Chapter 6: Mutual Warmth

Li Chenfeng shook Lu Xinyao to try to wake her.

“Senior, wake up! Wake up!”

Ning Jingjing was awakened by the commotion and said, “What’s wrong? I vaguely heard your voice.”

“Senior, your whole body is ice-cold; it’s probably the residual poison acting up.”

Ning Jingjing immediately snapped awake, hurried over to feel Lu Xinyao’s hand, and said, “Why is it so cold? You were fine a moment ago… how did you suddenly get like this, and what should we do now?”

System prompt: 『Please light a fire before sunset to ward off the cold.』: Take measures to provide warmth for companions.

“It must be because she was stung by a scorpion during the day and a small amount of residual poison remained in her body, which lowered her immunity so she couldn’t withstand the cold wind.”

In that situation they needed to take immediate warming measures, but the island was open to the wind on all sides, so what could they do?

Ning Jingjing said, “We can rub her palms to give her some heat.”

“Mm, that idea isn’t bad, but it only covers a small area, and rubbing only the palms definitely won’t be enough.”

Ning Jingjing puffed and vigorously rubbed Lu Xinyao’s hands and said, “Xinyao, hang on.”

Li Chenfeng, looking at the bottles on the ground, suddenly thought of a plan, grabbed five or six plastic bottles, ran to the sea to fill them with seawater, returned, poured the water into the eight-treasure porridge cans and heated them in the fire, then poured the hot water back into the plastic bottles and placed them in Lu Xinyao’s arms and by her feet.

“Oh right, that’s a really good idea.”

“The best method is probably to keep each other warm.”

“Keep each other warm?”

“Right, let’s hold her and use our body heat to warm her.”

“But… forget it, surviving is the most important thing right now.”

So Li Chenfeng held Lu Xinyao’s upper body while Ning Jingjing held her lower body as they sat by the fire to warm her.

Along the way Li Chenfeng kept changing the hot-water bottles and adding wood to the fire, watching the weak Lu Xinyao in his arms with sorrow, and by the time it was almost dawn the two could no longer resist the oncoming sleep and fell asleep sitting like that.

Lu Xinyao slowly opened her eyes and saw Li Chenfeng’s handsome face leaning over her.

She hadn’t expected him to have held her through the night as he slept.

She tried to push herself up gently, and when her hand came down she crushed a wooden stick, and the sound of it snapping woke Li Chenfeng.

He opened his tired, bloodshot eyes and, not noticing that his hand lay on Lu Xinyao’s chest, said, “Senior, you’re awake, that’s great.”

Lu Xinyao blushed and hurriedly left Li Chenfeng’s arms, and Ning Jingjing was also woken by the noise.

“Xinyao, that’s great, you’re finally awake.”

Lu Xinyao had no memory at all of what happened last night and asked, “What happened? Why were you all holding me while you slept?”

Ning Jingjing, looking exhausted, said, “Last night you were ice-cold and unconscious, so we held you and put warm water bottles on you, and in the end everything turned out fine.”

“Huh? I don’t remember anything at all, I’m sorry for making you stay up all night.”

“Don’t say that; in a situation like this, everyone should help one another.”

“Senior, are you still feeling any discomfort?”

Lu Xinyao lifted her T-shirt, removed the herbal dressing, and said, “I feel okay now.”

“The wound is no longer red or swollen, so there shouldn’t be any major problem.”

“That’s great then. What should we do next?”

Li Chenfeng thought for a moment and said, “I think if we hold on for another 3 to 5 days, rescuers should come, right?”

Lu Xinyao lowered her head and said, “But even if someone comes, they probably won’t find us.”

“Yeah, wow, I miss home, I miss my parents, and I miss my son.”

“Your son?” Li Chenfeng and Lu Xinyao asked in surprised unison.

“Oh, it’s my little dog.”

“Oh, Jingjing, you scared me.”

“Boohoo… I want to go home.”

Lu Xinyao patted Ning Jingjing’s shoulder and said, “Okay, we’ll just wait for the rescue team to come; we should be able to go back soon.”

“Yes, Senior is right; there will definitely be a sea rescue to take us home, don’t worry.”

“But as Xinyao said, even if someone comes to rescue us, they won’t search island by island, right? Wouldn’t we just be trapped here?”

“Actually we don’t need to be so pessimistic; as long as we mark the island well, the search teams will be able to tell at a glance that there are people here.”

“But Chenfeng, how should we make those marks?”

Li Chenfeng picked up a red plastic bag from the ground and said, “Find a few garbage bags, tie them to sticks, and stick them at the four corners of the island so passing ships can easily spot us.”

“Yeah, Chenfeng, that’s a good idea.”

The three of them walked across the soft sand toward the rising sun, feeling the cool sea breeze.

“Xinyao, come and chase me.”

“Slow down, be careful or you’ll fall.”

Saying that, Ning Jingjing threw a handful of sand at Lu Xinyao.

“Ah, what are you doing, Jingjing?”

“Nyah nyah nyah,” she teased.

“Just you wait.”

Li Chenfeng watched the two of them carefree and felt his mood improve.

“You two slow down.”

The three of them stuck red plastic bags into the four corners of the island.

“Hehe, done. Chenfeng, Xinyao, I’m hungry; I only ate a little grass all day yesterday.”

Her stomach gurgled.

No sooner had Ning Jingjing finished speaking than Lu Xinyao’s stomach growled.

Lu Xinyao smiled sheepishly and said, “I’m hungry too.”

System prompt: 『Please light a fire before sunset to ward off the cold.』: Please obtain meat to provide your companions with quality protein.

They agreed that eating only grass wouldn’t keep them full and that meat was the most filling.

“Use what the land gives and what the sea gives; I just saw reef rocks on the shore over there, I’ll go see if I can catch crabs or something.”

“I’ll go too.”

“I want to go too.”

“Senior, your leg is injured and shouldn’t touch water; you should return to camp and watch over the fire.”

Lu Xinyao nodded; although she wanted to help, she was afraid that in her current condition she would only be a burden to Li Chenfeng, and she said, “All right, you be careful.”

“Don’t worry, Xinyao, I’ll catch a black gold abalone for you to eat.”

“Okay then, I’ll head back first.”

“All right, we’ll also go check the reef over there.”

The two of them arrived at the reef and began searching without stopping, prying up stone after stone.

Li Chenfeng said in puzzlement, “I remember catching crabs like this in the small river back home when I was a kid; why isn’t there even a crab leg?”

“You were talking about catching black gold abalone, but there’s not even a single oyster.”

System prompt: 『Please light a fire before sunset to ward off the cold.』: Discovered general 鲍!

Following the prompt, Li Chenfeng found a small, raised stone on the reef in the water.

“Ouch, I can’t pry it off,” Li Chenfeng said as he picked up a sharp stone nearby and struck it.

“Black gold abalone is unlikely, but we still have general abalone.”

“What? Let me see what a general abalone is.”

“The general abalone, also called general hat, is named because it looks like a Qing dynasty official’s hat, but it is not an abalone and is only a kind of shellfish.”

Ning Jingjing picked one up, looked, and said, “Oh, it looks like this, but there is very little meat.”

“Ant meat is still meat.”

“Wow, Chenfeng, look, there are so many on the rock; we can eat meat today.”