Surviving Alone

The scorching sunlight was like ten thousand sharp arrows raining down from the heavens, blanketing the entire desert.

Walking beneath the sun, Zhen Jin felt like a fish on a heated iron plate. To avoid being roasted alive, he could only try to walk along the shaded sides of the sand dunes. Even so, after walking for a while, he felt his stamina draining drastically.

At the same time, a faint sense of hunger began to make itself known.

Zhen Jin licked his lips. They were parched beyond measure; even swallowing a mouthful of saliva was difficult.

His mouth and tongue were dry and burning.

Silent as iron, Zhen Jin deliberately slowed his pace and walked on at a leisurely pace while calculating the time.

Because he had been unconscious, he had no idea exactly how much time had passed.

"But at the very least, I've gone one night and half a day without eating or drinking anything. Feeling hungry and thirsty is perfectly normal."

Under normal circumstances, anyone who went without food for that long would certainly be hungry and thirsty. What was more, Zhen Jin had endured a terrifying sandstorm. That ordeal had consumed enormous amounts of his strength and energy, while the struggle between life and death had dealt his mind a fierce blow as well.

"The only food I have now is this snake." Zhen Jin glanced at the snake corpse draped over his shoulder and silently considered his circumstances.

The island was vicious and dangerous. Surviving in the wild was an extremely grim prospect.

Back in the rainforest and forest, Zhen Jin had encountered danger several times. Now that he was in the desert, where resources were so barren, the resource-rich rainforest and forest seemed like paradise by comparison.

"Fortunately, whenever I had the time these past days, I asked Cang Xu for advice and learned many ways to survive in the desert."

Since he did not understand the mechanism of the teleportation, Zhen Jin had long considered that he might one day be sent into the desert himself.

For that reason, he had made preparations long ago.

"It would be best if I can find an oasis. Then I can immediately replenish a large amount of water and food."

"Running into a cactus would be good too."

"But it has to be a particular kind of cactus. According to Cang Xu, many cacti can't be eaten and contain toxins. And digging up a cactus costs a great deal of strength and water from the body. Doing it blindly would only mean losing more than I gain."

The Exploration Team had previously been teleported and stranded in the desert. What they had mainly relied on was the food and water they had brought with them.

Zhen Jin had not failed to prepare in this regard.

Every day, he carried a certain amount of food and water with him. Even when he slept in the camp tent at night, he kept food, water, weapons, and other vital survival resources beside him.

For the Exploration Team led by Zhen Jin, teleportation came without a sound and could not be resisted.

Living beings or objects connected to the teleported lifeform would also be teleported along with it.

That was why the entire Exploration Team had previously been sent into the desert together, without leaving behind their clothes, equipment, and so on.

This time, the entire camp Zhen Jin had ordered built had been teleported over.

But no one had expected that, after being teleported into the desert, they would be engulfed and ravaged by a violent sandstorm.

After Zhen Jin was jolted awake, his mind had been entirely on saving people. He had only snatched up a blade and rushed out of the camp tent.

As a result, the food, water, and everything else inside the camp tent had been swept away and buried by the sandstorm.

Zhen Jin had not even had time to put on his original leather armor. Of the weapons made from Blade Spider Edge's spider limbs, only the one in his hand remained.

"Thankfully, even while unconscious, I held tightly to my weapon and never let go. At least I haven't been reduced to being completely unarmed again."

"But I basically have no food or water left. I need to replenish those supplies. Without them, I simply can't survive."

An invisible pressure silently accumulated in the boy's heart.

And before long, that pressure grew heavier and heavier, as though a massive boulder rested upon his heart, becoming ever more burdensome.

Zhen Jin's breathing grew increasingly rapid and shallow.

It was not merely because of the scorching desert air, nor simply because his strength was steadily declining.

"Surviving alone is completely different from before." A deep sigh rose in the boy's heart.

He could not help slowing to a stop. In the shade of a sand dune, he paused, bracing both hands against his knees and giving himself a chance to catch his breath.

How long had it been?

Surviving alone had already made his entire body gradually, uncontrollably tense.

An intense sense of loneliness wrapped tightly around him.

There was no one to rely on, no one to hope for. He could only depend on himself.

It was as if he were the only person left between heaven and earth, as though the entire human race had died out.

He had to face every hardship and danger alone.

"Perhaps I'll die here. Predators will gnaw away my flesh and blood, leaving only white bones to endure the blazing sun by day and the bitter cold by night in this desolate desert, until the wind and sand grind them into fragments, and I vanish completely from this vast, indifferent world."

Such thoughts kept surfacing in Zhen Jin's mind.

No matter how he tried to suppress them, he could not stop them.

Threads of panic spread through his heart and swiftly expanded.

Zhen Jin gritted his teeth and revealed a bitter smile.

Cang Xu had once warned him: according to his research, humans were in truth social animals, needing the company of others from the deepest parts of their bodies.

Once a person lived alone, especially under the immense pressure of wilderness survival, they could easily become tense and panicked. If left uncontrolled, negative emotions could become a lethal killer. Even with ample food and water and surroundings safe enough, one could still lose control of one's emotions, suffer a mental collapse, develop hallucinations, and become a madman.

Now that the boy had experienced it firsthand, recalling Cang Xu's theory gave him a profoundly deep understanding.

"Calm down, calm down. Don't panic."

Zhen Jin forced himself to calm down, but failed.

"God, my Great Emperor, You bear the name of holiness and wisdom. Your believer prays to You here. Please grant humble me Mind Power, so that I may no longer be weak, no longer panic. Let me bravely walk the path You have shown and manifest Your name for You."

He prayed to his god again, but the result did not surprise him in the slightest—there was no response from the god.

He simply dropped his butt onto the sand.

He gazed over the boundless desert, watching the monotonous, dreary yellow stretch away until it finally blurred together with the blue of the sky.

The scorching sunlight made even the air twist madly.

The boy suddenly felt that the entire desert was like a madman who seemed calm on the surface but was in fact already beyond saving. Here, sooner or later, he would melt away—and be driven mad!

"Zhen Jin, Zhen Jin, how did you fall into such a state?"

"How could you fall this low?"

"You are the sole heir of the Bai Zhen Family, Miss Zi Di's fiancé, yet here you are?"

The boy angrily interrogated himself.

The situation was dreadful beyond measure. He could not even protect himself.

But what could he do?

In the face of such self-reproach, he could only remain silent.

After a long while.

The silent boy finally exhaled a breath of Stale Air and muttered to himself, "Indeed, nothing could be worse than this now, could it?"

Then he gave a bitter laugh.

Even he found it strange that he could still laugh in such circumstances.

With that laugh, some of the anger and panic in his heart dissipated, while a new tide of desolation, helplessness, and self-mockery welled up.

Then, miraculously, the boy, his heart filled with tangled emotions, gradually calmed down.

Once he had calmed down, Zhen Jin looked around and immediately realized that he had made a tremendous mistake earlier.

He had focused too much on food and water before. He had picked a direction at random and started walking. In the desert, that was practically seeking his own death!

Perhaps he had been too nervous at the time, his mind flooded by that emotion until he did not think things through, and his body had been forced into action.

"I should have found the correct direction and kept to it."

"Without a direction, my route could very likely wind into a huge circle through the desert. That would be even worse than spinning in place."

It was midday, and there were no stars or moon to guide him as there would be at night.

But Zhen Jin knew another method, one he had once learned from Cang Xu for determining direction.

First, plant a stick in the ground, then mark the tip of the stick's shadow on the ground. About ten minutes later, make another mark at the tip of the shifted shadow.

Once the two marks were connected into a line, the perpendicular bisector of that line would indicate north and south.

As for which end was south and which was north, that depended on the sun's position.

The end of the perpendicular bisector on the side where the sun stood was south; the other end was north.

Zhen Jin did not know the map of this island, but he clearly remembered that when the Exploration Team had previously been teleported into the desert, Cang Xu had chosen due south.

Therefore, without any other basis for judgment, he could only take a gamble this time and choose due south as well.

Setting out once more, Zhen Jin tried his best to avoid the sunlight, walking along the shaded sides of the sand dunes.

His speed dropped again and again as he did everything possible to conserve his strength.

Many times, he stopped of his own accord to rest.

"I have to conserve my strength."

"Trekking through the desert during the day consumes tremendous stamina. More importantly, once my body starts sweating, I'll lose a great deal of water."

"The more sweat I shed, the closer I am to death."

This was all precious knowledge Zhen Jin had gained during his earlier discussions with Cang Xu.

And as Zhen Jin remained calm, loneliness and the pressure of survival spurred him on, making his mind sharper and his thoughts clearer.

He recalled what Huang Zao had said during their previous conversation.

"At that time, I had just boarded the ship and was still a novice. The beginning was extremely hard to endure. I worked on deck all day, and the workload was enormous. Before long, I got sunburned. At first, my skin only itched, making it impossible not to scratch it with my nails. Later, my flesh began to sting, and blisters formed, packed tightly together one after another. I developed a low fever, and my head felt muddled all day. Every day, I could only lie weakly in my hammock. Then the low fever turned into a high fever, and I began to stink. The other sailors did not dare come near me. Some even suggested to the Captain that I be thrown overboard, believing I had caught a plague that would infect the others."

"Luckily, when the ship docked once, my brother obtained some herbal medicine from the local natives on an island. They said this medicine was made from Sea Mud and local leaves. Once applied, it brought wave after wave of coolness. It was incredibly miraculous."

"In the end, I pulled through. From then on, I never dared underestimate the most ordinary sunlight again. And I kept the purest reverence for those ancient medicines!"

Thinking of this, Zhen Jin took off his outermost garment and found a way to wrap it around his head.

He was glad that his underclothes had long sleeves and long pants, leaving very little of his skin exposed to the sun.

"Although my strength and physical condition far surpass Huang Zao's, and this is not the Phoenix Desert, so the chance of sunburn is very low, doing this can still preserve as much water in my body as possible."

P.S. I recommend a great book—"I'm a Killer Without Feelings." Top-tier writing from a master!

I, am seemingly a killer;

I, have no feelings;

And also, no money.

I am Yi Haizhou, who changed his surname and vanished without a trace;

The man proficient in half of the Four Great Inventions;

I don't want to talk to you, and I toss you a BENG...