Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 292: Chapter 197: Racing Against Time

Staying here could lead to the cabin’s collapse, meaning days of hard work would be wasted. The cellar might even fill with water, making it impossible to repair anytime soon.

But if he went, he would risk getting caught in a rainstorm at any moment.

The return trip from the cabin took twenty minutes if he hurried, or about half an hour at a normal pace.

If he had to rush back in the rain, the journey would take even longer. A wet forest was extremely dangerous, especially since the terrain on the way back was mostly downhill.

He didn’t dare risk the consequences of being soaked for over half an hour.

In other words, if he did get caught in the storm, his only option would be to take shelter in the cabin.

There was no food stored over there, no fire starter, and no moss for insulation.

And if he couldn’t finish the repairs before the rain started, sleep would be impossible.

Both options were so difficult, leaving him momentarily unable to decide.

’But if I don’t go...’ It was, after all, the fruit of his hard work. A shelter was a form of psychological support in the wilderness.

’Maybe... I should just risk it?’

After agonizing over it for a long while, he decided to risk the trip.

He shouldered the bamboo basket and brought his two bamboo knives. He also had his most important tool: the military knife, which almost never left his pocket unless he needed it.

Fortunately, his luck held. The wind howled along the way, and pale purple lightning occasionally streaked across the horizon, followed by deafening peals of thunder, but not a single drop of rain fell.

The sky was still pitch-black when he arrived at the cabin.

’Whew. Good thing I made an extra trip yesterday and stocked up on enough bamboo. The rest of the work is just assembly.’

He moved the bamboo stalks one by one to the side of the previously assembled wall, then used his bamboo knife to chop a clear notch into them at the desired length.

He first marked six stalks, then stepped on the bamboo to the left of the mark, bringing his bamboo knife down on the notch again and again.

Through his experiments over the past two days, he had discovered an easier and more efficient way to cut the bamboo.

It was actually quite similar to opening a coconut. You first cut a notch, then aim your blade at the front and back edges of that initial cut to extend it.

Since the bamboo knife was just a sharpened piece of bamboo, its blade was relatively straight and couldn’t cut too deeply. The only way was to use this method, gradually chopping a ring-shaped groove all the way around the stalk.

Once the ring was complete, the groove followed the natural curve of the bamboo.

Combined with the bamboo’s hollow structure, he only needed to chop about halfway through the stalk along the scored line. Then, by grabbing the right side with his hand and stepping on the left, he could snap it clean with a sharp upward pull.

A few quick chops to sever any remaining fibers at the break, and the job was done.

Once he got the hang of it, he didn’t need to use much force at all. As long as he controlled where the blade struck, the bamboo split easily.

The situation was urgent, so he didn’t have time to worry about smoothing the cuts. He worked as fast as he could, cutting four more stalks to the same length and slotting them one by one into the frame he had built.

The third bamboo wall was finished in an instant. All that remained was the fourth wall, which he had reserved for an entrance, and the triangular gaps between the tops of the walls and the eaves.

The side walls and the front and back walls had different structures. Because the roof was A-shaped, the eaves on the left and right sides extended down to cover the tops of those walls.

The front and back, however, were open under the peak of the roof. To keep the rain out, he’d have to build something extra to fill in those gaps.

But things were too urgent for that now. The most important task was to enclose all four sides and make the structure as sturdy as possible.

’If I want to frame a proper doorway, I’ll need to cut these bamboo stalks to size and stack them on either side of the opening.’

He glanced up at the sky, filled with purple lightning, and quickly abandoned the idea of doing any more detailed work.

’Forget it, time is too short. I’ll just leave a gap in the middle big enough to squeeze through. I can worry about a real door later.’

He picked up a leftover half-stalk of bamboo and split it into four thin strips. He planted two strips in front of the left and right Light Wood posts and two more in the middle. This served as a temporary frame, marking the width of his future door and making it easier to cut the wall sections to the right length.

CRACK-BOOM!

A clap of thunder exploded by his ear without warning, and the entire sky flashed as bright as day.

Lin Chen jumped at the sudden thunderclap. His hands moved faster as he grabbed the bamboo stalks and started tossing them into the space marked by the strips.

THUD.

THUD.

Six stalks stacked up, reaching nearly to the top of his thigh. Any higher and it would be difficult to step over.

His original plan was to enclose the top and bottom with bamboo, leaving a gap in the middle for him to squeeze through, like the ropes of a boxing ring.

But as he erected the bottom half of the wall, he realized he had overlooked a critical detail.

Without any supports, there was no way to stack the top section.

Just as he was hesitating, wondering how to create a support for the upper section, a dense splatter of raindrops suddenly hit his face. Within a few breaths, his clothes were soaked.

The sudden downpour made him go pale. He scrambled into the shelter to get out of the rain.

Once inside, even though he had a roof over his head, the driving rain still slapped mercilessly against his face.

A dense drumming sound echoed from the bamboo roof. In the beam of his Hat Lamp, the entire world was shrouded by a vast, gray curtain of rain.

In just a dozen seconds, the sound of gushing water could be heard pouring off both sides of the cabin.