From Robinson Crusoe

Seeing that Paul seemed to recognize the owner of the hat, Chen Zhou was also quite puzzled—

Judging from all the challengers we've seen so far, although most of them come from different worlds or even different eras, they all have one thing in common: they can communicate normally with each other.

Whether it was the slain American soldier and Japanese ninja, the two wandering knights from ancient times, or the group of Indians, they all possessed the ability to communicate with each other.

Since this is a collaborative challenge, communication should definitely be the top priority.

Otherwise, it would take at least three to five months for two people to learn each other's languages, and by the time they can understand each other, it will be too late.

According to his observation, some of them even came from the same world and the same era, and the two might have known each other before participating in the challenge, or worked in the same organization.

Logically speaking, the probability of Paul having an acquaintance among them is almost zero.

Otherwise, given the Time and Space Administration's usual practices, Paul should have been assigned to someone he knew, not himself.

Feeling vaguely that the situation was quite different from what he had imagined, Chen Zhou tentatively asked Paul.

"Do you know this person?"

"Correct!"

Paul nodded emphatically, turned the hat inside out so that the red five-pointed star sewn on it was facing him, examined it carefully, and then explained to Chen Zhou about the hat's owner—

In the Soviet Republic where Paul lived, the challenges posed by the Time and Space Administration, or rather, the large-scale reality show, were codenamed "Rust."

After discovering the secret at the end of the 20th century, the Soviet Union continuously organized soldiers to participate in "rust" experiments.

Initially, the exploration teams were small and always ended in total annihilation, until the first person successfully completed the challenge at the cost of hundreds of pioneers.

The man's name was Vodopyanov. His heroic act and the significant contribution of the "successful experiment" earned him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Gold Star Medal.

With the experience of the first success, under the leadership of Vodopyanov, the participants began to undergo targeted training and knowledge supplementation. Finally, five years later, they achieved their goal and trained a second group of eight people, who were the largest group to complete the challenge since Paul joined the "Rust" project.

Gromov was one of them.

All the warriors who completed the challenge are invaluable; the trials have proven their character and loyalty.

Therefore, as long as they complete the challenge and their mental state remains intact, their military rank and official position will rise rapidly.

By the time Paul participated in the "Rust" project, Gromov had already been promoted to lieutenant general.

Of course, this is not the most important thing. As the most influential and highest-level testing institution in the entire Soviet Union, "Rust" has not only one lieutenant general, but also more than five generals who hold real power.

What truly impressed Paul was that General Gromov, who was nearly 60 years old, would personally participate in this experiment, contributing his remaining energy to the Republic as a final act of service.

Paul had always assumed that this respectable general had gone to another world to begin his own unique challenges, but he never expected to see the general's hat here—

Of all the personnel involved in the "rusting" experiment, only Gromov was still wearing this retro Budyonny cap, which was the first military cap of the Soviet Union and also the cap worn by Pavel Korchagin, the protagonist of the movie "How the Steel Was Tempered".

As a devoted fan of the film who shares the same name as Pavel Korchagin, Pavel believes that he could never be wrong about this hat.

……

"This must be General Gromov, Chen Zhou, I swear it's him!"

Clutching his hat tightly, Paul felt a growing sense of urgency as he looked at its tattered state and specks of blood.

He could sense that the respectable old general was probably not in a good state.

"Can we go and look for him?"

I think...he seems to need some help.

Paul's tone was almost pleading.

In a challenge with such brutal rules, helping other challengers is clearly an extremely irrational act.

Everyone is a competitor, so doing this is tantamount to aiding the enemy. Gromov is only somewhat related to him, and to Chen Zhou he is a complete stranger. From any perspective, his request is unreasonable, even harsh.

……

Paul was prepared to be rejected, but to his surprise, Chen Zhou agreed to his request.

Finding trees to make gun barrels and searching for the owner of the hat are not contradictory, especially with Tiger Three as an "eyewitness tiger." The two led the three saw-toothed tigers into the forest.

Not long after, they found tattered clothes and human remains torn apart by wild animals under a tree.

The deceased appeared to have engaged in a fierce struggle with a wild animal before his death, but this was not the true cause of his demise.

Not far from the trees, Chen Zhou and his companion saw a treehouse with its framework completed. The grass below the treehouse was cleaned up, and they could find a fire bow for making fire by friction and a semi-permanent stove made of stones.

However, all indications suggest that Gromov lives alone here, without any companions.

Based on the degree of decomposition of the remains, he had been dead for at least a month. The root cause of his death was likely hunger or parasitic infection, while disease and wild animal attacks were merely the final straw.

One can imagine how much effort and hardship this nearly sixty-year-old man must have put in to survive in this forest for several months without the help of a partner.

Chen Zhou and Paul collected all of Gromov's belongings and determined that his survival items lacked fire-starting tools and medical supplies.

Inside the old man's military uniform was a bottle of water purification tablets and a bottle of salt.

Perhaps out of frugality, or perhaps because he never expected to die so young, the bottle of water purification tablets he found was almost unused, and there was still more than half a bottle of salt left.

……

He thought he would meet an old friend in a foreign land, but when they met again, he found the old general's corpse.

Paul was very depressed, and at the same time, many questions arose in his mind—

Why weren't he and Gromov, who came from the same world, assigned together?
Being from the same country and participating in the "rust" experiment together, they should theoretically be more likely to be assigned to the same group.

Even if it was to balance Chen Zhou's strength and make him that burden, why didn't Gromov have a partner? Did his partner abandon him?

Thinking of this, Paul couldn't help but picture the man in the black robe.

Like Chen Zhou, he had previously believed that the man in black robes might have killed his partner and taken away his tools for survival, which was why he started traveling alone.

But now he believes that it's not impossible for the man in black robes to abandon his partner and go it alone.

However, this raises a new question: why does the man in black robes possess so many powerful survival tools? Would his partner voluntarily hand over his tools?

The more speculation there was, the more doubts arose. Yet even so, Paul still didn't doubt that he and Chen Zhou were never a team from the beginning, nor did he think that Chen Zhou's protective suit was unworthy of being used as a survival tool.

……

As the instigator, Chen Zhou was certainly aware of everything.

Of course, he didn't understand these things when the challenge first started. At that time, he only felt that he had "stumbled" into the challenge, so he didn't have any survival tools.

He assigned Paul as his partner to balance the strength of each group of challengers, which was his initial deduction.

As for the fact that he and Paul did not arrive at the same location at the same time, but instead experienced a delay of nearly half an hour, he also believed that it was a bug he had caused.

This assumption only began to waver recently after witnessing the composition of multiple groups of challengers.

At this moment, given the discovery of Gromov's body in this location, and the absence of modern fire-starting tools on his body or inside the treehouse, Chen Zhou could basically conclude that Gromov was Paul's partner.

Besides the fact that the two come from the same world and speak the same language, the "complementarity" of their survival tools is also one of the reasons.

Each group of challengers starts with different survival tools, but there are always a few essential ones—

For example, fire-starting tools, knives, and cooking utensils, especially fire-starting tools.

It is now clear that Gromov is one of the few challengers who does not have any fire-making tools, so he has to use a primitive fire bow to start a fire and try to preserve the embers.

Otherwise, his physical condition might have been better, and he might not have died so young.

Paul's survival tools included fire-starting equipment, but lacked water purification tablets and salt, which is difficult to explain as a coincidence.

……

Upon seeing General Gromov's body and learning of his death, Paul, who had been in high spirits due to his impending arrival at the shelter, became extremely depressed.

Chen Zhou didn't offer him much comfort, nor did he tell Paul the "truth" he knew—

He didn't know how Paul would feel upon learning that the general was his partner, nor did he know whether this incident would create a rift in their friendship. Since Gromov was dead, there was no point in saying anything.

With winter approaching, the most crucial thing now is to work together to survive to the end.

As for what the truth is, it's not really important, because only the living have the right to write the truth.

……

They collected all of Gromov's survival tools, dug a pit, buried his body and torn clothing, and found suitable trees to make gun barrels...

After a brief stop at the edge of the woods, Chen Zhou and Paul resumed their journey home.

……

After the first snowfall, the temperature dropped even more significantly.

On their way back to the snow mountain, Chen Zhou and Paul experienced a second and a third snowfall.

Every morning, frost covers the grassland, turning the sky and the earth almost entirely white.

By this time, the campfire after nightfall had little effect. The bitter cold had crept up on people's limbs like a leech, especially in the early morning after a long sleep. Both Chen Zhou and Paul could feel their limbs stiff from the cold.

Animals that hibernate have already found their burrows, leaving only a few giant beasts venturing across the desolate land.

Along the way, Chen Zhou and Paul did not see any other challengers, as if they had all been swallowed up by the howling wind and snow.

Before daytime temperatures dropped below zero, Chen Zhou and his companion finally reached the Baihar Mountains and returned to the shelter they had painstakingly built.

Above the mountainside, the previous snowfalls had not melted, and the earth was already covered in white amidst the towering pines and firs.

Perhaps because the environment here is too harsh, from the time Chen Zhou and his companion started climbing until they reached the mountainside, they did not find any human footprints on the snow.

In the early stages of the challenge, apart from Chen Zhou, who was focused on finding the airdrop location as soon as possible and trying to eliminate other challengers, no one would choose to settle down on the mountain.

Abandoned for more than a month, the shelter built of stones and wood was covered with a layer of snow and ice. The windowless, dark interior was like an ice cellar, chilling to the bone.

……

This was the first time the tiger cubs had been to such a cold environment. They took off their backpacks and ran happily across the snow.

Chen Zhou and Paul, however, were not so idle.

They had to clear the snow and create an open space before repairing the damaged makeshift stove and starting a fire to cook as soon as possible.

In addition, the plan to use rock salt was also put on hold due to the rush to get there.

In addition to inventorying pine nuts, cutting firewood, further improving the shelter, injecting genetically modified drugs, and firing pottery kilns, they also had to prepare enough food for the three-headed sawtooth tiger.

All these things combined were enough to keep the two of them extremely busy.

In particular, continuing to collect pine nuts from squirrel burrows and cutting down and storing firewood, while not technically demanding, are extremely tedious and require a lot of time to complete.

Paul's leg injury has not yet healed, so he is temporarily unable to go down the mountain to hunt. Therefore, all the tasks that need to be done outside fall on Chen Zhou's shoulders.

……

On their first day back home, the two cleaned the shelter and checked the pine nuts they had previously stored.

It turns out that squirrels are not very intelligent. Even if they faint from anger after their food is taken away, they will not try to find their food by following the scent.

The high mountains were cold enough that the pine nuts and berries that Chen Zhou and Paul had stored in advance were all preserved very well and were not damaged by squirrels or woodworms.

The berries still retain some juice, but they have become extremely sour and astringent due to prolonged storage or excessive cold.

However, since there were hardly any seasonings available in the prehistoric world, the two added the berries to the broth to add some sourness, which was quite refreshing and at least better than the fishy stew.

Pine nuts taste better than berries; their starch and abundant oils give them a unique sweetness, making them a rare treat for the two who hadn't had carbohydrates in a long time.

Despite the shelter's lack of aesthetic appeal, seasoning, and variety of food.

But once they returned to the mountain, at least the two no longer had to take turns keeping watch at night, nor did they have to suffer in the cold wind.

The conditions were indeed harsh, but both of them were hard-working and resilient individuals; in such a team, complaints were never heard. (End of Chapter)