81: Chapter 81 Water Storage and Drought Prevention: Planning Ahead

The next morning, Lin Ye woke up on time.

Lin Ye opened his eyes and first felt for the crossbow beside him.

The fire pit was still glowing, half of the oil lamps had gone out, and Zhao Mengmeng was curled up on the bed clutching a semi-dry hide, her brow furrowed even in sleep.

He didn't wake her, instead getting up and walking to the cave entrance.

As soon as he pushed open the wooden door, a cold wind rushed in.

Outside the water curtain, the original waterfall had shrunk significantly.

The rock walls on both sides were covered in white frost, with rows of icicles forming along the edges; the water flowed down through a narrow gap in the middle, crashing into the pool and kicking up a large cloud of white mist.

Lin Ye reached out to catch a bit of water.

It was so icy his fingers ached.

"This is going to be a problem."

Zhao Mengmeng sat up groggily. "What's wrong? Did monsters break in?"

"Trouble of a different kind. The waterfall is about to freeze over." Lin Ye closed the wooden door.

Zhao Mengmeng snapped awake instantly. "Freeze over? Then won't we be trapped in the cave?"

"That's why we need to leave ourselves a 'dog hole' before it freezes shut completely."

Zhao Mengmeng was stunned for half a second. "You're calling a life-saving passage a 'dog hole'?"

"If it saves your life, you can call it the Dragon Gate for all I care."

Lin Ye didn't waste any time.

He dragged all the leftover thick logs from last night to the cave entrance and picked out over a dozen of the straightest hardwood poles, sharpening them into slants with his Fire Axe.

Zhao Mengmeng also came over to help pass him vines.

"How are we building it?"

"We'll build an eave on the side of the water curtain, slanting the wooden frame outward to divert the falling water."

Lin Ye pointed to the rock wall on the left side of the cave entrance. "Leave a gap at the bottom; as long as a person can squeeze through sideways, that's enough."

Zhao Mengmeng looked in the direction he pointed.

It was right against the cliff face where the water splashed; even the footing was slippery.

Her face turned a bit pale. "You're going to work over there? If you fall, you'll go straight into the pool to feed the fish."

"That's why you'll secure things from inside while I go out to hang the beams."

Lin Ye tied one end of a vine around his waist and looped the other end around a thick stone pillar inside the cave.

Zhao Mengmeng immediately pulled it taut. "Don't do anything reckless. If the rope frays and snaps, I really won't be able to catch you."

"Don't worry, I still owe Great Xia a bunch of supplies. I don't have time to die."

He opened the wooden door and squeezed out into the cold wind.

The damp, slippery rock wall was already covered in frost, and his feet slipped the moment he stepped on it.

Several Nano-wires shot out from the Dark Weaver on Lin Ye's right arm, anchoring into the rock crevices and forcibly suspending his body beside the water curtain.

He inserted the first wooden beam diagonally into a rock crevice.

With a strike from the back of the Fire Axe, the beam was wedged tight.

Zhao Mengmeng handed out the second one from inside the cave, her fingers red from the cold. "Catch!"

"Lift it higher."

"Any higher and my arm's going to fall off!"

"If it falls off, I'll hang it on the wall for you to air-dry."

"Get lost!"

Early in the morning, the Great Xia Live Stream was stunned by this scene.

[I woke up to see Brother Eye doing engineering work by a waterfall. I thought I'd entered a construction channel.]

[Diverting water with an eave! The water will follow the slant outward, leaving a gap inside.]

[He only said last night that the waterfall would freeze, and today he's already starting construction. Does this guy's brain ever sleep?]

The wooden beams were put up one by one.

Lin Ye used vines for cross-binding, then stuffed wet mud into the rock crevices, and finally laid split wooden planks over the outside of the slanted beams.

The eave tilted outward, its end pressing against the edge of the water flow.

As the waterfall crashed down, it was diverted half a foot away by the planks, sliding down the outer edge.

Between the cave entrance and the cliff wall, a narrow dark gap finally appeared.

Zhao Mengmeng squatted down to test it; she could only pass if her shoulder brushed against the rock wall.

"This is way too narrow."

"If it were wider, it wouldn't block the water, nor would it block the ice."

Lin Ye added two more crossbeams above the gap, fixing them into a triangular support.

He gave the wooden frame a kick; it made a dull thud and didn't budge.

Afterward, he squeezed through the passage, circled around the outside, and came back through the cave entrance.

"It passes."

Seeing the water being diverted outward, Zhao Mengmeng finally felt at ease.

"If it really freezes into a wall of ice, we can still crawl out through here?"

"As long as we clear the icicles every day, we can keep it open."

"Fine, dog hole it is. Survival comes first."

Lin Ye held his frozen hands over the fire to warm them for a moment, then looked at the hides hanging in the cave.

"You guard the cave this morning. Tan the hides again, and don't be lazy."

Zhao Mengmeng's face fell. "Again? I was literally rubbing brains in my dreams last night."

"If you don't rub them thoroughly, they'll be stiff. If they're stiff, they'll leak air. If they leak air, you'll freeze."

"Alright, alright, stop lecturing."

Lin Ye shouldered his crossbow, his Fire Axe hanging at his waist.

Seeing him prepare to leave, Zhao Mengmeng immediately asked, "You're going alone?"

Lin Ye nodded. "Keep the fire in the cave going. If anyone approaches, shoot them in the leg first."

Zhao Mengmeng looked up. "What if it's someone from Great Xia?"

"Ask three questions first. If they answer incorrectly, shoot them in the leg too."

"Understood."

Lin Ye squeezed out through the newly made gap passage.

He climbed up the cliff to the top of the waterfall and entered the morning forest.

The extreme cold had made the jungle much quieter.

Lin Ye scanned the area with his Eye of Destiny.

In his left eye's field of vision, a cluster of pale green light was hidden behind a fallen log about twenty meters ahead.

He raised his crossbow and slowly walked over.

When he saw the thing, a prompt popped up on the light screen in his right eye.

[Frost-back Musk Deer]

Swoosh!

The creature's front legs buckled, and it collapsed to the ground.

Lin Ye tied the carcass and hung it from a tree, planning to pick it up on his way back.

As he went deeper, the temperature dropped even further.

Lin Ye found his second target near a slope.

It was a grey-furred beast about half the height of a person, digging into the soil with its claws.

[Rock-claw Civet]

Lin Ye pulled the trigger from the side-rear.

The wooden bolt pierced through the back of its neck.

The Rock-claw Civet struggled violently, its claws carving deep furrows into the frozen earth.

Lin Ye stepped forward with his Fire Axe and crushed its skull with a single blow.

He tied the two prey together, slung them over his shoulder, and prepared to head back.

Just as he was passing through a patch of vines.

He instinctively activated his Eye of Destiny for an instant, scanning deeper into the forest.

At the edge of his vision, a massive expanse of green light suddenly spread out.

It was too large.

In just half a second, a huge chunk of his mental energy was consumed.

Lin Ye's temples throbbed, and he immediately closed his left eye.

His vision returned to normal.

He stood in place, unmoving.

That thing wasn't close, its position was roughly to the northeast.

Was it a giant plant?

An underground fungal mat?

Or some kind of massive resource zone?

Lin Ye pondered for a moment, then continued back the way he came.

He couldn't go now.

With the extreme cold descending, greed could kill.

When he returned to the cave, Zhao Mengmeng was squatted by the fire rubbing a hide, her face the picture of misery.

When she saw the prey on Lin Ye's shoulder, her eyes lit up. "You're back?"

"Yeah."

Lin Ye placed the carcasses outside the cave entrance.

Zhao Mengmeng cursed under her breath, "I just finished rubbing all morning, and now you're giving me overtime."

"Congratulations on the job security."

"You want some of this 'blessing'?"

Lin Ye didn't take the bait.

In the afternoon, the two began building a water cistern.

The location was chosen inside the cave entrance to the right, near the fire pit but far enough to avoid pollution from soot.

Lin Ye brought over flat stones and stacked them layer by layer into a waist-high wall.

Zhao Mengmeng was responsible for mixing the clay.

She mixed fine soil, shredded grass, and a small amount of ash together, adding water and treading it into a paste.

"Can this stuff really keep it from leaking?"

"Apply a few more layers. It'll tighten as it dries; it'll hold for a few days without a problem."

"And after a few days?"

"After a few days, we'll fix it."

Zhao Mengmeng rolled her eyes at the retort but didn't stop her hands.

Lin Ye smeared the first layer of fine clay on the inside of the cistern wall. Once the heat from the fire pit had dried it halfway, he pressed on a second layer.

He filled the gaps inch by inch with his fingers.

Zhao Mengmeng squatted nearby, watching. "If the waterfall really freezes solid, how long will this cistern last us?"

"If we use it sparingly, three to four days."

"What about washing our faces?"

"You're thinking about washing your face during snowfield survival?"

Zhao Mengmeng silent for two seconds. "Forget I asked."

The sky darkened quickly.

The wind and snow hadn't fallen yet, but the frost outside the cave was even thicker.

The outside of the eave was covered in ice beads; Lin Ye knocked them off with a wooden stick, confirming the gap passage was still passable.

After nightfall, the fire pit was stoked again.

Zhao Mengmeng held a small pot and drank soup, finally feeling like she'd recovered.

"Brother Lin, you didn't run into any big monsters today?"

Lin Ye bit into some roasted meat, his gaze fixed on the flames.

That massive expanse of green light from earlier kept flashing back in his mind.

The area was too large.

Seeing that he didn't reply, Zhao Mengmeng couldn't help but ask, "What? Did you run into a big monster out there today?"

Lin Ye swallowed the meat and spoke slowly, "No, I just saw a place."

"What kind of place?"

"There might be good stuff there, but there might also be big trouble."

Zhao Mengmeng's expression immediately changed. "Are we going?"

"No rush." Lin Ye looked up toward the cave entrance. "We'll wait until the weather outside stabilizes a bit."}

],"new_glossary_terms":[{"zh":"Frost-backed tangerine","en":"Frost-back Musk Deer","entity_type":"creature","gender":"neutral"},{"zh":"Rockclaw Civet","en":"Rock-claw Civet","entity_type":"creature","gender":"neutral"},{"zh":"fire axe","en":"Fire Axe","entity_type":"item","gender":"neutral"},{"zh":"crossbow","en":"crossbow","entity_type":"item","gender":"neutral"},{"zh":"Daxia","en":"Great Xia","entity_type":"organization","gender":"neutral"},{"zh":"Longmen","en":"Dragon Gate","entity_type":"other","gender":"neutral"}]}

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