Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 415: Chapter 257: Green Iguana Killer

"What are you doing here?"

Lin Chen stood up, a slight smile on his face.

"What, came to see how big the gap is between us?"

"You could say that."

Andre made no attempt to hide his intentions. His gaze lingered on the bamboo house for a moment before scanning the surroundings.

The beam from his Hat Lamp moved back and forth with his head, taking in every man-made trace in the vicinity.

When he saw the sparse green sprouts in the tilled field, his eyes bulged in disbelief.

"You’re actually growing vegetables?!"

’The last time I visited, I was shocked enough to see the guy had built a water channel. Now, he’s even growing vegetables. If the production team hadn’t suddenly set an end date, this guy could probably survive here indefinitely, couldn’t he?’

He had a water source, vegetables, and staples. He also had a bamboo raft to catch seafood from the ocean, covering his protein. Add to that the abundance of fruit trees in the area...

All these resources combined seemed to create the perfect conditions for long-term survival.

"Have you decided when you’re going to hunt those big guys?"

Andre gave a wry smile and pointed his thumb toward the Mangrove Forest.

"No rush. In a few more days."

Lin Chen waved his hand dismissively and picked up a slingshot from a nearby pile of bamboo leaves.

That’s right, a slingshot of the most standard design.

The handle was made from a polished, forked piece of wood, with rubber cords tied to the two prongs. The pouch for the projectile was a small, square piece of soft bark with four holes punched in it, through which the rubber cords were threaded, leaving just enough space in the center for a projectile.

"Rubber?!"

Andre’s jaw dropped, his eyes filled with disbelief. "My God, where did you find these materials?"

"From the ocean. Just found them while I was strolling around."

"..."

The man pursed his lips, speechless, then turned and walked away.

"Tsk, tsk." Lin Chen sat back down, comfortably warming himself by the fire. He picked up a sweet, crispy potato strip and popped it into his mouth.

’Looks like the old guy was rattled,’ Lin Chen thought. ’Hope he steps it up so I don’t leave him too far behind.’

He hadn’t been over to Andre’s camp recently, so he had no idea if the man had tinkered with anything new.

’Unless he can fashion a saw, there’s no way he can catch up to me in terms of construction.’

’I wonder how the other five contestants are doing. To be safe, I should just assume they all have logging tools like a saw, same as me. That’ll keep me on my toes.’

In that case, he had to include Andre in that assessment.

He was, after all, a master of wilderness survival. He surely knew many secret tricks. If he couldn’t even fell a tree by hand, he wouldn’t have been able to make it in the wild for so long.

’At this hour, everyone should be making their move, right?’

He, however, had no intention of going out. Instead, he extinguished the fire, brought a few embers inside, and went to bed early.

Besides the American Crocodiles, the only other prey he could hunt nearby were Green Iguanas.

Green Iguanas are diurnal creatures that hide in their nests at night. To hunt them, he had to wait for daytime.

These creatures were within the permissible hunting range and weren’t covered by the hunting license, so it was fine to hunt as many as he wanted.

This was the best plan he had come up with after several days of thought.

The restricted game had a quota, but these didn’t.

Even if the points were low, as long as he hunted enough of them, he could widen the gap.

Moreover, Green Iguanas reproduce quickly and have already had a severe impact on the local ecosystem. Hunting more of them wouldn’t endanger the species’ survival, making it a plan that killed two birds with one stone.

Although he hadn’t redeemed Basic Slingshot Mastery, with Basic Bow Mastery and Basic Throwing Mastery in hand, his aim was definitely not an issue. He just needed to familiarize himself with the slingshot’s trajectory and aiming point, and he should be able to hit his mark nine times out of ten.

「Day Thirty-Nine.」

Lin Chen slept in until ten in the morning before lazily getting up to wash his face and cook.

Brunch was simple. He mashed up dried and roasted Flying Fish, added hot water, and boiled it to make a rich broth. After straining it, he added smoked venison, pickled bamboo shoots, pickled peppers, and the sweet potato powder he had dried and stored earlier.

This sweet potato powder was the residue left after extracting the starch. He had spread most of it on his field as fertilizer, keeping only a small portion for himself.

The fish soup-porridge made from the sweet potato residue had a distinctly different texture from mashed potatoes. The sweetness was more pronounced, and with the addition of the sour and spicy pickled peppers, it actually neutralized some of the heat and acidity, making for a very smooth taste.

If he had to describe it, it was like a sweet potato congee cooked with a rich fish broth and smoked meat—a perpetual motion machine of salty and sweet, with a sour and spicy kick that whetted the appetite. One bowl had him sweating, every pore on his body opening up.

He ate it with a side of pickled taro leaves and chili leaves, tossed with crushed chilies and freshly made oyster sauce. It was absolutely divine.

Oyster sauce needed to be refrigerated. After all, it was essentially concentrated oyster broth. Storing it in his cellar, which was in the teens Celsius, extended its shelf life, but it still wouldn’t last more than a week.

To maintain his supply of this unique condiment, he made a new batch almost every week, yielding about a bamboo tube’s worth of oyster sauce each time.

He had eaten his fill of oysters during this time—raw, boiled, grilled, and steamed—to the point where the sight of a plump oyster no longer moved him.

Unless he could cook them with modern ingredients and seasonings, the simple, rustic preparations were no longer enough to stir his appetite.

After eating and drinking his fill, he scraped out all the coconut meat, soaking it in water to keep it fresh and ward off insects. Only then did he shoulder two bamboo baskets, fully equipped, and head up the mountain along his water channel.