Wang Lun woke up to broad daylight. Stepping out of the shelter, he found Li Ling had already boiled water and filled four bamboo tubes. Four? Hadn't she only made three yesterday? Wang Lun pointed at the tubes and said, "You made these? You're amazing!" Li Ling rolled her eyes and said, "Are you praising me or insulting me? I've only made this much; don't you think about how much you've made?" Wang Lun said, "I just had nothing to do while on night watch." Li Ling said, "Go wash up. There's water in the float; I'll start cooking breakfast." Wang Lun responded, took out the float and bamboo bowl, poured a bowl of water, picked up a piece of charcoal from the campfire, crushed it with a stone, and used it to brush his teeth. Li Ling saw this and said, "Oh, is this any good?" Wang Lun said, "It's alright, better than nothing." Li Ling said, "Then I'll try it later." Wang Lun said, "Okay, I'll crush the charcoal for you first." He then rinsed his mouth, poured some water, and quickly washed his face. She picked up another piece of charcoal, crushed it, and placed it on a stone, saying, "Let's find a place to store some charcoal sometime." Li Ling looked at Wang Lun, who explained, "On the one hand, burning firewood when we have it is a waste, so we might as well keep it in the hearth; on the other hand, we'll keep it as a backup, in case of a sudden downpour, or for use in winter. Speaking of sudden downpours, I suddenly remembered that our shelter hasn't dug a drainage ditch yet." Li Ling said, "Take your time, there's still plenty of time. Let's rest for a bit, and we'll have breakfast soon." Wang Lun said, "Okay, don't forget to remind me. I'll cook breakfast, you go try brushing your teeth with charcoal." Upon hearing this, Li Ling immediately handed the spoon to Wang Lun, went inside to get a bamboo bowl, poured in some water, and began brushing her teeth with charcoal powder. After a while, Li Ling finished tidying up and came over, saying, "It's much better now." Wang Lun said, "Then let's continue making breakfast. I'll go make a door so we can block it when we go to the beach later, to prevent any small animals from getting in and making the shelter dirty." Li Ling took over the important task of making breakfast again.
As Wang Lun went inside to get his wood-chopping knife, he suddenly noticed two short spears by the door. He exclaimed, "You made two more spears? You really are something!" Wang Lun shook his head, picked up his knife, and went outside. He chopped some branches and gathered some vines. As soon as Wang Lun arrived at the shelter, Li Ling said, "What's wrong? Hungry? I just finished cooking, and you're back before I even called you." Wang Lun smiled and said, "I came back as soon as I smelled the aroma." Li Ling smiled and said, "Then let's eat. We can cook more after we eat." Wang Lun put down his things, washed his hands, and went inside. The two began to eat breakfast.
An hour later, Wang Lun sealed the shelter door, and the two headed towards the beach along the same path they had taken the day before. Just like yesterday, Wang Lun carried a large machete in his left hand, a short spear in his right, and two javelins and an entrenching tool on his back, with three fish baskets attached to the entrenching tool. Li Ling carried a basket in her left hand containing a machete, four bamboo tubes of water, two bamboo bowls, and two pairs of chopsticks, as Wang Lun planned to return in the afternoon to explore the beach further. She also carried a short spear in her right hand and a wok on her back. It's worth noting that Li Ling made the short spear in the latter half of the night; the long spear Wang Lun had made earlier was too long for the jungle, and the javelins were too short. Li Ling's spear was about the same length as Wu Jing's, around 1.5 meters, just right. Although they were supposedly following the path, there were still sections they hadn't explored, and they wanted to discover more resources.
As they trekked through the jungle, all they saw were towering trees; finding anything edible was a matter of luck. But luck seemed to be against them today. All the way to the beach, they found nothing of note except a few wild vegetables and a load of firewood on Wang Lun's shoulder.
Wang Lun placed his things on the beach, took the fish basket to set it up, tied it to the rocks with vines, and weighed it down with stones. Returning to the beach, he said to Li Ling, "I'm going to explore the beach. Can you stay here and boil salt?" Li Ling replied, "Of course! We agreed on that yesterday." Wang Lun said, "Okay, then be careful." Li Ling handed Wang Lun a bamboo tube of water, saying, "I know you need to be extra careful out there." Wang Lun nodded and walked towards the direction Li Ling hadn't explored the day before. After Wang Lun left, Li Ling first filled a pot with seawater, then lit a fire and began boiling salt. While boiling the salt, Li Ling searched the nearby beach for crabs, clams, and anything edible. And surprisingly, she had a good haul.
Wang Lun didn't return until the sun was directly overhead. His return was quite comical; he looked exactly like an old man collecting recyclables, carrying a string of plastic bottles in one hand and something else on his back in the other. When Wang Lun arrived, he put down his things and looked at them. The string of bottles in his hand consisted of six bottles of various sizes: one large, five small, and the large one was a two-liter Coke bottle. The small ones were all 500ml mineral water bottles; one of the mineral water bottles was broken, while the other four were fine. As for the thing on his back, it was a tattered fishing net. Wang Lun retrieved it, and inside the net was an aluminum can, a buoy, a milk powder can, something wrapped in a leaf, and two coconuts. Wang Lun laughed and said, "Guess what's inside that leaf?" Li Ling didn't bother guessing and immediately started to unwrap it. Inside were two bunches of green banana leaves and a white thing. Wang Lun said, "That's the banana core, it's edible too." Li Ling broke off a piece for Wang Lun, but he waved it away, saying, "You eat it, I'll just have some water." Li Ling still offered it to him, and Wang Lun couldn't refuse, so he took it. Then Li Ling picked up the long piece, took a bite, and said, "It tastes good, you can make more next time." Wang Lun said, "We'll talk about it when we find out. That's all I saw today. Oh, and I also got something big." Li Ling said, "What is it?" Wang Lun picked up the milk powder can and said, " "It's in here. Check it out tonight, I guarantee it'll be something good." Li Ling wanted to open it herself, but Wang Lun quickly stopped her, saying, "Be careful, this thing is still alive." Li Ling said, "If you won't tell me, then I'll just have to see it myself." Seeing that Li Ling really wanted to know, Wang Lun said, "It's a coconut crab inside. I saw it while picking coconuts over there, so I caught it. We'll have a good meal together tonight." Li Ling got excited when she heard it was a coconut crab and asked, "Which coconut crab?" Wang Lun nodded, now completely excited. They both lived inland and had always heard how delicious coconut crabs were, but had never eaten one. Although they could afford it, they were reluctant to spend the money. Who knew they'd be eating coconut crabs on a deserted island? Li Ling was happy for a while and said, "I've collected a lot of seafood, I wonder if we can eat it?" She then took out a basket, which was overflowing. Not only that, she led Wang Lun to a nearby sandpit and said, "There's still some here." Wang Lun was stunned. "A lot"? The small sandpit was full of it, with a few pieces of seaweed covering it. Wang Lun said, "How did you collect so much?" Li Ling said, "I just picked it up whenever I had nothing to do, and that's how much I collected." Wang Lun was speechless; it seemed he really was living off her. The two spent almost half an hour sorting through what they had found. Wang Lun said, "Let's cook some for lunch, and dry the rest to eat slowly later, okay?" Li Ling said, "Okay." Wang Lun told Li Ling to watch the pot, and once the salt was ready, they would cook the seafood. He spread out the seaweed on the beach and put the rest on top to dry in the sun all afternoon.
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