Starting from Robinson Crusoe

Ever since he came down from the mountain, Chen Zhou had been spending almost every night like this.

It was just that tonight was especially cold, which made the night feel even longer, and even harder to get through.

...

The Tiger First and Tiger Second leaning against Chen Zhou’s back were special little alarm bells; when Chen Zhou fell asleep and his heavy body instinctively tilted backward and pressed on them until they got impatient, they would try to quietly slip away.

As soon as they slipped out from behind Chen Zhou, the cold wind would take advantage of the gap and pour in.

The chill and that sudden emptiness would quickly wake Chen Zhou up, reminding him that it was time to add more firewood.

Spending the night like this, by early next morning, after lightly roasting the leftover beef leg and letting man and tigers eat to about a third full, they set off at once toward their destination.

The one thing Chen Zhou could be thankful for was that on the way to the rock wall, he didn’t need to swim or wade across any deep river; with just a slight detour, he could find an extra-wide stretch of river beach where the water was extremely shallow, and some places were even dried up.

...

At dawn, before the sky was fully bright, a thin layer of ice had formed on the surface of the water over the Rock Beach, and in some especially shallow spots, the water had even frozen into solid lumps of ice.

Chen Zhou carefully stepped on the rocks that jutted above the ice to cross the river—

these long-eroded stones were already smooth, and after yesterday’s snowfall they had iced over as well; if he didn’t pay close attention to his center of gravity, it would be very easy to slip and fall.

If he fell on flat ground it would still be manageable, but here, if he toppled straight into the water and crushed through that thin ice, he’d become a soaked chicken, and an iced soaked chicken at that.

The river beach was wide, and during the crossing he also had to keep an eye on the three Saw-toothed Tigers behind him to make sure they hadn’t fallen behind, so it took quite a bit of time.

By the time Chen Zhou had crossed and reached the opposite bank, the sky was already turning pale.

The steep cliff face was not far away now; he could already see the rubble at the foot of the rock wall, and the multicolored Rock Salt on the surface of the cliff.

When he first saw this rock wall, the vegetation had not yet withered, and when the herds had gathered here, the scene had been magnificent.

Now there was no sign of the Large-Horned Deer Herd, nor of predators like the American Lion or Fear Wolf.

The sudden plunge in temperature would eliminate most creatures that couldn’t adapt to the environment here; even among the native fauna, the old, the frail, and the cubs poorly cared for by their mothers would find it hard to survive wave after wave of cold snaps.

Winter was a season of slaughter to begin with, and in this Prehistoric World, at the tail end of the Ice Age, winter’s power was even more pronounced.

His high boots creaked on the packed snow.

The Three-headed Saw-toothed Tiger had finally shed the burden of being used as a pillow; seeing that Chen Zhou seemed to be in a decent mood, Tiger Second couldn’t resist boredom and took the initiative to challenge his big brother.

Soon, the Three-headed Saw-toothed Tiger left Chen Zhou’s side, frolicking happily in the snow, leaping, rolling, and play-fighting with their teeth.

While they tussled, Chen Zhou was observing the environment at the base of the rock wall.

For wild animals, salt was an extremely precious nutrient.

This natural salt field exposed to the elements drew various herbivores all year round, so the wild grass here was clearly shorter than in other places; some patches that had been heavily grazed were already covered by a thin layer of snow, with not even the grass stems visible.

Where there is eating, there is defecating.

In places where large herds of herbivores lingered for long periods, dung was the most common sight.

Large piles of cow dung, heaps of oval-shaped deer pellets, and piles of Mammoth dung that looked like little round tables, over half a meter tall...

Some of it had already been broken down by coprophagous insects, leaving only the lower portions resting on the snow; some had yet to be decomposed, and once frozen solid, they were fixed to the ground, looking from a distance like oddly shaped stones.

Most of these still retained moisture, were hard, and difficult to ignite.

But there were some that had dried out—

for example, that pile on the sunny slope.

After long exposure to wind and sun, the dung on the slope appeared very loose; aside from the inherently firm cow dung, the deer and Mammoth dung had even been blown apart.

Still, Mammoth dung was "deeply rooted"; even if its "head" had been blown off, there would still be a "body" standing solidly on the hillside.

Walking along and taking in the sight of dung spread all over the slopes, Chen Zhou couldn’t help thinking this really was a fine place.

There was a forest not far off in the mountains that could provide timber, at the foot of the mountain there was a large amount of Rock Salt ready to be collected, and with a short walk you could reach the riverside, making it very convenient either to draw water or to fish.

The dung strewn all over the slopes could be directly collected and used as fuel.

Chen Zhou had never burned deer or Mammoth dung, but he had burned cow dung.

Cow dung burned for a long time, no worse than poor-quality lignite; it had only one drawback—if you burned cow dung that wasn’t properly dried, the smoke was intense, worse than burning wet firewood.

Besides the fuel resources, water, and irreplaceable salt, this place also had a potential advantage—

even in winter, herbivores still needed salt; they couldn’t just come once and never return. Especially the herbivores that inhabited the area around the mountain’s base: there was a high chance they would come back to the rock wall to lick salt, which made this a natural food source.

...

"Sigh, it’s a pity that by the time I discovered this place, the Shelter on the mountain was already built, and not long after I arrived there, an airdrop of supplies appeared, so there was no time to build a home here.

Even if I wanted to now, the weather is just too cold.

Unless I could move the supplies from the mountain down here in a short time, there’d be no way to make it in time."

Thinking of this, Chen Zhou couldn’t help missing the mount that Ranger team owed him; if he had a pair of Great Horned Deer, then once the next snowfall came, he could cobble together a simple sled, and move the pine nuts, stored berries, and herbs like sorrel and dandelion from there to here.