How girls marked their territory

Lu Zhe took it, and information from the system immediately sounded in his mind: "Ding! Important tool material discovered: abaca! Potential Points +1!"

Below that was a heap of encyclopedic information about abaca!

But Lu Zhe clearly saw the words written in it: "Not edible!"

"Hey, have you eaten any?"

"No, we were waiting to share them with you!"

"See how thoughtful we are!"

"Yeah, Xiao Zhe, look how lucky you are!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "Good thing you haven't eaten any!"

"What do you mean?!"

Lu Zhe weighed the thing in his hand. "You really have found an important resource, but this is abaca, not a banana. You can't eat it!"

Tang Xiaoguo blinked. "Abaca, banana? Is there a difference?"

Somewhat unconvinced, Ning Shu peeled one open to look!

White flesh was revealed inside!

"It's no different from a banana!"

As she spoke, she broke off a piece. Suddenly, a mass of black "little bugs" spilled out together!

Ning Shu screamed in fright and immediately threw away the "banana" in her hand!

"Ahh! Bugs! That's disgusting!"

The other three girls also threw away their "bananas" and huddled together!

"Don't make such a fuss, okay?" Lu Zhe, however, was exceptionally calm. He picked up half a "banana" and explained, "The black things aren't bugs. They're its seeds. Both its flesh and its seeds are toxic, so you can't eat them!"

Hearing this, the girls craned their necks to look and found that the little black dots couldn't move!

Lin Qianqian was surprised. "They really are seeds?"

Jiang Yao sighed. "It's a kind of banana too, so why is it inedible and so disgusting-looking?"

Tang Xiaoguo said, "Because it's not a respectable banana!"

Lu Zhe collected some abaca seeds and put them in an empty bottle.

Lin Qianqian said, "Lu Zhe, you said just now that this abaca was an important resource too, right?"

"That's right!" Lu Zhe nodded.

"If we can't eat it, what can it do?"

"This is called abaca, also known as Manila hemp. Its fruit looks like bananas, but it's actually one of Southeast Asia's most important cash crops. Its stems and leaves contain lots of plant fiber, which can be used to make things like ropes and fishing nets! Rope made from it is much more useful than ordinary bark rope."

Ning Shu nodded. "So desu ne!"

Tang Xiaoguo looked baffled. "We need food and fresh water. What do we want rope for?"

Lu Zhe explained, "Guo'er, rope is an indispensable survival resource. It's even as important as flint, machetes, cookware, and tarps! You need it to make safety ropes, shelters, bamboo rafts, and hammocks!"

"Really?!"

"Come on, let's take a look at the abaca first!"

"Qianqian, look after them. I'll take Lu Zhe!" Ning Shu said.

Lu Zhe followed Ning Shu into the woods from another direction. Sure enough, they hadn't gone far before they spotted an abaca plant!

It stood about two meters tall, with a thigh-thick stem and long, narrow, thick leaves. Clusters of things resembling "bananas" grew on it.

By a rough estimate, this one abaca plant could yield at least several dozen meters of fiber cord.

And there was certainly more than just this one abaca plant in the woods.

Ning Shu was about to move forward when Lu Zhe grabbed her!

"What's... mmph!"

Just as she started speaking, Lu Zhe covered her mouth and pointed ahead!

Ning Shu looked closely and saw a large rat poking its head out not far away!

If Lu Zhe hadn't been covering her mouth, she definitely would have screamed!

"Don't shout..." Lu Zhe whispered into Ning Shu's ear, then quietly picked up a rock.

He planned to wait for the rat to come closer, then smash it with the rock!

However, after taking a few steps forward, the rat discovered two puddles on the ground!

It sniffed them, then actually darted into the grass in a panic and disappeared.

Lu Zhe tossed the rock aside. Having failed to hit the rat, he couldn't help feeling a little disappointed!

Ning Shu frowned. "Do rats have a cleanliness obsession too?"

"That's where you and Qianqian peed?!"

Ning Shu replied irritably, "Yeah!"

Lu Zhe thought for a moment and reached a conclusion. "Many mammals judge another animal's size from the smell and volume of its urine, then decide they've invaded someone else's territory! Clearly, it thought it had wandered into the territory you two marked out!"

"Marked out... territory..."

Ning Shu immediately pictured dogs relieving themselves at the base of a tree and trembled with anger.

"That's savage, Lu Zhe! We girls were just having a pee. How is that marking territory?"

"Don't be angry, class monitor! But seriously, what I said wasn't wrong! In certain situations, the smell of human urine really can drive some animals away, though only sensitive rodents smaller than us. Relatively speaking, boys' urine is even more effective at driving them away than girls'! But if we collected all five of ours and poured it at the base of a tree, it would be enough to scare off some medium-sized carnivores..."

Ning Shu said helplessly, "I really don't understand where you learned all this weird stuff!"

"Read more books, read more newspapers, eat fewer snacks, and get more sleep!"

"I read books too. Why haven't I learned so much perverted stuff?"

"While someone else was making a fire, you were leading a bunch of girls in researching how to help boys quit bad habits! Speaking of which, isn't your knowledge even weirder, class monitor?"

At those words, Ning Shu immediately lost her temper's momentum and muttered, "Y-you, you... what you were doing then was obviously really suspicious!"

"All right, we didn't catch the rat. Let's look at the abaca instead!"

Lu Zhe walked over, snapped off a leaf, and pulled from its base. A long strand of fiber came free!

"Remove the leaf pulp, soak it, dry it in the sun, then twist several strands together, and you can use it as rope! The fibers stripped from the leaves can make thin cord! If you want something stronger, you can extract fibers from the stem, but that takes more time and effort!"

As he spoke, Lu Zhe began pulling strips of tissue from the abaca, one after another!

"It really works!"

Ning Shu also helped clean off the remaining leaf pulp!

Before long, the two of them had pulled ten thin abaca cords from the plant's leaves!

Seeing that they had made quite a few, Ning Shu said, "That should be about enough, right?"

"We need at least sixty or so!"

"What do we need so many for?"

"To build a shelter!"

"We're finally starting on the shelter?"

Ning Shu said with a little delighted surprise, "I can't wait to have that dorm-room feeling. Hurry up!"

Half an hour later, the two had stripped out more than sixty thin abaca cords, each over two meters long!

Then they twisted them together in groups of three, making six or seven thicker cords to keep for lashing things together!

Only then did they return!

Next, Lu Zhe went to haul back the seven small tree trunks he had cut earlier!

Ning Shu found a relatively sheltered spot. "Everyone, we're building our shelter here today!"

Tang Xiaoguo said happily, "A shelter! We won't have to live in a sand pit anymore! Yay!"

Jiang Yao said with feeling, "Without Lu Zhe, I really can't imagine surviving in a place like this!"

Lin Qianqian nodded. "Me neither!"

"Enough talk. Let's get to work so we can survive better!"