Getting Fish Blood

The two opened the package!

It was a parcel made of a piece of cloth wrapped in their hand-woven fishing net hammock, containing one-fifth of the supplies.

"Wire saw..." Lu Zhe weighed it in his hand: "Not bad!"

"Slingshot!" No pellets, but that's okay, there were rocks everywhere.

"Steak knife!" Very small, but very sharp!

"Two 300ml water bottles," one contained a few iron nails, the other half a bottle of lard.

6 empty mineral water bottles, and a large glass jar.

As for food!

Ten wild lemons, twelve dried chili peppers.

In addition, there were also a few pairs of chopsticks and a bundle of bamboo skewers.

That was all!

Lu Zhe nodded: "Yao Yao, do you still remember what the other four packages contain?"

Jiang Yao thought about it for a moment: "Although I allocated most of the items, I only remember some of the main supplies."

"Tell me about them."

"The backpack is with the class leader, diary hand cream, seeds and other important supplies are in there, as well as that big bear skin, matches, cell phone and so on."

Lu Zhe nodded: "Very good, go on!"

"In Qian Qian's package, there is a 30-style commando dagger, 92-style mess kit, water pistol, some bananas, jerky, and the dozens of coconuts we picked up along the way today, I don't remember clearly what else is left."

"It seems that not only can the class leader and Qian Qian easily start a fire, they also have fresh water, the military knife can chop firewood, and the mess kit can cook food."

"Um!" Jiang Yao nodded, and went on to say: "In Sister Bing's supplies, there is a wheeled suitcase with some strange things inside, as well as a paratrooper knife, stone knife, entrenching tool, harpoon, canteen, fresh water and so on."

"What about Guo Er?"

"In Guo Er's package, there is a steel helmet, some old clothes and broken slippers, as well as a Yi-style fire starter. Oh yes, the bicycle goes with Guo Er's supplies too."

Lu Zhe breathed a long sigh of relief: "It seems that Sister Bing and Guo Er's supplies can also meet daily needs, so we don't need to worry."

Jiang Yao nodded: "Yes, it seems...they are all better equipped than us!"

"But you still have me!"

Jiang Yao nodded: "That's true too, thinking about it this way, I'm the luckiest!"

"See, the bigger picture emerges."

Then, Lu Zhe stood up: "Enough nonsense! We should also explore this little island, gather some firewood, collect some plastic, and then start a fire!"

"I..." When it came to exploring the island, Jiang Yao was a little embarrassed.

Lu Zhe understood, Jiang Yao had torn her leg there and was still hurting when walking now.

Looking at this small island, it didn't seem to be very big: "You just stay here and watch the supplies, I'll explore the island myself."

"Then...be careful..."

"Don't worry, this is a small island, if anything happens on your side just shout loudly and I'll be able to hear you!"

"Got it!" Jiang Yao gave an "OK" gesture.

Lu Zhe searched the island, first walking along the coastline of the small island, picking up trash all around, which were broken bottles, ragged clothes, broken beach toys and so on.

It took 10 minutes.

He didn't pick up too much, just over two catties. Lu Zhe didn't quite believe that these things would produce enough smoke to be visible to the others.

Then without much effort he climbed to the highest point of the mountain top, only to find that the elevation of this small island was only 30 meters above sea level, and just over 2 hectares, in layman terms, not much different from 3 soccer fields.

The area was small and resources were scarce, making survival a little more difficult.

Start a fire first!

It could be done by hand drilling or bow drilling, but there were faster tools on hand now.

The wire saw!

He removed the latch wire of the wire saw.

Looking at it, compared to when it was newly made, a lot of the rust had been ground off, and the sharpness in the middle had decreased somewhat, not knowing how much longer it could be used.

But the ends could still easily cut hands.

He wanted to tear some cloth to pad his hands, but was a little worried there wouldn't be enough cloth to wrap those supplies.

Jiang Yao handed over intuitively: "Here, use this!"

It was her pair of little candy socks.

Lu Zhe took them with a smile: "I feel bad about ruining them, what if they get damaged!"

"No worries, that's still better than you hurting your hands! And it's not like I can't go barefoot."

Saying that, she pulled Lu Zhe's hand over and wrapped her own socks around Lu Zhe's palms.

"There!"

"Not bad!" Lu Zhe nodded.

He found a dry tree branch as thick as his arm, propped it between two rocks, with dry leaves padded underneath, and pinned it down with both feet.

Jiang Yao carried over a rock and sat opposite him, placing her small feet on Lu Zhe's insteps: "Let me help lend some strength!"

Lu Zhe smiled wryly.

How much strength could she lend!

But Jiang Yao meant well, so he shouldn't discourage her enthusiasm, right.

Lu Zhe nodded: "Thanks!"

He wound the latch wire twice around the tree branch, grasped both ends with his hands, and started pulling rapidly.

With his extraordinarily great strength, large amounts of wood shavings were sawed off. At first it was the natural wood color, then turned black, smoke billowed from where the wire saw was pulling, and the wire also changed color slightly!

Just about there!

Lu Zhe quickly poured all the ash onto the dry leaves, gathered them up and blew on them gently.

The wood ash flickered, then with a swoosh, leapt into flames.

Jiang Yao was overjoyed: "Wow, it really worked!"

Lu Zhe nodded a little smugly: "Of course, I'm a master survival expert!"

Lu Zhe placed the flames between rocks. Jiang Yao put small twigs onto the flames, waiting till they caught fire before adding new pieces of wood.

"Should we add the plastic?"

"Yeah, you stand farther away, don't choke on the fumes."

"Okay..." Jiang Yao shuffled away in small steps to five meters away.

Lu Zhe threw the plastic toys into the fire pit. Soon, black smoke with a pungent odor billowed out, however because of the wind, it did not go straight up. Whether by luck or bad luck, it blew directly toward Jiang Yao instead.

Jiang Yao coughed violently from the choking smoke: "This damn smoke... cough cough!"

"Maybe it's biased against big-chested girls!"

Lu Zhe ran over and picked her up, putting her in another direction.

He added more plastic and rubber trash, resulting in a strong odor but not much smoke.

Although the sea breeze was not strong, it had no fixed direction, blowing south one moment and north the next.

Causing the smoke to be blown about without gathering together to form an obvious signal.

Lu Zhe was also quite bothered by the choking smoke. He realized continuing further would only torture themselves and waste supplies without any use, so he had no choice but to give up.

He extinguished the fire with plastic and restarted a proper fire pit.

Lu Zhe sighed: "It looks like trying to send signals during the day is unrealistic."

He looked out towards the opposite shore again, and could vaguely make out two moving figures.

That was where Qian Qian and Ning Shu were.

Lu Zhe felt relieved.

The two of them had not gone into the water after all.

As for Sister Bing and Guo Er, although he still couldn't see anyone, Lu Zhe believed Sister Bing would not allow Guo Er to do anything rash.

"Should we build shelter next?"

"How are you feeling now?"

"Although it still hurts a bit, I can walk now."

"You should rest and recover first. We don't have fresh water among our supplies here, compared to shelter, water is more important. So next I'm going to get some water! Then I'll come back and build a shelter, and finish everything before nightfall. We'll signal the others after dark."

"Alright, but when the man is out working, the woman can't just stand by doing nothing, right? What can I do to help?"

Lu Zhe thought for a moment: "There is something you can do actually, do you know how to fish?"

"How do I put this?" Jiang Yao thought about it, and said very surely: "I was born to be a fishing pro, it's in my genes!"

Lu Zhe nodded: "That's great then! This place is where warm and cold ocean currents converge, it's a natural fishing ground, you can fish here."

"Fish? With what?"

"With this!" Lu Zhe pointed to a pile of rope on the ground. On the raft, he had used these coils of rope to tightly tie the packages to his body, which was how these important items did not get lost.

"Isn't it a bit thick?"

"Just separate out a few strands and connect them, should get about thirty meters of thin rope. This small island is very near the fishing grounds, enough to fish with."

"What about the fish hooks?"

"Use nails!"

Saying so, Lu Zhe poured out an 5 centimeter long nail, sharpened the nail head against a rock and bent it into shape with a rock, making a simple fish hook.

"Get some bait?"

"No need, we can use imitation bait!"

"What's imitation bait?" Jiang Yao was a little confused.

“Aren’t you genetically predisposed to be a fishing expert? How come you don’t understand this?”

“I’ve never gone fishing before.”

Jiang Yao thought for a moment, then said, “But my dad is the three-time champion of the Shanghai Fishing Championship, called the Fishing God of Shanghai. So it’s not wrong for me to say that.”

Lu Zhe was stunned for three seconds. “Indeed, your logic is very rigorous. So your dad wanted a son to inherit his fishing prowess?”

“I wanted to say this is a stretch, but it’s true.”

"Then this glorious yet arduous mission has now been passed on to you. First take apart the fishing line, and I’ll make you a fishing rod and some bait. We'll just have to make do without a fishing reel."

"Got it!"

Materials for the fishing rod were easy to find. Lu Zhe found a slender bamboo stick with good flexibility, trimmed off the ends, and it was good to go.

Then to make the bait!

In the wild, when there's a problem with the bait, many veteran anglers use beer bottle caps.

Because of their colorful and shiny appearance, big fish often mistake them for small fish.

Lu Zhe rummaged through the trash heap and picked out the most beautiful green bottle cap. He stuffed in some pebbles as weights, cut a small strip of red plastic bag to make the tail, and stuffed it in the back. Then he squeezed the bottle cap at the top and bottom, squeezing it into a dumpling shape to clip the fish hook and plastic tail.

A rudimentary fishing lure was now ready.

Whether it would work well or not, Lu Zhe didn't know.

On Jiang Yao's side, she had just about finished taking the fishing line apart. Connecting the ends, it became a 20-30 meter long line.

Lu Zhe tested it and found it quite sturdy, enough to catch a 10 jin (5 kg) fish.

“You can fish here, I’ll go find some fresh water.”

Lu Zhe had thought it would be easy to find fresh water, but it actually took a lot more effort.

After three hours of searching, Lu Zhe had only collected 200 ml of rainwater left on tree leaves.

The makeshift drain under the tree bark only dripped a drop every few minutes — it was no better than distilled water and couldn’t be relied on at all.

It seems getting by here for a period of time won’t be so easy after all!