.

Chen Zhou was gathering firewood and using the embers of the campfire scattered by the spear to rekindle the fire when he heard this. He was very surprised and even laughed out loud.

Squatting by the campfire, he broke off the remaining spears and spread them on the embers, pointing at the incapacitated Japanese ninjas and American soldiers.

"Of course, if you're ruthless enough, don't kill them."

After stripping them naked and leaving them here, it won't be long before they are eaten alive by cave hyenas, birds of prey, or monitor lizards that live by the river, drawn by the smell of blood.

Even if they were lucky enough to survive, they would die from wound infection or starvation.

Even if they were a little luckier and managed to heal their injuries, they still wouldn't survive the first winter; the harsh cold would take their lives.

You may feel bad, but right now, cleanly and decisively cutting off their heads is actually the best outcome for them.

After a slight pause, Chen Zhou put down his hand, turned his head, and continued speaking.

"And for you too..."

This brutal challenge can only have two survivors, which means that this place is completely different from the stable modern society—

Compared to an isolated island, this place is more like a vast arena.

Whether killed by wild beasts, or dying from disease, cold, hunger, or at the hands of other challengers, one is a loser in the competition.

Even the only seemingly better outcome—voluntarily leaving the area—is tantamount to death.

How much trace and energy could two modern people leave in the prehistoric world, even if they tried their best?

In the long course of history, the two people were like two grains of sand in a wave, swallowed up by the tide. Ten thousand years later, no one will know of their existence, and even their own world may slowly forget them.

Every challenger should recognize this and let go of their pointless pity.

Chen Zhou wanted Paul to kill the two challengers himself, as he felt Paul's performance was not up to par for the challenge.

Without him, Paul might have died on the very first day of the challenge.

Even if Paul survives the hyenas' attack, he is so close to these two challengers that he will inevitably clash with them in the future. Judging from Paul's current mental state, he will definitely be the one to die in the event of a conflict.

Sometimes Chen Zhou could see a reflection of his former self in Paul.

The version of myself that felt fear upon seeing Robinson Crusoe's corpse, had nightmares after killing natives, struggled with heavy physical labor, and complained about fate because of illness.

Therefore, he would usually choose to accommodate Paul, for example, by keeping the three tiger cubs with serrated teeth.

But there are differences in everything.

Leaving the serrated tiger cubs would at most add to their burden of obtaining food, but this unnecessary pity would cost Paul his life.

If Paul had continued to hold this view when acting alone, he would surely have been the one to die.

Chen Zhou had a good impression of this tall but immature Slav, and more importantly, he didn't want to face the challenges ahead alone.

He hoped that the blood of these two men would make Paul realize where he was and what a deadly challenge he was facing, rather than a reality show or entertainment program on television.

Unfortunately, Paul ultimately failed to wield the axe; he merely stripped the ninja and the American soldier of their clothes, leaving the final tasks to Chen Zhou.

……

Although he didn't have many lives on his hands, Chen Zhou ordered the execution of quite a few people, and the large-scale purge resulted in hangings or beheadings.

Faced with Yokomae Munehiro's sinister gaze and James's desperate expression, Chen Zhou did not hesitate to cut off their heads and then kicked their bodies into the river.

The raging torrents will soon carry the bodies away, and the fish and shrimp that live in the water will soon devour them, leaving only a few bones buried under the mud and sand, or carried away to more distant places.

……

After dealing with the two men, Chen Zhou searched the riverbank for a long time and finally found the two metal kunai that the Japanese ninja had thrown with his mouth.

It was only at this point that the wound on the sole of his foot from the shuriken flared up, and the poison caused his sole to tingle.

After sniffing the scent of the bitter poison, Chen Zhou roughly understood that the poison must have come from the monitor lizard, and he felt relieved.

Monitor lizard venom is only lethal when a large wound is torn open and a large amount of venom is injected. Insufficient dosage will only cause the wound to ulcerate and produce a small area of ​​paralysis.

Even if the tip of the shuriken only grazed the skin on the sole of his foot, based on Chen Zhou's understanding of his own physical condition, the venom of this giant lizard, even if injected directly into his bloodstream in the form of a few milliliters, would not kill him; at most, it would only make him feel uncomfortable for a while.

His biggest fear was that the ninja would use poison made from wild Euphorbiaceae, Apocynaceae, or Gelsemium genus plants to coat his concealed weapons.

Some unique varieties among these plant species are so deadly that they are comparable to some highly venomous snakes. Even those with exceptional physical constitutions fear them like snakes and scorpions.

Fortunately, the challenging environment was prehistoric and located in a high-latitude region with a cold climate, so there weren't many highly poisonous plants.

Furthermore, the poison-making training program for Japanese ninjas mostly involved using native Japanese plants. They lacked knowledge of the properties of herbs from around the world, making it impossible for them to source materials locally and create potent and highly effective poisons.

The fact that the challengers had only been searching for them for less than 24 hours before the attack gave him no time to prepare and thus gave him a chance to save his life.

……

Holding two exquisitely crafted kunai and finding the shuriken that the Japanese ninja had secretly scattered in the mud, Chen Zhou returned to the campfire. He took off his shoes and clothes, drying them over the fire while examining the injuries on the soles of his feet. As he had expected, the wounds inflicted by the shuriken had not only not festered, but were showing signs of healing.

As for the slight numbness in the soles of the feet, it probably won't last long and will disappear soon.

Stacking up the American soldiers' boots and using them as a bench, Chen Zhou, wearing only his underwear, watched the firelight dance on Paul's face and asked in a gentle tone.

"How does it feel?"

Paul didn't look directly at Chen Zhou, but quietly watched the burning campfire and the cooking pot that had just been set up and placed on it.

After a moment of thought, he spoke.

"I didn't expect it to be like this."

In the army, I received a lot of training, and the instructors always told us to be prepared to go to the battlefield.

Going to the battlefield means either killing or being killed.

Before tonight, I always felt I was ready, that I was just one or two battles away from becoming a veteran.

But now I feel that I might not be ready at all; I'm not a good soldier..."

"Being well-prepared is not enough to become an excellent soldier."

Reality doesn't give you much time to prepare; often, things are forced upon you, and I was no exception.

Seeing that Paul was conflicted and depressed, Chen Zhou got up, patted Paul on the shoulder, and then went to the side to start taking stock of the clothes left behind by the Japanese ninjas and American soldiers.

The challenge rules state that "the Administration will randomly distribute practical survival tools to challengers, and the survival tools obtained by contestants in the same group will definitely not be repeated," but the number of survival tools is not specified.

If we use the survival tools Paul obtained as a standard, then the two challengers should have a total of 10 survival tools.

He now only saw three tools that were clearly unsuitable for the challenge: a military axe, a cooking pot, and kunai. He also guessed that the challengers should have had a fire starter, otherwise, in such a damp environment after the rain, they could never have started a campfire so quickly with primitive tools.

In addition to these four tools, there are at least six other tools, which may include medicine, cooking seasonings, lighting tools, etc.

He wanted to see what spoils he had acquired first.

……

The American soldier's clothes were torn and stained with blood from the fight with Paul and his violent breaking of his limbs. Chen Zhou planned to look at them later, so he opened the ninja suit first.

He first found a windproof lighter in the inner pocket of his ninja suit, and then pulled out a multi-functional Swiss Army knife from it.

Then, Chen Zhou pulled out a transparent plastic bottle with a capacity of about 50 milliliters from the Japanese ninja's belt. The bottle contained about 10 milliliters of turbid yellow liquid.

Guessing that this was a bottle containing toxins, Chen Zhou put it aside and continued searching—

The ninja's belt served as a backpack, and its interior was mostly hollow, allowing it to hold a considerable amount of items.

After neatly placing the windproof lighter, two kunai, Swiss Army knife, and plastic bottle aside, Chen Zhou found a small compass.

This compass is quite different in design from Paul's compass. In addition to the pointer on the front, there is a temperature and humidity display on the back, making it quite multifunctional.

Just when Chen Zhou thought he had gathered all five survival tools for Japanese ninjas, he reached into his belt and found two more items.

One of the items was a small sewing kit, and the other was a bottle of water purification tablets.

The ninja's small sewing kit mainly contained needles, with more than twenty needles of various sizes, but only a small spool of thread, the exact opposite of Paul's sewing kit.

Paul's sewing kit has three large spools of thread and only two needles, which perfectly complements the ninja's sewing kit.

As for the water purification tablets, they are common chlorine dioxide effervescent tablets, which Chen Zhou used quite a lot when he was doing outdoor sports.

These water purification tablets only need to be placed in a container and mixed well to disinfect and sterilize. Each tablet can usually disinfect and purify 1 liter of water. However, it takes at least 30 minutes after being placed in water before it can be used.

The Ninja water purification tablets are relatively small, with only 100 tablets in one bottle, and all the labels are printed in Japanese.

Chen Zhou has a basic understanding of Japanese; he can listen and speak but not read or write. Looking at the Japanese text mixed with Chinese characters in the instructions, he could only barely guess that the chlorine dioxide content of this water purifier was much higher than that of ordinary water purifiers, and that it could be called a "concentrated and highly effective water purifier".

However, compared to using water purifier tablets to produce safe drinking water, boiling is more cost-effective, since boiling does not require the use of consumables.

After finding the sewing kit and water purification tablets, Chen Zhou carefully examined the entire ninja outfit but ultimately found nothing else.

At this point, Chen Zhou was basically certain that these seven items were all the survival supplies obtained by the Japanese ninjas. He then began to examine the combat uniforms of the American soldiers.

……

Seeing that the Japanese ninja had so many items, Chen Zhou assumed that the American soldier must also have plenty of "treasures," but after searching for a while, he only found a pair of gloves and a magnesium rod.

These two items, along with the hand axe and the camping pot, make a total of only four, which is even fewer than Paul's survival tools.

Just as Paul was wondering why the survival tools distributed by the Time Travel Administration were so random, he called out loudly as he left the campfire and entered the semi-permanent shelter.

When Chen Zhou entered the shelter, he discovered that the American soldier's last survival tool had been used to build the shelter.

Several sections of cut paracord were tightly bound to the wooden beams of the shelter's roof, securing the entire shelter firmly. On the ground lay half a bundle of paracord, about 18 meters long, which appeared to be leftover after the wooden beams were tied.

"No wonder the flood didn't scare them away. They even cut half a bundle of paracord and used it to build a shelter. These two guys really went all out."

It seems they're reluctant to give up this 'auspicious land'!

As Chen Zhou put away the parachute lines and looked at the parachute lines above his head that were now broken into more than a dozen pieces, he felt a pang of heartache.

Bundles of paracord could help Paul climb cliffs or towering trees, but cut paracord was not so useful.

Cursing the Japanese devils and American soldiers for wasting resources, Chen Zhou initially intended to untie the parachute lines, but after glancing at the spacious and tidy interior of the semi-permanent shelter, he refrained from doing so.

……

"Let's rest here tonight."

After my clothes are dry, let's go get the little serrated tiger cub and, while we're at it, cut off some glyptodon meat and fat.
It's cool today, so if there aren't a bunch of scavengers fighting over the meat, it shouldn't have spoiled yet.

We'll rest here for the night and set off tomorrow morning.

After making the arrangements, Chen Zhou added.

"We also need to find a suitable place to build a shelter as soon as possible."

As autumn approaches and temperatures drop, and given how vast this area is, our luck can't always be so good; we're not going to keep encountering other challengers.

Most of the time, we still have to fight against wild animals, the environment, and especially the rapidly decreasing temperature.

In this situation, having a sturdy and safe home is very important. (End of Chapter)