From Now On, You're the Shelter's Cook!

That newcomer called Mosquito was genuinely skilled at carpentry.

Old White and Fang Chang had spent ages using rebar as rulers, yet still failed to saw out a single proper plank. With just a saw in hand, he quickly turned out a whole pile.

What was more, all the planks had interlocking edges, allowing them to be easily fitted together into square hollow brick molds.

Before long, they had made quite a few brick molds.

"Your lumber treatment is terrible. Look at this... it's practically growing mushrooms." Mosquito wiped away his sweat, leaned the saw to one side, and looked at Fang Chang and Old White. "Is this enough?"

"Enough, enough! Thanks, brother, you really saved us!" Old White beamed as he patted Mosquito on the shoulder.

Mosquito looked embarrassed and gave an awkward laugh.

"You're welcome! Just let me know if you need anything."

Old White chuckled and slapped his shoulder.

"Alright! I'll remember that. I definitely won't hold back next time!"

Mosquito: "..."

With the molds, making mud bricks became much easier.

Old White and Fang Chang mixed the yellow clay they had gathered from the riverbank with a little water, kneaded it into thick mud slurry, and poured it into the molds laid out on the ground in neat square shapes. Then they stuffed charcoal into the gaps in the middle and smeared ash over the surfaces of the mud bricks.

Old White had learned this method from wilderness survival videos.

Once the first layer of bricks had mostly dried, they changed direction and stacked on a second layer, continuing layer by layer until the brick pile rose above their heads.

When everything was finished, Old White carefully lit the charcoal inside the stack, letting the flame start from the center before gradually consuming the entire pile.

"Will this thing work?"

Watching smoke rise from the "mud pile," Fang Chang wiped the sweat from his forehead with a mud-caked arm. He looked like he had just crawled out of a cesspit.

Old White did not look much better. His face was even more covered in charcoal ash, making him seem like he had just crawled out of a coal mine.

"Who the hell knows? We can only wait and see."

It was his first time firing these things too. As a child, he had only watched adults do it. How could he know whether this method actually worked?

They could only wait until tomorrow to find out.

"Come on, let this burn for now."

"Let's go check on the cement kiln. I feel like we're really close to a finished product. This time, let's pump the air harder and try to get a whole bucket done before we log off!"

Meanwhile, with the help of Damn, There Really Are Mosquitoes, Gale and Ye Shi finally completed the Nth-generation improvements to their fish trap.

They replaced its original tubular design with a cage-like structure and swapped out the flimsy wooden slats for sturdy rebar, reinforcing the trap's main structure a second time.

No matter what kind of fish got in, it would never get back out!

The three of them headed to the lake together, intending to give it another try.

They looked like they were having a great time.

As for Chu Guang, he was still racking his brains over smoking meat.

Though he had not made much progress yet...

"Respected Administrator, may I ask what you are... doing?"

Hearing the voice beside him, Chu Guang stood up from the smoking rack, dusted the charcoal ash from his hands, and looked over. Tomato Scrambled Eggs was staring curiously at the smoking rack he had built.

If he remembered correctly, this fellow seemed to be a chef who had graduated from New Oriental Culinary School?

At that thought, Chu Guang's eyes immediately lit up.

"I'm researching how to make smoked meat... You came at just the right time. From now on, you're the cook of Outpost 404!"

As he spoke, Chu Guang gave the player no chance to respond. With a solemn expression, he continued.

"Our situation is extremely dire. Besides building the surface outpost's facilities, we also need to stockpile enough food for the hundred compatriots who will arrive on the surface later, before winter comes."

"I need your help!"

Scrambled Eggs was completely dumbfounded.

Being a cook was one thing...

He was a chef in real life. Before logging in, he had even cooked two dishes before handing the wok over to a colleague. He had not expected to return to his old profession in the game too.

Did this count as switching to a lifestyle player class?

Only after a long while did he open his mouth.

"But... what can I do for you?"

"Good question."

Chu Guang looked at the smoking rack beside him.

"I tried smoking meat, but the results were not ideal. I need you to solve the problem of food preservation... I looked over your file. The organization said you had relevant experience handling food, right?"

Scrambled Eggs froze.

"I know a little, but a game is still a game—what I mean is, I'm not sure whether my experience will work here."

Remembering that this was a game world, Brother Scrambled Eggs hastily changed his wording. However, the NPC did not seem to care. The program was probably designed to automatically ignore real-world elements unrelated to the game.

"That's fine. I need a professional's opinion." Chu Guang looked again at the smoking rack. "Help me figure out exactly what's wrong with the smoking rack I made."

Staring at the wooden frame before him, Scrambled Eggs fell silent.

Rather than asking what was wrong with it...

It would be better to say everything was wrong with it.

"Well... first of all, smoked meat needs to be in an enclosed environment, right? If you roast it like this, burning the outside won't help. And what did you sprinkle on the meat? Spices?"

"A special kind of tobacco leaf."

"Tobacco leaves?!"

"Yes." Seeing Scrambled Eggs' astonished expression, Chu Guang nodded. "This is an inland region, and salt is expensive. The local survivors use these tobacco leaves, which are rich in aromatic compounds and tar, in place of salt. They crush them and rub them onto the food's surface, then use heat to mix the preservatives with the oils on the food's surface, achieving a preservative effect."

You could do that?!

Scrambled Eggs was utterly stunned.

Some aromatic compounds could indeed be used as food preservatives, but it was his first time hearing that this stuff could be eaten.

Maybe it would not kill you as long as you did not consume too much?

But his instincts told him that this smoking process was practically fighting poison with poison...

"Actually, you can smoke meat without salt... It just won't taste as good. I don't understand the method you mentioned, but from a health perspective, food smoked that way probably isn't very suitable either."

Scrambled Eggs phrased it rather tactfully because he had heard that NPCs had favorability ratings, and only high favorability could unlock hidden quests.

If this had been real life, he would have rolled his eyes at once.

"You can smoke meat without salt?!" Chu Guang was stunned.

"Yeah... Microorganisms need water to survive. Smoking meat is essentially about drying out the moisture in it and dehydrating it. Salt improves the effect, makes it last longer, and gives it better flavor. But even without it, it can still be done if you handle it properly."

"Of course, if the meat has a high fat content, dehydration can be more troublesome... It depends on what kind of meat it is."

At that point, Scrambled Eggs paused. Looking somewhat embarrassed, he glanced at the smoking rack and spoke quietly.

"But no matter what kind of meat it is, you didn't seal anything up... So this definitely won't work very well."

If they could preserve food without consuming those strange tobacco leaves, it would undoubtedly be good news for the outpost.

Still, Chu Guang was somewhat puzzled.

Even if the survivors of Bette Street were ignorant, they had managed to survive in this wasteland until now. Surely they could not have gotten even such a basic survival skill wrong?

Where exactly was the problem?

However, Chu Guang did not plan to think about such troublesome matters for the moment.

For one thing, he was not that idle.

For another, if NPCs solved everything, what would the players be for?

"Very good. I'll leave this glorious and arduous task to you!"

He vigorously patted the little newbie on the shoulder.

With great solemnity, Chu Guang handed the meat-smoking work over to Tomato Scrambled Eggs. After reminding him about the relevant safety precautions, he left in high spirits.

Not bad.

Another problem solved.

Now that the food issue was showing some promise, should he try recruiting more players and increasing productivity?

With only these few pairs of hands, they might not even finish building the sanatorium's walls by the end of the month.

Just as Chu Guang was thinking this, an excited cheer suddenly rang out in the distance.

"Awesome!!!"

"Damn it, we finally did it!"

I originally wanted to draw what a mutated leech looked like, but I was afraid you'd misunderstand, so never mind _(:3"∠)_