Luckily, this hunting knife had indeed reached the extremes in both toughness and hardness. For Li Younan, who possesses master carving skills, it could still be used forcefully.

Wood carving is a great way to pass the time.

Li Younan was completely immersed in it. He didn’t carve to create exquisite artwork; his goal was simple: to make himself less bored, so he carved whatever he felt like.

For materials, he started from his own house, carving things like columns, beams, doors, and windows into flowers, grasses, dragons, and exotic beasts, without affecting the structural integrity.

He naturally recorded some videos during the process.

Besides, Li Younan also went nearby to dig up many ores containing colored metallic substances. After crushing these ores, he made pigments to color the carved areas.

His skill became increasingly abstract, and eventually he made two large wooden posts at the entrance of the shelter, carving them into guardian wooden lions. On the door, he directly painted the two door gods Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong with pigments and brushes.

He wasn’t superstitious; he just found it interesting to do.

On rainy days, there were basically only a few things to do.

On sunny days, however, he could do more.

During the few sunny days in August, Li Younan would first take a stroll in the forest, since mushrooms tended to grow easily after the rain.

He would bring back edible mushrooms to dry.

Originally, he did this just to get some physical activity and enjoy a walk after the rain, but unexpectedly, he collected a whole large jar of dried mushrooms.

On sunny days, Li Younan completed a few things that he felt quite accomplished about.

The first was expanding his house.

Do you remember the location of his fireplace? It was originally made of stacked stones. Li Younan later produced bricks, dismantling that part of the fireplace, then extended the empty area outwards, building a bigger and more convenient oven using bricks and a mixture of clay, lime, and wood ash as cement.

The extended space was just right for storing beef, making it easier to smoke it.

Li Younan was almost always busy making bricks during this period.

The bricks had many uses; besides building stoves and ovens, they were used to pave a layer on the shelter’s floor.

This made the shelter’s ground level and effectively solved the problem of damp ground after rain, giving it a true homey feel.

As the show went on for several dozen days, the frequency of physical examinations by the crew gradually increased from once a week.

Later it was rumored that it would become once every three days.

At first, every time the staff visited him, they were somewhat shocked.

The impression... these little foreigners seemed quite dumbfounded.

Ironically, the inspection after the first time he hunted a cow was when the staff appeared most composed.

Their first extreme shock was seeing the remarkably large bath barrel at Li Younan’s shelter.

Li Younan still remembers the complex expressions on the staff’s faces when they saw the bath barrel.

He certainly understood what it meant for contestants on "Alone in the Wilderness"—after all, he had watched many seasons of "Alone in the Wilderness."

Although he didn’t think much of it during the making, putting himself in the staff’s shoes, it truly was rather inhumane.

To shock these little foreigners was actually quite a satisfying feeling.

In fact, what Li Younan didn’t realize was... the staff’s complex emotions stemmed from their inability to bathe while on duty at the camp.

The TV show’s staff were living under worse conditions than the "Alone in the Wilderness" contestants, but who could they complain to?

"Other contestants don’t know about your situation... whether that’s good or bad for them is hard to say."

Besides that, there was the heap of things he carved.

Seeing those wooden carvings left the little foreigners speechless.

Of course, Li Younan felt that English itself was a language with relatively poor expressive ability, repeatedly saying the same few phrases to express sentiments, such as "Oh my God, you’re simply an artist, oh my Lord," and it lacked novelty.

But it was great; it’s always thrilling to be admired.

Later, he also crafted a second batch of porcelain, which was purely for fun.

Since his pots and pans weren’t lacking.

For this batch of porcelain, he was more meticulous, not only glazing it but also painting on it.

He specially made a display rack to showcase the porcelain he fired.

Every time the staff came for his physical check, he would flaunt the porcelain at the door.

The little foreigners indeed always complimented it, with one even unable to resist asking if he could buy one of them when the show ended.

Later, a staff member secretly revealed to Li Younan that usually, all shelters and related furniture are dismantled and destroyed at the end of the show, but destroying his shelter would be extremely wasteful.

He had heard about this before, so it didn’t feel too regretful.

Ultimately, he simply gifted several porcelain bowls to staff interested in porcelain.

This seemingly casual act of kindness brought Li Younan a huge convenience.

We must talk about that large roll of copper wire he previously acquired.

The initial purpose of proactively asking for that roll of copper wire was certainly not for using copper oxide in porcelain manufacturing.

He was a wireless radio expert, and for one, creating a crystal radio was a trivial matter—just having copper wire was enough to easily craft one.

He could also make the crystal radio very visually appealing with his woodworking skills.

However, while making a crystal radio is easy, actually hearing broadcasts with it is far from reality.

The biggest obstacle is the sound device.

Often those assembling crystal radios know this item is rather lame.

Using it for apocalypse survival is theoretically feasible, but if you only have materials to make a crystal radio, it’s basically useless.

You still need a set of amplifier equipment.

However, if you have the amplifier equipment, you likely already have a better radio than a crystal radio, maybe even a real radio.

The basic principle of a crystal radio is to receive amplitude modulated broadcast signals, then convert the electromagnetic signals into current through a detection device.

The current signals during this have to be converted into sounds recognizable to human ears for the radio to be useful.

However, this current energy is extremely small, barely a few microwatts of power.

Hearing the sound from a crystal radio requires either connecting an amplifier sound system or using a high-impedance listening device.

The former is practically impossible to create under wilderness conditions, while the latter, although theoretically achievable, is very difficult.

Headphones capable of hearing crystal radio sounds need at least several thousand ohms of impedance.

If you manufacture a dynamic listening device using coil winding methods, you must wind tens of thousands of coils and consider insulation issues.

People familiar with headphones and sound systems know that regular headphones have around 4 ohms to 12 ohms of impedance.

But whether it’s the former or latter, the show’s provided equipment comes with something that, once disassembled, can be used to create... it’s not the camera or satellite phone; the show won’t allow you to dismantle those.

It’s the equipment Li Younan hasn’t used once since the start, yet its electronic components can let him assemble a high-quality crystal radio—the hand-crank generator.

Honestly, this hand-crank generator wasn’t very different for Li Younan.

Tearing it apart probably wouldn’t violate show rules, but it’s supposed to ensure contestants’ safety...

So, Li Younan didn’t dare act rashly.

But once he bonded well with those staff members... suddenly things turned around.