Arctic survival, starting in hell at minus fifty degrees Celsius

Sun Chengwu brought back the frozen fish, wiped off the ice with snow, and placed it on a stone slab next to the fire to melt slowly.

The fish heads and bones left over from last night in the tin can had long since turned white from being boiled, bubbling away.

He carefully cut the two pieces of frozen fish into chunks and put them into the jar.

The milky white broth simmered, releasing a savory aroma with a hint of saltiness.

Then, Huangshi returned.

He trudged through the snow, some deep, some shallow, his body radiating cold, his face flushed red from the sea breeze, his hands empty.

"What a waste of time," he said, breathing heavily as he rubbed his hands together by the fire. "I didn't find anything. I searched every crevice in the rocks, but I didn't even find a seashell."

but……"

His eyes lit up. "I saw those seals again, near the same spot I saw yesterday. There were at least three or four of them, and they were really fat!"

As he spoke, saliva involuntarily dripped from the corner of his mouth.

He took a slurp and said, "If we can get one, we won't have to worry about food anymore. I've never eaten a seal before!"

I've heard that eating protected animals is a way to avoid danger.

Besides, we're in the Arctic; nobody can control us.

Lin Can was using his military knife to whittle a spruce branch as thick as an arm when he heard this and looked up. "Given our current malnutrition, it's not certain whether the seals will eat us or we will eat the seals."

Huang Shi paused for a moment, then asked with some concern, "Seals don't eat people, do they?"

Sun Chengwu smiled and said, "It doesn't eat people, but it will bite. One bite and two bones will break."

However, it's definitely worth a try. I tried to catch one yesterday, but they got away.

"But those things are hard to deal with," Huang Shi recalled Sun Chengwu's spear throw yesterday, which had failed to hit its target. "They're faster than fish and have thick skin."

Sun Chengwu put the last piece of fish into the pot, looked at the milky white broth, and slowly said, "We need a decent tool."

The stick I tied to yesterday was no good.

It must be a proper spear, preferably with a stone head.

Su Wanqing was crushing the last of the nuts when she heard this and stopped: "Stone?"

Where can you find suitable stones in this icy, snowy landscape?

Even if it exists, how do you make it sharp?

We're not primitive people.

Lin Can's eyes lit up. "Aren't we just like cavemen now?"

Huang Shi said excitedly, "When I was collecting firewood yesterday, I saw a lot of pebbles scattered at the bottom of a cliff."

Sun Chengwu chimed in, "We don't expect to make perfectly neat arrowheads. As long as they have a sharp point, are securely tied, and can pierce through, that's fine."

As they were talking, the fish soup was ready.

After everyone drank the fish soup and felt a little warmer, Sun Chengwu and Huang Shi set off to find the stone.

The snow fell even harder, and the fine snowflakes stung my face.

The two of them trudged through the mud to the foot of the rock face.

Sure enough, large and small stones were scattered under the weathered rock layers.

Sun Chengwu tried kicking the snow to clear it away.

Many of the stones were covered in ice, making them difficult to break apart.

Sun Chengwu squatted down, picked up a piece that wasn't frozen, and tapped it with the back of his military knife. The sound was dull; it wasn't good enough.

Then we changed to another piece, which produced a crisper sound when tapped, but its shape was too round.

He patiently searched through the cold pile of stones, his fingers quickly becoming stiff and numb from the cold.

Huang Shi was standing nearby and helped look through the documents.

After a long while, Sun Chengwu finally picked out three or four flat, elongated stone slabs with a dense texture.

He found a relatively flat large rock to use as an anvil, placed the selected stone slab on it, and carefully tapped along the edge of the stone slab with the heavy back of his military knife.

This work requires a great deal of skill and patience. Too little force and the stone won't budge; too much force and the angle will be off, and the whole stone may crumble into a pile of useless little pieces.

Sun Chengwu was completely focused, his eyes narrowed, his movements patient and meticulous.

blah blah blah...

The crisp tapping sound echoed in the silent snow-covered forest.

After several failures, Sun Chengwu shook his numb hands, breathed on them to warm them, and continued trying.

Gradually, he figured it out.

The location, angle, and force of the strike all need to be precisely controlled.

Finally, under his tapping, the edges of a stone slab became thin and sharp. Sun Chengwu became even more patient and focused, refining the shape little by little and peeling away the excess parts.

Finally, after two hours of hammering, he obtained two barely usable stone blades.

At this moment, Huang Shi crossed his arms and reminded him, "Brother Sun, your hand is bleeding."

Sun Chengwu then realized that, at some point, a stone had cut his hand, leaving a two-centimeter-long gash, and the blood was frozen.

His fingers were so frozen they were almost numb, and the back of his hand was cracked open by the impact of the knife, with blood seeping out.

He only felt the pain when he saw the wound.

Sun Chengwu said nonchalantly, "It's nothing, just a minor injury. Let's go back first."

Back at the camp, Lin Can had already processed the two straight spruce branches he had selected. The bark had been peeled off, the branches had been trimmed, and they were about 1.78 meters long. They felt heavy and substantial in his hand.

Sun Chengwu selected the larger stone blade and first used his military knife to carve a shallow vertical groove on the sharpened end of the spear shaft, just enough to fit the thicker end of the stone blade.

Then, he gestured to Su Wanqing to help him steady the spear, and peeled off a piece of bark to wrap and bind the spear tip around the stick.

He first wrapped the spear shaft tightly around the bottom of the groove several times to secure the connection between the spear shaft and the stone blade, then moved upwards to firmly wrap the base of the stone blade, pulling it taut with each wrap.

He used the same method to make a second spear from the smaller triangular spear tip.

By the time the two simple stone spears were finished, it was already afternoon.

Sun Chengwu gripped the end of the spear shaft, weighed it in his hand, walked to the open space at the edge of the camp, and suddenly thrust it into the air.

It was his first time using a spear, and he didn't know how to apply force, so he almost strained his back.

Fortunately, after a few tries, he learned how to exert force and was able to make a thrusting motion quite well.

Having prepared their weapons, Sun Chengwu and Huang Shi went to the seaside.

The seal had already left, and the two men patiently waited nearby.

The two men crouched behind a shelter made of rocks and snow for nearly three hours, their hands and feet almost numb from the cold.

The sky had long since turned a deep gray-blue. The snow had stopped, but the wind was blowing even harder, scraping against our faces like knives.

Just as Huang Shi was about to suggest giving up, Sun Chengwu grabbed his shoulder and stared sharply at the sea.

On the sea, a small head popped out, looking around warily.

Soon, a young seal, significantly smaller than the seal they had seen the day before, clumsily paddled through the water toward a low-lying ice floe in their direction.

It seemed tired, its movements were somewhat slow. It finally managed to climb ashore, wriggling its round body and slowly dragging itself onto the ice. Then it collapsed there, its wet fur glistening slightly in the dim light.