Relieving the Salt Crisis

Oh no, now I also have a psychological shadow about sea salt.

But on second thought, it also makes sense.

Fish like sharks and rays excrete urine through their skin, so their bodies contain a lot of ammonia odor, making them taste fishy.

And uric acid, the ultimate metabolic product of urine, is purine, the stuff that causes gout. Many seafood are high in purine, including shark and ray meat.

So theoretically, eating shark and ray meat is not that different from drinking urine.

Of course, shark fins, because they excrete less ammonia, and are rich in protein, cartilage and sugar, taste vastly different from shark meat, thus becoming a delicacy.

"For hundreds of millions of years, the seawater in the four oceans has been filtered countless times through countless marine organisms, so it's not an exaggeration to call the ocean a huge urinal."

"Stop, let's not talk about this anymore, can we save it?"

"But Lu Zhe, do you want us all to pee in one basin?"

Lu Zhe shook his head: "I'm afraid I can't do that. As the only male in the team, I have to save mine to scare away intruders, so I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you if you want to use my pee to make salt."

Jiang Yao said, "Dear, don't overthink. We're not disappointed at all!"

"This way we can last for a while. If we still haven't found a new camp by then, we'll use some potassium and nitrate salts first. I'll go to the beach again to collect more salt."

Ning Shu looked at the ceramic basin they'd worked hard to make, and sighed, "Turns out what we've been making is a pee basin!"

Tang Xiaoguo was a little worried: "Will this be enough?"

"It'll evaporate quickly if placed in direct sunlight."

"Alright..."

That's as far as they could discuss the salt issue for now. Next they couldn't just sit around.

Lu Zhe was going to make some modifications to the cave entrance.

The entrance was slightly higher than the surrounding area, so it didn't accumulate too much rainwater and was relatively dry.

Perhaps due to geological reasons, there were also fewer tall trees, and sunlight could reach some spots.

But there were a lot of half-meter tall wild grasses near the camp, providing prime habitat for hordes of insects.

Lu Zhe planned to clear the grasses in the near future, expanding the activity space at the cave entrance, checking the soil conditions for planting, and building a woodshed.

The cut wild grasses could be dried and woven into grass mats, useful for sitting and lying on.

The woodshed was also simple. Four bamboo poles as the base, raised 30 cm off the ground, with a roof on top covered in palm leaves.

It could shield from the rain and standing water.

Though the shaded area underneath might attract snakes.

Although snakes could provide protein, Lu Zhe would still feel bad if they suddenly scared the girls and made them cry.

So it was necessary to stuff some snake-repelling grasses underneath.

Jiang Yao stood on Lu Zhe's shoulders to attach the palm leaves, very happy as she said: "This woodshed turned out even better than the shelters we built before."

"It would've been almost impossible to build something like this in the early days of trying to survive, but now that we have handy tools, it has become quite simple."

Just then, Xiaoguo was the first to complete the epic task, lifting her little skirt happily saying: "I didn't notice before, not fishy at all, mine still smells nice, I really have a fairy physique!"

Lu Zhe explained: "Normal urine has a slight aromatic odor because it contains fatty substances and volatile acidic substances. After a while when the ammonia evaporates, it won't have that smell anymore."

Sure enough, after a few minutes, the smell changed.

But fortunately the odor wasn't strong, and wouldn't affect normal life at the camp.

Lunch was rice porridge, palm fruits, smoked pork, and the salt ration for each person was decreasing. They used a little sugarcane sugar for flavoring.

Lu Zhe brought over the dried urine basin, and directly poured the undried stuff into the steel helmet to boil!

This really surprised the girls!

"Should we not use this to cook food anymore?"

"We're gonna eat the salt, what's the big deal about this?"

"It should be fine if washed clean, right?"

"But it just feels weird psychologically!"

"Think about it, we've used the helmets worn by dead people, the basin with our fairy pee isn't a big deal!"

"Looking at it that way, I guess you're right."

After the ammonia odor evaporated, there really wasn't much of a stimulating smell left. Lu Zhe collected some yellow crystals by scraping with bamboo strips, and gathered about 25g of yellow salt grains.

He took a small bamboo cup, added warm water, dissolved the salt grains in the warm water, and finally filtered it through a cloth strip. Gradually, the urine pigment was left behind on the cloth.

The clear water below was then boiled, resulting in about 20g of white crystals that looked no different from table salt externally.

This should be the salt that the human body was supposed to excrete.

Based on this amount, it was estimated that close to 50% of ingested salt was retained.

"Can we really eat this?"

"Wanna try it?"

"No way for me!"

"Me neither, I don't have the courage!"

Lu Zhe sighed, then I'll have to go first.

He stretched out a finger, lightly dabbed a few grains of salt, then put them in his mouth.

It was only slightly more astringent than regular table salt, because it still contained a little glucose without separation, giving it a slightly sweet taste.

If you didn't taste carefully, you wouldn't notice any difference from normal edible salt at all.

"Not bad!"

But the girls were all freaking out.

Finally under Shen Bing's lead, everyone tried a tiny little bit.

"Not as disgusting as I imagined!"

"We're fairies, we're fairies!"

"Should we open a salt factory in the future?"

"Let's forget about that!"

The salt crisis was temporarily alleviated!

The temperature today was significantly higher than the day before, perhaps signaling the arrival of another long drought.

On this day, Lu Zhe and his companions cleared grass from the camp entrance, opening up over 100 square meters of activity space. They also built a woodshed and wove some mats.

They produced about 20g of edible salt as well.

July 12, the 33rd day stranded on the deserted island, sunny!

In the morning's sleep, Lu Zhe dreamed someone was choking him, making breathing extremely difficult, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

Opening his eyes to look, whose feet were resting on his neck?

"Trying to murder your husband..."

"Oh sorry, got dizzy while sleeping..."

Ning Shu also woke up: "Why's it so hot in the cave this early?"

Tang Xiaoguo lazily looked at her watch: "6:10..."

Shen Bing said: "It's too stuffy and hot in the cave, should we not close the door tomorrow?"

Jiang Yao shook her head: "No way, what if monkeys get in? I'd rather be hot."

"Everyone's awake, hurry and wipe off sweat, collect the salt!"

"Alright alright!"

"I need to pee, who wants to go with me..."

"Me me me..."

Though it felt a bit strange to be wiping sweat so early in the morning, it still made the body feel refreshed!

Lu Zhe and Shen Bing jumped out of the cave to check supplies!

"The bamboo dragonfly Xiaoguo made was taken, but the sandbags are still there!"

"Two bananas, one missing!"

"Two pork slices taken, one bear meat still there."

Lu Zhe and Shen Bing smiled at each other. Everything was as they expected - the monkey did have something it feared!