July 6th, the 27th day stranded on the deserted island, the 3rd day of continuous heavy rain!
The sky remains pitch black throughout the day.
Lu Zhe once again took the opportunity when the rain lightened up a bit to go search for sugarcane, but after searching for half a day, he did not find any sugarcane, only managing to chop some bamboo.
This made him realize that while the island has abundant resources, only bananas and bamboo have larger quantities, useful plants like sweet potatoes and sugarcane only exist in very scarce numbers.
He spent the rest of his time digging holes, trying his best to expand the living space inside.
Their meals remained the same - eating bananas, making porridge with semolina, and roast pork.
They want to eat the most perishable parts as soon as possible, while smoking the rest to preserve it.
July 7th, the 28th day, the 4th day of heavy rain.
The dark skies continue!
Lu Zhe led everyone to continue expanding the interior space of the small cave, to alleviate the oppressive mood.
Shen Bing found some spare time and made four leg bones, two quite large, and the other two even bigger!
She then spent two hours sewing a cloth bag with the leftover earrings from Guo'er, and taught some girls a strange game they used to play as children, even inviting Lu Zhe to join.
Lu Zhe also had some impression, but remembering that girls used to play with lamb bones instead of wild boar and bear bones.
Lu Zhe was not that into it, but was very popular among the girls, who played enthusiastically for two hours.
Who would have thought such a boring game could bring so much comfort and joy to everyone.
That day, Lu Zhe and the others expanded the cave to three times its original size.
He understood that digging further may affect the structural stability of the cave, and there was no need to expand more for their purposes anyway.
July 8th, the 29th day stranded on the deserted island, the 5th day of continuous rain.
The heavy rain persisted, the dark skies remained.
That day, they finally got to eat wild boar meat.
At the same time, they realized one thing:
Wild boar meat is not as tasty as domestic pig, but still much better than bear meat.
After the girls cleaned up the small cave, Lu Zhe started to further improve their quality of life!
He used bamboo to build tables and chairs.
The survival handbook had complete instructions, but actually building them was not as easy as described.
Lu Zhe spent a whole day before successfully building one square table.
Finally, their food no longer needed to be placed on the ground.
The girls also built some bamboo items!
For example, Ning Shu made lots of bamboo chopsticks, Shen Bing made six bamboo spoons, Lin Qianqian made bamboo cups, Jiang Yao made bamboo toothpicks, and Tang Xiaoguo made a bamboo dragonfly.
Although the items built by the girls were simple, 80% of them helped improve their quality of life to some degree, and Lu Zhe gave his full approval.
On that day, they successfully conducted the fruit battery experiment for the second time, managing to charge the phone battery up to 25%!
They flipped through the photo album twice, made seven SOS calls, and received a response once.
The response was lightning!
Accompanied by a loud bang, the lightning struck a tree 20 meters right above the cave entrance, splitting that tree into a piece of art.
From then on everyone decided to stop making useless calls.
July 9th, the 30th day stranded on the deserted island, the 6th day of heavy rain!
That day, although the torrential rain continued to fall, the wind stopped and the sky finally brightened.
Although the sun was still hidden, the increased visibility brought comfort to their souls.
Lin Qianqian sighed "Finally, we can see into the distance..."
Tang Xiaoguo asked "When will this heavy rain ever stop?!"
Ning Shu calmly replied "It will stop when it's time."
Jiang Yao echoed "Yes, just like we will be hungry when it's time."
Shen Bing asked Lu Zhe: "Lu Zhe, do you know when it will stop?"
Lu Zhe shook his head.
With cold and warm currents alternating over this area, the weather is too volatile for him to predict.
The five girls stood at the cave entrance for a long while, just looking.
Shen Bing asked again: "Lu Zhe, what are your plans when the rain stops?"
Lu Zhe thought for a bit: "We can continue staying here for a while first, then think of a way to climb to the mountain peak!"
Jiang Yao asked: "We have ample fresh water here now, why still need to climb the mountain?"
"To observe! Based on what we currently know, saying we understand 10% of this island is an overstatement. To thoroughly understand the place we live, we need to observe from different angles and think from different dimensions!"
Ning Shu nodded: "What Lu Zhe said makes sense. I've read about some survival masters entering jungles barehanded, they dare to skip bringing anything, except salt."
"Should still have some ways right?"
"You can obtain potassium salts and small amounts of sodium chloride from wood ash and grass ash. Building a dry toilet allows feces to generate nitrate salts on the stone walls, but long term consumption can be detrimental to health. Simply speaking of edibility, it's not as good as directly licking sweat or urine for the salts."
"What an interesting method!"
"Qianqian, it's not interesting, it's dreadful."
"Besides, things we can salvage here like plastic bottles, bags, torn clothes, slippers, cans etc are all everyday items we won't be able to find."
The girls looked at one another, all nodding in agreement.
What Lu Zhe said made complete sense. They were already running out of bottles, and had used up most of the collected torn clothes and plastic bags. Other than that one Japanese soldier, they couldn't find any usable supplies at all.
If only they could catch another Japanese...
"So next time, will we stay near the sea side again?"
Lu Zhe thought for a bit: "Ideally some place that combines both, like tunnels or proper shelters dug on the mountain ridges not far from the sea. But no need to rush, we can take it slowly."
Shen Bing was puzzled: "Since we will be leaving eventually, why still put in so much effort to expand the cave and build furniture?"
Lu Zhe smiled: "Who said we can only own one property? Even after we move, this place can still be kept as a supply station and backup shelter, for storing some supplies and sealing up the entrance. Next time we come to collect things, we can immediately move in and live here."
Ning Shu nodded: "So becoming a landlord in future? Not bad not bad!"
Shen Bing agreed: "I think that method is feasible too!"
Tang Xiaoguo waved her fists excitedly "Something to look forward to!"
"Let's make a few more portable bamboo baskets today and just wait here until the rain stops."