Lin Chen had just finished answering the audience’s questions about the bananas. He hadn’t walked more than a few hundred meters when he stopped again. He stared uncertainly at a dense patch of plants in a clearing in the forest ahead, taking a few extra looks.

He couldn’t help but be puzzled. The main reason was that this patch of plants was incredibly dense. Their leaves were broad, their stalks were tall and straight, and their tops were covered in flowers that resembled morning glories. These features immediately triggered the information from the botanical encyclopedia in his mind.

To verify his guess, he deliberately walked closer for a look.

As he got closer, a faint, pungent odor drifted through the air, tinged with a hint of bitterness.

The moment he smelled it, he didn’t need to investigate any further. He was already one hundred percent certain of the true identity of the plants before him.

Tobacco!

That’s right, the raw material used to make cigarettes.

Because of its unique properties, tobacco constantly releases this pungent gas—substances people are familiar with, like nicotine and other alkaloids—into the air.

This pungent, bitter gas is a natural insect repellent. It also keeps wild animals away, making it one of nature’s most effective and purely natural defense mechanisms.

With these plants around, he wouldn’t even need to build a fire to burn wood ash. It would be impossible for any mosquitoes or insects to get close.

But at the same time, while it repelled insects, he himself would have to constantly endure the pervasive smell.

If he were a heavy smoker, he’d probably be jumping for joy right now.

But unfortunately, he didn’t smoke. Staying in this smelly environment for too long would probably drive him crazy.

’It’s good to know this is here. I’ll look around some more first. No rush to harvest it.’

A place that could support such a large patch of tobacco proved that the temperature and sunlight in the vicinity were very stable.

Tobacco is a relatively delicate plant. It can’t handle temperatures that are too high or too low, nor can it take too much sun. It usually only thrives in artificially cultivated environments.

For it to grow this well in the wild, the conditions had to be very specific.

[Tobacco??]

[My god, if he picks this, dries it, and shreds it, couldn’t he make his own cigarettes?]

[There it is, there it is! Lin’s insane luck! It was the same situation back in Alaska.]

[Yeah, yeah, I remember that too! Last time he said he didn’t have much wilderness survival experience, but then he ran into a forest full of wild mushrooms and a salmon run. Not only did he barely go hungry, he ate his fill almost every day.]

[Just look at his haul today! A huge bag full of all kinds of shellfish and crabs, a giant coconut crab the size of a king crab, coconuts for water, mangoes and bananas, and now tobacco.]

[Listening to you guys, sometimes I really wonder if he’s cheating or if the production team gave him inside information. How can his luck be this good? He finds supplies wherever he goes.]

[You can’t really say that. I’ve been watching the other contestants’ streams too. A lot of them have found both plantains and bananas, and some have even picked cherries.]

[Yeah, I just came from Andre’s stream. He had a huge haul too. He even has two big pineapples in his bamboo basket.]

[This tropical forest is no joke. It’s just like the production team advertised—fruit everywhere.]

While the viewers in the live stream chat were having a heated discussion, Lin Chen had already skirted around the tobacco patch and was searching in the opposite direction.

The smell near the tobacco was too strong. The concentration of substances like nicotine in the air was high, and many plants couldn’t adapt to such an environment.

After he had walked some distance away, the variety of surrounding vegetation visibly increased, and he soon found several Mulberry Trees of a suitable height.

This stuff grows fast and spreads quickly, so it’s practically everywhere. He wasn’t worried about finding it; he just wanted to find a sufficiently tall plant.

"The Mulberry Tree grows quickly and has strong regenerative abilities. If you strip the bark, it will grow back, so it doesn’t cause any real harm."

He bundled the stripped bark, tying a simple knot at the ends to make it easy to untie and use for binding things later.

On the way back, he picked about twenty tobacco leaves. He also cut down a Bamboo Tree, taking the entire bunch of bananas, the banana leaves, and the banana core with him.

While passing through the Mangrove Forest, he seemed to notice many claw marks under the shallow water of the tidal flat at the base of the tree roots. They looked like they were left by some kind of crustacean, but he couldn’t tell if it was crabs, Lobster, or something else.

’I can come back and look around during low tide. It would be great to find some Lobster. Octopus or squid would be good too. Those are all creatures that often appear at low tide.’

He also made a point of checking on the group of American Crocodiles. They were still lying lazily in the same spot, showing no intention of moving. He figured they would only start to become active in the evening or when the sun grew weaker.

After passing through the Mangrove Forest, he didn’t head back the way he came. Instead, he took a detour up the hillside, wanting to see if a different route might yield any new discoveries.

Unexpectedly, this detour led him to find something truly surprising.

On a flat, grassy slope, there was a patch of low shrubs. Amidst these shrubs, a cluster of small, pale white and purple flowers caught his eye.

When he got closer, he saw it was a plant commonly used in both Western and Chinese cuisine.

Basil leaves, also known as Nine-Layered Tower.

This stuff is a key ingredient in Western cuisine for making Italian pesto, providing its unique flavor, and it’s also frequently used in tomato meat sauces.