Chapter 2: Starting from Zero

The campfire outside the cave was burning brightly, and the narrow cave gave Baifeng a certain sense of security; Baifeng wanted to have a good sleep to replenish his strength, but his nerves were taut all night and he could not sleep.

He finally managed to make it until dawn; the calls of wild beasts in the wilderness gradually disappeared, and the herbivores rustled as they got up, relieved themselves, and began to eat their breakfast.

Only then did Baifeng dare to come out and move; he felt the top priority was to get away from this land and go to a more distant place to find a shelter.

After all, the number of humans must be very small now, and in such a large Wasteland, one could always find a suitable hiding place.

Baifeng walked toward the distance, holding a Stone Axe in one hand and fire-starting materials and a Stone Knife in the other.

On the way, Baifeng examined the surrounding environment with the eyes of a modern person; this Wasteland consisted of rolling hills, interspersed with a few flat Sichuan plains.

Based on the terrain and climate, Baifeng speculated that he might be in the northwest region, but the dense forests and abundant water sources made him afraid to draw a conclusion.

After all, the terrain would undergo tremendous changes over hundreds of years, not to mention that the time now might be thousands or even tens of thousands of years away from the era he was familiar with.

Now, this body of Baifeng perfectly integrated a savage physique with a civilized brain, although with this constitution, he was still destined to be treated as food by others.

But Baifeng felt that with his knowledge and intelligence, he would definitely be able to leave this era behind and become the man at the very top of the food chain.

This body had another advantage, which was something like the previous automatic navigation; it could still distinguish for itself whether food was edible or not.

When Baifeng saw some wild fruits in the forest that he had never seen before and wanted to eat them but did not know if they were edible, his body's subconscious would tell Baifeng: it is edible.

He walked until it was almost dark, but Baifeng did not find a satisfactory camping spot, and the distance of a day's journey was not safe enough for him.

Before the sun set, Baifeng collected enough firewood to last until dawn, as well as some wild fruits for dinner, but he did not find a suitable cave, so he had to make do with a large rock that could block the wind.

Baifeng was very tired; although he had the protection of a campfire, he did not dare to sleep soundly, and he was woken up several times by the howling of wild beasts throughout the night; now Baifeng was not afraid of ghosts at night, only of people and wild beasts.

As soon as it was dawn, Baifeng set off again on the road to find a camping site.

When the sun reached directly overhead and all objects had almost no shadows, Baifeng finally found a place he liked.

It was a platform under a rock wall, though it had no cave; it was sheltered from the wind and faced the sun, and there were relatively dense forests on both sides that could block the view from afar, which meant that as long as one did not walk close, one would not discover where this place was.

Baifeng was able to find this place because he held to the principle of not looking for a place that would be discovered at a glance, so he specifically looked for places that were difficult to move in.

The platform was also made of stone, but it had a thick layer of soil on top; the platform was a full seven or eight meters long, and at its widest point, it could be four meters.

The left side of the platform was the widest part, below which was a steep slope, and with scattered stones and shrubs mixed in, he was not afraid that any wild men or fierce beasts could come up.

On the right side was a relatively gentle slope; as long as it was slightly cleared and modified, it would be a path. Looking up, there was a smooth and towering rock wall with not a single bit of cover.

Looking at the stone quality and the original platform above, there were no large rocks, so he was not afraid of being crushed to death by rocks falling from above.

The water source was not far away, and there were many wild fruits in the nearby forest that could be picked.

On the platform under the rock wall, Baifeng cleared a space with his hands, then put down all the belongings he had stolen, and let out a long sigh of relief.

After a short rest, the first thing Baifeng did was not to build a shelter or look for food, but to take his Knife, cut some long Grass, and weave a grass skirt for himself.

As a modern person, Baifeng really could not stand the feeling of treating the universe as his underwear and letting his crotch-parts sway in the wind, even though no one would see him.

Wearing the grass skirt, it did not feel very comfortable, and his little brother was also swinging around everywhere, but fortunately, after having some cover, Baifeng did not feel as disgusted in his heart; it could be considered the first step from a savage to a civilized person.

Having completed the work of covering his shame, Baifeng began the project of building the camp; the first step was chopping wood, as fire was more important than a house built of wood.

The Stone Axe was not sharp enough, but fortunately, the firewood did not need to be chopped into small or beautiful pieces; as long as it was chopped from a tree and could be dragged to the camp, it was called firewood.

Then Baifeng looked for targets, chopped some wood that was as thick as an arm and relatively straight, and transported it back to the camp to build a temporary residence.

Fortunately, in this place, the most abundant thing was trees; he chopped the wood needed to build his small residence, and it was soon almost done.

However, seeing the sun gradually moving to the west, Baifeng dared not delay at all; he used large rocks that could be seen everywhere, combined with wood, to build a single-sided small wooden shed leaning against the rock wall.

After building it, Baifeng stood with his hands on his hips, looked left and right, and felt very satisfied; while the sun had not yet completely set, he built a fire nest for his campfire with stones, so that he could gather the campfire and not be afraid of setting the house on fire.

That night, perhaps with the blessing of a roof, Baifeng finally had a relatively stable sleep, although by morning, it was not so comfortable.

Baifeng was woken up by hunger; after all, in the past few days, he had only eaten some wild fruits, and they did not have much sugar content, the sour kind, and apart from that, he had not ingested any protein at all.

Moreover, the place where he slept was not only not flat enough, but also had a lot of sand and pebbles; no matter how he tossed and turned, there were things underneath him that hurt.

The moment the sunlight lit up the Wasteland, Baifeng set off with his Knife and axe; today he was prepared to find a way to hunt, otherwise, if he only ate fruits, he was afraid he would not even survive this summer.

For the sake of convenience, Baifeng used grass to twist a rope, tied the Knife to his waist, and only held the axe in his hand.

Baifeng remembered that when he was looking for a water source, there were many fish in the water pool near the camp, and they were quite large because they had almost no natural enemies.

So Baifeng planned to make a fishing spear; there were many bamboos in the mountains, which were good things for making fishing spears.

He split the bamboo from one end, separated it into four prongs, inserted a thin piece of bamboo in the middle empty space, tied the separated prongs wider with a grass rope, and then sharpened these five heads to get a five-headed fishing spear.

This water pool was very large, and could even be called a small lake, but the water flowing through here was living water, with an inlet and an outlet; this water pool was relatively deep and the current was gentle, so it became a paradise for fish.

However, it had now become Baifeng's paradise; watching the fat, large fish swimming everywhere, Baifeng's saliva was about to flow into the water pool.

For safety's sake, Baifeng found a place where the water was shallow, waiting for an opportunity.

Watching the fish swimming over slowly, not afraid of people, Baifeng thrust his spear at the fish under the water; the splashing water hit Baifeng's face, but there was nothing on the fishing spear.

After being startled, that fish flicked its tail, let out a water-fart at Baifeng, and swam away.

Baifeng felt that missing once was no problem; after all, failure is the mother of success, so he pulled himself together and continued to wait.

There were many fish, and before long, curious fish came to look at this strange creature, Baifeng, but Baifeng missed again; not only this time, but for the next few times, Baifeng did not spear any fish, and even when he grazed them, they still ran away.

Baifeng threw the fishing spear into the water in frustration, intending to think of another way, but he saw that the fishing spear bent when it entered the water.

"Oh my, why am I so stupid, I didn't even think of this!" Baifeng knocked on his primitive head; refraction! Something learned in elementary school, how could he forget this? No wonder he couldn't spear the fish!

He had to blame this primitive man; the primitive brain hardware could not run this latest system of his.