Andre was right. The temperature inside the fissure cave was indeed lower than outside. It wouldn’t be suitable for living in when it started snowing, but it would be perfect as an ice cellar for storing food.

But during the day, the temperature inside was still very cool. For someone like him who was quite sensitive to heat, staying inside felt as refreshing as being in a room with the air conditioning set to eighteen degrees.

The moment he lay down, the exhaustion accumulated over the past few days washed over him like a tide. In just a few dozen seconds, Lin Chen’s breathing steadied and became even.

When he woke up, the sky had already grown noticeably dim. He roughly estimated he must have slept for at least a little over three hours.

DONG

DONG

The sound of wood being struck came from above.

Lin Chen stretched long and hard, getting up from the wooden floor. He felt as if all his fatigue had vanished without a trace.

His eyelids were still a little heavy, but he forced himself to rally and head outside. ’I have to finish what I promised him. I can’t bring shame to my country.’

As soon as he stepped out of the rock fissure partition, the wide-open space before him made his eyes light up.

The original triangular tent had left almost no room to move around, but it had now been transformed into a proper indoor structure.

The rectangular space was at least three or four times larger than before, and its height had reached about two meters, high enough for a person to walk upright without worrying about hitting their head.

The entrance to the second floor was built above the wooden wall of the first-floor partition. Andre had thoughtfully chopped out numerous footholds in the wooden wall, just big enough for one’s toes. At a height of two meters, you could easily climb up by placing each foot on just one step.

This design not only saved a great deal of work but also allowed it to be perfectly concealed.

If a wild animal did manage to break in, it wouldn’t be able to climb up to the second floor using this staircase, which was tailor-made for humans.

Unless, of course, it could climb trees.

Lin Chen placed one foot on a hold, and his head was already poking up onto the second floor.

Andre was currently working on the waterproof roof. Seeing him pop up from the staircase opening, he smiled and waved. "Hey, Lin! You’re awake. How did you sleep?"

"Not bad," Lin Chen nodded in reply, his gaze sweeping around to take in the general layout of the second floor.

The design of the second floor was very simple. A log had been placed horizontally across the center of each of the three sides to act as a railing, with a row of branches wedged underneath to hold it in place. They hadn’t even used any rope.

This design was convenient for air-drying food, didn’t obstruct one’s view or movement, and also saved a huge amount of work.

Seeing this, he had to admit that when it came to building shelters in the wild, Andre’s skills were far superior to his own.

After inspecting the construction, Lin Chen looked up at Andre for a few moments. He saw that Andre’s wavy, long hair, which had been completely covered by his hat before, was now let down, hanging casually in front of his eyes.

Although it still looked a bit greasy, it mostly looked like strands of hair clumping together after being wet and then air-dried.

Especially when combined with the waves in his hair and his standard Caucasian features, this stringy hairstyle actually enhanced the wild aura about him.

"You look much more handsome after washing your hair."

"Thanks," Andre laughed openly and gave him a thumbs-up. "If it weren’t for you, I probably would have gone my whole life without knowing that the trees I live with every day could actually be used to clean hair."

Although this "shampoo" boiled from spruce and arborvitae leaves couldn’t compare to the real thing, he had to admit that this stuff really did work.

It was just that after nearly three weeks without washing his hair, the accumulated grease was no small matter. He planned to wash it again after returning to his own camp and take a proper bath while he was at it.

Without disturbing Andre’s work, Lin Chen leaped down. The first thing he did was go to the yard to check on the air-drying progress of the King’s Down Duck.

"I got lucky this afternoon. The sun came out for a bit, so I moved the duck over to sun-dry it. That should be okay, right?"

Andre’s anxious voice came from overhead. Lin Chen didn’t answer, instead reaching out to feel the duck’s skin. The texture had changed from slightly tacky at noon to noticeably dry.

The faint, shiny layer of grease that had been visible on the skin’s surface was now gone, completely covered by the coating formed from the wild apple juice.

"It’s fine, the condition is perfect," he shouted up. "To get it dried this well without the right conditions is already pretty good. It’s better than my test run yesterday."

Now that the duck was almost done air-drying, the next steps were stuffing, sealing, and roasting.

But to roast the duck well, the temperature had to be kept stable. It was absolutely impossible to just roast it directly in the open air.

’What’s a fast way to simulate an oven...’

Building a makeshift earthen kiln was clearly unrealistic, so he quieted his mind and began searching through his memories.

Soon, a method for roasting chicken that he remembered seeing once before quietly surfaced in his mind.

A pit oven!

To put it simply, you dig a deep pit, burn charcoal and firewood at the bottom, and then hang the marinated chicken or duck on an iron hook and lower it in, using the earth’s excellent insulation to create an oven-like effect.

He got right to work.

Well-fed and well-rested, he was now full of energy. Combined with the experience he had gained from digging the trench earlier, it didn’t take him long to dig a pit over a meter deep.

After catching his breath for a moment, he continued to deepen and widen the pit until its diameter reached one meter and it was deep enough to come up to his neck. Only then did he finally stop digging.

Before he knew it, the sky had completely darkened. At some point, Andre had also turned on his Hat Lamp and was speeding up the finishing touches on the shelter’s exterior.

Seeing that Andre was nearly finished with the shelter while he hadn’t even started cooking, Lin Chen couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. He hurriedly started a fire on the flat ground, then transferred some of it into the pit to preheat it.

The freshly dug pit was still quite damp. It needed to be "dry-burned" for a while to evaporate all the moisture from the surrounding soil before it could be used. Otherwise, it would not only affect the pit oven’s temperature, but the roasted food would also absorb a distinct earthy smell.

While the pit was heating up, Lin Chen filled a pan halfway with water and tossed all the crabs in to boil.

He took the fully cooked crabs out to cool. The water in the pan had turned a faint white, and some egg-white-like substances were floating on the surface—the coagulated blood that had seeped out from the crabs.

He skimmed off all these white impurities and threw them away, then sliced up a few porcini mushrooms and added them to the pot to simmer slowly.

He grabbed a crab shell and pried it open forcefully, revealing the tempting roe and tomalley inside.

"Crabs?"

Andre walked over silently. Seeing him handling the little critters, his interest was piqued again.

Normally, restaurants would only sell large sea crab varieties like king crabs and snow crabs, which are easy to eat and have a lot of meat.

As for palm-sized crablets like these, no one would bother eating them even if they were free.