24: Chapter 24 Just as I finished eating, the heavens began to discourage me.

Beneath the giant tree, Lin Ye sat cross-legged.

With a two-meter-long piece of hardwood in his left hand and a dagger gripped firmly in his right, he rapidly shaved the wood along the grain.

Wood chips fell rustling to the ground as the rough bark was cleared away.

Every half hour, he would stop what he was doing and walk over to a nearby wooden rack.

Enduring the eye-stinging smoke, he turned the strips of Iron-Jaw Beast meat on the smoking rack one by one.

Slow-roasted over a low fire and permeated by the thick smoke, the surface of the meat strips took on an enticing reddish-brown hue.

After more than an hour, the tip of the wooden spear had been carved into a sharp cone.

Lin Ye brought the spear tip close to the base of the campfire, using the high heat of the charcoal to fire-harden it.

Only when the surface had carbonized and turned black did he pull it back.

Lin Ye stood up straight, gripped the middle of the wooden spear with one hand, and tested its weight.

With a flick of his wrist and power from his core, he thrust forward three times in rapid succession!

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

The sound of breaking wind was dull and crisp; he was very satisfied!

"An inch longer, an inch stronger. Next time something dares to bare its teeth at me, I'll run it straight through."

As noon approached, Lin Ye's stomach began to growl.

He added enough wood to the campfire to make the flames leap up.

He picked up the last clean Silver Shuttle Fish, skewered it with a wooden stick, and slanted it into the ground beside the fire to roast.

Next, he picked up the small iron pot and poured in the bowl of reserved fresh water.

He threw in all the tenderloin slices he had specifically cut off that morning.

Fish oil dripped into the fire with a "sizzle-sizzle," and the aroma of charred food wafted everywhere.

The water in the iron pot bubbled and boiled as the meat slices tumbled around, the scent of meat filling the air.

The fish was roasted to a golden brown on both sides.

Lin Ye reached out and took a direct bite.

The fish skin was crispy, and the meat was tender.

He chewed vigorously while using a wooden skewer to lift a piece of cooked tenderloin from the iron pot.

After blowing on it twice to cool it down, he tossed it into his mouth.

It was soft, tender, and springy, filling his mouth with savory juices.

"This texture... if only I had some minced garlic, it would be perfect."

Lin Ye leaned against the giant tree and let out a long sigh.

Inside the Great Xia Live Stream, netizens collectively lost it when they saw him feasting so heartily.

[The pre-packaged meal in my hand suddenly tastes like nothing.]

[My tears are uncontrollably flowing from the corners of my mouth...]

[Even without seasoning, this is way better than those yellowish pastes from the Indian guy next door.]

[I originally came here for some excitement, but now I only feel my stomach being 'excited'.]

[Roasted fish paired with stewed meat; this survival show has turned into a mukbang!]

Sated with food and drink, Lin Ye patted his belly contentedly and let out a burp.

He turned to look at the smoking rack on the other side.

By his count, it had been smoking for a full five or six hours since the morning.

The moisture on the surface of the meat strips had been drawn out, the meat had shrunk, and the color had turned an enticing light reddish-brown.

"That's about it. Time to wrap up."

Lin Ye scraped all the smoked meat strips off and placed them on a clean stone slab.

Once the meat cooled, he picked up the large leaves he had washed earlier.

He wrapped the meat strips tightly in groups of ten, finally using small wooden skewers to secure the openings.

It took nearly an hour to finish packing seven bundles of portable smoked jerky rations.

Unzipping his backpack, he stuffed them all into the very bottom.

The solid weight of the backpack gave him a great sense of security.

"Next, I need to get some other supplies to hit tonight's upload quota."

He picked up the iron pot and used the remaining water at the bottom to douse the campfire.

Still uneasy, he used his foot to stomp the ashes down firmly, confirming no sparks remained.

Picking up his newly made wooden spear, Lin Ye prepared to head out and explore.

He had barely taken two steps out of the camp.

*Plop.*

A drop of water splashed onto the back of his hand.

Lin Ye paused and looked up at the sky.

At some point, the sky had filled with massive dark clouds, pressing down heavily over the Floating Island. He narrowed his left eye slightly.

Eye of Destiny, activate!

The entire vision of his left eye was covered in a field of red.

This was a natural disaster!

"Hiss!"

He closed his eye after just one second, but even so, his left eye felt a sharp pang of pain.

Did this range cover the entire Level 2 Floating Island?

*Crash—!*

A torrential downpour slammed down from above.

The rain was violent, swallowing the entire jungle in a white curtain of water in the blink of an eye.

"Fuck! This bastard heaven doesn't play fair!"

Lin Ye cursed under his breath and quickly turned around, retreating back into the hollow at the base of the giant tree in a few steps.

Rainwater streamed down his cheeks.

He looked up at his "small apartment" twenty meters high in the air.

Under this storm, the water accumulating in that natural hollow could probably be used to raise fish.

His carefully constructed safe point was scrapped on the spot.

Lin Ye could only huddle in the tree hollow, passively avoiding the wind and rain.

...

In the Great Xia Live Stream, the bullet chats that were happily joking a moment ago instantly vanished.

Everyone's hearts jumped into their throats.

[Holy crap! Why did it start raining just like that! There wasn't even a prelude!]

[It's over, it's over, Brother Eye's high-altitude luxury flat is about to become a swimming pool!]

[The shelter on the tree is ruined; can he hold out down below?]

[The heavens are doing this on purpose! Just finished eating and it drops a full-screen AOE disaster!]

[Are there any experts who can tell us if fierce beasts will come out in this kind of weather?]

At the commentator's desk, Xu Mingyuan's expression was extremely grim.

"Now we have big trouble!"

"In the wild, this kind of rainstorm is more lethal than fierce beasts; it will rapidly strip a Challenger of their body heat."

"The shelter advantage Lin Ye accumulated earlier has been reset to zero in the face of this natural disaster!"

Commentator Chen Guofeng clenched his fists, staring at the big screen without saying a word.

But the external troublemakers welcomed a long-awaited carnival.

[USA: Hahaha! Retribution has come! The Great Xia person's good luck has run out!]

[Japan: Without that broken tree branch, he can only wait for death in the tree hollow now!]

[South Korea: The better he ate before, the more miserably he'll die now, smida!]

[India: I'll start the countdown; this Great Xia rat definitely won't last three hours!]

The Great Xia audience fought back angrily, engaging in a fierce clash with overseas opinions.

...

On the Level 2 Floating Island in the Void Sea.

Lin Ye crouched in the tree hollow and tightened his collar.

The temperature plummeted sharply under the lashing of the rainstorm.

He had originally thought this was just a passing shower that would stop after a while.

But this storm showed no sign of weakening; instead, it got heavier and heavier.

His gaze pierced through the curtain of rain.

On the muddy ground at the base of the giant tree, puddles of all sizes had already accumulated.

As the rain continued to lash down, the puddles merged into one.

The water level was rising rapidly.

The turbid muddy water had already covered the surface of the tree roots and was about to flood into the tree hollow.

If it kept rising, this tree hollow would be submerged in less than half an hour.

Lin Ye gritted his teeth.

"To hell with this, I don't want to be a sitting duck here!"

Instead of waiting here to be flooded, it was better to take a gamble while the sky wasn't completely dark yet!

Rushing to higher ground to find a new spot was his only way out right now.

Once night fell, being blind in the dark combined with hypothermia would mean he was truly done for!

He wiped the muddy water from his face.

He grabbed the backpack beside him and quickly swung it onto his shoulders.

He pulled the two straps tight and buckled them across his chest.

His left hand gripped the wooden spear tightly.

His gaze pierced through the curtain of rain, looking toward the faintly visible outline of the hills in the center of the Floating Island.

Facing the gale, Lin Ye stepped out of the tree hollow and plunged headlong into the white curtain of rain!