Chapter 88: Chapter 88: Interior Renovation, the Great Northern Kang

A comparison confirmed that the fallen feather was indeed the white fletching from an arrow’s tail.

He stood up, closed his eyes, and recalled the route he had taken, crossing the river twice after leaving the shelter.

He picked up a branch and quickly sketched a simple map on the dirt. The branch moved from the shelter to the spot where he had run into Andre after crossing the river, then to the potato field, the "brown bear buffet," and finally to his current location.

Using these points as a reference, he sketched the course of the Yukon River and the island within it, quickly confirming his current whereabouts.

Recalling the sound of the wolf pack howling that night, a thoughtful gleam flickered in his eyes.

’So that’s it. The wolf pack’s territory is in this direction.’

’That means there probably isn’t a brown bear den between the shelter and the wolf pack. Otherwise, they wouldn’t dare be so bold and active in the area.’

This meant the brown bears’ territory was likely on the other side of the river—near Andre’s place!

It had been a full twenty-four days since the competition began, and only now had he finally managed to get a rough idea of the surrounding terrain and the distribution of local wildlife.

With this information, his anxiety about the unknown began to fade, but he couldn’t let his guard down completely until he’d confirmed everything with his own eyes.

To test his theory, he decided not to track the wolf pack for now. Instead, he would follow the direction he’d inferred and see if it led him back toward the shelter.

When moving through a forest, it’s not enough to know the direction of your destination; you also have to learn to constantly correct your course.

Especially in an unfamiliar area, with no knowledge of the surroundings, it’s very easy to wander off course.

There are many simple ways to find your direction. The easiest are the stick method and simple observation.

The stick method requires four sticks and some time to determine the cardinal directions using shadows.

The observation method is even simpler and more direct: you just look at the sun’s position.

Both methods have their pros and cons. The former is accurate but time-consuming; the latter is fast but not always precise, only giving you a rough bearing.

Since he already had a rough map in his head, he only needed to rely on observation.

"It’s a little past noon right now. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so the direction it’s heading toward the horizon is west. That means the opposite direction is east."

"Then, using the rule of ’north up, south down, west left, east right,’ I can figure out all the directions instantly."

As he walked through the forest, he muttered to himself in a voice only he could hear, but in reality, he was speaking for the camera.

With every step, his soaked, ice-cold boots felt like he was wading through water. He had to return to the shelter as quickly as possible to dry his feet and boots. Otherwise, if the skin on his feet broke, it would hamper all his activities for the next one or two weeks.

Fortunately, his judgment was correct. After passing through a dense birch forest, the familiar cliff face peeked out from between the trees in the distance.

On his way back along this route, he discovered many more signs of wolves in the vicinity.

’My hunch was right. They retreated this way last time, which means I can track them by going this way next time.’

This outing was a huge success. Not only had he restocked his carbohydrate supply, but he’d also determined the territories of the brown bears and the wolf pack. He even had a much better understanding of the wildlife across the river. It was an action of great strategic importance!

Back in the shelter, he first stoked the indoor fire. He took off his boots, placing them by the hearth to slowly dry. After cooking a simple meal of lamb, potato, and mushroom soup to fill his belly, he lay down on his back on the wooden floor.

He let out a long sigh, as if expelling most of the accumulated fatigue from his body.

But as he lay there, he faintly felt a hint of chill coming from beneath him.

This section of the floor was just split logs, covered with a layer of dry moss and fir needles for padding, with his sleeping bag on top of it all.

’He hadn’t felt this cold in the last twenty-four days. It was afternoon now, the warmest part of the day, yet he could feel a chill?’

He turned his head and stuck his hand into the bedding. Sure enough, it was colder the deeper he reached.

He shot up with a kip-up, staring at his simple bed as he sank into thought.

He’d been so focused on stocking up on food for the winter these past few days that he’d neglected to make improvements to the shelter’s interior.

Although Andre had chinked the gaps between the logs on the first floor with mud, mud is windproof but not waterproof. Every night when the moisture froze, the shelter turned into a natural refrigerator.

And fir needles, moss, and weeds are natural insulation. If he didn’t want to sleep in an icebox this winter, he had to add another layer.

It wasn’t just the outer walls; his bed needed an upgrade too.

The ground is a good insulator, but once the heavy snows arrived and sealed the mountains, the ground temperature would stay below zero for long stretches. Lying there would be no different from sleeping on a block of ice.

A kang!

Almost instantly, a term familiar to the Da Xia People appeared in his mind.

The principle of a kang is simple: the sleeping platform is raised, and its base is made of brick-lined flues connected to the kitchen stove.

When cooking or boiling water, the hot smoke and gases pass through these flues, heating the entire structure. Lying on the kang is as warm as sleeping on an electric blanket.

Moreover, because the flues form a nearly sealed structure, the heat retention is excellent. A kang heated before bed could stay warm until the early hours of the morning.

But he had no bricks on hand. The Complete Collection of Outdoor Tools only contained simple tools, not professional structures like a brick kiln. Besides, he didn’t know the right materials, ratios, or firing times needed to make bricks.

’If I can’t use bricks, why not just use stones?’

’No, that’s not right. Even though I’m near rocky cliffs, there isn’t much rubble lying around, and what I can find are just small, fist-sized stones.’

’Then what can I use?’

He closed his eyes and searched his mind for information about making various tools. Most of it involved methods for making simple tools from bamboo and wood.

There was no bamboo here, which meant he was back to square one.

’With only basic materials like wood, branches, leaves, and moss, how could I build a kang?’

’The flue... the flue...’

His gaze fell on the logs beneath him. ’If I saw the logs into shorter pieces, split them, and arrange them in arches stuck into the ground... wouldn’t that form a flue?’

’But if I just lay wood flat on top, smoke will seep through the gaps. So I’ll have to seal it with a layer of mud to act as an insulating layer.’

’I’ve got it! I can mix river silt with dry grass, then add some gravel and small twigs for reinforcement. Once it dries, it won’t be loose like normal mud. Then I just cover it with wood, moss, and fir needles... and that should do it, right?’