Starting from Robinson Crusoe-Chapter 154 - 66: Recovery (Part 2)

...

While mediating the conflict between the two cats, Chen Zhou improved his fishing rod by making a small line reel and attaching it to the lengthened and thickened rod.

This line reel doesn't have bearings and is made of pure wood.

Chen Zhou filled a lot of grease between the wood blocks for lubrication, but the effect wasn't great, and the reel still turned sluggishly.

After some adaptation, it could barely be used.

Anyway, this was just a little gadget to pass the time—he couldn't even recognize the fish, didn't dare eat what he caught, only wanted to enjoy the process of fishing.

At the end of the rainy season, the river water would rise, and the number of fish would increase.

Chen Zhou planned to find a rainless day to return to the small lake to catch the fish that had slapped him, to avenge his previous defeat.

This time, he learned his lesson: he not only added a line reel to the fishing rod but also took a bright red piece of plastic from the edge of the Electronic Wooden Fish to make a float, and bent long needles to create various fishhook models.

Besides these tools, he also made a fish trap out of broken fishing nets, and along with the previously made landing net, all he needed was a small stool and bait for chumming to complete the essential fisherman's toolkit.

It's often said that poor students have more stationery, yet despite adding so many tools, Chen Zhou still couldn't muster the confidence to catch fish.

He was always very self-aware, knowing whether or not he possessed any actual fishing skills.

...

March 5th.

With the sun high in the sky, Chen Zhou pulled off the seal skin covering his head, scratched his head, and slowly got out of bed.

He had a dreamless night, felt no discomfort, and wasn't startled awake by the nocturnal antics of his pet, Tizi. He slept very comfortably.

Touching his forehead, his body temperature was normal; after taking a sip of water, Chen Zhou repeatedly blocked and exhaled through his nostrils.

Both nostrils were clear.

Speaking out loud, his throat didn't hurt either.

"Cured?"

Chen Zhou beamed with joy, quickly donned his clothes and shoes, performed a few simple chest exercises, and did over twenty push-ups before jumping up.

His face wasn't flushed, he wasn't out of breath, and his complexion was normal; his arms felt strong too.

Now he was sure that the cold that had troubled him for over eight days was indeed cured, and he had finally returned to his peak state.

"Ah, all better.

Now that I'm well, it's time to get to work; lounging around isn't a solution."

Muttering to himself, he opened the bedside table, took out a notebook from the drawer, and as he looked at the list of tasks, Chen Zhou's happiness quickly disappeared.

At the top of the list was transporting cement.

After a week of delay, there were still over forty bags of cement left on the beach.

Luckily, there had been little rain during this period; otherwise, even with a thick tarpaulin and a layer of leaves on top, the cement wouldn't have been protected.

Now, Chen Zhou not only had to move the cement into the tent,

but also dismantle the tent's original roof, cover it with waterproof fabric, and reinforce the entire tent to prevent it from being upended by wind and rain, endangering the precious cement inside.

In addition, he needed to build a rack inside the tent to keep the cement off the ground—eliminating the risk of water soaking.

Right after cement moving, the next task was to create a wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow was a prerequisite task for moving camp supplies, paired with the task of road construction, neither of which could be skipped.

Fortunately, this task was simple; even though Chen Zhou was quite relaxed during his recovery, spending most of his days figuring out food and fun, he hadn't wasted all his time and had carved wheels sporadically for a few hours.

Of course, those few hours of progress might not even match two hours of focused work from before.

A trace of tiredness would remind him, "I'm a patient; I'm physically weak and can't overexert myself."

Working like this, high efficiency was impossible.

Mentioning the wheelbarrow brought up Chen Zhou's temporarily shelved task of bending wood into wheels.

The curved wooden strips previously heated with fire and steam had been casually thrown into a corner, almost getting burned as firewood.

On March 3rd, he picked up those test pieces to examine them and found the effect was actually okay.

Some parts of the fire-heated wooden strips showed deformation and cracking.

Sawing through the cracks, one could see the internal wood fibers had suffered minor tears due to heat expansion and contraction.

But this wasn't just from expansion and contraction; it was also influenced by the live knots inside the wood.

Having chopped and split so many trees, Chen Zhou was now somewhat of a wood expert.

Based on his summarized experiences, wood knots could roughly be divided into three types.

The first type was live knots formed by new branches emerging during growth, with a ring of hard wood at the base, offering high structural strength but affecting the internal fibers of the wood.

When heated, the wood fibers softened, but the knots and the hard wood at their base did not soften.

During the bending process, these "stubborn points" hindered the other wood fibers from smoothly deforming and bending, resulting in tearing.

Apart from the very sturdy live knots, there were also dead knots and insect holes causing damage to the wood.

Dead knots mostly resulted from scars left by accidental injuries during growth or were at the base of dead branches after disease; they weren't as solid as live knots but were brittle, acting as a ticking time bomb.

As for insect holes, these were tiny holes caused by bugs, rare in live trees but most damaging to the wood structure's strength.

When selecting practical wood, it was best to choose materials with few or no knots.

Even sturdy live knots remained a ticking time bomb within the wood, potentially causing the entire wood piece to break at the knot.

The fire-heated wooden strips reminded Chen Zhou that one couldn't just cut a piece of wood to use as bending wood; he had to ensure there were no knots or insect holes.

Though softened wood fibers were tough, they were fragile and could easily be damaged, affecting the wheel's overall strength.

Looking back at the steam-treated wooden strips, they were in much better condition than the fire-heated ones.

Perhaps it was the moisture from the steam penetrating inside the wood, softening it gently, suitable for the gradual bending of fibers.

These strips showed no deformation, with little tearing observed.

"It seems like making a steam steaming stove is more feasible, but creating it requires successfully manufacturing clay pipes, which in turn demands charcoal making, a kiln, and clay selection.

The problems circle back to the start, don't they?"

"Forget it, I'll just stick to using my solid wooden wheels..."

The thought of the labor and preliminary techniques required to complete a process made Chen Zhou's head ache.

Just as he was about to close the notebook, he suddenly remembered something important—cave support.

When he set up those six support columns, he never intended them for permanent use; he just hoped they would withstand an earthquake and prevent the kiln cave from collapsing.

At that time, clay materials hadn't been fully tested, so he didn't have suitable materials to build support columns stronger than wood and was afraid of kiln cave collapse, so he resorted to this tactic.

Now, with high-compressive-strength cement in hand, he could easily build four new support columns inside the cave to replace the wooden ones.

Indoor construction wasn't threatened by rain, and piles of various Stones for wall building were still stacked outside in abundance, sufficient for constructing four cement columns.

The only problem was where to find qualified sand.

Sea sand was definitely off-limits, but river sand was available.

However, during the rainy season, the river's water level was high, making sand excavation inconvenient, and after extracting, the sand needed sifting, for which he had no sieve.

"We're about to enter April; the earthquake is on April 18. I have about a month and a half left.

If that doesn't work, I'll have no choice but to first dig river sand and use it unsifted with the cement for building columns.

P.O 52.5 cement—even with some strength loss, it's more than sufficient to support this kiln cave, as it's the type used for large bridges."

Looking up at the cave ceiling, Chen Zhou took out a pen and ink and squeezed in an urgent project after moving the cement—support columns.