From Robinson Crusoe

自1662年2月2日的神秘奖励后，到5月3日，陈舟又陆续收到了六次奖励。

Among these six reward items, some were quite useful and helped alleviate his urgent needs.

For example, the reward sent on April 4th -

There are 200 kilograms of A4 paper bundles, with an estimated total of more than sheets.

These papers completely solved the problem of paper shortage on the island. Even if Chen Zhou drew three designs every day, such a large number of A4 papers would be enough for him to use until the end of the challenge.

Of course, Chen Zhou is not a stingy person. He knows that it will be difficult for him to use up all these papers, and he has already thought about their uses.

When Saturday's sketching skills reached a high level, he rewarded the boy who loved painting with some paper so that Saturday could better display his talent.

This way, the results of Saturday's hard work will be worthy of the effort.

There are also rewards sent on May 5rd——

Six thermoses.

They allow Chen Zhou to live a life where he can drink hot water or make hot tea anytime he wants. Moreover, the thermos can not only store hot water, but also ice cubes. On the hot island, this is like a magical artifact.

……

Compared with these two rewards, the other four rewards have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The most special one was the two solar photovoltaic panels given as the 3th mysterious reward on March 19.

These two photovoltaic panels are not small in size, each is 2m*1m in length and width, and each weighs nearly 20 kilograms.

According to the instructions included with the photovoltaic panels, the power of these two photovoltaic panels is 36V350W, the open circuit voltage is 43V, the operating current is 9.7A, and the short circuit current is 10.2A.

Generally speaking, with a 30A controller, these two photovoltaic panels can easily drive electrical appliances below 500W.

If the potential value is estimated, these two photovoltaic panels should be the most promising rewards. After all, they can allow Chen Zhou to leap directly from the Iron Age to the Electricity Age.

However, with only photovoltaic panels but no batteries, inverters, or electrical appliances that require electricity, Chen Zhou is unable to use electricity no matter how much he wants.

A photovoltaic panel is just a device that converts light energy into electrical energy and cannot store energy itself.

Before obtaining other supporting facilities, these two photovoltaic panels can only be stored in the storage room as the most luxurious decorations.

……

Although he cannot use the solar panels for the time being, every day when he walks in the cave, Chen Zhou sees the two large black boards and thinks of the modern life with water, electricity and internet, and he still misses it.

However, whenever he thought about all the supporting facilities of photovoltaic panels, including inverters, batteries, cables, connectors, distribution boxes, protectors and other facilities, his heart would feel as cold as if it was poured with a basin of ice water.

God knows when the mysterious reward will give away all these things.

If you are unlucky, you may not be able to use electricity until the end of the challenge.

If you are even more unlucky, you may even get all the supporting facilities but not have any electrical appliances that can operate.

Thinking about the usual style of the Space-Time Administration, Chen Zhou felt that these two photovoltaic panels might be some kind of evil interest, specially used to torture him.

In order to reduce the impact of modern life on himself and focus on reality, Chen Zhou finally covered the photovoltaic panels with thick canvas and stuffed them into the dark "old rat house".

This may be a way of covering up the problem, but out of sight, out of mind is effective.

……

If the photovoltaic panels gave Chen Zhou a vision for the future and relieved his current worries, then the other three rewards seemed too mediocre.

The reward delivered on February 2 was a pair of diving fins.

Chen Zhou's swimming skills were only mediocre, and his diving skills were even worse. The only two people on the island who could use the pair of flippers were two natives.

Especially on Saturday, his diving skills were amazing enough. It could be said that after entering the water, his flexibility was not much worse than that of a fish.

But what is speechless is that the pair of sneakers that Chen Zhou wanted to wear before was of the size of the two natives, but now this pair of fins that he can't use, perfectly fits the size of his feet.

This ridiculous coincidence makes people wonder if the Space-Time Administration, which distributes the rewards, is up to something again.

……

The reward delivered on March 3th was a multi-functional engineer shovel.

However, as Chen Zhou summed up from experience, multi-function often means that each function is done sloppily.

This engineer shovel is placed in a special carrying bag. The shovel handle adopts a segmented design. The integrated functions include a machete, bottle opener, saw, hex wrench, knife, survival whistle, fire stick, screwdriver, compass and window hammer. Two screwdrivers are also stuffed inside.

The portable bag is also equipped with a small bundle of parachute ropes and a pack of emergency quick-heating food.

If it were the first year of the challenge, this engineer shovel would undoubtedly be a magical weapon for Chen Zhou, who could only cut iron and wood to make pickaxes to dig sand and gravel.

But now that Chen Zhou is able to forge his own shovel and pickaxe, this engineer shovel seems a bit useless. At most, it can only be used as a superior substitute for the shovel and can be used outside due to its portability.

In comparison, the rewards delivered on April 4rd, although consumables, seem to be more valuable.

It was a whole Jinhua ham packed in a gift box.

As early as modern times, Chen Zhou had heard of the fame of Jinhua ham more than once, including its delicious taste and high price.

Since Jinhua ham is produced in the south, he has never had the chance to taste it. He never expected that after coming to another world, he would be able to taste the ham as a reward. However, there were no events worth celebrating recently, and the shelf life of ham was very long, so Chen Zhou was not in a hurry to eat it.

He planned to wait until August 1662, 8, his birthday, to share the delicacy of his hometown with the two natives.

This ham weighs about eight or nine pounds. Two plates are cut for every festival, which is enough to eat until the end of the year and provide long-lasting enjoyment.

……

Today, the mysterious reward has been of less and less help to Chen Zhou.

Most of the time, the value they embody is no longer a substantial improvement in the quality of life, but a sense of surprise.

……

With the company of two natives, Chen Zhou can now basically put aside trivial matters and concentrate on doing what he wants to do.

After May 5, after keeping the six thermoses that came as a mysterious reward, Chen Zhou led two natives to move all the remaining supplies in the camp at the foot of the mountain to the storage room in the cave as planned.

He then spent two days reorganizing the storage room and moving some more attractive pieces of furniture into the bedroom.

……

On May 5, Chen Zhou entrusted all his family's farmland and sheep to two natives. He took a mountaineering bag, a hand axe, a multi-functional engineer shovel and other tools, pushed a cart, and set out for the Fruit Tree Valley with Lai Fu.

Having already had the experience of exploring the fruit valley once, Chen Zhou was quite familiar with the route this time.

After arriving at the fruit valley, he collected nearly 100 kilograms of cocoa beans and dug up some fruit tree seedlings before returning to the river valley plain.

Out of fear of the unknown snakes on the grape vines, when digging sugarcane seedlings in the river valley plain, Chen Zhou always cleared the surrounding weeds to ensure that his vision was unobstructed before he dared to start.

Anyway, there is plenty of time, so there is no need to take greater risks just to save some time.

In this way, including the two days of round trip, Chen Zhou was out for more than eight days before he pushed the heavy cart back to the camp at the foot of the mountain.

……

The sugarcane seedlings are transported to the sugarcane fields beside the mountain stream and planted in batches.

The cocoa beans are brought back to the cave, dried and ground into chocolate.

Without the influence of precipitation, Chen Zhou, the "blacksmith" who had been staying in the forging room all day, had to go out frequently and become busy.

Planting crops was something they had learned and practiced on Saturdays and Sundays, but making cocoa beans into chocolate was the first time they had seen it.

……

Chen Zhou never said from beginning to end that chocolate was the food of God, and the two natives never told him about their own speculations.

For this reason, when making chocolate, Chen Zhou did not hide from the two natives and demonstrated the entire manufacturing process to them.

Saturday and Sunday then realized that the black fruits that were everywhere on the island where they used to live could actually be made into such delicious food.

Of course, having been with Chen Zhou for such a long time, the two of them are not stupid.

After watching the entire chocolate manufacturing process, they found that in addition to the ceramic drying rack used to dry the chocolate, the hammer and iron plate used to break the chocolate, and the grinding disc used to grind the chocolate, they also discovered the most important seasoning - sugar.

Without sugar, chocolate will only have fragrance and a slightly sour, bitter and mushy taste, and will no longer have the sweet and smooth taste.

According to the idiom written in the textbook, the word "sugar" is the finishing touch.

……

"I also want to make some chocolate myself, but without sugar, it seems hopeless..."

Sunday stood beside Chen Zhou, pushing the mill to grind the crushed cocoa beans, and whispered to Saturday.

The two knew that Chen Zhou was a very kind person and was very good to them. Sometimes when he spoke, he would involuntarily reveal his youthful nature.

Zhou Liu was adding firewood to the stove when he heard this, but before he could reply, Chen Zhou, who was sitting next to the two of them and drawing a design, spoke first.

“Sugar doesn’t fall from the sky either.

Want some chocolate? Don’t worry, there will be plenty for you in the future.”

After saying this, he put down the hydraulic forging hammer and waterwheel bellows design drawings in his hands and added.

"The sugarcanes we planted two days ago can be made into sugar when they grow up. As long as you take good care of them, you can eat chocolate every day in the future."

"Really?"

Hearing this, Sunday's eyes suddenly lit up, and the arms that pushed the millstone seemed to have more strength.

"Really." Chen Zhou gave him an affirmative answer and then added.

"When I'm not busy, I'll build you a big house next to the farmland, a big house with a kitchen.

When the time comes, you can take this stone mill home, and you can also take these drying racks and iron plates away.

If you want to eat chocolate, just make it yourself."

Chen Zhou smiled, lowered his head, and stared at the pink and purple ink on the white A4 paper in a trance, leaving the two happy boys alone, immersed in the beautiful vision of achieving chocolate freedom. (End of this chapter)