From Robinson Crusoe

"Have you not seen the horse galloping along the snowy sea, where the vast yellow sand stretches to the sky?"

In September in Luntai, the wind howled at night, and the stones in the river were as big as buckets, and the stones were scattered all over the ground with the wind.

……

In the middle of the night, the soldiers marched and their spears clashed; the wind was like a knife, cutting their faces.

Horsehair, glistening with snow and steaming with sweat, dappled patterns on the ground froze into ice, and ink on the inkstone, used for drafting official documents, solidified…

The poems of Cen Shen, a Tang Dynasty frontier poet, seem quite fitting when placed in this desolate prehistoric world.

The cold wind was like a knife, and the animal hides were covered in frost.

When the wind blows, sand and stones fly everywhere, along with fallen dead leaves and pine needles from the trees, making it look like the end of the world.

Living in such an environment, even three physically gifted adult men often felt that they were short-handed or struggled to survive. Chen Zhou simply couldn't imagine what kind of life the other challengers were living.

……

As the weather gets colder and snowfall becomes more frequent, it's almost impossible to see a clear sky when I go out each day.

Snow removal became a repetitive task that had to be done every few days.

After thoroughly investigating the cave, fearing that things might go wrong if they waited too long, Chen Zhou immediately organized Paul and Bi Kai to begin moving.

Fortunately, they didn't have any large items to move; it was just that building the cave required some thought.

After moving survival tools, animal hides, a simple wooden bed, fired clay bowls, purified salt grains, and carefully selected berries and pine nuts to the cave, Chen Zhou had Bi Kai further investigate the situation of hibernating animals in the surrounding area while he began to renovate the cave.

……

The first part to be modified was the downward-sloping passage at the cave entrance. As planned, Chen Zhou intended to install a wooden staircase on it.

But before installing the stairs, he did something even more important—

stove.

Chen Zhou planned to build a chimney that slanted outwards along the passage using yellow mud and stones.

The inside of the chimney is connected to the stove, which in turn is connected to the fire wall. This way, as long as a fire is lit inside the chimney, you can cook and boil water at the same time. The smoke emitted from the chimney can also greatly reduce the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, making it a multi-purpose stove.

The cave is relatively enclosed, extending about seven or eight meters into the mountainside. It has extremely thick natural walls that block the wind, so as long as the entrance is sealed, there is basically no need to worry about heat loss.

In fact, when Chen Zhou first entered the cave to explore, he could clearly feel that it was much warmer inside than outside.

A particularly noticeable phenomenon is that snow brought into the cave from outside melts quickly, indicating that the temperature inside the cave is at least eight or nine degrees Celsius.

Under these circumstances, if a stable heat source is added inside the cave, the internal temperature could quickly rise to around 20 degrees Celsius, which is a temperature suitable for human survival.

Of course, ideals are ideals and reality is reality.

Although Chen Zhou learned and honed many practical survival skills on the deserted island, digging mud and building chimneys in the cold north was still full of challenges for him.

……

The first challenge he faced was figuring out how to dig the mud out.

There is almost no usable soil on Baihar Mountain, but there is a river not far below the mountain, and there is a considerable amount of usable soil on both sides of the river.

In the warm summer, the mud absorbs enough moisture that you don't even need to dig it; you'll sink right in if you step on it.

However, it was the dead of winter.

The mud, with its high water content, was as hard as ice. When you chopped at it with an axe, it felt like you were hitting a rock, and you even worried that the axe blade might break.

Digging through such hard mud by brute force is time-consuming and laborious.

Chen Zhou had to find enough firewood, then light a campfire on the selected soil, using the heat of the flames to melt the mud. Once the surface of the mud had softened, he dug it up and put it into a leather basket.

Fortunately, after Bi Kai arrived, he had enough bighorn deer to use. These strong animals could bring hundreds of kilograms of firewood and take away hundreds of kilograms of mud in just one round trip.

With the help of the giant deer, Chen Zhou gathered enough mud to build the chimney and stove in just one day and returned to the cave.

On the return journey, the mud in the animal skin basket had frozen solid, and it would inevitably have to be thawed again when they returned to the cave.

Since the chimney wasn't finished yet, Chen Zhou could only light a campfire near the cave entrance. As a result, the smoke billowed into the cave, and none of the three of them could sleep that night. In the end, they spent half the night outside collecting stones with torches.

However, while this lesson caused the three of them considerable suffering, it also gave Chen Zhou a hint—

The chimney must be built long enough to extend completely out of the cave; otherwise, if the wind direction is wrong, all the smoke will be blown into the cave.

……

The high-quality stone selected overnight, combined with the already dissolved yellow clay, dried grass leaves, and some water, was mixed to form a thin mud.

Using a thin wooden board as a trowel, Chen Zhou started from the bottom up, first building a stove in the style of a common wood-fired stove in northern China, and then slowly building up the chimney.

When the chimney was built close to the entrance of the cave, Chen Zhou lit a fire to prevent the mud from soaking the bricks and causing them to break.

Under normal circumstances, mud needs to air dry naturally for a period of time to dissipate its moisture before its surface becomes firm.

But in such a cold winter, the moisture freezes into ice before it can even dissipate from the mud.

Therefore, Chen Zhou had no choice but to burn a strong fire to dry the flue completely.

The consequence of this forced drying was that the surface of the mud cracked, causing several places in the flue to leak smoke. Whenever a fire was lit, the cave passage would be filled with smoke.

Chen Zhou's only solution to this is to try to fix it.

After repeated "repairs," the chimney became increasingly bloated, resembling a giant, yellowish-brown python coiled straight in the passageway.

Although the chimney wasn't pretty, it finally solved the smoke leak problem, and people could finally cook inside.

……

After several days of busy work, once the stove was officially put into use, Chen Zhou immediately began the second phase of the project—

Construct a fire wall and a heated kang (a traditional heated platform bed).

Before installing these two "heating devices," he sealed off the relatively narrow gap.

During the same period, Paul and Bi Kai continuously transported food into the cave while also moving carefully selected high-quality firewood into the large crevice.

As for the best quality firewood, such as tree burls and roots, it was simply piled up in the cave.

Chen Zhou specially prepared a "firewood area" for them, separated by a stone wall, so as to avoid seeing the messy firewood at a glance.

Although there were no aesthetic demands for surviving the winter in a cave, his slightly obsessive-compulsive tendencies made it unbearable to have such a messy and unkempt pile of things in his dwelling. As for why Paul and Bi Kai didn't have this problem—

Because they didn't have Chen Zhou's eyesight, they became almost blind just by entering the cave, and at night they couldn't see anything at all.

However, this situation was slightly alleviated after Chen Zhou set up the stove.

The firelight didn't illuminate a large area, but it was just enough to help the two of them see their bed clearly, and it also made cooking easier.

Before this, if you wanted to eat a hot meal, you had to go outside the cave to light a fire. It was freezing cold there, nothing like the warmth of the indoors.

……

The structure of a heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed) and a heated wall is similar; both are hollow structures gradually built up using partition walls, bottom bricks, beams, columns, top bricks, and mud.

Making a heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed) is a craft that seems simple, but actually contains many tricks.

The heated kang (traditional Chinese bed) built by the master craftsman is warm all over when it's lit; it heats up quickly and cools down slowly.

A heated kang (traditional heated bed) built by someone who doesn't know how to build it is not only cold to lie on, but also painful to the touch.

The interior of the kang (heated brick bed) is actually a series of channels built with bricks. The key is to allow the smoke and heat from the stove to evenly heat the kang along these channels, while simultaneously expelling any unwanted smoke.

The principle of a fire wall is the same, except that it is equivalent to a kang (heated brick bed) divided into many sections. It usually has only two channels inside, allowing heat to circulate more smoothly and making the structure simpler. However, this also means that the fire wall loses its function of supporting people to sleep.

Chen Zhou had seen a kang (heated brick bed) a few times when he was in his hometown and understood the principles, but putting it into practice was still quite difficult.

In particular, the stove in the cave is relatively small, and it would be difficult to expect it to generate enough heat to simultaneously power both the fire wall and the heated kang (a traditional heated bed).

After weighing the pros and cons, he planned to first build the fire wall, and once the temperature inside the cave could be stabilized at around 20°C, he would then rebuild a large stove and use it to heat the kang (a traditional heated bed).

Of course, compared to important matters such as storing oil, building a kang (heated brick bed) can be put on hold for now.

At present, the three members of the group are basically out all day except for eating and sleeping in the morning and evening.

While the temperature is still bearable, we must complete the outdoor work first and stockpile as much food and firewood as possible. We can shift our focus back indoors once the outdoor work becomes unbearable.

……

After testing the reliability of the firewalls by burning them several times, Chen Zhou began the construction of the wooden staircase.

The reason he didn't build steps before constructing the chimney was because he was worried that he wouldn't be able to determine the size of the chimney properly, and that building steps would affect the construction of the chimney.

Looking back now, that choice was indeed wise.

After repeated repairs, the diameter of the chimney has far exceeded expectations, severely compressing the space for the steps. What was originally estimated to require 1.8m of timber now only needs to be 1.5m. If the steps were built according to the original plan, the chimney might not have been able to be built at all.

……

Because the entrance passage to the cave is steeply inclined, the wooden steps are designed to stay firmly in place and not slide down.

Chen Zhou not only selected dense and heavy wood, but also painstakingly carved the joints of each step into a mortise and tenon structure so that they could interlock.

The more complex the structure and the more complicated the process, the more time and effort are required.

Fortunately, the distance from the cave entrance to the cave interior is only 9 meters. Giant timbers with a diameter of more than 1 meter can be easily found on the mountain. Chen Zhou used these large timbers to make "large" steps, which saved a lot of time by taking a shortcut. He completed the project ahead of schedule with only 12 steps.

The scraps from making the steps were left next to the stove to serve as fuel for the fire in the coming days. Seeing that it was going to snow again, Chen Zhou quickly organized Paul and Bi Kai to start building a snow shelter at the entrance of the cave.

The snow shelter is supported by sturdy wooden stakes at its four corners, leaning against the mountainside at the cave entrance. Its main function is to shield the cave from the wind and snow blowing in from above.

The most difficult part of this project was digging pits and burying piles.

Even if there are many rocks on the mountain when the weather is warm, the excavation work can proceed smoothly, although the process will be slower.

It's now the dead of winter, and any work related to digging is affected by the severe cold. The wooden shovels the three men used to dig were completely ineffective against the rock-hard soil.

In the end, they could only resort to the old method—

They dug down while lighting a fire, and it took a lot of effort until the entrance to the hole was blackened with soot before they finally completed the project.

Of course, everything has its advantages and disadvantages.

Although digging was difficult, thanks to the cold climate, erecting the stakes was much easier; all that was needed was to pour some water into the soil while filling it.

The ice blocks formed after the water freezes, mixed with a large amount of soil and gravel, form a hard and heavy "foundation". With this solid base, even if the wind breaks a wooden stake with a diameter of more than 80 centimeters, the bottom remains intact.

However, this opportunistic method only works in winter. When spring comes next year, the unstable foundation will be submerged in water and at most it will be on the verge of collapse by the end of summer.

But that situation was not part of the trio's plan—

If they can survive this freezing winter of minus 65 degrees Celsius, they will definitely complete the challenge and return to their own world as the ultimate winners with their rewards. Who cares whether this shed collapses or not? Is life here really that comfortable?
With four sturdy piles supporting the weight, the superstructure was easy to build. It was simply a matter of fixing a few less heavy pieces of wood to cover the entrance, like building a shack.

After completing the basic framework, the only finishing touches were to fill in some gaps with moss and lichen.

Chen Zhou assigned this simple task to Paul.

Paul has now moved most of his work indoors. Bi Kai affectionately calls him the salt merchant because Paul's main purpose in lighting fires and boiling water every day is to purify rock salt.

As a member of the underworld, Bi Kai had dealt with salt smugglers quite a bit.

Selling smuggled salt was a highly profitable business, but it involved competing with the government for profits and opposing the imperial court.

As the saying goes, "A knight-errant uses his martial arts to break the law." Bi Kai, a renowned swordsman in the martial arts world, naturally knew many big salt smugglers. Even his deceased brother, Gao Yao, was a member of a salt-trading group in the north.

As a result, Bi Kai instinctively developed a fondness for the profession of "salt peddler".

The reason he gave Paul this nickname was not to belittle him, but rather as a form of recognition or praise.

……

Working indoors is much more comfortable than working outdoors. Paul is not only a Slav, but also genetically modified. He even feels hot and sweats profusely when he stays by the stove for a long time.

He had tried making wine when he lived in a mountain shelter, but because it was too cold inside the shelter, the berries could not ferment at all, and his attempt was abandoned.

Now that he had a suitable environment, Paul couldn't help but return to his old ways, once again using hollowed-out tree stumps as containers to brew wine.

Chen Zhou observed his behavior but did not try to stop him.

Firstly, Paul's brewing of wine wouldn't interfere with his regular work.

Secondly, the three of them now live in a cave, and every day when they open their eyes they have to go out or start a fire to work, so life is actually quite boring, and the dark cave creates a sense of oppression.

In this kind of atmosphere, having a job that relieves stress is quite good; otherwise, staying there for too long could lead to mental health problems. (End of Chapter)