Apocalypse Mode: My Cheat Code Virtual Boyfriend - Chapter 31

Cheng Wei moved to the side of the gray wolf, whose gaze followed him. If its front leg hadn’t been firmly trapped in the animal snare, it would have bitten Cheng Wei hard.

“It’s probably not a mutated animal, just an ordinary gray wolf,” Cheng Wei concluded.

“Let’s remove the snare first. I have bandages and anti-inflammatory medicine, but I don’t know how to dress wounds. We can take it back for Lu Jiaoshuang to examine,” Bai Xun decided to help. If they ever encountered its owner in the future, this act of kindness might earn them some goodwill.

Since they planned to live in this forest reserve, they might run into the wolf’s owner someday. It was just a small effort, so why not lend a hand?

Bai Xun took out a pair of thick baking gloves from the kitchen simulator, followed by a waterproof apron, preparing for the rescue.

Cheng Wei, being stronger, put on the gloves and, holding the apron, seized the moment to cover the gray wolf’s head.

The wolf’s body was pressed to the ground, struggling desperately, but under Cheng Wei’s strength, its efforts were as futile as a drop of water falling into the ocean.

The teeth of the animal snare were sharp, and Bai Xun couldn’t pry it open barehanded.

He improvised by wedging two stones on either side of the snare and found a thick branch to use as a lever.

The more the snare struggled, the tighter it clamped. Bai Xun inserted the branch into the gap of the snare, stepped on one end of the sturdy branch, and used his weight to force the snare open just enough to free the wolf’s leg.

The snare had been clamped on the wolf’s leg for so long that blood had congealed between the injured limb and the sharp teeth. When Cheng Wei freed one hand to pull the leg out, the gray wolf trembled in pain.

“It’s fractured,” Cheng Wei said, feeling the bone condition as he examined the leg, which was bent at an exaggerated angle.

“I’ll find a branch to temporarily stabilize it. We need to hurry back,” Bai Xun took out a knife to carve one end of a branch, then used bandages to bind the wolf’s leg to the branch.

The gray wolf remained cooperative throughout. When the snare was pried open and they brought out bandages to dress its wound, it seemed to realize they were helping and stopped struggling.

With the wolf now calm, Cheng Wei no longer needed to hold its mouth shut. He simply carried it back in his arms.

They covered the 4-kilometer journey nearly twice as fast as they had come. By the time they returned to the logging camp, dinner hadn’t even started.

“Brother, what did you bring back?” Bai Yu looked up and saw them hurrying over, with Cheng Wei holding a cloth-wrapped bundle in his arms.

“There’s a strong smell of blood,” Lu Jiaoshuang remarked as she approached.

“Can you treat a wolf with a broken leg?” Bai Xun asked Lu Jiaoshuang.

“Find a clean spot to lay it down, and I’ll take a look. Treating a wolf shouldn’t be too different from treating a human. I’ll give it a try,” Lu Jiaoshuang rolled up her sleeves, though she wasn’t entirely sure about the dosage of medicine.

A fire-resistant cloth was spread on the ground, wiped clean, and disinfected with alcohol to serve as a makeshift operating table. A fire was lit, and a large iron pot of water was boiled for later use. The gray wolf was placed on the fire-resistant cloth, awaiting surgery.

Lu Jiaoshuang washed her hands with warm water. As her hands grew damp, thin webbing and sharp claws emerged. Using her sharp nails, she made a small incision on the wolf’s injured front leg.

The gray wolf, caught off guard by the sudden slash on its injured leg, let out a pained howl from its throat. Before the sound could fully fade, it thudded face-first onto the fire-retardant cloth.

“Don’t blame me, this is for your own good,” Lu Jiaoshuang said, washing her hands again, drying them, and putting on rubber gloves.

Back on the Sea Ark, Lu Jiaoshuang had tested her fingernails on a large fish. They contained an anesthetic, a single scratch could induce four to five hours of unconsciousness, after which the subject would wake up perfectly fine.

She had previously practiced setting broken bones on lab animals, so mending the wolf’s leg wasn’t difficult. All it took was realigning the fractured bone and stitching it up.

Treating the wolf’s broken leg was much quicker than the emergency care she’d given Yu Feibai. In less than half an hour, she had set the leg, sutured the wound, and wrapped it in bandages with a splint since plaster powder wasn’t available. Once the wolf woke up, she’d just need to give it some anti-inflammatory medicine.

By the time Lu Jiaoshuang finished the surgery, it was nearly dinnertime. They still had fish left from their earlier sea catch, so she pan-fried some and simmered a pot of fish soup.

Now that they had reached their future base, there was no need to avoid extra effort. Tonight, instead of self-heating rice, they cooked a pot of rice over a wood fire.

The fish soup was rich and fragrant, and the wood-fired rice carried a unique, toasty aroma, likely from the golden, crispy rice crust forming at the bottom of the pot.

The palm-sized sea fish in the soup had been pan-fried to a golden brown, simmering in a milky-white broth alongside chunks of carrots and sections of corn.

It was a shame they had used up all the cilantro and green onions during their hotpot feast a couple of days earlier, a sprinkle of either would have made the dish even more aromatic.

They gathered around the pot with their bowls. As soon as the lid was lifted from the rice pot, steam wafted out. A scoop of the shovel revealed plump, glistening grains of rice, and flipping it over uncovered a crispy, golden layer of rice crust.

Bai Xun blew on a mouthful of steaming hot rice, waiting for it to cool slightly before eagerly taking a bite.

The wood-fired rice tasted exceptionally sweet and fragrant, miles ahead of the bland, mushy self-heating rice. With each chew, the distinct wood-fired flavor left him craving more.

The carrots simmered in the fish soup were tender and sweet, while the sea fish was delicate and slightly salty, its only flaw being the many small bones.

Bai Xun ate over half a bowl of rice with carrots and fish, then scraped up a piece of the rice crust, soaking it in fish soup for the last few bites.

The rich, milky fish broth was savory and sweet, and the softened rice crust was fragrant and crispy without being tough. The meal left Bai Xun thoroughly satisfied.

The gray wolf woke up at 9 p.m. Bai Xun took a piece of chicken breast from the kitchen simulator, stuffed it with anti-inflammatory medicine, and tossed it to the wolf, which tore into the meat with its teeth.

After finishing the chicken, the wolf licked its lips, gave Bai Xun and the others a deep look, then hobbled away on three legs into the forest.

Bai Xun didn’t stop it. They had done all they could, and he hoped the wolf would make it back to its owner safely.

Tonight was his and Cheng Wei’s first shift on night watch. Still wide awake, Bai Xun opened the Property Guru blueprint to see what other details he could adjust for the lumber mill.

“Look here, what if we build a separate bathroom on this plot of land?” Bai Xun suggested, stroking Cheng Wei’s tail as he pointed out an empty area beside the lumber mill.

“I think we could make it a bit larger and move it a bit farther away. It might get a bit smelly,” Cheng Wei replied.

The outdoor bathroom was intended for composting. If they ever decided to farm in the future, they could build a dry toilet to store fertilizer.

“Alright, we need to ensure proper ventilation. Also, here, I think we could try setting up a greenhouse in this spot later. And maybe we should add a skylight on the second floor, to make it easier to shovel snow during heavy blizzards,” Bai Xun continued refining the details.

“We’ll also need insulation and ventilation ducts for every room. We’ll be burning firewood or charcoal during snowstorms,” Cheng Wei added his own insights.

Bai Xun made adjustments to the blueprint.

The next morning, everyone set out together, driving the off-road vehicle through winding paths until they reached the quarry.

They didn’t have large bags for carrying stones, but Yu Feibai suggested they could temporarily sew a few big sacks out of fabric and thread, as long as they didn’t leak gravel.

Shovelful by shovelful, the quarry’s stones were loaded into the sacks and transported back to the lumber mill, where they were unloaded onto an empty patch of ground. Gradually, the quarry’s stone pile shrank, while a small mountain of gravel rose in the lumber mill’s clearing.

With no time to spare, they ate instant meals for all three meals that day.

Working urgently, they finally managed to transport enough stone for the lumber mill renovations just as the sun began to set.

Parking the off-road vehicle outside the lumber mill, Bai Xun activated the blueprint. Instantly, the lumber mill rose from the ground, transforming into the planned structure outlined in the blueprint.

However, it wasn’t ready for occupancy yet, the two-story building inside was still just a rough shell.

Pulling open the large iron gate, Bai Xun drove the off-road vehicle into the yard. He took out the heavy iron lock he had brought from home and snapped it onto the gate.

A sense of security multiplied.

Although the surrounding wall was quite high, Bai Xun was still a bit worried that people or wild animals might climb over. He still had materials to make cement, so he decided to work through the night, removing all the fins from the flying fish. He would mix the cement first thing in the morning and add an extra layer of protection to the top of the wall.

With such sharp defensive measures, anyone trying to climb the wall would end up with a blade going in white and coming out red.

The pile of flying fish they processed formed a small hill. Bai Xun’s hand, which had been accidentally cut earlier, took nearly half a month to heal. When removing the fins, everyone stepped on the fish tails and used knives to carefully cut them off, avoiding touching them with their hands as much as possible.

Estimating the number of fins needed, they worked for nearly two hours, then used tweezers to place each fin into a large iron basin. They rinsed them clean and left them to dry, ready to be embedded into the top of the wall the next day.

After finishing all this, they still slept in tents. The furniture required materials, so it was better to rest for now.

On the fifty-eighth day of the apocalypse, the first thing Bai Xun did after waking up was take the chainsaw outside to cut down a tree.

They needed a ladder to climb onto the top of the wall, which was still quite high, even jumping up wouldn’t allow them to see over it.

Choosing a tree at random outside the lumber mill, Bai Xun started the chainsaw and attempted to play the role of a lumberjack.

However, his technique was unpolished, and flying wood chips struck him in the face. He stopped halfway through.

Cheng Wei took the chainsaw from him, first cutting off the remaining branches, then returning to the base of the tree to continue sawing through the notch.

One of the reasons lumberjacks require certification is that they must carefully judge the direction a tree will fall when cutting it down. If it accidentally falls toward them, it could lead to tragedy.

Just as Cheng Wei was about to saw through the tree stump, he pulled out the chainsaw and gave the trunk a hard kick. The tall log crashed backward, startling a flock of mountain sparrows.

Dragging the log back directly would be quite laborious, but it wasn’t something Cheng Wei couldn’t handle.

To save some effort, he decided to simply process the wood right there and make a wooden ladder.

He still had some resource blocks converted from the Ark at sea, along with nails. After taking out a hammer, all that was left was to split the log into several smaller sections and nail them together.

Cheng Wei used the chainsaw to strip the bark from the log. The peeled bark wasn’t discarded either, it would be dried later and used as kindling.

Next, he cut the debarked log into several segments, and Bai Xun picked them up, nailing each part together.

A wooden ladder was now complete.

The remaining wood was also taken back, even sawdust could be useful, as Bai Xun well knew.

The finished ladder was leaned against the top of the wall. Below, Lu Jiaoshuang and Bai Yu were mixing mortar, which would later be carried up to the wall for Bai Xun to use while installing the fish fins.

Only after standing on top of the wall did Bai Xun realize they should have built a scaffold like those commonly seen on construction sites to hold the fish fins and cement. Standing on the ladder made it a bit difficult for him to work freely.