King of the Wilderness

He quickly filled his backpack, carrying at least several dozen pounds of ice blocks, and trudged back to the shelter.

He poured these crystal-clear ice blocks into the snow pit outside the shelter, turned around immediately without pausing, and headed back to the river again.

He needed to make a few more trips to stock enough water to last through the storm period.

Once Lin Yu’an had stocked up enough ice blocks, he faced increasingly fierce gusts and looked up at his shelter creation.

The walls and foundation were as solid as a rock, which gave him no worry, but his only concern was the roof.

”Although my roof is layered with thick soil and moss, this insulating layer is also its most fragile part.”

”A bomb cyclone brings winds strong enough to flip cars, let alone this small earthen roof, and it might even tear the waterproof tarp underneath.”

”I must apply the final insurance before the storm reaches its peak.”

He didn’t go out to cut new wood, but turned his attention to the large number of remaining stones of various sizes left over from building the stone wall.

He sprang into action, first locating a few logs and then transporting them piece by piece to the roof, evenly laying them on the surface of the soil layer.

”These logs distribute pressure like snowshoes, evenly spreading the stones’ weight across the entire roof.”

Then, he embarked on today’s last and most strenuous physical labor.

He took each granite block, weighing several pounds, and hefted them one by one from the ground up to the roof, which was more than a person’s height.

One by one, he neatly placed them on top of the logs on the roof, especially stacking more stones along the edges and wind-facing side.

Once he had set the final stone in place, the entire earthen roof was covered by a layer of solid stone fortification.

The tremendous weight of these stones firmly pressed down the entire roof, from the soil, moss, and waterproof fabric to the base log structure, onto the walls.

Now, forget the gale; even if a bear walked over it, it wouldn’t budge an inch!

He completed all this as daylight faded completely, and the last glimmer was devoured by rolling dark clouds, only then did he finally stop working.

Lin Yu’an returned to the warm shelter, exhausted, and closed the heavy wooden door, sliding the crossbar into place.

”Clang!”

The external world-ending wind noise instantly diminished by ninety percent, turning into a subdued background sound.

He collapsed in front of the fireplace, leaning against the warm blaze. After trotting about all day long and doing extreme physical labor before the storm, his energy was massively burned up; he felt like he could eat an entire cow now!

Deciding to immediately handle one of the morning’s spoils to prepare a hearty dinner to offer energy against the long night and cold.

Lin Yu’an quickly processed a Thunderbird on the stone slab at the shelter’s entrance.

Brutally removing the down feathers from the breast and belly, he stuffed them into a rabbit fur bag; he had ample time to process these top-grade insulation materials after the storm.

Then, he peeled off the furry skin and strung together the extracted liver, heart, and gizzard, grilling them over the fire as an appetizer.

Next, his gaze fell on the bright yellow fatty lumps inside the Thunderbird’s abdominal cavity and tail.

With the knife tip, he carefully scraped these fat clusters complete into a bowl made of birch bark.

”Thunderbird stores a large amount of fat in its body for winter, which is more valuable than the meat itself.”

”Eating it directly is too wasteful; I’ll render it into oil for my most efficient heat source and multi-purpose material in the coming days.”

He placed the iron pot over the fireplace fire, heating it till it was searing, then poured the small bowl of yellow fatty clusters into the pot.

”Sizzle—”

The fat melted instantly upon contact with the sizzling iron pot, emitting a pleasing frying sound! A rich aroma of fat overwhelmed even the scent of the burning wood.

He kept stirring with a shaved flat stick, watching the fat lumps gradually shrink in high heat while the pot’s clear golden liquid increased.

Once all the fat lumps turned into shriveled, crispy golden dregs, he reduced the flame.

Carefully pouring the piping hot, golden bird oil into a pre-prepared birch bark container.

A small bowl shimmered temptingly in the firelight.

”Thunderbird oil, accomplished,” he announced, lifting the small bowl towards the camera, face full of satisfaction.

As for the two Thunderbirds missing fat, under these temperatures, fresh meat can be stored for days without spoiling, so there’s no rush to make smoked food.

One Thunderbird was bundled with a cable, placed into the cattail basket, where the temperature was extremely low, acting as a natural freezer.

Lin Yu’an also covered it with a considerable amount of wood above, fearing no animals would raid the stash.

The other one was planned for dinner tonight.

He divided it into eight parts, some for stewing soup, others for directly pan-frying with the newly rendered Thunderbird oil.

After consuming this exceptionally sumptuous dinner, he stuffed the fireplace with the longest-burning hardwood, then crawled into the warm sleeping bag.

Outside, the wind grew louder, from a previous whistle to a beast-like roar.

He knew the storm was coming!

Day Nineteen.

Lin Yu’an woke up in the dark of night to a violent, deep resonance sound.

The sound did not come from any specific direction outside; it seemed to come from all directions, even from underground.

The entire semi-dugout shelter he was in was trembling slightly with this low-frequency resonance.

He immediately sat up from his sleeping bag, listened intently, and recognized that it wasn’t an earthquake; he could clearly distinguish that it was the sound of the wind.

A sound he had never heard before, like thousands of wild beasts roaring continuously in the valley.

He opened the door immediately to observe the situation outside, and the sight before him took his breath away.

The world outside the door had completely disappeared, no sky, no Earth, no forest, only a purely flowing white.

Countless snowflakes and ice crystals whipped up by the fierce wind, striking everything madly at an almost horizontal angle.

He couldn’t even see the spruce Tree ten meters away, the whole world seemed to be devoured by this white chaos!

Occasionally, when the wind paused slightly, he could catch glimpses of the forest silhouette, those usually strong and upright spruce trees swaying like weeds in a hurricane.

They bent and swayed wildly to a heart-stopping degree, and he had no doubt that some of the less sturdy trees had already snapped in half.

What blew through the door gap was no longer just a simple cold wind, but a ”white airflow” mixed with ice particles and snow foam, almost solid in form.

Lin Yu’an struggled to close the door again, feeling the heavy wooden door rhythmically thumping under the constant impact of the wind, like an invisible Giant was banging on it!

He began carefully checking the shelter’s condition, inch by inch, feeling with his palm along the walls made of logs and moss to see if cold air was seeping in.

The result left him very satisfied, the walls were rock solid, with almost no sense of airflow.

He then looked up at the roof, its five-layer structure of logs, waterproof cloth, moss, soil, and stones was as stable as Mount Tai under the storm’s pressure, with no strange sounds.

The most crucial part was the chimney, so he walked to the fireplace and carefully observed the flame inside the hearth.

Despite the outside wind roaring like thunder, the flame inside the fireplace continued to burn steadily and vertically, with no sign of flickering or backdraft.

This proved that his design of the flue structure and height was absolutely correct.

Facing the camera, he belatedly said, ”All the hard work early on was worth it at this moment, it held up.”

After confirming the absolute safety of the shelter, the last tight string in his heart completely relaxed.

He walked to the woodpile, the waist-high stack of wood diffusing a scent of dry wood, giving him a primitive yet solid sense of security.

”In this weather, I might be stuck here for a day, two days, or even longer.”

Not only did he not feel anxious, but an unprecedented peace and contentment surged up within him.

He sat on a stool made of a Giant tree stump, leaned toward the warm stone fireplace, and felt the heat seep through his clothes and into his body comfortably.

The light from the fireplace was the only, yet the gentlest light available at the moment.

It bathed Lin Yu’an’s figure and everything inside the shelter in a warm, orangey glow.

The tools hanging on the walls, the supplies stacked in the corners, and even the wood shavings scattered on the floor seemed lively and poetic under the flickering light and shadow.

Lin Yu’an selected a suitably sized, dried birch wood piece from the woodpile.

”Time is now the thing most in need of consumption; keeping busy, staying focused, are the best ways to combat isolation and the passage of time.”

”While stuck in the shelter, I can do some crafting; today, I’ll make myself a wooden bowl.”

He placed the birch wood piece on the stone slab in front of him and started this tranquil yet focused task.

Firstly, using the Axe with extreme precision, he chipped away the wood block’s outer surface little by little, shaping it into a roughly wide-top, narrow-bottom bowl shape.

Wood shavings flew and fell to the ground, quickly dried by the heat from the fireplace.

Once the external contours were roughly formed, he began working on the interior, choosing not to use a knife to dig in, as it would be too exhausting.

He utilized the coal-burning method again, using two sticks to take a glowing red-hot ember from the fireplace and placed it in the center of the wood block.

Then, he took a hollow cattail stem he had prepared earlier, pointed one end at the bottom of the ember, and began to blow rhythmically.

”Whooo... whooo...”

With the fresh oxygen injection, the ember’s temperature soared, emitting a dazzling orange-red glow.

The ember started burning downward, carbonizing the wood underneath, a strong charred smell wafting through the air.

When the depth was sufficient, he brushed aside the ember and took out the sharp Damascus Hunting Knife, scraping away the carbonized material inside the bowl.

He tightly held the bowl’s rough shape with his left hand, and with his right hand, holding the Hunting Knife at an angle, began spiraling cuts.

The carbonized wooden shavings curled and fell like black snowflakes from beneath the knife blade.

Inside the shelter, only the dull sound of the wind outside and the ”shhh, shhh” sound of the knife scraping the wood could be heard.

Time seemed frozen here; all his focus was concentrated on this slowly forming object in his hands.

When the bowl’s interior was scraped smooth enough, he rubbed the coarse stone surface repeatedly against the wooden bowl, smoothing out all the cut and scraped marks.

Once he finished all this, a rustic-shaped, smoothly lined wooden bowl lay quietly in his palm.

The carving took a considerable amount of time, and he also felt the pangs of Hunger.

He needed food, and his nearest food supply was in the snow not far outside the door, the Thunderbird processed yesterday and buried in the snow.