As darkness approached, I took out some tinder tanned from wormwood. There were many dry branches nearby, which looked like they had been brought here by a flash flood from upstream.

I took out the fire-starting mirror, poured some water into it, and focused the sunlight onto the moxa wool. Soon, a fire rose up.

I didn't have a pot, so I found a fairly flat stone and put it in the fire. Then I put my dried fish on the scorching hot stone. Before putting it on, I made sure to soak the fish in water again so that the moisture would prevent the high temperature from burning the dried fish.

The dried fish, after being heated over a fire, became much softer and more chewy, a far better experience than eating the hard, dry kind directly. I checked the remaining food; it should last until around noon tomorrow.

An adult consumes much more food in the wild than at home, especially someone like me who travels long distances. A meal of food, like dried fish, requires at least 300 to 400 grams to meet daily needs.

The fish I caught before, including small fish, weighed about eight pounds in total. According to the saying that four pounds of fish make one pound of dried fish, my actual dried fish weighed only about two pounds.

Including the consumption of breakfast, lunch and dinner today, the actual stock is only a little over one pound.

The real wilderness isn't like what's shown on TV, where you can just eat a couple of crabs or a couple of insects to replenish your energy.

Even at home, you still need to eat a bowl of rice. The depletion of resources in the wild is something that any rural child who has ever gone up the mountain to chop firewood knows. Even a dog would complain that this amount of food is not enough, let alone a person.

After eating, I gathered a lot of willow branches as usual, but this time the situation was a little different. The tree was larger, with a dense canopy and many branching twigs, so there was no need to worry too much about the load-bearing capacity.

This tree is indeed much thinner. There aren't any branching twigs on it for me to weave, so if I want to sleep comfortably on it, I'll have to find some sturdy branches to make a frame and tie it securely like scaffolding.

I first found two adjacent trees that were no more than 50 centimeters apart, and used a short branch to tie them horizontally to a height of five meters.

Then I took two longer branches. Because I was afraid they would break if they were too long, I broke them into pieces about two meters long. I used these two pieces as longitudinal beams and tied them to two trees about 1.5 meters away from the previous transverse beam.

Finally, the remaining horizontal beams were tied on, and an irregular, elongated trapezoidal frame was completed. Unfortunately, I couldn't control where the tree grew, so I had to build this frame structure based on the tree's location.

I was still a little worried about the sturdiness of the frame, so I tied four huge icicle knots with a lot of willow branches at the four corners of the fixed trapezoidal frame, making it look like the frame was placed on four tree stumps.

This knot has a good anti-slip effect. As long as the wood on top is strong enough, no matter how I build it, the frame will not be at risk of slipping.

The next steps were much simpler. I used a bundle of wooden sticks that I had tied beforehand to pull them up onto the frame, spread them out one by one on the frame, and then used a cross knot to secure the two ends of the sticks. That completed a hard bed.

Since the bed was flat, I was worried about falling off when I rolled over. So I first used some wooden sticks to tie several vertical triangular supports along the longitudinal beams, and then used some willow branches to weave a dome on both sides of the triangular supports like weaving a bird's nest.

With the willow branch dome, it can block a large part of the northwest wind blowing from the river. Although this bed is not very beautiful, its heat retention is definitely much better than my previous open-air bed.

After doing all that, as usual, I lit a fire under the tree to smoke out the mosquitoes and my already yellowed, cured buttocks. I dare say that if I smoked them like this for five days, my buttocks would become as shiny and appealing as cured meat.

I think tonight will be another peaceful night. I can still sleep well, perhaps even better than before. After all, tonight I have the windproof willow branch dome, and with that leopard skin, I almost feel like I'm staying in a presidential suite.

However, my pride and extravagance soon met with the first blow from God.

The first half of the night was fine; my campfire provided me with a steady stream of heat, just like a heated kang bed in northern China. Combined with the insulated dome and the leopard skin, I felt an unprecedented level of comfort.

Such a good day continued until late at night, when suddenly a clap of thunder sounded in the sky, followed by large raindrops falling without warning.

The raindrops were pattering down on my dome, but while it could block the wind, it was completely useless against the rain.

The heavy rain woke me up. My first thought in my sleep was that my clothes would get wet and I would be doomed, and my body temperature would drop rapidly.

But when I woke up, I realized that my worry was completely unnecessary; I had no clothes on at all.

I used the willow branch cloak I had woven as a cushion, and the only thing I was wearing was a grass skirt.

Listening to the rumbling thunder and the breathtaking white lightning bolts outside, I felt a little scared about spending the night in such a tall tree.

With just a flash of lightning, this exquisitely crafted bed, resembling a bird's nest, can instantly transform into a drafty Western-style coffin. It's just a bit more sophisticated than traditional burial; it's a tree burial.

However, there was no other way. I had no choice but to sleep in a high place to save my life.

I curled up under the leopard skin, my head squeezing in too. Now the leopard skin was like a furry plastic sheet, and I was lucky to be lying on the furry side, which kept me warm and protected me from the rain, although my bottom was a bit cold.

Because my fire has been extinguished by the heavy rain.

The northwest wind blowing from the riverbank was biting, and even through my grass skirt and cloak, my back still felt shivering.

I was worried that I would get hypothermia and get sick if I kept doing this, so I could only alternate between lying on my back and back. But it didn't help much; either my bottom or my penis was cold.

I was exhausted after a whole night of this. The rain finally stopped after dawn, and as I watched the sun rise, I plopped down on my makeshift bed of tree branches, not wanting to move.

My body was still trembling, and my teeth were chattering. I touched my forehead and found it was hot; it seemed I had caught a chill yesterday and had a low-grade fever.

When I looked up at the river that had been calm during the day, I couldn't help but feel a chill of fear.

The clear river water had become murky and turbulent, with huge waves swirling and crashing against the steep bank not far from where I had chosen my spot. I estimated that if the water level rose another meter, it would reach the foot of my tree.

Luckily, I chose a campsite that was far from that riverbank; otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Just as I was secretly rejoicing, a groaning sound came from directly under my bed.