The Monkey King was dead, and the monkeys were in disarray for a time.
Lu Zhe also felt relieved.
Looking at the time, it was already late.
He pulled up Qian Qian: "Let's call it a day for today, we can look for materials again tomorrow. Let's find that bear, then return to the camp."
"Alright, let's go take a look at the Malayan bear, make sure it hasn't run off."
As it turned out when they returned to the original spot, there was no sign of the Malayan bear.
Lu Zhe was lost in thought.
Don't tell me it really took the ant nest and ran off!
Looking left and right but unable to find it, they had no choice but to return to the camp.
Only to discover the bamboo basket and fragments of the ant nest sitting in the camp.
Shen Bing smiled and said: "Lost your stuff huh?"
"What's going on?"
"Half an hour ago. A bear carrying a basket of ant nest passed through the camp, as a professional I recognized at a glance that it was a thief, having stolen our belongings."
Then Shen Bing moved closer and whispered: "You guys be more careful in the future, don't get so caught up in romance that you neglect your duties!"
Lu Zhe had a vague sense of unease: "What about the bear?"
"I figured the bear was a first-time offender, and had taken the initiative to return the items, so I taught it a lesson then let it go."
Lu Zhe and Lin Qianqian were taken aback.
"Did it not occur to you that it may have intentionally brought our things back?"
"A bear is capable of that level of conscience?"
"What if this bear has a very high level of conscience? Did the captain not mention it to you?"
"She and Yao Yao went fishing."
Lu Zhe nodded, it seemed this bear's psychological trauma would take quite a long time to get over.
But no matter.
As long as it doesn't get any dangerous ideas.
In Lu Zhe's opinion, as long as it could keep guard over that stretch of meadowland to the northeast, he didn't mind having such a neighbor.
August 11th, Thursday, the 63rd day stranded on the deserted island!
Woken up early in the morning by Guo Er: "Hey husband, time to get up!"
Lu Zhe opened his eyes, only to see Tang Xiaoguo straddling his chest, her two little hands naughtily pulling at his face.
"Cut it out, can you? It's sweltering, you're getting me all sweaty, get off me!"
"Hey, it's my shift today, where should we go play?"
"Play? Play what?"
Lu Zhe discovered that today's temperature was even a few degrees higher than yesterday's. Ever since entering the month of August, he saw that the temperatures rose higher with each passing day, yet there hadn't been a single day of rainfall.
Could it be that after a month of rain, they would have to endure a prolonged drought again?
At present, he wasn't worried about just a drought, but the persisting high temperatures that came with it.
Even the nighttime temperatures reached twenty-seven to twenty-eight degrees, and surpassed thirty degrees during the daytime.
Both day and night were high temperatures, the phenomenon of large temperature differences between day and night had not occurred for a long time already.
This made everyone feel rather uncomfortable!
Fortunately they had diverted a stream of mountain spring down earlier, so they didn't have to haul water several hundred meters from the lake anymore, otherwise that would have been another hopeless chore.
The girls each carried a large fan, and frequently poured clear water over themselves from bottles, to cool down in the heat.
They had already tried every solution they could think of, yet it was still unbearably hot.
"What's going on here?" Shen Bing only wore a singlet, continuously fanning her chest area with the fan, her behavior rather eccentric.
Lu Zhe watched the coastline with concern: "Yao Yao, how many fish did you catch yesterday?"
Jiang Yao shook her head: "I have shamed my family, only two!"
Ning Shu said: "But there were many dead fish on the sea surface, I had wanted to gather them up, but later worried they would spoil in the heat, so left them for the seabirds."
Tang Xiaoguo exclaimed: "Dead fish? The seawater can't be poisoned right?"
Lu Zhe jumped out of bed and went barefooted to the shore, walking into the shallows and letting the waves wash over his feet.
He felt the seawater was exceptionally warm.
Shen Bing asked doubtfully: "Didn't you say the warm and cold currents alternate along here? Where did the cold current go?"
Lu Zhe thought of a possibility: "Damn, could it be El Niño!"
"El Niño?" The girls looked at each other.
Shen Bing explained: "The term 'El Niño' comes from Spanish, and literally means 'The Christ Child'. In the early 19th century, the fishermen of some South American countries discovered that every few years, from October to March of the following year, there would be an appearance of a warm current flowing southward along the coast, causing the surface seawater temperature to rise markedly. The appearance of this warm current leads to a sudden increase in water temperature, massive death of fish, and brings disaster upon the livelihoods of the fishermen."
Ning Shu murmured in thought: "I know about this, but isn't this phenomenon supposed to occur around Christmas?"
Lu Zhe said: "That was in the past! In recent years, El Niño events have frequently occurred in the June to August period in the Pacific Ocean, and the duration has also grown longer and longer. Of course, this is just my suspicion, hard to conclusively say whether or not this is really the case!"
Tang Xiaoguo worriedly asked: "What would happen if this situation occurs?!"
"The water temperatures in Southeast Asia rise, badly impacting the fishing industry, and the air temperatures also increase accordingly, leading to prolonged drought, and agricultural crops also greatly reduced in yield. And this mass of hot air flows northward from the south into the northern temperate regions, where it converges with the northern cold air currents, causing widespread rainfall over the temperate regions and triggering floods."