From Robinson Crusoe

The excessive pain in his head gave Chen Zhou the feeling that he was about to catch a cold.

There was a lack of medical care and medicine on the island, and getting sick was one of the things he feared the most. He was terrified at the thought of the possible consequences of catching a cold.

Although he was very sleepy, he did not dare to sleep. He quickly lit a fire, dried his clothes and body, and heated up some leftovers to fill his stomach and warm his intestines.

Having food in the stomach makes the sleepiness more obvious.

Chen Zhou added some large pieces of firewood into the stove to suppress the raging flames, hoping that there would still be fire when he woke up. He also picked up a bottle of arrack.

He quickly covered the leftovers on the table, poured wine into his mouth, walked towards the bedroom, and got into bed with a mouth full of the pungent smell of alcohol.

At this time, the sky outside the cave was already dawning, and the rain was still sporadic.

Chen Zhou was already tired and drunk, so before going to bed he was still worried about the pregnant goat and the tied ram. He was afraid that they would not be able to take shelter from the rain in the woods in time and would get sick after getting wet.

He lay there in a daze for a while. The alcohol took effect and his originally somewhat logical thinking became a mess. After a few seconds, he fell into a deep sleep.

……

When Chen Zhou was a child, he would have nightmares every time he got sick with a high fever, which would then develop into a dry cough that would last for more than ten days.

There is a folk remedy for treating cough in his hometown, which is to soak sea buckthorn in wine, and it is best to use sea buckthorn that has been frozen hard in winter. He had already had the root cause of the cough, and it was cured by drinking this wine.

When he grew up, he rarely got sick, and even if he was sick, he basically didn't have dreams.

He fell asleep unexpectedly, and in his confused state, he dreamed of many fragmented scenes, most of which revolved around life after returning to modern times, but the content was not very good.

There were relatives and friends who heard that he had made a fortune and came to him to borrow money; there were women who used to ignore him but now came to him with heavy makeup; there were investigators who came to his house with bank records, and there were countless real estate agents, car agents and various salesmen who bothered him and annoyed him...

Later, he dreamed of the cannibalistic natives. He dreamed that he was wearing equipment and rescued a captive who looked very much like his college roommate from the encirclement of the natives.

In the dream, this native was better than Robinson's Friday. Not only was he sensible and obedient, and efficient at work, he also inexplicably understood some modern Chinese idioms, and even mastered some professional knowledge that he didn't understand. The two of them got along very well, just like real brothers.

But this story still has a bad ending. At the end of the dream, this amiable "good brother" who always had a smile on his face betrayed him and attacked the cave with a group of cannibalistic natives.

The natives built a bonfire on the platform, tied him to a long wooden stick, and wanted to roast him alive like the cannibals did to Captain Jack in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The dream ended with him being burned by flames, and then he had one last terrible dream -

All of his live traps were effective, but all the female goats he caught were killed by wild beasts, and when he arrived at the capture site, all he found was a mess.

Even the lamb following its mother goat could not escape the disaster, and its torn fur and limbs were thrown into the puddles in a mess.

……

Chen Zhou was extremely tired from this sleep and it was already afternoon when he woke up.

The oil lamp that I forgot to turn off before going to bed had long burned out, and the cave was pitch black.

After opening his eyes, Chen Zhou looked at the ceiling and was silent for a long time.

Grape and the three kittens seemed to be sleeping in a wooden box beside the bed, and no sound could be heard from their playfulness.

In the distance, there was a faint sound of rain, and a light, damp breeze that went around the wall and into the bedroom.

Immediately afterwards, a sound like horse hooves was heard, and Lai Fu, who was wet, came to the bedside.

haha~
It looked like it had just finished exercising, with its mouth wide open, tongue sticking out, breathing heavily, and stretching its body hard to lick Chen Zhou's face.

Pushing open the moving "alarm clock", Chen Zhou touched his forehead.

He didn't have a fever, but the dull pain in the back of his head or brain still made him feel uncomfortable.

Now that I'm in good health, I can't avoid work - if the live trap I set up in the early morning worked, I should have a harvest by now.

Chen Zhou climbed out of bed and put on his clothes in a hurry. During this process, he couldn't help but think of several dreams he had.

Those disturbing images were slowly disappearing as his brain became clearer, like paint diluted by water, but the general plot still left a deep impression on him.

When it comes to dreams, or things involving metaphysics, modern young people always deal with it in the following way: "If it's beneficial to me, I believe it; if it's not beneficial to me, it's feudal superstition."

The same is true for Chen Zhou.

"Dreams are the opposite of what they actually are. Since I'm having these dreams, it means that the things in my dreams will never happen in the future..."

Thinking of this, he put on his clothes, picked up a lighter from the bedside table, lit an oil lamp filled with lamp oil, and shone it on the wooden box beside the bed.

As he expected, Tizi was indeed hugging the three kittens and resting in the box.

They had very light sleep and had long been awakened by Lai Fu's footsteps. When they saw the oil lamp moving over, they stretched out their heads, like fluffy little balls, and looked at Chen Zhou with wide eyes.

Grapes finally stuck its head out and, together with its children, filled the exit of the wooden box.

It looked at Chen Zhou, the kind and capable big cat, and made a tender "meow~", as if to express its concern.

This big cat rarely sleeps during the day.

Seeing these little creatures that depend on him and are taken care of by him, Chen Zhou's mood, which was ruined by dreams and headaches, improved. Especially Ti Zi's cry, which touched the softest part of his heart.

He smiled slightly, rubbed the heads of Grape and the three kittens, stood up, drank some water, cheered himself up, and walked towards the kitchen.

……

The rainy season is much less busy than the dry season, but under normal circumstances, there is still a lot of work to be done every day.

He slept soundly, but there were many things to do at home.

Daily care of crops, going to the cabin to inspect crops, weeding herbs such as mint and caraway in the nursery outside the wall...

Feed the little chinchilla, grapes and little gray family, prepare meals for Lai Fu, and don’t forget the newly pregnant female mice in the mouse pen and the poison-testing mice that have tried poison several times but didn’t survive...

After completing these tasks, there are still a few urgent matters to be resolved.

The first thing to do is to check the condition of the mother goat. It is easy for the lambs to suffer from hypothermia and die when it rains.

Even though the temperature here remains at around 28 or 29 degrees all year round, in weather with frequent rainfall, newborn lambs are very likely to die before they have even had their first mouthful of breast milk, their hooves become weak, and they are exhausted.

Chen Zhou was well aware of the importance of this matter. He used the remaining fire in the stove to light the firewood. After heating up the food, he immediately put on his leather raincoat, put on his wide-brimmed hat, and walked out of the house.

After entering October, the intensity and frequency of precipitation have significantly weakened.

According to Chen Zhou's personal experience this year, the dry season on the island is significantly longer than the rainy season.

If it weren't for the fact that this is an isolated island suspended in the sea, the climate here would probably be much drier, and there would not be such lush vegetation and rivers flowing all year round.

Thanks to the slowdown in precipitation as the dry season approaches, the lush forests serve as a rain shelter, and the effect is quite good.

When Chen Zhou arrived at the location where the goat couple was tied with a worried mood, he saw that they were eating grass beside the protruding tree roots. They did not seem to be disturbed by the rain, and even their hair was not completely wet.

Although she looked fine, he still walked over to the goat and touched her belly.

It seemed like an illusion, he felt that the goat's belly seemed to be a little bigger than yesterday. As an unprofessional "veterinarian", Chen Zhou touched the belly and looked at the goat's buttocks. He found that there was no secretion or blood in its vulva, which meant that it would not give birth in a short time, so he left.

……

Since the mother goat is fine, there is nothing else for Chen Zhou to worry about.

There is no need to pay special attention to the live-trapping cages on the other side of the mountain. If they work, the captured sheep will be stuck in the cages and won't be able to run away or starve to death for a while.

If the sheep were not caught, there would be no need to worry. There were a few empty cages on the mountain. Could they be stolen?
I went back and forth between the fields and the wooden house, and took some time to visit the sugarcane and aloe vera fields beside the mountain stream. I broke off a piece of sugarcane and peeled and chewed it as I walked.

When he returned to the kitchen, the water in the large iron kettle was almost boiled dry.

……

He ate his meal leisurely and then fed the hungry poison-testing rats.

Taking out a black wedge-shaped piece of wood from the bedside table, Chen Zhou sat on the edge of the bed and took out a dagger.

From September 1659, 9 to September 30, 1660, a whole year passed quickly, and the "calendar" made of pineapple wood blocks had been used up. Now, it was the turn of this ironwood block to come on stage.

He solemnly carved a dent on the top of the wooden block, and then played with the "bruised" pineapple wood block for a while.

After briefly reviewing several major events that happened last year and the important tasks that should be completed this year, he picked up his backpack, installed the rigging, and drove the follower Lai Fu back to the cave - this guy had become more and more disobedient recently and was very likely to scare the lamb away.

Chen Zhou went alone to the other side of the mountain to check the live capture cages and noose traps.

……

The sleep he had on October 10st had a great impact on Chen Zhou's life.

I sleep in the early morning, wake up in the afternoon, and after finishing my daily work, the sun is about to set.

Moreover, if you get enough sleep during the day, it is easy to fall asleep at night.

If it were modern times, I would watch short videos, read novels, eat some snacks, and lie in bed before I knew it, and dawn would come.

Then I continue to make up for sleep during the day and continue to stay awake at night, forming a vicious cycle.

Even if you force yourself to follow a strict schedule because of work or study, you will still feel listless in the next one or two days, doing everything in a muddle-headed way and having extremely low work efficiency.

……

Fortunately, Chen Zhou was on an isolated island, with no way to kill time, and no stimulant short videos or games to stimulate his spirit.

At night, I lay in bed, blew out the lights, looked at the dark cave, and struggled for three to five minutes at most before falling asleep.

……

When I went out, I took a lantern with a glass cover, but forgot to check the oil.

Having reached the cave, Chen Zhou suddenly found that the light of the lantern in his hand was getting dimmer and dimmer, and it could not illuminate a large area at all.

He picked up the lamp and looked inside, and found that there was only a thin layer of lamp oil left. It was unknown whether it could last until he could return to the cave, let alone until he could catch sheep.

Cursing himself for being careless in his heart, he walked into the cave, put down his backpack, took out the cloth strip, found a wooden stick left in the cave, and made a simple torch with it.

He blew out the oil lamp, poured out the oil, soaked the cloth strip, and then directly inserted the unlit torch into the cave.

The sun hasn't set yet, and even though it's raining, it's not completely dark outside and you can still see the road.

Since the oil in the oil lamp was almost exhausted and could no longer provide lighting, Chen Zhou had no choice but to use the last bit of fuel as a "baton" to get home -

Although the burning time of a torch is not as long as that of a dying oil lamp, its brightness is much higher.

When walking on a mountain trail in the dark, the brightness of the light source is far more important than its duration.

……

Continuing on the road, slowing down, and seeing the bumps under his feet, Chen Zhou made plans.

He thought that if he caught the goat alive in a trap, he would lead it to the grass under the cave and place it there just like he had domesticated the female goat couple, slowly feeding it salt grains to foster their affection.

If the trap caught nothing and the drizzle stopped, he would light the torch and walk home when he returned.

If the drizzle did not stop but instead became heavier, he would leave the torch behind, stay in the cave for one night, and return home the next morning.

The oil lamp is "scrapped", and this method of disposal is currently appropriate.

……

The sky grew increasingly darker, and the drizzle that had been struggling for a whole day finally died down and stopped dripping.

After walking for a long time, wearing a fur raincoat and a wide-brimmed hat, Chen Zhou felt a headache at first, but later he sweated more and more and he felt that the disease he contracted from the rain was completely cured.

He didn't know if it was an illusion caused by the hot sweat, but he didn't feel the headache for the time being. He felt relaxed and quickened his pace a little.

As they were about to reach the platform where the sheep were, Chen Zhou heard the bleating of sheep from afar.

The cries came from far more than one sheep, one after another. There were the rough voices of adult sheep as well as the tender calls of young lambs, and each cry was filled with anxiety.

"Hey! It's done!"

Normally, the sheep would have left by now and would not have stayed on the hillside overnight.

Besides, even if the sheep stayed on the hillside, they would not make such sounds for no reason, let alone such frequent and extremely anxious sounds.

Knowing in advance that his live trap had yielded a reward, Chen Zhou took off his backpack as he walked forward and pulled out two bundles of hemp rope to make it easier to tie up the sheep later.

After crossing the ridge, you can see the situation ahead clearly.

There were a few white spots of varying sizes on the dark hillside, standing out against the backdrop of the approaching night.

Two large live capture cages and one small live capture cage were both effective in trapping the greedy and bold goats.

Moreover, Chen Zhou's luck was rare to be good. The two live traps caught only female goats. Next to the cages, three little goats were anxiously stretching their heads, trying to squeeze in through the gaps in the wooden sticks to drink milk.

What was even more unbelievable to him was that the lamb caught in the small live trap was actually the lamb of another female goat.

Now, the mother of the lamb is standing by the live capture cage, bleating and calling, and from time to time she lowers her head and bangs the cage with her horns, trying to save her child.

"Seven sheep, three big and four small. I'm rich now!"

Worried that the goat guarding the lamb would be scared away by him, Chen Zhou bent down long ago, tightly grasping the hemp rope in his hand, full of joy.

If he could catch these seven sheep, plus the female and male goats that were about to give birth, the number of goats belonging to him would expand from two to ten in a blink of an eye, and the animal husbandry industry, which had been sluggish since he landed on the island, would also be able to develop and grow.

Even if these four lambs are all rams, if we include the domesticated female goats, which give birth twice a year, these four female goats are enough to provide the flock with newborns, and there is plenty of goat milk. (End of this chapter)