After the Storm Comes a Rainbow

Day eight of Desert Island Survival. Light rain.

Thunder had rumbled all night, and the wind had howled all night. The constant crashes from the sky had scared him so badly that he did not dare open his eyes. He could only squeeze them shut and hypnotize himself. It can't see me, it can't see me...

The thunder had kept him from sleeping. He woke several times during the night—some from the noise, some from hunger, some from the cold—then, once he got sleepy again, leaned against the tree trunk and continued sleeping.

He had dreamed again last night. This time, it was not a nightmare, but a sweet dream.

He dreamed that he had a piece of pork belly that could grow endlessly, so much that he could never finish eating it. In the dream, he could eat it however he wanted. Whenever he cut off a corner, the missing piece grew back.

Just as he finished stir-frying the pork belly he had cut off, drool spilling from the corner of his mouth as he prepared to eat, he woke up.

Waking in the middle of the night had made him curse furiously, but after hearing the thunder, he shut up resentfully. He wiped the drool from his mouth and did not dare say anything else.

When he woke this morning, the dark clouds in the sky had thinned considerably. They were no longer as gloomy as before, as though the rain would never end.

"Huh? Something's wrong... the sky?" Wasn't he under a tree? How could he see the sky directly?

Once Yu Hai realized this, he immediately looked behind him and saw the tree trunk he had leaned against while sleeping. He secretly let out a sigh of relief. The trunk was still there. He had not been blown away by the typhoon.

But when he looked up, he froze on the spot. The sight before his eyes stunned him so deeply that he could barely speak. "Holy shit, the tree, the tree, the tree... broke, broke, broke..."

No wonder something had felt strange. The rain beneath the tree was no different from the rain outside it. The giant tree he had relied on, the giant tree that had shielded him from wind and rain, had snapped...

That giant tree, so thick he could not wrap both arms around it, had broken. Two-thirds of its trunk had snapped off and fallen toward the sea, its crown touching the rising seawater.

The giant tree that had sheltered him from the wind and rain had fallen just like that. What exactly had happened last night?

At that moment, he was completely dumbfounded. He stood there blankly, feeling utterly miserable.

If he had slept on the side facing the sea last night, wouldn't he have been completely screwed?

He felt both relieved and afraid. He was relieved because last night's strong winds had blown in from the sea rather than out of the Primeval Forest.

If the wind had blown out from the Primeval Forest, he likely would have hidden on the side facing the sea instead of this side facing the forest.

The outcome was obvious. He would likely have been crushed into a meat patty by the fallen giant tree.

But if the wind had come from the sea, then the direction in which the giant tree had fallen was wrong.

It was a complicated question. Since he had not been there at the time, it was hard to judge. The giant tree had probably swayed back and forth, only to flip over in the end.

"Cough, cough-cough," Yu Hai coughed violently into his hand even as he felt relieved. He had a feeling he had been hit by something.

His throat itched unbearably. It was still raining, and he had no cough medicine. There was nothing he could do about it.

Worst of all, his forehead was burning. Burning hot...

That was enough to conclude that he had a fever.

On this Deserted Island, there was no medicine and no herbal remedies. Or rather, he did not recognize any herbs and did not dare eat them carelessly.

If he randomly ate herbs and made his condition worse, he would only die faster.

Without medicine, a cold and fever that continued worsening could kill a person.

In modern society, there were all kinds of antibiotics, and colds and fevers were merely minor illnesses. But in ancient times or on an uninhabited island, they could truly kill people.

Still, he was not entirely without options. Without medicine, he knew how to bring down a fever. While his mind was still clear, he needed fire and hot water.

As long as he had those two things, he was confident he could endure this cold.

After making his way to the beach through the light rain, he dropped to his knees. He truly dropped to his knees.

Like Grimer, he collapsed limply onto the sand and stared blankly at where his shelter had been. Everything was different now.

That damned heaven was fucking shameless. He was already suffering so badly, yet it still bullied him like this.

The dry wood he had wrapped in rainproof plastic, along with his daily supplies and lighter buried beneath the sand, had actually been pinned beneath the fallen giant tree.

He hated it. He hated the heavens, he hated the tree. Why did they always bully him? He was already miserable enough.

His former shelter and the supplies he had buried had been hit dead center by the entire tree trunk. It was perfectly on target, crushing them solidly beneath it.

"Just destroy everything already. Hurry up. I'm tired..."

"Sigh." After letting out a long sigh, Yu Hai stopped complaining and took out a Poké Ball to release Poliwag.

"Yo, yo, yo." The moment Poliwag emerged, its growl abruptly stopped. Seeing such a massive tree collapsed before it, it too froze in place and could not recover for a long while.

"Stop staring and help me dig my things out." Yu Hai raised a hand and patted Poliwag's little head, urging it on.

Fortunately, he had buried all his important supplies underground. If they had been left on the surface, they might already have been flattened. Then he would not even have a place to cry.

A tree was mainly made up of three parts: its roots, crown, and trunk.

The higher a giant tree rose, the more branches and leaves it had. The part with the most leaves was the crown.

The place where he had buried his supplies was not beneath the crown, so it was still relatively easy to dig them out.

Otherwise, the densely packed branches and leaves would have made the cleanup workload completely different. He probably would not get his lighter back even after a week.

If he had known, he would not have buried the lighter. Carrying it on him would have been better. But he had also been afraid it would get wet and fail to light. Wouldn't he then have to start a fire by rubbing sticks together?

Actually, he knew of other methods of making fire too, but only in theory. He had never tried them himself.

For example, rubbing sticks together or using the principle of a lens to start a fire...

But those methods had far too many restrictions. They required dry tinder and sunlight—the blazing kind.

Neither the environment nor the weather was suitable for making fire now. He still wanted his lighter. Praying that it was completely unharmed was his greatest wish at the moment.

Luckily, the place where he had buried the lighter was on the upper part of the trunk near the crown. He and Poliwag had already worked their way here. There were still many tangled, crisscrossing branches here, which was incredibly annoying.

Still, it was much better than the dense branches and leaves around the crown. There were mostly branches here and very few leaves.

Using the boulder from his former shelter as a reference point, Yu Hai chose the nearest spot and began digging into the sand.

He was responsible for digging out the sand, while Poliwag was responsible for carrying it away. One man and one tadpole worked together.

The sand soaked by rainwater was not easy to dig. It was dense and heavy.

Without suitable tools, he could only use broken branches to dig little by little, excavating however much he could.

It would be great if he had a Pokémon that knew Dig.

"Cough, cough-cough..."

As he dug, he began coughing again. At that moment, the light rain stopped, and he saw a rainbow stretching between the jungle and the sea, building a bridge between them.

A beam of morning light also pierced through the clouds and scattered across the sparkling sea.

The storm had finally ended. That damned heaven had finally done one good thing...