As expected, when you’re hungry, anything tastes delicious.
Even though so of the bird eggs had cracked when they fell from the tree, and so had partially hatched with embryonic chicks already visible inside—looking sowhat disturbing—Everly was simply too hungry. After convincing herself that they were “balut” (fertilized eggs), she still devoured the precious source of protein completely.
After eating, Misha still hadn’t returned.
Everly felt a bit worried, but she also knew there was nothing she could do. She could only comfort herself with the thought that, given Misha’s caution and skill, combined with that valuable radar device, the chance of anything going wrong was almost zero.
She poured out the water in the pot, placed Misha’s portion of food inside to keep it warm, and leaned against a rock to wait. While waiting, perhaps because she had been exhausted the night before, Everly fell asleep directly.
When she woke again, it was around 2 p.m.
Misha ca back excitedly with a backpack full of supplies. Seeing Everly asleep, she deliberately lightened her steps, but Everly had remained alert to her surroundings the whole ti—at the slightest disturbance, she imdiately opened her eyes.
Recognizing that it was Misha, Everly relaxed instantly, leaning back against the stone wall and closing her eyes to rest for a mont. Once her mind had fully cleared, she moved over to Misha’s side to check the haul from the trip.
Judging from the number of “loot boxes,” Misha had visited a total of four supply points that morning.
What she brought back was as follows:
6 packs of compressed biscuits, 4 bottles of mineral water, 2 small knives of different styles, 1 utility knife, 1 screwdriver, 1 bottle of perfu, 1 “Tamagotchi-style” virtual pet egg (battery not installed version—truly a sinful creation by the ga developers!), 1 box of model AB putty, and 1 Christmas-style knitted scarf.
The perfu wasn’t very useful; at most it could be used for burning, but Everly already had a lighter and gasoline, so she had no need for it.
Everly took apart the pet egg. Inside were only an LCD screen, an integrated circuit chip, and a battery compartnt. She couldn’t find the magnet she was looking for, so this item wasn’t of much use either.
The modeling putty turned out to be quite good.
In her previous life, Everly often ca across videos about customizing dolls, where AB putty was used to sculpt various small parts.
The box of AB putty had its instructions printed on it. This material cos in two components, Part A and Part B. When using it, you mix them in a 1:1 ratio. After thoroughly blending, you shape it and attach it to wherever you want. After about 10 to 30 minutes, it hardens into a very solid mass. It won’t shrink or crack whether you sand it, reshape it, or paint it.
Besides model-making, AB putty is sotis used for repairing tiles, pipes, or table corners—very practical. Everly rembered that once it cured, it was waterproof. Before setting off, she thought she could try using it to seal the mouths of mineral water bottles to reduce seawater contamination. When she needed to drink, she could just knock the putty off with sothing.
Next was the scarf.
In the middle of sumr, no one needed a scarf, so its final fate would be to be unraveled into yarn for tying things.
However, the yarn used in the scarf was rather thin, about 2 milliters in diater. Everly tugged at a loose end in her hand and felt that a single strand wasn’t very strong. If she wanted to use it, she thought it would be better to braid three strands together first.
Aside from all this, Misha also brought back a wild rabbit.
The rabbit was already dead. On its blood-stained fur were a clear set of serrated bite marks. Everly lifted the rabbit and tilted her head toward Misha. Misha, still wearing her mask, imdiately picked up a piece of gravel and drew a trap on the stone wall, then gestured with her other hand.
—Alright, case solved. The rabbit had been taken from “Hunter’s” trap.
That made sense. “Hunter’s” traps were originally ant to catch prey, so catching an unlucky rabbit wasn’t surprising at all.
Everly handed the pot to Misha, gesturing for her to rest and eat lunch. She herself took the dead rabbit and a knife and went to the river to skin and prepare it.
The weather was very hot, and no one knew how long the rabbit had been dead. It was best to roast it as soon as possible and dehydrate it thoroughly. That way, by nightfall, the two of them could still have rabbit at paired with shrimp and crabs from the tidal pool for a decent al… Speaking of which, the lunch they had wasn’t very flavorful. Should they add so salt?
Everly thought about it and decided to give it up.
Making salt directly by evaporating seawater would only produce crude salt containing many harmful impurities. Eating too much of it could lead to electrolyte imbalance and cause diarrhea. In the wild, where dical supplies were scarce, diarrhea was a serious illness that could easily be fatal.
To produce edible salt, additional filtration and purification would be required, which was very troubleso.
After all that hardship to refine salt, it would only be used as a seasoning anyway. Once they reached the sea, Everly and Misha could simply rely on biscuits and freshly caught seafood to replenish salt. Any animal-based food naturally contained a small amount of salt. Going out of their way to extract it felt unnecessary.
As for preserving food with salt to bring as rations for the boat, that was also not very practical.
First, curing at takes ti, and they would be leaving the island soon, so there wasn’t enough ti. Second, Everly had the blessing from the sea siren—if she wanted sothing, she could just have the ocean bring it to her, so they could eat fresh catches directly. There was no need to consu overly salty or potentially spoiled preserved food.
Thus, after weighing everything, Everly abandoned the idea of making salt.
After skinning and cleaning the rabbit, she carried the at in one hand and the rabbit hide in the other. The hide wrapped the rabbit’s head and organs and other waste. She moved quickly and returned to the sea-eroded cave.
The rabbit skin and innards were, as usual, thrown into the tidal pool so they could be used as bait when the tide rose. The rabbit at, anwhile, was skewered on a wooden stick and roasted over the campfire. She smoked it while cooking until all the moisture inside the at had been driven out, turning the entire slab of rabbit into a dry, jerky-like piece. Only then did Everly place it into the cleaned and sun-dried folding pot for storage.
After that, she and Misha rested for a while inside the shaded cave. Only after the hottest part of the day had passed did they pick up their gear and continue with their respective tasks.
Everly returned to the coastal cape she had visited that morning.
She counted the size and number of the “cedar-like” trees in the forest and decided to use timber about 15 centiters in diater to build a raft. Other sizes were either too difficult to cut or lacked sufficient buoyancy and would tend to sink. This size was simply the most suitable.
The thod of felling trees was to first choose the direction in which she wanted the tree to fall. On that side of the trunk, she would chop a V-shaped notch. Then she would move to the opposite side and swing the axe repeatedly. Once the trunk could no longer support itself, it would tilt toward the V-shaped cut. At that point, Everly only needed to raise her leg and kick the upper part of the trunk hard.
The rest could be left to gravity.
After the tree was felled, the job wasn’t finished. Everly still had to cut the trunk into suitable lengths—about just under three ters—then chop off the inconvenient branches and leaves along the sides, and drag the processed wood to an open area to dry.
The buoyancy of wood was affected by its moisture content. The drier it was, the more air pockets ford inside the wood, and the greater its buoyancy.
It was a pity there were no tung trees or lacquer trees in the forest. If there had been, she could have applied tung oil or lacquer to waterproof the timber, making the raft last much longer.
The tedious logging work lasted the entire afternoon.
It was not easy work. On one hand, the sumr heat was intense and the sun was blazing. On the other, chopping trees with an axe was physically demanding work—each strike sent a numb, dull pain through the handle into her hands. Only because Everly exercised regularly and had rough, calloused palms to protect her did she avoid injury.
If it had been anyone else doing this, they would likely have developed blisters in no ti.
By dusk, Everly wiped away her sweat and counted the logs on the ground—there were eight in total. If she did another round of logging tomorrow morning, it should be enough.
Everly and Misha planned to stay on the island until the night of the third day.
On the morning of the fourth day—that is, when the 72-hour countdown ended—the survivors, led by the male protagonist in the movie, would erupt into a chaotic battle with the rcenaries arriving by helicopter.
After the chaos, the protagonist and the others would seize the helicopter and escape. Once the ga organizers realized sothing was wrong, they would imdiately send out two teams: one to chase the protagonist’s group for elimination, and another to remain on the island to conduct a sweep—clearing away leftover food, weapons, corpses, and other remnants from the previous round, as well as repairing damaged surveillance equipnt in preparation for the next ga.
If they were still on the island at that ti, the two of them would be easily discovered.
So they planned to escape under cover of night on the third evening.
Now it was the evening of the second day. They had the whole of tomorrow: chop wood in the morning, build the raft in the afternoon, and set sail at night. There was more than enough ti.
With that in mind, Everly decided there was no need to rush to finish everything today.
She shook out her numb, exhausted hands, slung the axe over her shoulder, and picked up the leather apron stuffed with bird eggs before heading back to camp.
Because she had sweated heavily during the day, she didn’t go straight back to the sea-eroded cave. Instead, she stopped by a nearby river and, before night fully fell, jumped in fully clothed to wash herself and her clothes at the sa ti.
After climbing out, she bent down to collect firewood. The warm land breeze blowing from the center of the island brushed over her as she strolled leisurely back to the cave. In the night wind and her own body heat, her wet clothes had actually dried halfway.
At this point, Misha still hadn’t returned.
All nearby supply points had already been searched. To find more useful items, Misha’s plan for the afternoon was to cut diagonally through the island’s outer ring and head to the other side to look for supplies.
The distance was quite far, but fortunately she had the electronic radar to help. With Misha’s alertness, the risk was not high.
Everly lit a campfire, first taking out the rabbit from the afternoon and setting it on a rack beside the flas to dry-roast. Then she walked over to the tidal pool and reached in to feel around.
The tide along the coast rose and fell twice a day, with intervals of a little over twelve hours. In the afternoon, while Everly had been away from the cave, the tide had risen once more over the cave entrance.
Thanks to the bait she had thrown into the pool during the day, several large fish had actually been trapped inside this ti—the biggest one was nearly half the length of her arm.
Rabbit at contained very little fat and was only good as a snack; it couldn’t provide the energy needed for heavy physical labor. For dinner, they mainly relied on bird eggs and fish.
Everly caught two large fish, four crabs, and a handful of plump shrimp. She carried them in a folding pot to the river, cleaned and prepared them, then brought the pot back filled with water. Together with the bird eggs she had collected earlier, she set everything to simr into a bubbling hotpot over the fire.
She had chopped a lot of wood in the afternoon and gathered quite a few bird eggs. Combined with the fish and shrimp, although the taste wasn’t great, at least it was enough to fill them up.
After dinner, Everly sat by the fire and began dismantling the scarf Misha had brought back.
Based on experience, long cords tended to mysteriously tangle themselves even when left alone. So after pulling out a certain length of yarn, Everly would use a burning stick with embers to cut it off. Once she had gathered three strands, she tied one end together and began braiding them like a plait, making rope on the spot.
The tedious, monotonous weaving went on for over an hour. By the ti the moon had risen and the campfire inside the cave had dimd, faint footsteps finally echoed among the rocks outside.
Soon, a head wearing a black hostage-style hood appeared at the cave entrance.
Misha was finally back.
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