Starting from Robinson Crusoe-Chapter 155 - 67: Straw Raincoat

The most annoying aspect of the island's rainy season is the erratic timing of the rainfall.

Just when the sky is clear, a layer of clouds suddenly drifts in, and rain starts falling. The rain can be heavy or light, comes quickly, and leaves just as fast, catching one off guard.

As a genuine inland person, Chen Zhou had never even seen a large river, with the local reservoir being the "lake" he was most familiar with.

After arriving on the island, he could accept other things, but adapting to this climate was truly difficult.

On the morning of March 5th, after eating, he arrived at the beach to move cement. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The weather was still fine when he reached the beach, with the sun shining. After moving only a few bags of cement, the sun was obscured, and it started to rain.

Luckily, he had a hearty breakfast, so he was full of energy and ran back to the tent with the cement, preventing the cement bags from getting wet.

Actually, whether the cement got wet or not was secondary; Chen Zhou was most concerned about his health.

Each year, the two rainy seasons together add up to nearly four months. During these four months, as long as he worked outside, he was bound to get wet, not only catching a chill but also greatly increasing the probability of catching a cold.

Now he was at the peak of his physical strength, strong and with a strong immune system, so he could basically withstand such minor illnesses.

But this wasn't a trade-off between risk and reward.

He could be victorious countless times, but the virus only needed to win once to take his life.

If in ten or twenty years, he had accumulated enough food and built the cave fully equipped, he could stay indoors during the rainy season and rest until the dry season.

But he couldn't do that now; there was too much to do, especially the load-bearing pillars, which were a matter of life and death.

He could indeed choose to give up building the load-bearing pillars and instead set up a tent in a safe place to hide.

The problem was that if he hid, and something went wrong with those wood load-bearing pillars in the cave, causing a large-scale collapse that buried the cave, all his efforts over the past few days would be wasted.

Clearing and excavating the cave again would take at least another whole dry season, making his previous hard work meaningless, and he might as well build a wooden house from the start.

The current situation was this: he had to build the load-bearing pillars while trying to avoid catching a cold in the rain or find medicines to treat colds.

There was definitely no hope for medicine. Even if the seeds in those bottles and jars were herbs capable of treating colds, by the time they grew and matured, the rainy season would have long passed.

Counting on mysterious rewards was even less reliable. Chen Zhou knew even by thinking, the next reward would definitely not be medicine; if it were, he would wash his hair while standing on his head.

...

Stacking the cement on an elevated wooden box, he had an idea while waiting for the rain to stop—could he make a raincoat?

There were still some small pieces of plastic sheeting left in the cave. If he glued them together into the shape of a raincoat, he wouldn't have to worry about getting wet while working outside.

Moreover, a raincoat would be more convenient than an umbrella, as it wouldn't require him to free up a hand to hold an umbrella handle, thus not affecting his work.

After thinking it over, Chen Zhou felt the idea was feasible and planned to try it out after going home.

After the rain stopped, he managed to move dozens of trips' worth of cement, eventually completing the cement transportation work within a day.

It was already late, and reinforcing the tent would have to wait until tomorrow.

The waterproof frame inside the tent was currently being replaced by the wooden box.

Apart from taking up more space, Chen Zhou felt the wooden box outperformed the wooden frame in every aspect, so he decided to abandon the task of making a waterproof wooden frame and instead use the wooden box to elevate the cement.

This way, he could save a considerable amount of time and materials, especially the precious nails, which once used, were seldom self-producible.

...

Returning to the cave, he lit an oil lamp and built a bonfire to heat his meal.

Recalling his idea from earlier in the day, Chen Zhou retrieved the remaining nylon bags and plastic packaging bags. He used pineapple ink to draw a simple outline of a coat on them, then cut them open, stitched them together simply with needle and thread, and applied a layer of fish swim bladder glue at the seams to complete the creation.

The raincoat as a whole looked unattractive, with part made of transparent plastic bags and another part made of nylon bags.

Since the transparent plastic bags weren't large enough, the raincoat was pieced together from multiple plastic sheets, resulting in numerous stitched seams and yellow-white glue stains where the fish swim bladder glue had dried. It looked like a patched coat worn by a highly respected elder of the Beggar Gang.

Looking at this uniquely styled "raincoat," Chen Zhou vaguely felt it was unreliable.

Taking off his coat to minimize his body's volume for easier wearing, he put on the raincoat.

After moving his limbs slightly, the stitched seams held up, but the solidified fish swim bladder glue cracked extensively, making a continuous snapping sound as if he had a string of small firecrackers around him.

"Damn, I knew this wouldn't work!"

Swearing, Chen Zhou hurriedly took off the raincoat to inspect the seams.

At the shoulders, elbows, and underarms—the areas with the most movement—the fish swim bladder glue had completely split, losing its waterproof function.

The chest and back remained largely intact with no abnormalities.

"It seems areas adhered with fish swim bladder glue can't withstand large movements. If laid still like waterproof cloth, they would be fine, but moving causes them to come apart.

The sleeves might not work, but if I converted this raincoat into a vest, it might have potential."

Touching the neck of the raincoat, Chen Zhou suddenly remembered an old type of widely used raincoat by the ancients—a straw raincoat.

A poem goes, "Wearing a green straw hat and a green raincoat, there's no need to return in the slanting wind and fine rain."