Discovering New Cash Crops

Jiang Yao put her palms together and said piously, "May the heavens bless us and let the rescue team find our message in a bottle!"

Tang Xiaoguo said, "Does that really work?"

Jiang Yao replied, "Trying is better than doing nothing!"

Tang Xiaoguo also put her palms together piously and started praying as well.

Lu Zhe was not interested in idle chatter with them. He asked Lin Qianqian, "By the way, Qianqian, how much water did you distill just now?"

Lin Qianqian shook the bottle, "It's about 300 milliliters now. Thick salt frost has formed in the can, and it's a bit tricky to scrape it off, otherwise I could have boiled some more!"

Lu Zhe nodded, "Not bad. I'll make a few more natural stills with a knife later. I estimate we can distill another 100-200 milliliters of fresh water per day! We can cook soup tonight."

Lin Qianqian said happily, "I'm really looking forward to it!"

After finishing her prayers to Guanyin, Tang Xiaoguo clutched her stomach and said with a pout, "I'm hungry again. What should we eat now?"

Ning Shu sighed, "We've finished all that little food. Why don't we all drink some more coconut juice?"

"But I'm mainly hungry, not that thirsty!"

Lu Zhe thought for a moment, "Let's eat some coconut meat and spicy strips first to fill our stomachs. I'll go look for some food in the woods later!"

"Coconut meat? How do you open it?"

Lu Zhe smiled and picked up the stone axe, "Don't forget, we have tools now!"

As he spoke, he swung the axe down!

A coconut that had been drunk dry instantly split open with a large gap!

Lu Zhe reached out and pried, there was a "ka" sound, and he actually pried the coconut open raw!

The white, shiny coconut meat was exposed, looking very sweet and delicious!

"The axe is really useful!"

"I really can't tell, Lu Zhe is so strong!"

"A share for everyone!"

The girls each tore off a piece and started eating.

Sweet, crispy, juicy, eating such a fruit on a deserted island was simply delightful!

Lu Zhe said, "Not only can coconut meat be eaten raw, cooked is easier for the body to absorb, and less likely to cause diarrhea!"

As he spoke, he split open another coconut, using a rock as a chopping board, and cut the coconut meat into strips with a small round knife, placing them on the rocks by the fire!

After a short while, they were baked dry and hardened, becoming dried coconut meat strips!

Dipped in some chili oil from the spicy strip bag, they tasted crispy and flaky when chewed, somewhat similar to french fries!

Lu Zhe opened a few more coconuts, drank the juice and ate the meat. With some food in their stomachs, the feeling of hunger was much reduced!

Counting from when they woke up, it had been a full 24 hours!

Lu Zhe saw that the beach was too hot for scavenging.

He decided to search around the camp for now and throw the message in a bottle later when it was cooler.

He walked in a circle around the campsite and found a small pile of black beans under some bushes!

Picking up one and squeezing it open with his fingers gave off a faint fishy smell.

A prompt sounded in his mind: "Ding, congratulations host for discovering healthy rat droppings!"

Wait, this stuff was actually rat shit?

Well, it would be abnormal if there weren't rats on the island!

Lu Zhe also knew that while rats represented viruses and diseases in cities, not all rats were like that!

There weren't many disease-carrying rats on deserted islands. In the wild, they were even a delicacy on the menu for survivors!

They could provide calories and amino acids beneficial for digestion!

In order to gain potential points, and also to improve the taste, it was necessary to catch and eat some rats!

But having only come across rat droppings without even seeing a rat, how could he catch them?

Smoking them out of their burrows?

That would only startle the rats without knowing how many crafty holes there were!

Ah, snakes?

Thinking of that snake reminded him of the snake entrails in the bottle!

Suddenly, he thought of a way!

He remembered the old saying: A snake eats mice for half a year, mice eat snakes for half a year!

That is to say, snakes catch mice in summer, and when snakes hibernate in winter, mice will treat them as canned food once discovered!

The two complemented and countered each other, both liking to eat the other, and both were delicacies on the other's menu.

Using these snake entrails as bait would definitely attract mice to eat, then traps could be set to catch them, perfect!

So how to make traps?

Lu Zhe opened the survival manual and found instructions on making traps with springs!

First, he needed very thin and flexible rope, Ning Shu's pencil case had a small bundle of rubber bands, he took three, which could substitute for rope with some sticks!

Make a noose knot, tie it to the end of a stick.

Then, insert a flexible stick into the ground, and prop up a small stick segment on a rock as the trigger!

Next, just spread the snake entrails on the ground as bait!

As soon as a scavenging hungry rodent passed by here, touching the stick or trigger, the stick would immediately spring up, the noose tightening around the mouse's leg or tail!

After Lu Zhe tested the trap twice and confirmed it worked, he went elsewhere to make more traps!

Lu Zhe spent over half an hour and made three mouse traps!

He gained another potential point.

He couldn't just sit around waiting for mice to take the bait. Lu Zhe decided he should do something else!

Last night Tang Xiaoguo nearly froze sleeping on the sandy beach. It was time to build a proper shelter!

He took the stone axe and went into the woods to look for suitable small trees to build a shelter!

The woods were overgrown with weeds, unknown bugs crawling about the bushes, quite nauseating!

Lu Zhe carefully shooed them away!

There was a wide variety of plants here, but suitable wood was not easy to find!

But with the stone axe, once he found appropriate trees it became much easier to chop them down!

He spent two hours chopping down seven trunks about three meters long and wrist thick!

Then he carried them back to the campsite.

Just then, he heard a whistle from the camp!

"Something's up!"

He quickly put down the logs and ran to the camp, only to see the girls all waving him over excitedly!

"Lu Zhe, come and see!"

His first thought was the rescue team had come?

But looking towards the sea there was nothing!

Turning back, Ning Shu and Lin Qianqian were each holding a bunch of green "bananas", excitement written all over their faces!

They found bananas?

Bananas were high calorie fruits, rich in carbohydrates and vitamins!

In some cases they could even substitute for staple foods!

This was something worth getting excited about!

Lu Zhe walked over, "Where did you find them?"

"Just over there in the woods!"

Lu Zhe was surprised, "What were you doing poking around the bushes?"

Ning Shu punched him, "Men! Always joking around. I took Qianqian to pee, alright?"

"Joking around? Is there? Right, how was it? Find any seeds?"

"Is seeds all you have in your mind? Can't you think smaller? Isn't there something more important here?"

"Bananas?"

"These are plantains, smaller versions of bananas!" Ning Shu explained knowledgeably, then broke one off for Lu Zhe, "Try it!"