Zhang Fan hid behind a rock, watching the insects in the distance.
rustling sound—
He had been here for several days and gradually discovered that the place was not empty; there were still insects.
However, these insects seem to have been discarded here; they all share a common characteristic:
It has no wings or its wings have degenerated.
They can't fly.
There weren't many insects, and most of them were low-level, without even any crystals.
But for Zhang Fan now, this is also a big problem.
He had no weapons, not even a decent knife, let alone a gun. Unarmed, he didn't think he could easily defeat a half-meter-long insect.
What could he do? Bit it with his teeth? Whether he could even bite it is another matter, but he certainly couldn't bring himself to do it.
Normally, Zhang Fan wouldn't want to provoke insects, but he had no choice now.
He was thirsty, and there was water where the insects were.
The water in plants alone is not enough to replenish the body's needs; it needs to drink water to survive.
But that bug just keeps occupying that little puddle where the underground river flows and won't leave, it's really annoying.
Humans are smarter than insects in that they can use tools.
Zhang Fan took a bow off his back, nocked an arrow, and strung it.
The bow is made of bamboo from the Insect Garden. The bamboo strips are very tough and elastic. The bowstring, made of hemp grass, is also barely usable. It may break after shooting a dozen or so arrows and needs to be replaced in advance, but it should be enough to deal with one insect.
Zhang Fan didn't have a knife, but there were some dead insects in the nest. Their bodies had been eaten by their own kind, but some parts were left behind, which might not taste good or be too tough to chew.
For example, the sickle of a male cockroach.
Zhang Fan managed to find the carcass of a four-star male cockroach. The carcass had been eaten to pieces by other insects, but one of its forelimbs, a sickle, had been preserved.
He cut a slit in a short stick with a sickle, tied the sickle to it with hemp rope, and made a scabbard out of the insect shells he had collected.
Zhang Fan didn't waste the other broken sickles either; he specially selected some sharp fragments and fixed them onto arrows made of bamboo strips.
Whoosh!
The bowstring was released, and a bamboo arrow flew with a whoosh towards the distant insect.
puff!
The bamboo arrow pierced the insect's back, penetrating several inches deep.
Squeak squeak squeak—
The insects, in pain, scurried about everywhere.
Zhang Fan lay quietly behind the rock, watching intently. After confirming that the insects had not discovered him, he drew his bow and nocked an arrow again.
Whoosh!
Another bamboo arrow pierced the insect's body, and the insect dragged the bamboo arrow around wildly. Zhang Fan showed no mercy to the insect and decisively continued firing.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
A few minutes later, the insect was riddled with thorns, green sap flowed down the bamboo arrows and onto the ground, and its movements became sluggish.
Zhang Fan emerged from behind the rock, pulled out his sickle, and plunged it into the back of the insect's neck, killing it with a single blow.
Unfortunately, insect meat is inedible.
Previous studies have shown that insects contain heavy metals that are harmful to humans.
Zhang Fan lay down, filled several bamboo tubes with water, carried them on his back, and walked back.
Back in the dome, Zhang Fan used rocks to build a makeshift stove. He collected some dried leaves from the insect garden to use as tinder, shaved a bamboo strip to make a bow saw, and used the bow saw to pull the dead wood under his feet.
It's a very simple principle of heat generation through friction.
A spark fell into the tinder, Zhang Fan blew on it to ignite it, added firewood to the stone stove, and placed the bamboo tube filled with water on top.
The water boiled quickly.
Zhang Fan took out the bamboo tube, let it cool down a bit, and then drank a sip of hot water.
ah……
It's so good to be able to drink water.
In fact, Zhang Fan didn't know whether the groundwater on Mars was drinkable or whether it contained parasites.
Who cares? I'm dying of thirst, and you're asking me if drinking hot water will cause parasites?
Zhang Fan put some daylily buds in a bamboo tube and boiled them.
He had already eaten all the palm kernels; he had been eating vegetarian food for several days, and his mouth was so bland it was practically tasteless.
In fact, Zhang Fan had no idea how many days, weeks, or even a month he had been underground.
There is no concept of time underground, and the spacesuit's display has long since run out of power.
Zhang Fan could only consider the interval between his sleep and waking up as a day.
He now has a deep empathy for the plight of humanity on Earth after the new era.
Humans used to live underground on Earth, but now we live underground on Mars.
I wonder if they even know they're still alive?
Given that something like this happened in the nuclear blast zone, it would be hard to believe that he was still alive.
He has no way to go to the ground to prove his existence now, as there is no oxygen on the Martian surface.
I wonder how Yui is doing now? Is she alright on the space station?
With Katerina and Teacher Su around, there's no need to worry about her doing anything foolish.
Also, has Ivanka arrived on Earth yet? Did she land safely?
Zhang Fan almost laughed.
When I thought humanity was extinct and I was the only one left in the solar system, with the "Bird's Nest" so rich in resources, my first thought was death.
Now, perhaps all of humanity thinks they are already dead, and with the resources in the underground nest so scarce, they no longer want to die.
It turns out that attachment is a person's greatest will to survive.
After Zhang Fan finished eating the daylily, he extinguished the fire with sand, not wanting it to attract insects in the middle of the night.
Zhang Fan built a wooden house in the center of the insect garden, on a big tree.
Judging from the shape of the tree canopy, the original location of the wooden house seems to have once been a "cocoon," which was probably where the queen cockroach stayed.
But why there was such a large banyan tree underground was quite intriguing. Although the insects here have a habit of collecting branches, Zhang Fan was certain that this large banyan tree did not come from the "bird's nest".
Because the central garden of the "Bird's Nest" cultivates precious tree species such as rosewood and golden nanmu, and does not have common and ordinary trees such as banyan trees, the economic value is too low.
The trunk of this banyan tree is over 2 meters in diameter. No matter how you look at it, this tree predates the "Bird's Nest" stadium, and may even predate human landing on Mars.
And they can even photosynthesize underground? Do they absorb the nutrients they need for growth from the fungal carpet? Zhang Fan was filled with interest in the glowing dome and nest built by the insects.
If we disregard the insects, everything here increasingly resembles a preparation for human colonization of Mars.
The tree trunks supporting the wooden house were covered with collected sickle fragments by Zhang Fan, making it difficult for insects to climb up.
Zhang Fan also made an alarm device using bamboo tubes, hemp rope, and pebbles. If an insect approached, the pebbles would knock on the bamboo tube and make a sound.
Zhang Fan then picked up a simple bamboo ladder from the side, climbed up to the treehouse, and pulled the ladder up and put it away.
A simple bamboo cooling bed, covered with soft, dry leaves.
Zhang Fan lay on the bed, his eyes fixed on a piece of tree bark hanging opposite him.
The bark was covered with many winding, pipe-like patterns that stretched downwards, seemingly without end.
This pattern is the result of Zhang Fan's exploration of this nest over the past few days.
Go to sleep.
I'll continue tomorrow; I can't die here yet.
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