King of the Wilderness

Lin Yu’an stepped into his snowshoes and turned towards the direction of the shelter. This morning was, for him, a perfect textbook-like strategic victory!

The morning hunting operation, from strategy formulation to trap upgrades, and finally to harvest, perfectly confirmed his judgment.

This not only brought him over five pounds of high-quality protein but more importantly verified an effective passive hunting system in the snow environment.

When he returned to his semi-underground shelter, it was already afternoon.

He took off his backpack, took out the two lyrebirds that had already frozen stiff, and threw them on the snow at the door with a dull ”thud” sound.

He did not immediately begin processing the spoils but again raised his head, observing the changes in the weather.

On the way back, the weather kept changing and became increasingly gloomy. Now, just by taking one glance, his expression turned incredibly grim.

The cloud layers in the sky had undergone drastic changes within these few short hours.

He immediately activated the camera on his chest.

”Good afternoon, everyone. I just finished inspecting and expanding the trap line and had a good harvest. But now, I am going to face a more severe issue.”

”The wind has started to change; it’s no longer the stable cold wind but a gust blowing from the southeast, carrying the salty smell of the ocean, whereas the next gust might come from the northeast, sweeping up the snow in the forest.”

”The wind direction is messed up,” he said to the camera, his voice deepened.

”In a stable weather system, the wind direction should be continuous; this chaotic gust implies something is disturbing the pressure field here.”

He looked up again, casting his gaze to the sky, trying to find more evidence.

Pointing at the lowest clouds, he said, ”Look there! Those clouds torn apart like ragged cotton are sweeping inland at an incredible speed, sticking close to the sea surface—it’s the first danger signal.”

What truly sank his heart was the scene at a higher altitude; his eyes pierced through the low clouds towards the higher areas.

”But worse still, do you see those feather-like clouds with hooked ends above?”

”Those are cirrus clouds! They’re being dragged by high-altitude jet streams moving east-southeast over a hundred kilometers per hour, in a different direction from the clouds below coming from the east!”

”High-altitude and low-altitude winds are clashing! This means there are intense distortions and conflicts occurring in the atmosphere above my head.”

”There’s a huge, yet invisible ’engine’ stirring up all this!”

He paused for a moment, linking all the clues in his mind: chaotic surface winds, low clouds from the ocean, opposing high-altitude jet streams...

Prior to competing, Lin Yu’an had repeatedly studied the materials on this sea area, and a terrifying term emerged in his mind!

”All these signs point to a conjecture I most hope to avoid.”

His tone turned extremely grave: ”I suspect a ’bomb cyclone’ is forming!”

To confirm this worst hypothesis, he needed final evidence, quickly walking up to that large rock by the shelter that overlooked the entire bay, his gaze fixed on the far horizon.

The sight in the distance, like solid proof, utterly shattered the last shred of luck in his heart.

The vast waters connected to the open sea were no longer in the calm state covered by floating ice near the shore.

Wave ridges like mountain crests were forming at the distant horizon, then advancing towards the coastline with an unstoppable momentum!

Lin Yu’an said to the camera with a stern expression, ”These wave surges are completely different from local wind waves.”

”Local wind waves are blown out by nearby winds, with short and chaotic waveforms. In contrast, wave surges are the energy produced and transmitted by a large storm system tens or even hundreds of kilometers away!”

”The wave crests are far apart, with long periods, indicating little energy loss during transmission.”

”Currently, the wind is coming from the southeast, yet these wave surges are coming from due east.”

”This indicates that the storm center generating them is straight east of us and is moving towards us at high speed!”

As these wave surges approach the shallow water near the shore, they suddenly rise and curl, finally forming broken giant walls rolling with white foam! Then with a booming sound, they smash hard onto the reefs long enveloped by ice layers.

Every impact raises water foam several meters high, accompanied by booming sounds akin to distant cannon fire!

”Before coming here, I spent a lot of time studying the meteorological data of the Labrador Coast.”

His voice sounded a bit strained due to the wind as he said to the camera: ”This is one of the most active areas for winter temperate cyclones globally.”

”When the cold, dry polar continental air mass from Arctic Greenland Island collides with the warm, moist ocean air mass brought by the powerful southern Gulf Stream over this sea area,”

”it’s like mixing two chemical reagents, releasing explosive energy! This will spawn a temperate cyclone comparable in power to a tropical hurricane!”

”In meteorology, there’s a very vivid term ’bomb cyclone!’ because its central pressure can drop over 24 millibars (hPa) in 24 hours, increasing energy exponentially.”

”Based on all the signs I’ve seen, we’re about to experience one ourselves.”

Lin Yu’an looked at the surging sea, his tone becoming extremely serious: ”This is both a great disaster and a rare opportunity.”

”The disaster lies in that, once the storm hits, I might be completely trapped inside the shelter for several days, unable to go out for food.”

”But the opportunity is that such a large storm will bring astonishing storm surges, capable of cleansing the entire coastline!”

”It might bring up things from the depths, like the mussels and sea urchins we’ve dreamed of, more shellfish, and even the corpses of seals and Polar Bears! After the storm, there might be unexpected finds on the beach.”

”But first, I have to survive. Now, everything must make way to deal with this storm!”

He immediately sprang into action, grabbing the handsaw and hand axe, putting on the snowshoes, and rushing into that forest where the wind howled.

He needed to stockpile enough firewood to burn for at least three days before the storm fully hit.

This wasn’t a rough estimate; he had a precise goal to completely fill the side of the shelter adjacent to the rocky back wall from floor to ceiling with dry firewood.

Lin Yu’an was frantically working in the forest. He no longer had time to pick those standing dead trees that required effort to chop down.

His target was all the wood that could be quickly processed, specifically looking for those fallen spruce and birch trunks of suitable size that had been snapped and hung on other trees by previous wind and snow or had fallen to the ground.

The wind grew stronger, whipping up the snow on the ground and forming gusts of white ”ground blizzards,” severely affecting his visibility.

He had to squint to discern direction through the swirls of snow.

He found a felled dead spruce as thick as his waist and did not bother with the thickest parts of the trunk, as that was too time-consuming.

He used the handsaw, aiming at those branches as thick as an arm, and started cutting quickly.

”Squeak... Squeak...”

The handsaw moved steadily through the cold wood, with sawdust mixing with snowflakes and being blown everywhere by the gale.

Each time he sawed off a suitable piece of lumber, he didn’t clear it but immediately started cutting the next section.

Time was his sole enemy now.

He bundled the sawn wood with ropes into a large bundle, looped the rope over his shoulder, and trudged, step by arduous step, towards the shelter.

His figure shuttled back and forth between the forest and the shelter like an ant frantically hoarding food for the end of the world.

Soon, he had trodden a clear, deep path in the snow.

He neatly stacked the firewood he dragged back inside the shelter, right by the cold rock back wall.

That was the coldest and safest area, minimizing the risk of fire hazards.

The pile of firewood was visibly growing taller, from ankle to knee, and then to waist-high.

This mountainous pile of firewood exuded the scent of dry wood, offering him a stronger sense of security against the unknown weather than food could.

But he knew that having just fuel was not enough; he also needed to stockpile a water source. Once the blizzard hit, visibility would be almost zero, making it extremely dangerous to venture outside for water and risking getting lost.

Moreover, the ice on the river would be covered in thick snow, making it several times more laborious to break through and fetch ice.

Most importantly, he still had to reinforce the shelter’s roof for the final time.

He sprang into action, grabbed his backpack again, took up the handsaw and axe, and headed toward the frozen freshwater river under increasingly fierce gusts.

The river surface was already covered in a thick layer of white snow, looking no different from the surrounding land.

He walked to the central area of the river.

”The ice at the river center is usually the purest because the water flows fastest here and freezes the latest.”

”Most impurities in the water are washed away as it flows, so the ice formed here is very pure.”

He selected an area and began to clear all the snow on the surface with his foot, revealing the pale blue, hard river ice below.

Then he took a deep breath, gripped the hand axe with both hands, raised it high, and smashed it down on the ice surface!

”Boom!!!”

A dull and loud thud echoed! Ice chips scattered in all directions, and the hard ice surface was left with a bowl-sized, crack-filled dent!

”So hard!” He shook his arm, which was numbed by the impact.

But he didn’t pause and aimed at the same spot, starting a high-frequency, continuous pounding!

”Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”

He, like a tireless blacksmith, used every ounce of strength with each blow, the axe blade striking the ice and producing a deafening sound.

Countless ice shards, like glass fragments, flew in all directions.

A few minutes later, he set the axe aside, knelt on the ice, and began scooping out the shattered ice chunks with his hands, putting them into his backpack.

He raised a crystal-clear chunk of ice to the camera and said with satisfaction, ”Look, this is the perfect source of drinking water!”

”Its density is much greater than snow, and the amount of water this ice can melt into is five to ten times that of fluffy snow! Though it requires several trips, it’s the most reliable method.”

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