120: Chapter 120 Bear Meat and Hot Springs

The first pot of bear heart soup was soon scraped clean.

Zhao Mengmeng ate until her forehead broke into a sweat, and the pallor on her face faded.

Lin Ye set up the second pot of snow water.

He added more bear fat.

The white fat melted at the bottom of the pot, gathering into a thick layer of oil.

He tossed in segments of bear paw tendons, and a rich meaty aroma rolled off the surface of the soup.

Zhao Mengmeng sat to the side hugging her knees, her sense of weakness mostly gone.

"I feel like my toes have come back."

Lin Ye poked the fire with a wooden stick.

"Now that they're back, get to work."

Zhao Mengmeng's movements paused.

"Can you let me rest for just three more minutes?"

"The meat will get cold."

Zhao Mengmeng couldn't argue with that, so she pushed herself up by her thighs.

She leaned her crossbow against her side, picked up her dagger, and began processing the bear meat piled nearby.

Lin Ye set up two pieces of damp wood next to the fire pit.

These were dried roots dug out from the cave; the outer layers were damp, but the cores could still burn.

He hung the strips of bear meat on a wooden rack, using the heat from the fire pit to slowly dry them.

The meat couldn't all be boiled.

A portion had to be dried for later use.

The environment of the Level 4 Floating Island was unfamiliar, and the ice storm outside could seal off their path at any moment, so they couldn't keep all their food in this cave.

As Zhao Mengmeng cut the meat, she glanced toward the cave entrance.

The ice door was tightly blocked by crushed ice and frozen earth, with thin wisps of smoke rising from the smoke vent above.

The sound of the wind and snow outside, muffled by the ice wall, sounded very distant.

"This cave is smaller than our original karst cave, but it's warmer."

"There's a hot spring inside." Lin Ye sliced open a piece of bear fat.

Zhao Mengmeng turned her head sharply.

"A real hot spring?"

"There's a pool next to where the Violent Bear slept."

The knife in Zhao Mengmeng's hand stopped.

"Can we take a bath in it?"

Lin Ye glanced at her.

"You should first confirm there isn't a second bear in the pool."

Zhao Mengmeng shut her mouth.

After two seconds, she muttered softly, "Still have to check, just in case we can use it."

They had escaped from the snow forest to the ruins, climbed giant vines, and then encountered an ice storm.

Both of them were covered in sweat, mud, sand, and bear blood.

Lin Ye looked down at his right arm.

The web of his thumb was split, his muscles were sore, and his shoulders and back had several cuts from the ice shards of the storm.

If it dragged on, it would be easy to get an infection, so they needed hot water to clean up.

"Let's clear out the cave first." Lin Ye said.

"I'll guard the door, you go take a look?"

"No rush." Lin Ye looked toward the Violent Bear's carcass in the corner of the passage.

"The carcass is blocking the way, and the smell of blood is too strong; we need to drain the blood first."

Zhao Mengmeng stared at the dark red covering the floor.

"Doing dirty work again?"

"You didn't complain when you were eating the meat."

"I did complain, but my stomach disagreed."

Lin Ye tossed the Entrenching Tool to her.

"Dig this shallow trench next to the fire pit deeper so the blood can flow along the rock crevices to the outer slope of the cave."

Zhao Mengmeng caught the shovel.

"You really know how to delegate."

The frozen sand on the ground had been softened by the fire.

As the Entrenching Tool struck the ground, it turned up wet mud and gravel.

Lin Ye returned to the side of the Violent Bear's carcass.

He manipulated the remaining stability anchors of the Dark Weaver, hooking them onto the Violent Bear's hind legs and a crack in the rock wall.

Without overloading the engine, he performed only low-frequency towing.

The heavy body scraped against the ground, making a teeth-grinding, dull thud.

The Violent Bear's carcass was dragged to the side against the wall.

A large amount of blood flowed along the passage and into the drainage trench Zhao Mengmeng had just dug.

Zhao Mengmeng watched the hot blood flow past her feet.

"If this were on Blue Star, it would scare half the neighborhood."

The passage was cleared.

Lin Ye did not enter the cave chamber immediately.

He redeployed three nano-warning lines on both sides of the passage.

A bottom line, a middle line, and a high-position intersecting line.

If any living thing passed through, his bracer would prioritize transmitting a vibration signal.

After finishing the trench, Zhao Mengmeng walked over and saw the shimmering thin lines filling the passage.

"Is it not safe inside?"

"Just because the Violent Bear was the king of the mountain doesn't mean there aren't snakes, insects, rats, or ants in its den."

Zhao Mengmeng immediately raised her crossbow.

Lin Ye briefly activated his left eye.

His vision penetrated the rock layer and scanned the cave chamber.

The blinding red light had vanished.

The residual body heat of the Violent Bear emitted a faint green glow, mixed with very pale gray spots.

The hot spring surface was calm, and there were no large red lights around it.

Only in the deepest part of the chamber were there a few dark red linear areas hugging the bottom of the rock wall.

Lin Ye closed his left eye.

Those were geological fissures or high-heat vents, not living creatures.

They could avoid them.

"Follow me and step in my footprints."

The two stepped into the cave chamber.

Large bloodstains from dragging the Violent Bear were left on the ground.

The hot spring lay across the right side of the cave chamber.

The water surface was three meters in diameter, with steam rising and the edge's stone crust appearing white.

Zhao Mengmeng leaned over to look at the water surface.

Lin Ye used the Entrenching Tool to tap and test the edge of the hot spring.

The white crust cracked, and boiling hot water spilled out from underneath.

Zhao Mengmeng took half a step back.

"If you stepped into that, your foot would be seven-tenths cooked instantly."

Lin Ye bypassed the edge of the pool.

Behind the cave chamber, there was a pile of dry grass and dead branches, which were the nesting materials of the Violent Bear.

He used his dagger to turn over the grass pile.

It was dry and warm inside, mixed with undigested bone fragments from beasts.

Zhao Mengmeng pinched her nose.

"Aside from the pungent smell, this nest is quite practical."

"Pick out the dry nesting material and take it with us." Lin Ye picked out some dead branches.

Zhao Mengmeng tied the wood together with bark rope and dragged the firewood back to the front fire pit.

The two turned back to begin processing the Violent Bear's abdominal skin.

The thick fur was as hard as steel needles.

Lin Ye used the Fire Axe to cut the edge of the skin, while Zhao Mengmeng used her dagger to separate it along the subcutaneous fat.

They took turns exerting force, and it took over half an hour to peel off a two-meter-long piece of abdominal skin.

The heavy fur was covered in grease.

Zhao Mengmeng collapsed directly onto the black rock.

"This bear really knows how to give a workout even after it's dead."

Lin Ye spread the abdominal skin flat on a warmer rock.

"Scrape the fat."

Zhao Mengmeng looked up at him, her eyes filled with despair.

"Do you have an obsession with scraping fat?"

"If you leave the fat, it will rot and stink."

Lin Ye handed her a piece of flattened bone.

Zhao Mengmeng took the bone piece and muttered complaints while scraping hard.

Lin Ye turned to cut the liver and the remaining heart muscle.

He cut off a piece of meat with dense gray spots from the edge and tossed it directly into the deep crevice at the end of the drainage trench.

Zhao Mengmeng watched that piece of meat disappear.

"Threw it away?"

"It's dirty."

She didn't ask again and lowered her head to continue scraping the fat.

By the fire pit.

The third pot of bear meat was boiling.

The meat broth was white and thick, with a thick layer of grease floating on the surface.

Lin Ye moved the aluminum pot away from the heat source and used a stick to pick out a piece of stewed tendon to hand to Zhao Mengmeng.

Zhao Mengmeng dropped the bone piece, took it, and immediately bit into it.

It was so hot she grimaced, but she forced herself to chew it up and swallow it.

"This meat is so much more fragrant than venison."

The two ate quickly, leaning against the fire.

Lin Ye only ate until he was seventy percent full, then stood up to continue adjusting the meat-drying rack and checking the gaps in the ice door.

Zhao Mengmeng ate until sweat seeped from her forehead.

She leaned against the black rock and let out a satisfied burp.

"I believe it now; in this godforsaken place, if one door closes, it really might just shove a bear in for you."

"Since you're full, get back to scraping the skin."

"..."

Outside the cave, the wind and snow slammed violently against the ice door.

Inside the cave, the hot oil bubbled, and the firelight flickered.

The chat in the Great Xia Live Stream was flooding with messages.

[This is what you call extreme survival! Almost froze to death, then turned around to kill a bear and have a hotpot.]

[Brother Eye is thriving this time; shelter, water, food, and fur are all set.]

[Starting on a Level 4 Floating Island with a Violent Bear, the difficulty has just doubled.]

[Where did Scott from the USA go? No movement from him these past few days.]

...

Meanwhile.

On a blizzard-swept highland tens of kilometers away.

Scott, the Challenger from the USA, was kneeling beside the carcass of an exotic beast.

His tactical suit was torn open at the back.

Dark tumors were surging and heaving wildly beneath the skin of his back.

He kept his head lowered, his ten fingers digging deeply into the frozen earth, his throat suppressing ragged gasps.

The next second.

Underneath his flesh, something began to push outward.