On the morning of the thirty-sixth day of her island survival, Ye Zi woke up and examined the sharkskin she had been ravaging all night.

The softness has improved considerably, but it still looks very oily.

There's no good way to deal with this phenomenon; the leaves can only dry naturally in the sun.

Moreover, during the natural drying process, it is necessary to rub the leaves from time to time, because if it is dried in the sun for too long, the leaves are worried that the shark skin will dry out completely and then crumble when rubbed.

Breakfast was made by Reba herself, and it was grilled shark meat. Just as Yezi had predicted, it wouldn't be edible the next time, as it was already showing signs of spoilage.

Reba wanted to smoke some, but Yezi thought it was unnecessary. Although there might be storms at sea, they wouldn't last long, and they would have plenty of time to get food. There was no need to prepare smoked meat.

Moreover, there are a few pheasants on the island as a strategic reserve, so there shouldn't be any major problems.

Given what happened yesterday, Yezi doesn't plan to let Reba go out to sea with him for the next few days; he can get food on his own.

But Reba wouldn't be idle either; Yezi arranged for her to collect seashells, which was still in preparation for tanning shark skin.

Ye Zi took a large piece of shark meat from the box, almost half of the stock. Since it was already showing signs of spoilage, it was definitely not edible, even though she was capable of obtaining food herself.

So Ye Zi wasn't stingy; she took half of it, rowed to the shipwreck site, and dived to place the shark meat next to the coral reef.

The smell of food is undetectable to humans, but it is not difficult for marine creatures to detect.

Not long after the shark meat was placed down, sea fish came to feed. At first, they were all small fish and shrimp, which were not Ye Zi's target.

Thinking that it would take some time for the big fish to arrive, Ye Zi surfaced to breathe some fresh air for a while, then slowly went back into the sea and swam to the shark meat.

At this point, larger fish were already feeding next to the shark meat.

Dozens of kilograms of meat are left there, and you can just go and eat it. Such a good thing is also a gift from nature to fish.

Just like a whale fall, where a single whale falls can bring life to countless creatures, such a situation is rare, but there's no reason to ignore food right in front of you.

Ye Zi gripped his harpoon and got to work. Soon, two sea fish weighing over three pounds each became his prey. The diluted blood in the seawater made the feeding fish even more frenzied.

Ye Zi watched as the scene of big fish eating small fish and small fish eating shrimp unfolded, and then she aimed her harpoon at the nearest, largest sea fish and shot it out.

With her lungs nearly empty, Ye Zi swam towards the surface of the sea, boarded the boat, and began to prepare her catch.

The six sea fish they acquired each weighed over three pounds, enough for Ye Zi and her companion to consume one fish each.

This was definitely the easiest fishing trip Yezi had ever taken since she started participating in island survival. Not counting the trip where she set the bait, Yezi only needed to dive once to solve her food needs for the day.

Paddling back to the island in a small boat, Ye Zi realized something along the way: she couldn't waste food like this anymore. Although humans couldn't eat the remaining shark meat, marine life certainly wouldn't mind.

Today is the first day, which is considered baiting. If we use more bait, that's fine. We need to be more economical in the future to maximize the profit from the shark meat.

The next few days went by the same routine: in the morning, Yezi would go out to sea to shoot fish, while Reba would go to collect seashells.

After lunch, I rubbed the sharkskin. In the afternoon, I practiced shooting during my free time, and then continued rubbing the sharkskin.

The remaining shark skin was also taken out of the seawater by the leaves, roughly processed with wood ash, and rubbed twice a day.

On the 40th day of survival on the island, it was time for the routine medical check-up.

However, the result this time was not good.

The doctor who conducted the medical examination told Reba that if her body did not replenish its salt levels in time, it would be best for her to give up the competition.

Ye Zi paused for a moment. He had been neglecting the salt content lately, constantly thinking about the sharkskin swimsuit.

He himself was fine; the effects of the salt deficiency were negligible. But Dilraba was just an ordinary person; she didn't have superhuman strength to support her physical movements.

This is why Yezi has rarely seen Dilraba practicing martial arts or dancing in the past few days; it turns out she is lacking salt and has no energy.

Although seafood is very fresh and contains some salt, the amount of salt you can get from seafood is limited. It's better than not eating any salt at all, but you still need to supplement your diet with salt.

After seeing the doctor off, Ye Zi immediately began the process of boiling seawater for salt.

Firewood, pots, wooden basins, wooden buckets—all of these are available.

They lit a fire on the beach, set up a pot, and started boiling seawater.

The two beverage bottles we found earlier came in handy now; we could make a filter.

Clean the bottle, cut off the bottom, tear off the two sleeves of a quick-drying short-sleeved shirt, put a piece of sand at each bottle opening, and then put a layer of fine sand, about two centimeters thick.

There is a layer of broken charcoal on top of fine sand, and then another layer of fine sand on top of the charcoal, about two centimeters thick.

After the two filters were finished, the seawater in the pot was boiled dry, and the pot was filled with sea salt crystals.

Scrape the sea salt crystals into a wooden basin, add water and stir until completely dissolved, then pour the water into a filter.

The resulting brine was boiled dry in a pot, and the resulting salt crystals were dissolved by stirring with fresh water.

Filter with another filter and continue boiling. The resulting salt crystals are basically edible. Just grind them into powder and add some when cooking.

Yezi had demonstrated the salt-making technique in Alaska before, so Reba wasn't worried about the salt shortage. She just told Yezi and waited.

Sure enough, when Ye Zi handed Reba a handful of fresh sea salt in a coconut shell, Reba was not surprised at all. She just smiled and sprinkled a pinch on the grilled fish.

This type of sea salt should not be consumed in large quantities as it contains trace amounts of toxins. However, when combined with the salt content naturally present in the sea fish, it is perfectly adequate to help Reba overcome her fatigue.

On the forty-second day of her island survival, Dilraba's previous fatigue vanished, and she resumed her dance practice and martial arts training.

Ye Zi's first piece of sharkskin was finally almost tanned.

The thickness has been reduced by half, to about three millimeters, and the softness has also been greatly improved. Although the surface is still rough, the inside feels very nice.

While I'm still a bit lacking in making swimsuits, making a scabbard or sword sheath shouldn't be a problem.

This also shows that there's nothing wrong with using wood ash to tan shark skin; it's just time-consuming, but the method is correct.

The number of seashells collected was not large, but Ye Zi still burned them, ground them into powder, and tanned them into a piece of sharkskin. The effect was indeed better than wood ash.

But there are too few shells. If Yezi wants to use this method, she'll have to find them herself in the rocky area on the back of the island. But Yezi has plenty of time, so she'll just do it.