Starting from Robinson Crusoe

The wind blowing into the house constantly takes away the heat inside. When it gets coldest, I’m afraid even if the stove burns all day, the room can only barely stay around seven or eight degrees above zero. The best situation is just not freezing people.

...

As for gathering pine nuts, that’s obviously to make sure there’s enough food when we can’t go out.

Before setting out to search for salt, Chen Zhou and Paul extensively searched the mountains for tree hollows and rock crevices where squirrels store their food, digging up a large amount of pine nuts.

At that time, the pine nuts on the mountain hadn’t matured in large quantities yet. The pine nuts they collected were abundant but lacked quality; they weren’t exactly fresh. Some were old pine nuts that had dried and cracked, becoming hard even when boiled, with almost no oil and a poor taste.

Currently, the squirrels have significantly slowed down their activities, attempting to endure the winter in "standby mode."

For Chen Zhou, since snowfall isn’t too frequent now and doesn’t hinder movement, it’s the perfect time to raid their homes.

During this time, he can chop wood while searching for squirrel nests, extracting various nuts stored by squirrels to enrich his granary.

Compared with preparing firewood, gathering pine nuts is much easier.

Both he and Paul eat a bit more than the average person, but with accurate calculations, consuming three meals a day throughout the winter would only require a maximum of 500 pounds.

While squirrels never have the concept of "just enough" for their nut reserves, instinct drives them to "store as much as possible."

Especially young squirrels, who do not have last year’s leftover reserves, feel an overwhelming fear of food shortages far more than other squirrels, often spending more time hoarding more pine nuts.

When opening tree hollows, in these squirrel nests, one can find as little as 4 pounds of pine nuts, and sometimes as much as 15 pounds—a mixture of old and fresh pine nuts nearly filling the hollows.

Thanks to these hardworking "little elves," Chen Zhou quickly gathers enough food.

As for the squirrels that lose their food reserves, to prevent them from dying of hunger, Chen Zhou catches them and hands them over to the Saw-toothed Tigers.

The three tiger cubs, growing increasingly in size, love these exceptionally agile prey. Upon seeing Chen Zhou place squirrels on the ground, they frantically chase them.

Some squirrels, having lost their painstakingly stored food, feel their faith collapse, and even forget they should escape once on all fours, allowing themselves to be caught and eaten by the Saw-toothed Tigers.

Some squirrels maintain a strong survival instinct—immediately after Chen Zhou releases them, they flee with all their might.

Most of these squirrels still struggle to escape the clutches of the Saw-toothed Tigers, but a few nimble and lucky ones manage to climb onto trees quickly.

The Saw-toothed Tigers excel at running but are not good at climbing, so faced with squirrels escaping to trees, they can only look on helplessly.

...

Firewood is used for warmth; carbohydrates are used to satiate hunger. As for wild animals, they are the primary source of fur, fat, and protein.

Large herbivores are rare in the Baihar Mountain Range, making beast hunting Chen Zhou’s most challenging task.

While chopping wood, one may search for squirrels, but one cannot hunt wild animals simultaneously.

Thus, hunting is mostly about luck—finding beasts on the mountain is great, but if not, there’s nothing one can do.

Regarding this task, Chen Zhou intends to wait until Paul’s gene modification is complete so that he can go down the mountain himself to do it.

At that time, besides hunting, Paul can also excavate some rock salt and look for the missing rangers, to see if there’s a chance to salvage that bow and to ask for those two Great Horned Deer.

Now that snowfall isn’t too frequent, he’s calculated carefully. If he can obtain a mount and complete the gene modification injection by the end of October, taking a bit of risk, he might be able to return to the Black Forest with large amounts of coal.

Coal’s heat value is about four times that of wood. To endure the long, cold winter, having several hundred pounds of coal would be like having a strong insurance.

However, Chen Zhou doesn’t hold much hope for reuniting with the rangers.

When they parted ways back then, everyone at least had a common goal—

The beacon.

Now that the beacon is gone, all the challengers have disappeared into the vast Northern Territory. Reuniting would be a matter of luck.

On this 600,000 square kilometer land, such a possibility is almost zero.

...

Good weather lasted for more than ten days.

By mid-October, Paul’s gene modification finally reached its final stage, with the side effects manifesting in him greatly reduced, allowing him to finally leave the shelter and engage in outdoor activities.

By this time, Chen Zhou had already accumulated about 6,000 pounds of firewood.

He rarely picks up fallen branches, nor does he chop trees that have been dead for many years.

Branches on the ground naturally decay and feel light when picked up, wrapped only slightly by bark on the outside but rotting inside, suitable for kindling but won’t burn much longer once ignited.

Dead trees may look sturdy but can be kicked apart easily, especially near the roots, completely hollowed out by bugs and termites, also unsuitable for burning.

He’s particularly fond of those trees that are sickly and in a "half-dead" state, with part already dead and another part still alive.

The dead part hasn’t decayed nor been severely nibbled by pests, with almost no moisture, making it ideal for firewood.

And the living part is also affected by the dying section, having a lower moisture content compared to healthy trees, thus refraining from producing excessive smoke when burning.