King of the Wilderness

Chapter 300: Chapter 203: Increasing the Success Rate of ”Traps

Labrador Coastline, the twenty-eight days of the last three contestants of Alone in the Wilderness ended with modest gains.

On the night of the twenty-eighth day, Lin Yu’an placed the last piece of roasted, aromatic grouse meat into his mouth and chewed it slowly.

The flavor, a mix of wild essence and charcoal scent, and the warmth and fullness coming from his stomach, made him feel a deep, heartfelt satisfaction.

Worries about the other contestants flashed by briefly, but he quickly refocused his attention back on himself.

He sat in front of the fireplace, adjusted the position of the fixed camera, and began his daily routine of review, which was both a record and self-reflection.

”Alright, folks, let’s review the past two crucial days.” He spoke to the camera in a calm tone.

”On the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth day survival operation, I began addressing the issue of a single food source, expanding new channels for food acquisition.”

”In these two days, I executed two main tasks: Task one; fishing under the ice. Task two; forest hunting.”

He extended his fingers to count one by one: ”The newly acquired food includes one whitefish from the lake, about four pounds; one Arctic Red Spot Salmon, totaling about two pounds; one spruce grouse, about one pound edible part; total protein approximately seven pounds, looking at the numbers, the results are significant.”

Lin Yu’an’s gaze seemed to pierce through the walls of the shelter, seeing the stash in that snow well refrigerator: ”And now, combined with the post-storm harvest, my core protein asset in fish totals approximately seventeen pounds.”

”Shellfish, this is my core asset, also the source of my confidence, the true ballast! That is dozens of kilograms, at least seventy to eighty pounds of cooked mussel meat. This is a large number enough to make someone drop their guard.”

”But...” his tone shifted, becoming serious.

”The critical fat reserve, all my possessions, is that bit of self-refined fish oil, about one pound. This is my current only pure fat source, a strategic core resource.”

He looked directly into the camera, his eyes sharp, ”Now, let’s do the cruellest math problem.”

”Assuming my daily basic consumption is 4500 calories. My seventy to eighty pounds of mussel meat and a dozen pounds of fish meat, combined total calories is a huge number, possibly over half a million calories. Theoretically, divide this number by 4500, I could survive over a hundred days.”

”A number that sounds sufficient to last me to the end of the competition, right?”

He shook his head, a trace of a self-mocking cold smile on his face, ”But this number is the greatest hoax, a trap that can kill any careless person. The problem lies in the fat.”

”In all my calorie reserves, the fat proportion is seriously insufficient! That one pound of fish oil at most supports my energy consumption for a week, once depleted, I face the risk of ’protein poisoning’.”

He explained: ”This is a fatal issue many wilderness survivors tend to overlook. When you ingest a large amount of lean protein without enough fat to help decompose, your body not only fails to efficiently obtain energy but instead consumes more energy to digest them.”

”Your kidneys will work overtime to process excess nitrogen, eventually leading to failure. That means, even if I am sitting on a mountain of meat, I will still weaken and starve to death. It sounds absurd, but it is a cruel physiological reality.”

His voice started to become low and powerful, ”So, I have not escaped the crisis, I just moved the timer on the time bomb from tomorrow to five days later.”

”My real risk-free survival window is only five days. After five days, I will face the risk of fat shortage, even if I still have dozens of pounds of meat around me.”

”What I need is not more lean meat, but fat! A huge piece that can let me refine out several kilos of oil! This is the core goal of all my subsequent actions.”

The fat deficit rang like an alarm bell, waking him up instantly!

Lin Yu’an walked to the entrance of the shelter, the cold night wind blew on his face, yet couldn’t cool the rapidly spinning thoughts in his mind.

He faced the camera, expression unprecedentedly serious: ”But how can I efficiently hunt high-fat prey? Whether it’s a bear or a seal, neither can be encountered easily.”

The brain once again started racing, searching for the optimal solution from the existing resources.

He analyzed: ”Active hunting, like today, consumed at least two thousand calories for a one-pound grouse. Its fat content might not be more than what I consumed.”

”This input-output ratio is unsustainable, it’s slowly hollowing out my energy reserves, a losing bargain.”

”Traps, the wire lasso I set up two days ago, still shows no sign of activity. This indicates that in the vast forest, passively waiting for prey to stumble upon is too unlikely.”

”The land is too vast, the animal’s choices too abundant, I can’t leave my fate to such randomness. I must do something to increase the chances of hitting the jackpot!”

”I need an amplifier, a solution that can multiply the success rate of my hunting and fishing by several folds. I can no longer chase after prey like a regular hunter, I must let the prey come after me!”

Suddenly, his eyes sparkled with a glimmer: ”Bait! Using scent to manipulate the hunger games in these waters and forests.”

Once this thought appeared, it underwent a rapid feasibility and cost-benefit analysis in his mind.