Recon

Early in the morning, in the misty light, Luo Jun was awoken by a clap of thunder.

He discovered Li Shi sleeping soundly in his arms. When he was startled awake, he accidentally brushed her soft, delicate lips, which made Luo Jun feel somewhat flustered.

But he was soon drawn by the thunder outside.

He gently moved Li Shi's body away, got up and pushed open the bamboo door. A gust of cold wind blew in his face.

The cold wind carried wisps of fine mist, making the temperature feel even lower.

Luo Jun carefully crawled out of the shelter and checked the bamboo containers storing the bear meat. Those containers were undamaged. He then went to inspect the surrounding fence of sharp wooden stakes.

Many greyish white animal hairs were left on the pointed tops of those stakes.

Apparently some animals had visited during the night, but failed to get past the fence, leaving behind tufts of hair that got pricked by the stakes.

Luo Jun went to the pond and looked up at the hazy sky. It seemed that it would drizzle today, with more showers tonight or tomorrow.

With an air temperature this high, it wouldn't be much cooler even when it rained.

If the weather persisted like this for the next few days, the women wouldn't be able to gather much firewood, meaning they would have to endure the cold at night.

But this wasn't Luo Jun's main concern, because such weather was very unfavorable for working on the bear hide.

He didn't want to waste such a fine hide.

Luo Jun took out the bear hide that had been soaking overnight. He was supposed to soak it in warm water, but without the means to do so, he could only use the most rudimentary method to process it. It would be a blessing if the hide didn't rot. He didn't dare ask for more.

Luo Jun spread out the hide and cleaned out the remaining flesh scraps and fat layer inside.

These things could easily damage hide quality. Whether air drying or baking dry, once the grease started oozing out, it would affect the leather.

After hanging up the hide, Luo Jun positioned the inside layer facing the stove, so it could make use of the stove heat to dry.

With the hide hung up, instead of letting the women sleep in as he did the past few days, Luo Jun directly woke them all up.

"It's going to rain soon. Gather as much firewood as you can. I'm also going to chop some wood. It's going to keep raining for the next few days. If we don't have enough firewood, we'll freeze." Luo Jun said to the women.

Unlike Luo Jun who was farsighted about the coming rain, the women only started feeling anxious after hearing what he said.

Having finally gained some warmth, none of them wanted to freeze.

So after getting up, they were all exceptionally proactive.

Luo Jun led the women across the giant boulders over the pond, heading northwest. The firewood there was still untapped, allowing them to harvest a large stock all at once.

The women had no axes, so they could only follow behind Luo Jun or pick up small, scattered branches.

Luo Jun's goal was very clear. He targeted some stunted trees that lacked water and sunlight. To adapt for survival, these trees had very deep roots and dense, low crowns, but they still often couldn't withstand being squeezed for living space by the tall fir trees, causing their branches to wither quickly.

Although these half-dead and half-living branches were hard to ignite, once lit, their sturdy, undried hearts allowed them to burn for a long time.

Luo Jun chopped down a whole pile with his axe. The women gathered them up neatly, then Luo Jun bundled them with vines to carry back, arranging the branches next to the stove shelter.

In addition, they still needed some dry kindling and tinder to assist ignition.

These were extremely important and included things like bracken and tiny dry twigs.

Of course, always relying on such tinder was tedious. If it rained, these kindling plants and small branches couldn't be used for up to a week. This greatly increased the risk of having firewood that wouldn't burn.

They could gather more this time, but next time they might not be so lucky. So Luo Jun still needed to produce ignition aids from bamboo.

Therefore, after gathering enough firewood to last three hours, Luo Jun went to chop more bamboo, cutting them into sections of about 1.2 meters. He then smashed the bamboo nodes apart with his axe.

Before long, Luo Jun had produced two large bundles of such bamboo.

He threw the bamboo into the pond, weighing it down with rocks. After soaking for a while, the bamboo would become very saturated.

When taken out later to dry in the sun, the water would evaporate from inside the bamboo, leaving it "hollow" in structure to be easily lit on fire.

However, the downside of such ignition aids was the time it took to produce them.

It was already early afternoon by the time Luo Jun and the women finished their morning chores. The misty drizzle had grown heavier since the morning, and temperature had further dropped a couple degrees.

The group boiled some bear meat soup around the stove fire. The soup tasted alright, but lacking compared to the freshly roasted meat from yesterday.

"I'm going scouting this afternoon. There probably won't be enough time for me to come back tonight. When you rest for the night, remember to set up the fence properly, and tie up the bear hide well, otherwise those crafty critters might chew them up or drag them off. Don't wander farther than this shelter without reason." Luo Jun said after glancing at the dusky sky, having decided to head out for a surveillance run.

The women all nodded obediently in response.

They had by now built complete trust in Luo Jun. Without him, they currently might not even have a sleeping space, and probably would have starved or frozen to death already.

Where would they find it as comfortable as now, hiding in a warm and dry shelter from the outside misty rain, roasting by the fire?

"Be careful, Mr. Luo."

Being the closest to Luo Jun, Lorna took the initiative to hug him and lightly kissed his cheek with concern in farewell.

"I will." Luo Jun replied, as Li Shi also came up and embraced him, kissing him to express her care.

With her injured leg, Jenny didn't step forward, only smiled and nodded at Luo Jun.

"Alright, if things go smoothly, we may not have to stay here much longer before returning to California." Luo Jun said, lightly kissing Lorna's and Li Shi's foreheads in turn before departing.

This time, Luo Jun carried a full bamboo canister of bear meat and another containing bamboo liquid.

The bamboo tube holding the liquid had a small opening for drinking, like a water pipe used by Chinese farmers to draw from wells. By opening that tiny gap, Luo Jun could directly drink from it, which was very handy.

In addition to the food and water, Luo Jun brought two pistols and the hidden M16 rifle.

His original SV-98 sniper rifle was hidden away. As that rifle had very limited ammunition and no burst fire function, while also being heavier, it wasn't suitable for fending against multiple targets.

The sniper rifle itself was designed for counter-terrorism, made heavier for the sake of higher precision and lethality to protect hostages. But it couldn't compare to an assault rifle like the M16 in facing many enemies.

So for scouting this time Luo Jun ditched it.

Leveraging his superb sense of direction, Luo Jun trekked through the forest, judging his bearings constantly by the terrain he observed since prior, as he had no visibility of the sun.

This was extremely important. For people lacking jungle experience, or only casual hillside travelers, it's easy to mistakenly think it's impossible to get lost in a forest by following common sense alone.

Like many student hikers for example, underestimating the survival skills needed or overestimating their own, they often fall prone to losing their way in virgin forest.

Even experienced search and rescue personnel face the same perilous consequence.

So Luo Jun repeatedly drilled stern warnings into the women to absolutely not wander too far, or else even walking 300 meters out could prevent finding their way back.

Luo Jun could lead women through the jungle to the creekside even in the dark night. Now these minor difficulties were obviously not going to stump him either. What he was considering at the moment was how to get himself and the three women safely aboard the ship, since if possible he still did not wish to engage in battle with those seasoned mercenaries.

Moreover, once a battle started, he would have to kill them all. That would be a horrific slaughter.