From Robinson Crusoe

Snow does not necessarily signify the arrival of winter; only the ever-decreasing temperatures indicate the unusually severe cold of this year.

Just like the "white" in its name, Mount Baihar is covered in snow, changing its color.

The lush green leaves of the tall trees that usually cover the mountains have become embellishments among the white snow.

……

Such weather has dramatically increased the risk of going out. No one knows whether a blizzard will strike tomorrow, so all we can do is try our best to stock up on fuel and food.

However, unlike before, since Chen Zhou's return, Paul's life has become more interesting—

Chen Zhou brought back a new companion.

Although Paul didn't know how Chen Zhou had circumvented the rules of challenge, nor where Chen Zhou had found this person or how he had persuaded him, he still politely expressed his friendliness to this man named Bi Kai out of trust and respect for his companion.

Unfortunately, this person didn't understand Russian, and the Chinese he spoke sounded completely different from Chen Zhou's.

He had been at the shelter for several days, but Paul could only communicate with him using gestures; they couldn't understand each other at all by speaking.

……

In this cold and primitive world, every intelligent human being is a precious resource.

Bi Kai's arrival not only brought new joy to Paul and Chen Zhou's lives, but also brought a herd of deer and a large amount of rock salt that was carried by the deer.

Because there was so much rock salt, the storage space that Chen Zhou and Paul had reserved was not enough to hold it all, so they had to neatly stack the rock salt and pile it up outdoors.

As for the interior space, because there was an extra person, two beds were not enough, so another one was temporarily added, which undoubtedly made the already cramped space even narrower.

As a result, expanding the shelter, rebuilding a house for Bi Kai, or finding a suitable cave have all been put on the agenda.

Before setting off, Chen Zhou instructed Paul to be careful to look for hibernating animals in tree hollows or caves when cutting firewood.

This was originally a plan to store grain and fat, but unexpectedly, it led Paul to find several caves.

There are five caves of various sizes in total. Two of them are too shallow, and you can see the end of them at a glance. One is too narrow, and can only barely accommodate half a person.

The remaining two caves were located on the mountainside, about 3 kilometers from the shelter. The cave entrance sloped downwards. Paul glanced down from above and felt that it was at least 5 meters deep. The cave walls were smooth and steep. Fearing that he might encounter wild beasts if he went down and wouldn't be able to get back up quickly, he did not attempt to go deeper.

Another cave is located at the foot of the mountain. The entrance is unusually large, about 6 to 8 meters in diameter, and it gets narrower as you go in.

Paul tentatively walked a short distance into the cave, where he found some bones that had been torn apart by wild animals, as well as some dried carnivore droppings, but he did not find any hair that appeared to be from hibernating animals.

Following Chen Zhou's instructions, he didn't dare go too deep inside. After memorizing the location, he withdrew.

……

Paul's exploration of the hilltop provided Chen Zhou with a lot of useful information.

Now the other two members of the group follow his lead, and he has to make all the decisions, whether to expand the house or move.

The wind on the mountainside was getting stronger and stronger, and the temperature was getting colder day by day. The soil on the mountain was frozen as hard as stone due to the cold, making it very difficult to dig.

Expanding the house was definitely too late, and building a new shelter was even more absurd. Chen Zhou decisively chose to make use of the wonders of nature.

However, before moving, he had to do some scouting, at least to "invite" the "original inhabitants" out of the cave before he could move in.

Humans can naturally get along well, but if animals get involved, the atmosphere might not be so pleasant.

According to Paul's description, Chen Zhou was most interested in the small cave halfway up the mountain.

The downward-sloping opening is well concealed, and a wooden barrier can be added to the opening to prevent wind and snow from entering.

A properly sized opening will prevent heat loss from the cave, and a flue can be built along the sloping ramp to release the smoke produced during combustion inside the cave.

Of course, this cave also has its inconveniences, namely the problem of lighting.

Compared to the straight entrance, the light inside this cave is exceptionally dim.

As for the cave at the foot of the mountain, the entrance was so large that it practically invited the wind to blow into it, and there were obvious signs of wild beast activity inside.

As far as Chen Zhou knew, many cave-dwelling beasts had the habit of dragging their prey or found carcasses back into their caves. If that cave was like that, after moving in, they would probably be suffocated by the stench of the corpses every day, and there might even be a lot of excrement in the cave.

Chen Zhou wasn't sure how much Paul and Bi Kai could tolerate the stench, but he knew very well how sharp his own sense of smell was.

Living in such a place, constantly tormented by the stench, he would surely be driven to the brink of collapse.

……

Adhering to the principle of choosing the smaller over the larger, Chen Zhou and Paul arrived at the two caves. After confirming their locations, Chen Zhou took his weapons and prepared to conduct a preliminary investigation.

While he was exploring the cave, Paul and Bi Kai were not idle either.

Paul would set aside some time each day to crush the rock salt, then boil it in a cooking pot, and finally pour the brine into simple clay bowls to wait for it to crystallize.

This method of purifying salt obviously cannot completely eliminate harmful substances in natural rock salt, but it can at least play a certain role.

Most importantly, refined salt grains have much less bitterness, making them easier to eat and more suitable for cooking. This can make their diet slightly more delicious and more like a pleasure in life rather than a routine process of maintaining vital signs.

Bi Kai had to do even more work than Paul.

Paul had a leg injury that still left him with aftereffects. After Bi Kai received a regeneration injection, he was "fully revived." Not only did his body return to its peak condition, but he was also able to use his light-footed skills again, completely overwhelming Paul in terms of mobility.

Therefore, after joining the team, Paul became the one who stayed at home, while Paul was responsible for going out to herd livestock and scout out the surrounding area.

As the weather gets colder, the herds of giant deer begin to lose weight, using the fat they accumulated in the fall to combat the cold.

Chen Zhou explained to Bi Kai what the "minus 65 degrees" in the rules meant. He clearly told Bi Kai that the giant deer simply could not survive in such extreme cold.

Therefore, there is absolutely no way to imagine being able to feed deer herds through the entire winter; that is simply an impossible task.

However, for now, the deer are still useful; they can help carry firewood and provide locomotives for long journeys. Currently, Bi Kai can try to lead the deer to areas with abundant grazing land to fill their stomachs and prevent them from losing weight too quickly.

When the weather becomes too cold to graze the deer, they can slaughter the deer in batches, skin them, and freeze their hides next to the shelter. This will serve as a considerable reserve of food when food is scarce.

Furthermore, the three-headed saw-toothed tigers are growing larger every day, so we need to get more meat to feed them.

In Chen Zhou's plan, the meat he needs is not only deer, but also medium and large wild animals from the entire mountain.

After exploring the caves and determining where to move, he will begin hunting these wild animals, whether they are roe deer weighing forty or fifty pounds or giant bears weighing over a ton, he will not let them go.

……

Two spears or short guns with kunai fixed to them, a long sword, and light armor covering his upper body—this was all the equipment Chen Zhou had before going down into the cave.

Stopping before the sloping cave entrance, he first cut down a dense branch to sweep away the surrounding snow, then squatted down at the entrance and sniffed, trying to catch the scent of wild animals inside.

Perhaps it was the cave's unique structure, or perhaps the wind at the mountainside was too strong and dispersed the scent, but at least at the cave entrance, Chen Zhou did not smell any fishy stench that matched the smell of a wild beast.

Chen Zhou frowned slightly in confusion, not expecting that such a suitable cave for a nest had not been claimed by others.

But he was only slightly surprised.

The mountain is already sparsely populated with medium to large animals, and most of them are herbivores such as deer or antelopes. These animals do not have the habit of living in burrows, so it is not surprising that this cave has not been explored.

Chen Zhou cautiously stepped on the seemingly smooth cave wall, confirming that it was far from being as smooth as Paul had described, before steadily walking inside.

The cave entrance is about 3 meters high and 1.9 meters wide. After entering, the sides narrow slightly, but the overall size is still large enough for two people to walk side by side.

The distance from the sloping passage to the flat area of ​​the cave is about 9 meters, much longer than Paul estimated.

To Chen Zhou's slight delight, the cave turned out to be a "gourd-shaped" structure. Although the entrance was narrow, once inside, it was a completely different world, suddenly bright and open.

Moreover, upon arriving inside the cave, apart from some fine sand and gravel, he saw no animal droppings and smelled no strange odors, which pleased him greatly.

This also suggests that this place may indeed have never been set foot here by other animals, and is still considered a virgin territory.

The cave is about 3 meters high inside, and the ceiling is uneven and bluish-black, like the rough surface of a rock.

From where Chen Zhou landed, the cave wall outlined an irregular oval shape, with an overall space of about 120 square meters. The surface was mainly composed of sand and gravel, interspersed with hard rocks.

There is no animal hair or feces here, but that doesn't mean there are no traces of biological activity.

Chen Zhou found some dried insect corpses in the sand and gravel, as well as an incomplete snake molt about the thickness of a thumb.

Worried that hibernating snakes might be hiding nearby, he searched carefully and even used his spear to turn over some of the softer gravel, but found nothing.

The molting snake seemed to have only stayed there briefly before leaving forever after shedding its skin.

Further inside, two paths branch off from the cave wall. One of them is wider, about 2 meters high and 1 meter wide, and can accommodate one person at a time.

The other passage was exceptionally narrow, only 1.7 meters high and 80 centimeters wide. Chen Zhou had to bend over and squeeze in sideways, and even after getting in, he had to stop after only a couple of steps to avoid getting stuck.

Judging from how narrow this fork in the road is, Paul has no chance of squeezing in. However, Bi Kai could give it a try. He is the smallest of the three, and as a martial artist, he is quite agile. He can even contort his bones in particularly narrow places.

However, Chen Zhou wasn't very interested in this side road. The 120-square-meter space was enough for him. He just wanted to know if this side road was well-ventilated.

If the side passage is well-ventilated, it would be possible to start a fire inside the cave.

But after approaching the narrow fork in the road and listening carefully for a while, and sensing the direction of the airflow, Chen Zhou ultimately rejected the idea.

He heard neither the sound of wind passing through the crevice nor felt any cool breeze or fresh air, which indicated that the fork in the road must lead to deeper into the cave or even underground, and that releasing smoke there would likely cause it to rise again.

Forced to abandon the idea of ​​using the narrow side passage for ventilation, Chen Zhou then explored the wider side passage.

Having experience with deep-sea diving, he is particularly sensitive to the orientation and elevation differences of the interior space of caves.

The wide fork in the road was very long, and as Chen Zhou walked along it, he could clearly feel that the road generally extended downwards, meaning that as he moved along the road, he was gradually going deeper into the mountain.

As he traveled forward and downward, he saw new forks in the road on both sides more than once, but those forks were all narrower and could not accommodate his body at all.

The entire fork in the road is basically shaped like an irregular fishbone and is extremely long and narrow.

Chen Zhou walked for nearly 200 meters without reaching the end, but he was going deeper and deeper into the ground, and there were more and more cracks on both sides.

In addition, the light in the side roads became increasingly scarce.

Although Chen Zhou has night vision, night vision does not mean that he can see in a completely dark environment. At least a dim light is required for the motion sensory nerve cells in his retina to function.

Because it was almost dark here, the scene he could see became increasingly dim, gradually approaching the level of "pitch black" that most people would understand.

Fearing that he might lose his sight and fall into a deep pit or crash into sharp rocks if he went any further, Chen Zhou decisively stopped and turned back to the open area of ​​the cave.

……

After exploring the cave, he was very satisfied with it and believed that it was fully qualified to be converted into a shelter.

Of course, the two forks in the road in the cave were rather unsightly.

Chen Zhou planned to block the narrow side road with stones, while he intended to use the wider side road as a woodshed.

The short pieces of wood were directly stuffed into the depths of that side road, which was hundreds of meters long and could store enough firewood to last a whole year.

Moreover, the cave is very dry, which helps to accelerate the loss of moisture from the firewood and prevents the firewood from getting wet from rain, which in turn reduces the smoke produced when burning the fire.

The only slightly troublesome thing is the cave's downward-sloping and somewhat narrow entrance.

Having decided to transform this place into a winter shelter, Chen Zhou planned to take the extra effort to build a wooden staircase, laying it down from top to bottom to prevent slipping and reduce the risk of falls. (End of Chapter)