Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 252: Chapter 183: Looming Dark Clouds, Emergency Construction

’A rainproof roof can’t be flat; it has to be sloped. Especially for something on level ground, a triangular roof is the only way to go.’

Recalling his bold idea about mortise and tenon joints from yesterday’s work, he knew there was no time to hesitate. He picked up a few long branches he had chopped from the top of the Light Wood and carved a U-shaped notch into the thick base of one.

He overlapped the notches of two branches, then carefully shaved away slivers of wood to adjust the fit.

CLICK.

With a faint, crisp sound, the two branches locked together tightly, forming a right-angled triangle.

He repeated the process to make an identical frame for the other side, then drove them into the earth on either side of the root cellar.

The extra length he had left at the top of the frames now naturally formed a Y-shaped cradle. By laying another branch horizontally across it, he created a sturdy, triangular A-frame.

The next step was to lay down a skeleton of branches on both sides of the main ridgepole. Their thickness didn’t matter, as long as they were long enough to extend past the edges.

After laying down the framework, a new row of Y-shaped grooves was formed at the peak. He laid another branch horizontally across the middle to hold it all in place.

Finally, he layered the smaller branches he had cut, leaves and all, on top to create a dense mesh. Only then did he lay down the banana leaves.

He didn’t need many; two or three on each side was enough.

Thanks to the irregular shapes of the branches, he didn’t even need to secure the banana leaf stems; they simply wedged into the gaps between the twigs.

He had just placed the last banana leaf when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a dazzling flash of light on the horizon.

「A few seconds later.」

BOOM!

A deafening thunderclap exploded next to his ear. The rolling thunder continued unabated, echoing several times before finally fading away.

He looked up. The thick, dark clouds seemed to be pressing down right overhead, so close it felt like he could reach out and touch them.

Startled, Lin Chen quickly inspected his new rain shelter one more time. He even circled it twice, using spare banana leaves to cover the front and back openings. Only then, satisfied, did he take off running.

He had only run two or three hundred meters and was nearing the creek when another clap of thunder boomed.

Immediately after, dense raindrops came hammering down, stinging his face.

Fortunately, he was prepared. He flipped his bamboo basket upside down over his head, which offered at least a little protection from the rain.

「Ten minutes later.」

By the time he scrambled into his cave, he was dripping as if he’d just been pulled from a river.

’Dammit, this rain is intense,’ he thought. ’Shouldn’t have even bothered with the basket. I’m soaked either way.’

He quickly stripped off all his clothes to prevent the dampness from seeping into his body and giving him a chill.

After the last two days, his stockpile of branches in the cave was nearly gone, leaving only the moss he used as a mattress.

He piled the moss in a corner, clearing a space near the cave entrance. Then, he took the tinder from his bamboo tube and used the last of his branches to build and light a tiny campfire.

He reached outside the cave to wring the excess water from his soaked clothes, then spread them out on the moss to dry by the fire.

The cave was only about a meter wide, so once the fire was going, he had to retreat to the very back to avoid the unbearable heat.

Because it was an enclosed space, he didn’t shut the wooden gate completely. Instead, he leaned it against the entrance, leaving a palm-sized gap for ventilation.

’Woke up, climbed a mountain, went for a run, built a rain shelter, and got soaked—all on an empty stomach. I doubt many people have had a more intense morning than me, right?’

Naked, he curled up on a banana leaf and stared blankly into the flames.

He positioned the camera beside him to capture the same view, aimed at the fire and the downpour outside.

The fire crackled from time to time, sending out little bursts of sparks.

Outside, the dense raindrops formed a solid curtain, blanketing the sky. The entire world was a hazy gray, as if shrouded in a thin mist.

This rain was clearly not as heavy as the last one; it was a normal downpour at most.

But this kind of rain often lasted longer, which was worse than a sudden storm that came and went quickly.

Under the warmth of the small fire, the water on his skin gradually evaporated. His body slowly grew hot, and he finally started to feel warm again.

Waking up on an empty stomach is when the body’s energy reserves are at their lowest. With poor circulation, doing both cardio and strenuous labor could easily lead to cold limbs and dizziness—that was all normal.

Getting soaked and chilled in that state... catching a cold would be getting off easy. He could even develop a fever.

And with a fever, no food, and no large supply of drinking water, he would almost certainly be forced to withdraw from the competition.

He would rather strip naked just out of the camera’s view than be eliminated so easily.

For southerners from Great Xia, especially the younger generation, nudity was a source of great shame. Going shirtless was the absolute limit for most. So the shame of being bare-assed in the wild—with a camera broadcasting to who-knows-how-many viewers right next to him—was immense.

If he accidentally knocked it over, he’d essentially be streaking in front of tens of thousands of viewers.

The mental pressure was even greater than serving dishes during the dinner rush back in the kitchen.

He sat there quietly, adding a branch to the fire every so often. When he ran low on branches, he added moss, keeping the flames small the entire time—just enough to provide heat.

Fortunately, his luck held. The rain only lasted for two hours before it began to taper off. At some point, the dark clouds had vanished as well.

Bright beams of sunlight broke through gaps in the clouds, spilling onto the land. The entire forest glistened, sparkling with a fresh sheen.

His clothes were mostly dry. After getting dressed, he crawled out of the cave and was met with a gust of damp, cold wind carrying the rich scent of wet earth and grass.

"Haaaah..."

Lin Chen took a deep breath, feeling much more refreshed.

’This is a problem,’ he thought. ’I’ve been so busy rebuilding the cabin these past two days that I haven’t gathered much firewood. Now I’m completely out, and I won’t find any dry tinder in a forest that’s just been soaked.’

’Looks like I’ll have to get by on fruit for today.’

He slapped his forehead in frustration, secretly resolving to haul a piece of old timber back from the cabin later.

The materials from an abandoned cabin like that were plenty dry on their own. Even though it had been rained on, the core would definitely still be dry. He’d just have to shave off the outer layer to use it.