Chapter 9: A Forager’s Fate

Basically, aside from Zhu Qiang, Mike, Cody, Josie, and the Aussie Bloke, everyone’s progress has been solid—they haven’t lagged behind Lord Bei, Lord De, or Matt one bit.

That’s right; they’re all great, but I’m betting on Lord Bei!

Haha, me too! Building a shelter is a breeze compared to the real challenge: stockpiling food for the next hundred days.

After all that chatter, why don’t you cast your vote already?

Exactly, a shelter is nothing—it’s the food storage that counts.

Right now, only Lord Bei has managed to snag a hedgehog and a few sand scorpions, while everyone else is empty-handed.

One hedgehog and a few sand scorpions are enough to keep Lord Bei fed for two days, meaning he won’t have to forage anytime soon!

So what are we waiting for?

Vote, then!

Vote!

Amid the heated bickering, the vote counts for each contestant began to climb steadily on the polling app. Even though voting lasts just two days, the trend was clear within minutes—and it’s unlikely to change much.

Lord Bei, Lord De, and Matt lead the pack with 300,000, 293,000, and 290,000 votes respectively; their numbers are almost neck and neck, showing the audience sees them as equally formidable.

Although Lord De and Matt haven’t secured any food yet,

their expansive Oasis Lake might even harbor some fish if luck strikes,

ensuring they won’t go hungry.

The second tier features the Aussie Bloke, Cody, and Zhu Qiang, each boasting between 50,000 and 100,000 votes. Plenty of fans back them, and catching a large animal could let them last to the end.

And the third tier?

No way! To be honest, Xu Hao doesn’t even qualify for a tier—he’s got fewer than a hundred votes, likely just the result of accidental taps.

After all, someone did complain in the comments about misclicks.

Perhaps because Xu Hao’s vote count was so far behind, he gradually faded into obscurity, with no one giving him a second thought.

But little did he know that the scene unfolding before him would utterly stun him.

“What? This is even possible?”

Staring at the three plump, 40-centimeter-long jumping rabbits lying dead in the pit, Xu Hao was more astonished than delighted.

Determined to secure his water supply, he had started digging a well just hours ago. Since the desertification in this area was recent—with only about ten centimeters of loose sand atop firm soil—it was a quick job.

And with a nearby water pool speeding things along, Xu Hao had managed to carve out a pit about one meter wide and deep in under two hours, its bottom already showing traces of moisture from repeated contact.

That meant just another half meter down and water would burst through.

But after digging a few extra centimeters, when the bottom was muddy and on the brink of giving way, he stopped. It wasn’t reluctance—it was that he now needed wooden tools like well frames and supports to keep the structure stable; without them, the sides would collapse.

With that in mind, Xu Hao grabbed his axe, saw, and hammer and headed to the nearly dead forest.

As a veteran carpenter, crafting well frames was a piece of cake for him.

From afar, the forest looked barren—and up close, it was even more desolate.

The ground was strewn with dry, dead drought willow, Hu Yang, and red willow, along with vast patches of reeds and weeds.

Nearly half a meter tall, the weeds formed a thick carpet that swayed with the breeze, resembling waves in a dried-up field—a sight with its own strange charm.

But Xu Hao had no time to admire the ‘scenery.’

He selected a drought willow branch about as thick as a bowl’s rim and got to work on the frames.

He toiled on them for nearly two hours.

Even though he had eaten well the night before, a skipped breakfast and the sweltering heat made him feel weak. He decided to head back to the well to snack on some compressed biscuits, recharge, and measure the well’s diameter.

But when he reached the top of the well, he was shocked to see the three utterly dead jumping rabbits inside.

Jumping rabbits, a rodent resembling a tiny kangaroo, are remarkably agile and surprisingly large—each of these weighed around five or six catties.

They feed on saxaul tree roots, making them natural enemies of the tree! “How on earth did they get in? Aren’t they supposed to be active only at night?”

Xu Hao couldn’t help but mutter to himself.

Then, as he looked around and noticed a trail on a small mound of soil, everything suddenly made sense.

Sure enough, these three jumping rabbits had been lurking in the wild grasses when his noisy lumbering startled them. In their panic, they rushed into his freshly dug pit. With a bottom full of loose mud, it was only a matter of time before they couldn’t recover.

“Is this fate’s way of compensating me, a time traveler?”

Snapping back to reality, Xu Hao jumped into the pit and hauled out the three jumping rabbits.

When he first time-traveled, he’d expected to arrive with a golden touch like the heroes in his favorite novels—but after two days, he found he had no special powers at all.

Apart from a slightly improved memory, nothing else had changed.

As a result, he felt uncertain about this challenge—even the prospect of scavenging for food left him clueless.

In the end, he decided to take it one step at a time, giving up only when absolutely necessary. Little did he expect that fate would smile on him.

Those three jumping rabbits would keep him going for at least five days, and their fur was also valuable.

Most importantly,

the fact that his activity at the forest’s edge had scared off three jumping rabbits meant there were likely more inside. With a few traps, he might catch even more.

In Xu Hao’s eyes, the more jumping rabbits he could net, the better—no worries at all.

After all, without these jumping rabbits, the saxaul trees wouldn’t have withered so quickly, and this sandy depression might not have turned out the way it did.

“But I need to process these three jumping rabbits quickly!”

Glancing up at the scorching sun, Xu Hao reluctantly set the well aside for the moment.

In the desert, if dead animals aren’t disposed of swiftly, they start to rot—posing health risks and potentially harboring dangerous bacteria.

“We might not have cling film, but at least we know how to smoke bacon!”

He tossed the jumping rabbits to the edge of the future shelter’s foundation and, axe in hand, made his way back toward the forest.

The best way to preserve fresh meat is to smoke it into bacon.

Soon, he planned to hang the bacon in a cool, shaded spot by the shelter. Whether it lasted five days or five months, it would stay fresh.

Plus, smoking the rabbit meat had the bonus of serving as a makeshift heated bed.

By building a fire and covering the warm sand with additional sand, one could sleep atop it. While it couldn’t match the comfort of other contestants’ shelters, it was enough for a night.