Time flies like an arrow; a month has passed quickly. As time goes by, the temperature in my area is getting lower and lower.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to make sure I had warm clothes and shelter. Although the sun is still shining in my area, it's already at its last gasp.

Today is December 8th. It's a bit cold. When I woke up early this morning, the surrounding mountains, fields, and lakes were all shrouded in a gray haze.

Because I carve a mark on the wooden spear that has accompanied me all the way every day, I have a fairly accurate grasp of time and dates.

Top can no longer find suitable food in this desolate environment, and its only warehouse reserves have long been exhausted.

In their natural environment, monkeys have a very difficult time during the winter. They dare not leave the branches in winter, let alone go to caves to avoid the wind.

Caves are even more dangerous in winter. Herbivores choose to take refuge in these natural caves, and predators will follow their tracks to try their luck at these animal hideouts.

On flat ground, a predator's success rate in hunting is less than 50%. However, if a predator traps a prey in a cave, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the prey that enters has a very low chance of survival.

This is why monkeys are generally more intelligent than animals like wild sheep. Monkeys know their advantages; even when huddled together for warmth, they won't easily choose to come down from the tree.

In winter, monkeys have little to eat, so they can only peel bark from trees and eat the tender buds of evergreen trees. The rest of the time, a large group of monkeys huddle together to keep warm.

However, they still have to thank me, their leader. Under my guidance, they have collected quite a few pine nuts and chestnuts to prepare for the winter, which are now stored in my warehouse.

I already consider these monkeys as family, but food is hard to find these days.

Pine nuts and chestnuts are much more nutritious and provide more calories than tree bark and grass roots.

Every evening I stir-fry some pine nuts and chestnuts, and then prepare some wild vegetables and fish boiled in salt water.

All it takes is one full meal for these monkeys, and none of them, regardless of size, will die this year.

Top, that old fox, has been following me for months. I provide him with all the good food and drinks, and he lives like a local tyrant among monkeys.

Whenever the temperature changes drastically, the fish in my lake gradually stop eating. Recently, my catch has been much worse than before, just like when I encountered the high temperatures of summer.

I've already put away those straight hooks used for hunting turtles; now that the temperature is low, they have no chance of coming out to forage.

Soft-shelled turtles are cold-blooded animals and are very sensitive to changes in the surrounding temperature. When the outside temperature drops below 15 degrees Celsius, they stop eating and hibernate in the mud and sand at the bottom of the water.

When the water temperature is below 20°C, its feeding and activity gradually decrease; it stops feeding at 15°C; and at 12°C, it burrows into the mud to hibernate.

Soft-shelled turtles hibernate in shallow water or at the bottom of silt during the winter.

Specifically, they hibernate in the silt at the bottom of the water or in the sand.

Shallow water reduces the stress on turtles due to water pressure, allowing them to hibernate more easily. Furthermore, turtles breathe with lungs and need to surface periodically to breathe.

However, they may hibernate in winter and become less active, so they are better suited to living in shallow water during winter.

Even now, if I want to, there are still ways to catch turtles. For example, I can take advantage of the fact that turtles prefer shallow water and mud when they hibernate. As long as I find the air vents on the surface of the mud, similar to those of an eel, I can easily catch these motionless turtles by digging down.

However, I still have quite a few turtles in my fishpond at home, and I don't lack turtles to eat now, so I'm too lazy to catch them.

Another discovery made at the lake is that the number of birds that originally lived by the lake has begun to decrease significantly.

It wasn't that I was shooting birds too hard; it's just that as the fish activity decreased, most of them swam to the deeper waters in the center of the lake.

The water temperature in the deep water area is much higher than that on the surface of the lake, which is why most fish come to the deep water area.

Birds such as egrets that frequent the lakeshore are only suited to catching fish and shrimp in shallow waters. Now that there are not many food sources in the shallow waters, they naturally have to go elsewhere to find food.

I found that they mostly flew to the shallows near the small rivers or streams where I came from, to forage for food.

However, some birds that are particularly good at fishing choose to stay on this side of the lake, such as cormorants and grebes, which are excellent divers.

As the temperature drops, not all birds fly away. Several impressive large birds do fly in flocks from other places to the lake where I am.

These birds are migratory birds. They migrate south when the rivers in the north freeze over, because the temperature in the south is higher and the water doesn't freeze over, so they can have food.

Of these birds, I only recognize swans and geese; I don't know the names of the other species.

No wonder I said there have been more and more large birds in the lake lately; it seems that the birds here also have the habit of migrating south.

But that doesn't stop me from hunting them down and tasting them one by one with my blowgun. Now I am the supreme ruler here. The power of life and death is in my hands; I can decide who lives and who dies as I please.

I shot two brightly colored waterbirds and several gray waterbirds that were smaller than swans but larger than geese.

I hadn't seen these birds by my lake before; they must have flown here with other migratory birds to spend the winter after the weather got cold.

I noticed that these migratory birds all had one thing in common: whether they were swans, geese, or other waterfowl I couldn't name, their meat was all of very good quality. Top and I were very satisfied.

However, I also have a big question: the land I am on is at most a super-large island, and it is not adjacent to any other landmass.

Where did these swans come from to spend the winter at this lake where I am? Could it be that there is other land besides this island?

This idea was like an evil seed that had been planted in my heart without my realizing it, rekindling a glimmer of hope in my heart, which had already given up hope.

It was this evil thought that led me to leave the embrace of this place, which felt like a kind mother to me, and embark on a journey that almost cost me my life.

This thought later filled me with endless regret. I shouldn't have betrayed my kind mother; otherwise, I wouldn't have been wandering for decades and still not being able to find my way home.