Starting from Robinson Crusoe

The withered yellow wild grass still stands firm, densely rising between the piled-up snow.

The sky is filled with many clouds, a hazy gray.

And the wind never ceases, passing through the mountains and forests, crossing the wide plains.

The spotted fur on Tiger First’s body is blown by the wind, fluttering backward.

It stands upright on a rock half-buried underground, gazing into the distance.

Tiger Second and Tiger Third follow closely behind Chen Zhou—

They have lit a campfire on the riverbank.

...

In the early winter, the river has yet to freeze, but it is bone-chillingly cold.

The giant lizards, giant turtles, and birds resembling fearsome predators that once roamed the riverbank have vanished. Chen Zhou found many "unfinished" nests on the frozen solid soil layer of the riverbank.

Those holes, approximately 1 meter in diameter and slanting downward, were dug by turtle species.

They naively thought they could rely on these shelters to survive the cold climate. However, they couldn’t imagine, coming from Australia, Madagascar, or other Pacific islands, that the sharply dropping temperatures were just the beginning.

The soil soon became as hard as stone.

But before that, the giant turtles were either shocked by the cold or died early from predator attacks; both sides of the riverbank, even their shells, were bitten and cracked by beasts with terrifying bite force.

...

Chen Zhou walked around the riverbank, picked a large enough rock, and forcibly dug a hole in the ground.

Although it had snowed a few times, the snowfall was not considerable, and the snow was mostly concentrated in shady spots, especially in the mountain gutters.

The grassland was sunny, and although winter sunlight was insufficient, it was enough to melt the thin snow layer.

Therefore, the wild grass at this time was relatively dry and easier to ignite.

Having been out for almost four days, with just a day’s journey to reach the cliff, Chen Zhou planned to rest well for a night and set out early the next morning.

He added a few more handfuls of grass stalks to the campfire and broke some river willow to place over the fire—

Once the grass stalks were ignited, they would collapse downward, allowing the river willow branches to fall onto the fire.

The grass stalks and river willow, which had been stained by snow, inevitably carried moisture, producing thick smoke when heated.

Tiger Second and Tiger Third had suffered from the smoke before, so upon seeing the campfire start smoking, they immediately jumped away and ran to the other side, upwind.

While waiting for the fire to blaze more vigorously, Chen Zhou walked to the riverbank.

The water temperature had drastically dropped, and the aquatic plants and moss in the river were long dead; the noisy frog calls of late autumn and the dragonflies often flying above the water had fallen silent, and all he could see was desolation.

The shallow water by the bank was exceptionally clear, revealing the bottom at a glance, yet there were no traces of any fish activity.

Looking further away, the deep water area appeared almost black, with the glimmering waves in utter stillness.

The river had not frozen at this time, but the surface water was cold enough, and fish were unlikely to swim upstream, all hibernating in the warmer deep water.

Fishing at this time was the hardest, with no boat to cast nets, and using a fishing rod was even more unrealistic. Affected by the temperature, the fish’s appetite had greatly decreased. Even with food before their mouths, they were too lazy to bite, let alone that fish hooks couldn’t reach the deep water.

The bleak scene wasn’t confined to the river water; the entire grassland was the same.

The Cave Hyenas had all retreated into their dens to use natural barriers to resist the cold wind, maintaining body temperature and reducing energy consumption.

If there were Primitive People in the challenge zone, the period from now to deep winter would be the prime time for their cave warfare with the Primitive People, though it mostly ended with the Cave Hyaenas’ defeat, not without the primitive people’s heavy losses.

However, even without Primitive People, Cave Hyenas didn’t lack competitors—

Local creatures and those brought here by the Space-Time Administration Bureau, including Giant Hyenas, Beavers, Cave Lions, Cave Bears, and others, would all engage in fierce battles with the Cave Hyenas.

For survival and reproduction, these fights were naturally all-out, with victories and defeats.

Chen Zhou had seen many battles between Cave Hyenas and other animals along the way, sometimes for food, sometimes for cave shelters.

The colder it got, the more ferocious the wild animals in the Northern Territory would become, pulling out more courage, shedding more blood, for the survival of their groups, for the continuation of life, for survival, to fill their bellies.

Let alone the Cave Hyenas and the Fear Wolves, which grew in the cold wind of the grassland, even the Three-headed Saw-toothed Tiger raised alongside humans had become increasingly like wild animals.

Maybe it was because they grew larger, their courage grew as well, maybe it was the repeated success in hunting that bolstered their confidence.

Under Tiger First’s lead, Tiger Second and Tiger Third displayed their saw-toothed tiger prowess, frequently chasing down a giant mouse-like creature at the forest edge.

Those giant mice enjoyed gnawing on grass roots, resembling otters in appearance, weighing over 1.5 kilograms, and exceeding 1.1 meters in length, newly discovered by Chen Zhou as a large rodent.

This type of mouse lived on the forest’s outskirts, with front and rear limbs almost identical in form, and rear limbs slightly longer than front limbs, adept at both digging and climbing.

For Saw-toothed Tigers, these agile mice were just the right size, posing little threat while providing a considerable amount of meat, with strong escape capabilities, being clever enough to fully hone their hunting skills.

But since leaving the forest and reaching the grassland’s depths, they hadn’t seen these mice anymore.

In the grassland entering winter, commonly seen were Hairy Rhinoceros, Great Horned Deer, Camel-like creatures, American Buffalo, Rarely-seen Moose, and other large herbivores, and occasionally, herds of Mammoths crossing the forest.