Starting from Robinson Crusoe-Chapter 75 - 27: Divine Artifact on the Lonely Island!
In the middle of the night on the twenty-seventh day, it started to rain in the forest again.
The tent’s front entrance had been removed, and raindrops blown by the wind landed on Chen Zhou’s bare shoulder, interrupting his snores.
Waking up groggily, he found the tent dimly lit. He reached out to tug at the blanket and felt something furry nestled beside him. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the little gray cat.
Cats, being animals that like warmth and dislike the cold, sometimes crawl into stoves for heat during the low temperatures of the northern winter, even if their fur gets singed by lingering embers, they don’t learn and will seek warm places again.
Though the island wasn’t cold, the little cat always sought a warmer place to sleep on rainy days.
Wrapping his fingers around the thin front of the little gray cat, he picked it up. Seeing it offered no resistance and slept as if in a stupor, Chen Zhou decided not to wake it forcibly but instead placed it by the pillow to let it continue its slumber.
He picked up a bottle from the bedside, took a sip of cool boiled water to moisten his throat, and recalled the dream he had just had.
In the dream, he heard rustling sounds coming from the camp.
Upon stepping out of the tent, he saw rabbits and rats larger than rabbits everywhere, gnawing apart all the wooden crates he had saved, eating up all the food, and creating havoc with the barley and rice seeds.
Before he could grab his gun to teach these vile creatures a lesson, he woke up from the dream.
The rain pattered softly, and Chen Zhou, still naked, initially intended to sleep a bit longer. Yet the more he thought about the dream, the more uneasy he felt, so he forced himself to get up, dressed, and circled the camp.
It turned out to be a false alarm; the boxes and sacks remained intact, only a bit of additional water collected in the containers used for catching rain, which he casually discarded.
Relieved, he went back to sleep, and when he awoke, daylight had broken, though the rain persisted.
The rain was typical of a drizzle akin to ox hair, so fine it’s barely visible, drifting elsewhere with a breeze, not obscuring vision, but making the forest particularly damp.
This meager rain did not impede work but added a chill to the forest.
After putting on a jacket, he didn’t feel as stuffy as on a sunny day, finding it quite comfortable.
He left the matchlock gun inside the tent—under such weather, it was akin to a burning stick, incapable of firing.
Chen Zhou took up the crossbow, a carpenter’s sharp axe, and a handsaw, deciding to continue the unfinished work from yesterday, climbing the mountain to fell the iron tree.
He called for Lai Fu, fed it a round flatbread, and tucked two pieces of white bread into his coat, munching as he walked.
Through the drizzle-soaked forest.
Not long after finishing the bread, Chen Zhou arrived at the cliff and then, following familiar paths, reached the ironwood grove.
The sheep did not appear on the platform midway up the mountain, perhaps seeking shelter from the rain or possibly frightened by yesterday’s gunfire, relocating to a different foraging spot.
Finding the half-felled iron tree, Chen Zhou swung his axe.
The carpenter’s large axe was no inferior product; although the ironwood was tough, it was still wood, after all, unable to truly go head-to-head with metal.
Soon, with the creaking and groaning, the sharp axe ended the iron tree’s centuries-old life, causing it to crash onto the damp ground.
Pruning away the excess branches and cutting off the thinner treehead, the entire tree remained over ten meters long.
The wood was dense, and being a living tree, the trunk retained moisture, its weight far exceeding Chen Zhou’s expectations.
His initial plan to drag the iron tree back to camp proved futile upon trying to tug it—it didn’t budge in the slightest.
The attempt felt akin to trying to shake a rebar-reinforced concrete utility pole with all his might, to no avail.
With no other option, Chen Zhou had to cut the trunk into shorter sections, then consider its transport later.
Measuring the full length of the trunk, he planned to divide it into ten sections, each about a meter long.
Leaving marks on the bark with the handsaw, Chen Zhou hefted the axe and began his work.
Having rested for a few days, resuming such mechanical yet enduring labor didn’t bother him; he felt more adept and enthusiastic than before.
He chopped continuously from morning till afternoon, undeterred by the persistent rain.
Those two pieces of bread in his stomach had long been digested, and he was drenched in foul-smelling sweat, standing in the forest could smell the sourness of his sweat.
With an empty stomach and weakened limbs, Chen Zhou sat on the tree trunk, loosened the string of the wide-brimmed hat that suffocated him, took a short break.
After hours of chopping and sawing, he had dulled even the carpenter’s axe, finally completing five pieces of ironwood.
According to his original plan, he should now transport them back to the camp.
In contemplation during his rest, Chen Zhou had another thought.
Given that the shelter was to be built and excavated halfway up the mountain, why not craft and carve the materials into pickaxes and shovels nearby, making construction convenient.
Otherwise, the timber was truly too heavy; dragging it back to camp would be time-consuming, and with an empty stomach, he lacked confidence in his work.
Coincidentally, the cave to the west was not far from the ironwood grove.
Gathering some strength, Chen Zhou hoisted a section of the trunk, heading directly toward the cave.
This rigmarole took five trips.
Returning to the grove, observing the darkened trunk from the rain, Chen Zhou found he lacked the energy for further felling and hauling.
Judging by the dimming sky, it was about time to call it a day. Thus, he beckoned Lai Fu, who was playing on the slopes, to head home.
Dinner was roasted wings,
The campfire crackled, sizzling as the grease in the bird skin dripped, permeating the air with a tantalizing aroma. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
Lai Fu drooled hungrily, sitting nearby, gazing expectantly at Chen Zhou. Grinning cheekily, its pink tongue hanging low, its tail wagging vigorously with the hope that the two wings skewered on sticks over the fire might include a share for it.
