Although Roland and Chen Wen didn't worry about food, they took action to slightly clear the snow around the shelter.

Chen Wen relied on the wall he had previously built to pile up snow, continuing to expand the wall's size.

In the end, with nothing much to do, Chen Wen built a wall nearly 1.7 meters high around the shelter.

He used musk ox bones to carve the wall, turning it into a real one.

Looking at Chen Wen's masterpiece, the animals were quite happy.

The weasel particularly loved running back and forth on the wall these past few days, while the three coyote pups stumbled after it.

Trying to catch their weasel aunt.

However, the slender weasel was supremely fast, and each time the pups surrounded it, it would escape their pursuit with incredible speed and angles.

Leaving the pups pouncing on empty space.

At this moment, the red fox would chuckle, and the mother coyote would give off a series of clucking sounds, seeming to laugh.

The Wolf Mink seemed to have found food these past two days.

It would go out with the Eagle every morning and only return by night.

Old Wolf stayed with Chen Wen in the shelter, occasionally going out to clear snow or prepare some food for the moose and reindeer.

Life was dull, yet not without fun.

...

The time came to the ninetieth day.

With the last physical check-up completed, Chen Wen also began to look forward to the final results.

Over at Vini's side,

On the morning of the ninetieth day, he took an ice fishing hook and line, and using a homemade wooden shovel, cleared a path straight to the lake.

Vini planned to go ice fishing today.

He brought his tools to the lake and started to break the ice.

Vini brought an ax, so just like Chen Wen, he chose to break the ice with the ax.

Crack!

Crack!

With the impact of the ax against the ice, ice splinters burst forth, scattering around.

Half an hour later.

Vini wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked at the ice he had chiseled about ten centimeters deep, and took a deep breath.

"I have to catch fish today; otherwise, I'm at a huge loss this time!"

Vini said, shaking off the snow from his body.

His expression became quite serious.

Just as he said, the energy spent breaking through the ice was vast, and if he couldn't catch big fish to break even, he'd be at a real loss!

After taking a moment to breathe, Vini continued chiseling ice.

This time, it took him a full two hours!

When the ice was finally broken through, and the cold lake water was exposed to the air,

Vini felt he was about to cry.

"It's too hard!"

Vini suddenly threw the ax down and knelt directly on the ice.

Two and a half hours!

He no longer knew how to describe his feelings.

For two and a half hours, all he managed to carve out was an irregular cone-shaped pit.

He could see the lake water but still needed to chisel the cone's bottom into a larger circle for ice fishing.

At this rate, he'd probably catch fish by the afternoon.

Also, it got dark early now.

Vini had to get back early.

If he didn't catch a big fish within an hour, this trip would be a huge loss!

Vini sighed deeply and continued chiseling the ice.

The sunk cost had already been paid; stopping now was too late.

As the crack of the chisel on ice continued, Vini still increased the sunk cost.

...

Over at Chen Wen's side.

He had considered ice fishing.

But after riding his moose to the lake and checking the thickness of the ice, Chen Wen decisively abandoned the idea.

The reason was simple: it wasn't worth it.

The energy spent breaking through the thick ice and maintaining the fishing hole afterwards would outweigh the energy a few fish could provide.

The energy consumption simply wasn't worth it for him to go ice fishing.

Besides, there was enough food.

And Chen Wen had found a new pastime—playing with the animals.

So he decisively gave up ice fishing.

Roland was just like Chen Wen in this regard.

With enough food, neither chose to pursue the uneconomical ice fishing.

...

Back to Vini.

After a day, he returned exhausted and empty-handed.

The weather was too cold, and fish tended to stay in deeper areas.

This made the probability of catching fish while ice fishing much lower than usual.

Vini now deeply felt this.

He planned to catch some fish before dark, but the fish had gone to deeper, warmer areas, leaving Vini empty-handed.

Lying in the shelter, Vini felt heavy-hearted.

He looked at the ceiling of the shelter, where his stored food still hung.

But it was clear the food wouldn't last long.

Vini had estimated that his food was enough.

But staying in the shelter for an extended period had unconsciously increased his food intake.

With nothing better to do, he also liked to nibble on some jerky now and then.

This bad habit sped up Vini's food consumption significantly.

Looking at the food that would barely last a week, Vini sighed deeply.

The next day, Vini continued ice fishing.

When he reached the ice, he found that the fishing hole he had chiseled the previous day had frozen over again.

Though not as deep as before, it required quite an effort to break open the hole again.

A few minutes later.

Vini stood by the fishing hole and started ice fishing.

After an hour, something seemed to touch the hook; the tension transmitted through the line shook Vini to his core.

He pulled the line with all his might, trying to hook the fish's body.

But just as Vini exerted himself, the hook suddenly came up empty.

With no resistance to release his energy, he stumbled and plopped hard onto the ice.

"Ouch! That hurts!"

Vini gasped and shivered.

He slowly lifted the hook to check.

Nothing was there!

Not even a scale.

Filled with anger, Vini slapped the ice, but it only hurt his hand.

"Wang Defa!"

After cursing, Vini let out a long sigh.

When you're down, even cold water gets stuck in your teeth!

At this moment, he completely believed this saying.

With a sigh,

Vini took out some dry rations and chewed on them, a flicker in his eyes.

In the following days, Vini kept attempting to ice fish, yet he caught nothing.

This left Vini quite desperate.

He could handle the physical exertion but was deeply troubled by the prolonged lack of food, leaving him in a persistent state of depression.

"What to do?"

Seeing the dwindling food supplies, Vini grew increasingly despondent.

On the ninety-fifth day of survival,

Vini exhausted his food supplies, closed his eyes, and slowly took out the satellite phone.

Finally, Vini let out a long sigh, dialed the satellite phone.