"Eating only meat will make you sick of it sooner or later, and it's also not a balanced diet!"
The next day, Lin Feng stroked his chin and pondered as he filled the cracks in the walls of the wooden house with a "thermal insulation layer" made of a mixture of moss and clay.
Although he was physically strong, like a prehistoric beast, the modern knowledge of nutrition in his mind constantly reminded him that a diet consisting solely of meat posed a huge health risk.
He needs carbohydrates, vitamins, and trace elements that meat cannot fully provide.
So, during his daily breaks from searching for suitable timber and hunting, he began to pay closer attention to this seemingly barren land that consisted of nothing but ice, snow, and withered trees.
The turning point came when he was tracking a group of exceptionally cunning snow foxes.
The fur of these snow foxes is an excellent material for making winter clothes; it is lightweight and warm, and Lin Feng had long coveted it.
That day, in search of a particularly strong vine to bind and reinforce the roof rafters, he followed the fox's tracks and unknowingly came to a sheltered valley surrounded by several small hills.
It was here that he discovered a peculiar phenomenon.
These snow foxes, besides occasionally catching small snow hares or lemmings, have a particular fondness for a plant that grows at the bottom of a mountain valley and remains tenacious even in early winter, similar to sorghum or millet on Earth!
The plants were about a person tall, with heavy, plump spikes at the top. The grains shone with a strange dark gold color under the pale light of the three suns.
The snow foxes would use their furry paws to brush away the shallow snow on the ground and concentrate on munching on the grains that had fallen from the ears of grain, eating with great relish and occasionally making satisfied "cooing" sounds.
Lin Feng's heart skipped a beat: "Holy crap? These vixens, are they vegetarians too? And judging from how much they're enjoying it, this stuff must taste pretty good!"
Animals often have a more acute intuition than humans. What they can eat, perhaps humans can also eat?
Instead of acting immediately, he would spend several days secretly observing the snow foxes near the mountain valley during the intervals between felling timber and building the wooden house frame.
He discovered that the snow foxes that ate these dark golden grains showed no signs of poisoning; on the contrary, they were all energetic, with shiny fur, and were noticeably fatter than foxes from other places.
"Good heavens, this is free rice!" Lin Feng chuckled, already having a complete plan in mind.
On a morning when three suns took turns "on the early shift," Lin Feng took advantage of the fact that he had finished building the window frames and quietly sneaked into the mountain valley.
He carefully avoided the snow fox's watchful eye and gathered a small handful of those dark golden ears of grain. Holding them in his hands, they felt heavy and emitted a faint, peculiar fragrance, similar to roasted nuts.
Back in the wooden cabin, which could barely be called a "workshop," Lin Feng peeled the grains from the ears of rice.
These grains were slightly larger than millet on Earth, with hard husks and a mysterious dark golden color. He tried biting into one, and a rich, starchy aroma with a hint of caramel sweetness instantly filled his mouth!
"Holy crap! This taste... is amazing! It's even better than the best fragrant rice I've ever had before!"
Lin Feng's eyes lit up, and he almost jumped up in excitement.
He began to try to process the grains.
In his mind, knowledge about primitive grain processing surged forth like a tidal wave:
Threshing: He spread the collected ears of grain on a clean animal hide and repeatedly pounded and rubbed them with a polished wooden stick, and the plump grains fell off one by one.
Fengxuan: He carried a simple wooden basin filled with grains and husks to the doorway of the wooden house, where the door had not yet been installed. Taking advantage of the breeze passing through the house, he raised the basin high and then slowly poured it out.
The lighter husks and impurities are blown away by the wind, while the plump grains fall back onto another clean piece of animal hide below by their own weight.
This process requires exceptional patience and a precise judgment of wind direction. A slight misstep could cause the precious grains to be blown away by the wind, causing him heartache.
Grinding: This is the most labor-intensive step.
Without a millstone, he could only use the most primitive and brutal method. He found a hard stone slab with a natural indentation in the middle to use as a "mortar," and found a smooth stone pestle (actually a heavy stone stick) to put the dry grains into the mortar and pound them vigorously, stroke by stroke.
The hard husks slowly cracked and peeled off under constant impact.
He then wove a simple sieve from fine vines to sift the pounded grains, separating most of the husks from the more intact grains.
After a long day of hard work, Lin Feng finally obtained a small pottery jar (one of his early, less successful works, which now came in handy) containing golden-yellow rice with most of the outer shell removed.
Although it still contained some small grain husks and its color was somewhat dark and rough due to the variety, in his eyes it was more precious than any gold or silver jewelry!
He couldn't wait to wash these precious grains, which he named "Golden Fox Rice" (after all, it was the fox spirit who had shown him the way), put them in a clay pot, added stream water, and placed it directly on the fireplace, which he had just finished building and whose chimney was not yet fully completed, to slowly simmer them.
Soon, a rich aroma of rice porridge, with its unique caramelized fragrance and the sweet taste of grains, filled the entire unfinished wooden house.
When the first mouthful of warm, fragrant rice porridge slid down his throat, Lin Feng felt so comfortable that he almost groaned out loud.
It was a gentle and comforting feeling of fullness, different from that of meat, with a warm current slowly spreading from the stomach to every part of the body.
The pure energy contained in the rice porridge quickly replenished the physical strength he had consumed during the intense construction of the wooden house over the past few days.
"Great stuff! This is definitely great stuff!" Lin Feng's eyes shone brightly, sweeping away the fatigue from days of hard work.
The discovery of this "golden fox rice" is no less significant than the discovery of a new large hunting ground!
This means he has a stable source of carbohydrates, and his diet will be greatly improved!
So, in the days that followed, in addition to continuing to improve the internal structure of the wooden house (such as sanding the floor, making simple furniture, and reinforcing the walls), Lin Feng had another important task - large-scale harvesting and processing of "Golden Fox Rice".
He even specially crafted a more handy stone sickle (made by embedding sharpened stone flakes in a curved animal bone or wooden handle), which greatly improved harvesting efficiency.
He practically monopolized all the "Golden Fox Rice" in the entire mountain valley. In a corner of his gradually taking shape wooden house, a small pile of golden ears of grain quickly gathered, radiating the joy of a bountiful harvest.
Just as Lin Feng was overjoyed with the bumper harvest of "Golden Fox Rice" and the "renovation" of the wooden house was in full swing, nature seemed to think that it hadn't given him enough surprises and threw out another "trump card"!
As the intensity of the three suns gradually weakened, the temperature dropped day by day, and many plants in the forest withered and died, leaving a desolate scene.
However, on one occasion, when Lin Feng was searching for a special kind of "fragrant wood" that could repel insects to make storage cabinets, he had to venture deep into the forest and climb a steep, rarely visited mountain wall. There, he unexpectedly discovered several oddly shaped shrubs.
The branches of these shrubs are a strange purplish-black color, as tough as black iron, and they cling to the sunny mountain wall covered with jagged rocks like coiled dragons.
The most striking and incredible thing is that these seemingly lifeless branches are covered with fruits the size of pigeon eggs, crystal clear and dazzling like rubies!
Bathed in the pale sunlight cast by the three suns in turn, these fruits shimmered with an alluring luster, creating a striking contrast with the desolate and bleak icy environment around them, making them seem like rare treasures from mythical legends!
"Holy crap... Holy crap! This is... this is a plant that can bear fruit in this kind of awful weather? Could it be some kind of legendary treasure like the Vermilion Fruit or the Snow Lotus?"
Lin Feng was filled with surprise and vigilance, as well as a trace of uncontrollable elation.
He approached cautiously and observed carefully. The red fruits were covered with a thin, glistening white frost.
He didn't pick them immediately, but first carefully searched the surrounding area for any signs that animals had eaten them.
He discovered that some unidentified birds with colorful feathers, yet exceptionally cold-resistant, would occasionally fly over, carefully peck at a few of these red berries, and then fly away energetically, chirping merrily, their flight speed and agility improved.
In his mind, there were descriptions in various novels about "the Vermilion Fruit enhancing internal strength,"
Fragments like "snow lotus can bring the dead back to life and heal flesh and bones" flashed by.
Although I know it was the novelist's imagination, the scene before me did indeed exude an extraordinary spiritual aura.
He once again trusted the animal's instincts and also believed in his inexplicable, strange intuition about plants—this fruit was absolutely non-toxic and contained some kind of indescribable pure energy!
With trembling hands, he picked one.
It feels icy cold to the touch, as if you are holding a piece of ancient ice, but then a strange warmth seeps out from inside the fruit and flows into your palm.
He used a clean animal hide he carried with him to wipe away the white frost on the surface, revealing the bright red, juicy, and delicate flesh inside.
He first stuck out the tip of his tongue and gently licked the fruit peel. An indescribable, refreshing, sweet juice with a perfectly balanced hint of tartness instantly exploded on his taste buds.
It was like a celestial spring flowing through his throat, which was slightly dry from swallowing coarse food for a long time!
"Hiss! So...so delicious! This taste is simply heaven-defying!" Lin Feng's eyes widened, and he stuffed the whole fruit into his mouth without hesitation.
The flesh melts in your mouth, with almost no pit, only a mouthful of abundant, fragrant juice that seems to overflow.
The sweet aroma penetrated his heart and instantly dispelled the fatigue and exhaustion he had accumulated from climbing the mountain and building the wooden house over the past few days.
Even more miraculously, after the juice containing immense energy slid into his stomach, he felt a faint but incredibly clear warm current slowly rising from his dantian, flowing rapidly throughout his limbs like a gentle stream, invigorating him and filling his entire body with explosive power!
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