From Robinson Crusoe

Two days before the heavy snowfall, Chen Zhou finally finished making the wooden door and installed it on the door frame to block the wide-open opening.

Of course, the wooden hinges did not fit tightly, and the door would sway back and forth in a strong wind, and even with a bolt, it was not secure.

Two small square windows were left in the door, with animal skin curtains hanging on them. If the room smelled bad, the curtains could be opened to let in some fresh air.

Since the bear hunt, so many pelts have been brought back to the cave to be tanned that they still smell terrible even when hung on the side furthest from the bed.

Besides the stench of fur, the cave also contained some animal entrails.

Chen Zhou baked several mud pots, put many animal hearts and livers inside, sprinkled them with enough salt, and pickled them. These things also emitted a foul odor at all times.

……

In the early morning, the cave was pitch black.

Chen Zhou frowned and, as usual, was the first to get up.

A cold wind was blowing in from the doorway—

Last night, he couldn't stand the smell in the cave, so he opened the door to let in some fresh air in the middle of the night. When he got back to bed, he forgot to latch the door, and the wind blew it open.

Fortunately, a new stove and a heated kang (a traditional heated bed) had been built in the cave. Paul and Bi Kai, who were sleeping on the kang, were covered with thick animal skin blankets. The stove was kept burning all night, and neither of them woke up. Their snores grew louder and louder, as if they were racing against the wind.

Pulling the animal skin coat over his back, Chen Zhou slowly got up, took out a flint and steel from under his pillow, and lit the oil lamp by the wooden stump next to his bedside table.

The oil lamps were made from the fat of glyptodonts.

The fat was contained in a small clay bowl, with a wick made of animal hair standing upright in the middle. When it burned, it smelled like rendered lard.

Compared to seal oil, the fat of the glyptodon is far less pure when burned. It not only emits an unpleasant odor but also produces black smoke, and the flame is unstable, sometimes bright and sometimes dim.

But under these conditions, having any light at all is already quite good; you can't expect too much.

After completing most of the indoor and outdoor work, Chen Zhou received gene-editing and modification injections.

As it turned out, even though his physique was far superior to Paul's, he could not escape the torment of side effects.

In the past two days, Chen Zhou felt as if he had returned to the modern era. Not to mention fighting, even controlling his body was difficult. He was dizzy and unsteady all day long.

What's worse is that even though his physical abilities are affected, his keen sense of smell still works, and has even become more sensitive.

For him, who hated the stench, living in this cave was already a torment, and this time it was even worse.

Chen Zhou usually manages to control his biological clock and sleeps soundly until dawn.

Now he is often awakened by the stench of fur and entrails. If he didn't have the habit of breathing through his mouth, he would even like to find two wooden plugs to block his nostrils to avoid this suffering.

Glancing at the two people fast asleep on the kang (heated brick bed), Chen Zhou shook his head helplessly and silently walked towards the door in his slippers.

The wind blowing in from outside the cave could dispel the stench, and he would sit at the door for a long time every day.

When the three saw-toothed tigers saw that Chen Zhou had woken up, they all came over to try and get close to him.

Animals can determine whether a creature is male or female, how old it is, whether it is sick, and even its mood by its smell.

The three saw-toothed tigers could sense Chen Zhou's low spirits, and as social animals, they were all worried about their leader's health.

For a long time, they had relied on Chen Zhou's help for both hunting and processing food. When their leader fell ill, the little ones felt as if the sky was about to fall, especially the smartest tiger cub, Hu Sanwa.

Whenever Chen Zhou gets up and moves around, this guy follows him closely, staring intently with wide eyes, looking as if he's afraid Chen Zhou will suddenly die, making Chen Zhou both amused and exasperated.

……

He picked up a stool, moved it to the doorway, tightened his animal skin coat, and used a fire poker to stir the embers in the stove.

Seeing that there were still sparks inside, he quickly broke off some small pieces of dry twigs and stuffed them into the furnace. Then he sat silently on the low stool, gazing at the sunlight shining down from above the cave entrance.

Tiger Cub lay down next to Chen Zhou, lazily exposing its belly, and placed one of its large, fluffy paws on Chen Zhou's foot.

It was indeed very cold. The cave entrance was wide open, and a cold wind was howling into the cave.

Even if Chen Zhou had an exceptional physique, he wouldn't be able to sit here barefoot with his shoes on before receiving the injection.

Although he suffered from side effects after the injection, his cold resistance was genuinely improved. It was as if there was a small furnace inside his body, so he could endure sitting at the door wearing an animal skin coat or even walking in the snow wearing only a thin garment for a while.

"Don't make trouble."

Exposing your feet to the outside might make them a little cooler, but Tiger Cub Three was oblivious and covered them with its big paws.

The saw-toothed tiger's body temperature is higher than that of a human. After the claws covered his feet, Chen Zhou felt hot and itchy on the instep. He couldn't help but say something to Tiger Three, and then went to scratch the guy's belly.

Hey~
Having been attacked, Tiger Three-Wa acted like a rogue, rolling over to avoid Chen Zhou's large hand, and then leaping into Chen Zhou's arms.

The sub-adult sawtooth tiger already weighed nearly 120 pounds. Chen Zhou was caught off guard and almost fell over by Tiger Three, since the wooden stake bench under his buttocks was not stable enough.

Hu Sanwa hugged him tightly, and before Chen Zhou could scold him, it put its big paws on Chen Zhou's shoulders and started licking his head, turning his greasy hair into a bird's nest.

Seeing their leader frolicking with his brothers, Tiger Big Brother and Tiger Second Brother also came over.

The three brothers weighed well over 300 pounds combined. Chen Zhou was suffering from the side effects, and his strength was far from his peak. He was directly pounced on by the three-headed sawtooth tiger and knocked to the ground.

However, he wasn't annoyed. After falling to the ground, he took the opportunity to playfully wrestle with the saw-toothed tiger.

The sounds of human laughter and the low growls of the sawtooth tiger drowned out the wind. Before long, Paul and Bi Kai woke up from their sleep and dressed by the light of the lamp by the kang (a heated brick bed).

……

Paul was in charge of cooking as usual, and the first thing he had to do after getting up was to start the fire in the two stoves.

After the heat emanating from the heated wall and kang (heated brick bed) had warmed the entire cave, he leisurely carried the oil lamp to the other side of the cave.

There were not only stored pine nuts there, but also the wine he was researching and brewing.

According to Paul, the wine should currently be in the crucial fermentation stage, and as long as nothing goes wrong at this stage, turning it into wine will be relatively easy.

Of course, this was just Paul's wishful thinking.

Chen Zhou has some knowledge of winemaking, especially grape wine. He had a lot of communication with 17th-century Europeans when he was on the island.

For the Spanish, Portuguese, and British during the Age of Exploration, the "Lord of Paradise Island" was a very famous and influential figure. The wines they used as gifts came from the top wineries, and through his interactions with these merchants, he also learned a great deal about winemaking techniques.

In his view, Paul's brewing was doomed to failure.

Although the raw materials for brewing have a high sugar content, the water used for brewing is not clean and is prone to the growth of miscellaneous bacteria.

As for the core of fermentation, there was absolutely no control over the microbial community, and even the temperature in the cave was very unstable.

Given this situation, neither baijiu, which requires a higher temperature, nor sake, which requires a lower temperature, has any chance of success.

But for Paul, whether or not it could actually be made into real wine was probably irrelevant; perhaps he just wanted to taste the alcohol, even if the drink was poisonous.

……

Paul took out enough pine nuts for a meal, and then took a few seasonings from a wicker basket. He then leaned over to the hollowed-out wooden barrel and smelled it.

It's unclear just how low his standards for alcohol really are.

In short, the "fruit wine" that Chen Zhou considered nothing more than a bucket of dirty water actually made Paul nod in satisfaction.

After confirming that the fermentation of the microbial community was stable as usual, Paul began his cooking.

To ensure a balanced intake of nutrients, breakfast and dinner are basically the same every day.

Breakfast mainly consists of boiled pine nuts. The pine nut porridge contains many small pieces of meat and marinated animal offal. In addition to a little salt, some seasonings are added to the porridge to remove any fishy smell.

After getting enough fat, add a piece of oil to your porridge when making breakfast.

The porridge made in this way contains carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, and perhaps some vitamins. Apart from its unpleasant taste, it can provide almost all the nutrients necessary to sustain life.

While drinking porridge, the three of them would also eat a small handful of dried berries, these sour little things that made their teeth ache, which served as a kind of vitamin supplement.

Thanks to Bi Kai's "tasting hundreds of herbs", in addition to these normal foods, the three of them would occasionally eat small amounts of herbs that had been verified to be non-toxic.

Chen Zhou often refers to this behavior as "enduring some hardship," which is a rare and interesting thing in his life.

……

After breakfast, Paul lit several oil lamps on the other side of the cave and began processing a large quantity of furs.

After receiving the gene-modification injection, Chen Zhou became lethargic due to the side effects. He would occasionally help Paul with his work, but most of the time he would sit by the door in the wind.

As for Bi Kai, he had the hardest job. Even when it was snowing heavily outside, he still had to go out to herd livestock.

Although Chen Zhou had long advised Bi Kai to kill the deer, skin it, cut the meat, and freeze it.

But Bi Kai still had feelings for the deer herd, and since the temperature wasn't high enough to kill the giant deer, he stubbornly continued to release them.

Since there were no ravines or rocks on the mountain to shield them from the wind and snow, he found a place in the forest with thick and dense trees and set it up as a fixed resting place for the deer herd.

In the morning, Bi Kai goes out to graze his herd, leading the deer to search for moss and lichen under the snow. Sometimes he goes further, to the grasslands at the foot of the mountain, to let the deer graze on the withered grass.

As the sun was about to set, he herded the deer back, leaving them in the rest area, and went up the mountain alone.

Perhaps because this winter is much colder than in previous years, the giant deer has become skin and bones after only a little over a month of entering deep winter.

Two smaller female deer had frozen to death a few days ago, and in recent days even the strongest male deer have become listless. Bi Kai’s mood was visibly low every time he returned to the cave.

Since they obtained enough meat, fur, and fat from hibernating animals, Chen Zhou did not insist that Bi Kai slaughter the deer herd.

Anyway, as the temperature keeps dropping, the deer herd will eventually be wiped out overnight. Their carcasses will freeze in the forest, and as long as no animals eat them, they'll serve as a kind of reserve food.

The outdoor temperature is colder than a refrigerator; Chen Zhou estimates it's already around minus thirty-five degrees Celsius.

At this temperature, even if you threw a dead deer into a snowdrift, it wouldn't spoil for a year.

……

It's freezing cold, so you have to wear several layers of clothing if you want to go out.

The rough leather jacket sewn with needle and thread could not completely protect against the cold wind, so Bi Kai always had to wrap himself up like a rice dumpling every time he went out.

He did the same thing that day, taking quite a while to get dressed. After greeting Chen Zhou at the door, he stepped onto the wooden steps and walked out.

Chen Zhou leaned against the wooden door listlessly, with the three-headed saw-toothed tiger lying beside him.

The meat of these guys is still frozen outside. Paul will bring it back to thaw after he finishes his work. Until then, they can only wait.

However, the tigers have been eating at fixed times recently, and they have gotten used to it and are not in a hurry.

Besides, they all ate their fill last night and aren't hungry now, especially Tiger Three. When Chen Zhou touched its belly just now, he felt that its stomach and intestines were bulging, so he figured it was unlikely that it would be asking for food anytime soon.

Watching Bi Kai leave, he thought it would be another boring day—

People in the north who hibernate at least have television to watch, cards to play, and sunflower seeds to eat, but in this prehistoric world, in a dark cave, his only entertainment might be playing with the reckless saw-toothed tiger.

He squinted slightly, letting the wind blow on his face, listening to the footsteps on the wooden steps fading into the distance. Just as Chen Zhou was about to doze off, the footsteps started again.

After only a short while outside, Bi Kai was covered in snow.

He stumbled down from the cave entrance, shook the snow off himself, and said helplessly.

"We can't get out today. It's snowed heavily on the mountain, and the whole mountain is blocked off. We can't even see the road."

Upon hearing this, Chen Zhou immediately sat up, put on his shoes, and walked out of the cave.

As he walked up the steps and into the snow shelter, he was greeted by a vast expanse of white snow that had poured into the shelter.

Bi Kai seemed to have tried to clear the snow blocking the gate, but he had no tools. Pushing it aside with his hands could only create an extremely narrow path, which was then filled with endless snow on both sides. As soon as the path was formed, it was filled in again.

Looking out through the gaps in the snow shelter, although the sky was blue, the earth was completely dominated by white, so white it was almost blinding at first glance.

All the snow was sparkling and shining.

The rocks, withered grass stalks, and shrubs that you can usually see on the mountain have all disappeared, as if the entire Baihar Mountain had been covered with a thick blanket overnight.

If the snowfall hadn't stopped, leaving a narrow gap in the snow shelter, even the wind Chen Zhou needed to "breathe" would probably have been blocked. (End of Chapter)