Discovering a New Cash Crop

Jiang Yao pressed her palms together and said devoutly, "Heaven bless us. May the rescue team find our message in a bottle!"

Tang Xiaoguo asked, "Will that really work?"

Jiang Yao said, "Trying is better than doing nothing!"

Tang Xiaoguo also pressed her palms together devoutly and joined in the prayers.

Lu Zhe had no interest in chatting with them and asked Lin Qianqian:

"By the way, Qianqian, how much water did you distill just now?"

Lin Qianqian shook the bottle. "About 300 milliliters already. A thick crust of salt has formed inside the can, and it's a bit hard to scrape off. Otherwise, I could boil some more!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "Not bad. Later, we'll use the knife to make a few more natural stills. We should be able to distill another 100-200 milliliters of fresh water a day! Then we can make soup tonight."

Lin Qianqian said happily, "I can't wait!"

After praying to Guanyin, Tang Xiaoguo clutched her stomach again and pouted. "I'm hungry again. What are we eating now?"

Ning Shu sighed. "We've eaten what little food we had. How about everyone drinks some more coconut water?"

"But I'm mainly hungry, not really thirsty!"

Lu Zhe thought for a moment. "Let's have some coconut meat and spicy strips to tide us over. I'll go search the woods for more food in a bit!"

"Coconut meat? How do we open them?"

Lu Zhe picked up the stone axe and smiled. "Don't forget, we've got tools now!"

With that, he swung the axe down!

A large notch instantly split open in a coconut whose water had already been drunk!

Lu Zhe reached out and pried at it. With a crack, he actually tore the coconut open by sheer force.

The gleaming white coconut meat was exposed. It looked sweet and delicious!

"That axe really is useful!"

"You really wouldn't guess Lu Zhe was so strong!"

"Everyone gets a share!"

Each of the girls tore off a piece and started eating.

Sweet, crisp, and juicy-eating fruit like this on a desert island was simply bliss!

Lu Zhe said, "Coconut meat isn't just good raw. When cooked, it's easier for the body to absorb, and it won't cause diarrhea!"

As he spoke, he split open another coconut, used a rock as a chopping board, and cut the coconut meat into thin strips with the small round knife before setting them on a stone beside the fire!

Before long, they had roasted dry and hardened into dried coconut strips!

Dipped in a little chili oil from the spicy-strip packet and chewed, they were crisp and crunchy, with something of the texture of fries!

Lu Zhe opened a few more coconuts. After drinking the coconut water and eating the meat, everyone had some food in their stomachs, and their hunger eased considerably!

By his reckoning, it had been a full twenty-four hours since they woke up!

Lu Zhe saw that the sunlight on the beach was too fierce, making it unsuitable for searching the shore!

So he prepared to search near camp and wait until later to throw out the message bottles!

He walked a circuit around camp and discovered a small pile of black pellets beneath some bushes!

He picked one up and crushed it between his fingers, releasing a faint, rank stench.

A notification sounded in his mind: "Ding! Congratulations, host, on discovering healthy rat droppings!"

Damn, this stuff was actually rat shit?

Well, it would be strange if an island like this didn't have rats!

Lu Zhe also knew that although rats were synonymous with viruses and disease in cities, not all rats were like that!

Few rats on islands carried diseases. In the wilderness, they were even a delicacy on a survivor's menu!

They could provide calories and particular amino acids that aided digestion!

To gain Potential Points, and to add some variety to their meals, he needed to catch some rats to eat!

But he had only come across rat droppings and hadn't seen so much as a rat's shadow. How was he supposed to catch them?

Find a burrow entrance and smoke them out?

Without knowing how many escape holes they had, doing that would only beat the grass and startle the snake!

Wait, a snake?

Thinking of that snake reminded him of the snake entrails stored in the bottle!

Suddenly, an idea struck him!

He remembered a saying from the older generation: snakes eat rats for half the year, and rats eat snakes for the other half!

In other words, snakes hunted rats in summer, but once snakes hibernated in winter, any rat that discovered them would treat them like canned food!

The two sustained and countered one another. Both liked eating the other, and each was a delicacy on the other's menu.

Using these snake entrails as bait would definitely attract rats to eat them. Then he could set traps to catch them. Perfect!

But how should he make the traps?

Lu Zhe opened the Survival Manual and found a method for making a spring-sapling trap!

First, he needed a very thin, flexible length of cord. Ning Shu had a small bundle of rubber bands in her pencil case. He took three, which could substitute for a long cord when used with a branch!

He made a slipknot and tied it to the end of the branch.

Then he found a flexible branch and stuck it into the ground, using another short piece of branch braced against a rock as the trigger!

Next, he could pour the snake entrails onto the ground as bait!

As long as a hungry rodent looking for food passed through here and touched the branch or trigger, the branch would immediately spring up, and the rubber loop would cinch tightly around the rat's foot or tail!

After finishing the trap, Lu Zhe tested it twice. Once he confirmed it worked, he found another spot to make a trap!

Lu Zhe spent more than half an hour making three rat traps!

He gained another Potential Point.

He couldn't just sit around waiting for rats to take the bait. Lu Zhe decided to do something else!

Tang Xiaoguo had nearly gotten sick from the cold while sleeping on the sand last night. It was time to build a proper shelter!

He took the stone axe into the woods, looking for small trees suitable for building a shelter!

Weeds grew rampant in the woods, and unknown insects crawled among the bushes, filling him with disgust!

Lu Zhe carefully drove them away!

There were many kinds of plants here, but finding suitable wood wasn't easy!

Fortunately, now that he had a stone axe, chopping down suitable trees would be much easier once he found them!

He spent two hours cutting seven wrist-thick lengths of wood, each about three meters long!

Then he headed back toward camp!

Just then, he heard a whistle coming from camp!

"Something's happened!"

He quickly put down the wood and ran toward camp, only to see all the girls excitedly beckoning him over!

"Lu Zhe, come look!"

His first thought was that the rescue team had arrived?

He ran over and looked out toward the sea, but there was nothing there!

Turning around, he saw Ning Shu and Lin Qianqian each holding a bunch of green "bananas," their excitement written all over their faces!

Had they found bananas?

Bananas were a high-calorie fruit, rich in carbohydrates and vitamins!

Under certain circumstances, they could even serve as a staple food!

That really was something worth getting excited about!

Lu Zhe walked over:

"Where did you find those?"

"Over by the woods just now!"

Lu Zhe paused. "What were you two doing sneaking into the woods?"

Ning Shu punched him lightly. "Boys, honestly! Always making dirty jokes. I went with Qianqian to use the toilet!"

"Dirty jokes? Was I? Anyway, how did it go? Find any seeds?"

"Is seeds all you ever think about? Couldn't she just have gone for a pee? Don't we have something more important here?"

"Bananas?"

"These are ma bananas, just a smaller kind of banana!" Ning Shu explained as though she knew all about them, then broke one off and handed it to Lu Zhe. "Try it!"