Chapter 818 - 23: Extreme Cold

Chapter 818: Chapter 23: Extreme Cold

At night, the wind was still howling outside the cave.

Chen Zhou moved the bench in front of the stove, facing the fire, his face illuminated by the flames.

The door was tightly shut, not only propped from the inside with a wooden stick, but also stuffed with animal skins in all the gaps around it.

Yet the cold air still kept seeping in from outside.

Just as he expected, the temperature never climbed back up this time.

As the temperature dropped below minus forty degrees, humans could barely stay outside for long anymore; even with the gene modification injections, neither he nor Paul could manage it.

Threatened by the severe cold, the three of them hid inside the cave.

Now, aside from going out to fetch food and letting the three-headed Saw-toothed Tiger relieve itself, they spent almost the entire day huddled in the cave.

And it was foreseeable that, when the temperature truly dropped to minus sixty-five degrees, even going outside for physiological needs would carry a huge risk.

However, Chen Zhou already had a solution for this; he planned to open another fissure inside the cave and build a toilet deep within it for the three of them to use. The Saw-toothed Tiger’s droppings would also be tossed in, so that the cave’s air would remain fresh.

Besides limiting their trips outdoors, the incessant wind and snow made sunlight even scarcer by the day.

The cave was already dark, and with this blizzard, there was no light at all; Paul and Bi Kai had no choice but to keep the oil lamps burning day and night.

The lamp’s glow was faint, but at least it made you feel alive, brought a bit of safety—for the two of them, its comfort for the mind outweighed any real practical use.

...

The dim light confused one’s sense of day and night; time seemed forever stuck in darkness, and the night stretched on so long it felt as if the sun would never rise again.

The heated bed was piled high with furs; to sleep soundly, Bi Kai had to rig up a "fur tent" atop his bed, relying on the double insurance of a heat source and warm pelts to get by.

Beside him, Paul’s snoring could be heard from time to time.

After all, Paul’s genes had been modified; he was more cold-resistant than Bi Kai, so he needed no extra measures, just a blanket to sleep comfortably.

While the two of them rested, Chen Zhou took the night watch.

The temperature outside was unbearably low; the cave’s exterior was too cold to handle.

At this point, the stove fire, heated bed, and flame wall could not be allowed to stop, not for even a moment. They had to keep burning, and the flames had to be strong enough.

The three took turns watching the stove; apart from a few words over mealtimes, they almost never spoke.

They all knew they’d reached the final stage—it was a test of endurance now, of who could hold out longer.

They weren’t desperate yet, so they had to conserve their energy as best they could. This was like the last stretch of a marathon—testing not only stamina, but willpower too.

But compared to marathons where you could see your rivals, the most tormenting thing was the not-knowing: you didn’t know when you’d win, couldn’t see the finish line, couldn’t know your opponents’ circumstances.

At the shortest, ten days or so remained; at the longest, half a month or a month was not impossible.

No one could say how long this "torture" would last. All they could do was persist—persist until the last moment.

The heavy atmosphere spread not just among the humans—even the Saw-toothed Tigers sensed the unusual seriousness, and for once became docile, no longer wrestling all the time or clamoring to go outside or sneaking out in secret.

...

In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.

Huddled in the cave day after day, none of the three looked very healthy; their faces were a shade paler.

The round log that served as their table now had several more oil lamps, but no amount of extra light could dispel the heavy gloom settling in the cave.

At Chen Zhou’s suggestion, Paul began learning martial arts from Bi Kai.

After meals, all three would do a routine of fist forms and swordplay on the open space in the cave, chat a little, liven up the mood.

Chen Zhou and Paul came from the same era, but with drastically different worlds. They found common ground in political discussion.

Bi Kai was from ancient times—from a world much like official history, yet full of martial artists and tales from court and countryside, making some of his anecdotes especially interesting to Chen Zhou.

Much like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights, the trio used their stockpiled food and fuel to sustain the body, and stories of all kinds to nourish the spirit.

They waited and hoped for the challenge to end.

Yet days went by and nothing seemed to change.

The wind still howled outside the cave; a thick crust of ice formed on the door.

The "fissure toilet" had been put to use early. The cave’s space was so large that heat was easily lost; the three had to stack wood into high walls, sealing off the flame wall, heated bed, and stove to save warmth.

But even so, things hadn’t reached their worst—the good news being there was still food and drink, and no one was freezing to death yet.

As for the other challengers struggling bitterly in this world of extreme cold, they weren’t nearly so fortunate.

...

About a hundred kilometers from Mount Baihar.

The mounds of the steppe had long been buried beneath deep white snow, only a cave mouth exposed to one side.

Bits of shattered wood lay scattered by the entrance, the area littered with a mess of footprints.

A few days ago, there was still smoke curling from the mouth—evidence that someone inside was still alive—but lately the smoke had faded and no one had ventured outside.

The pitch-black hole in the ground originally belonged to a Cave Bear.

Months back, some outside challengers killed the hibernating Cave Bear and seized its den for themselves.

Shanua and Saman—two first-time wild survival enthusiasts—had since decided not to take part in the bloody scramble for supplies, but to focus purely on stockpiling and rationing, hoping to outlast the others on the strength of their abundant food and fuel.

There were reasons for their so-called "turtle strategy," as Chen Zhou called it.

Compared to the other challengers, they had a huge starting advantage—tons of survival supplies from the outset: four military sabers of various sizes, a full box of long nails, a tool kit with saws, hammers, and axes, a wok and an outdoor stew pot, a big canister of cooking oil, a large tin of salt, and several bags of sugar.

And this was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to their supplies.

Following the rules to the letter, the two always felt they were singled out by fate, like players with cheat codes enabled.

It was that blessed beginning that let them forgo the fight for more resources.

But just as Chen Zhou had speculated, the distribution of teams and tools for each challenger group was carefully considered behind the scenes.

Some had no fire-making tools at first due to overwhelming fighting ability; others, weak in combat, were given more than enough as compensation.

Shanua and Saman might have started ahead, but the gap in skills couldn’t be made up for by supplies.

Not to mention the planning: just to kill the enormous Cave Bear without injury and seize its lair, the two spent a full four days making weapons and digging traps.

During that time, they also had to avoid other predators on the steppe, matching wits with Cave Hyenas.