Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 427: Chapter 263: Natural Bread

As he watched her walk away, Lin Chen breathed a small sigh of relief. He quickly submerged himself in the tub, stripping off his pants and shirt, planning to wash them while he was at it.

Before he could even get comfortable, Erica suddenly stopped, turned her head, and shouted back.

"Oh, right! I forgot to tell you, I didn’t change the water after my bath!"

"You’re full of it," Lin Chen said, waving his hand dismissively. "This water is perfectly clean. There aren’t any suds left, so how could you have..."

"Because I didn’t wash my hair."

...?

The expression on his face froze.

’Come to think of it, that might actually be true.’

When he first woke up and saw her, her hair did seem to be tied up with a twig.

’Could this really be her used bathwater???’

"Enjoy yourself! By extension, we’ve basically bathed together now. Don’t be in a hurry to get out~"

Erica gave him a teasing wink, clasped her hands behind her back, and skipped away into the distance.

’Hmph. Trying to control me with good food? I’m not that easy to sway. We’ll just see who comes out on top.’

Lin Chen’s expression flickered as he stared at the clear, hot water before him. After a long moment of hesitation, he fought back the urge to heat a new tub.

’This is a matter of hygiene. She’s got to be joking, right?’

’Oh, wait. I’m going to use soapnut anyway, which is naturally antibacterial. What the hell am I afraid of?’

「Day 44.」

He’d slept for too long yesterday, so he woke up bright and early today.

After a quick wash, he checked on the smoking crocodile meat.

After a full night of slow-smoking over a low fire, the crocodile meat had noticeably darkened in color. It was starting to look like beef jerky, but its texture was still far from what was needed for long-term storage.

But his goal wasn’t to preserve it perfectly, just to make it last until the competition ended the morning after next.

He added a little more charcoal and left it be for now. Then he started to wonder if he should explore a part of the forest he hadn’t visited yet. What if he found something new?

At this point, his goal was no longer about increasing his score. He was simply curious about the forest itself.

There were still many well-known species he had yet to encounter, like the famous avocado. He hadn’t found a single tree.

’I’m already here, and it’s not like I have anything better to do. A little exploring couldn’t hurt.’

’I’ve already explored the area around my camp. I did a quick search of the summit when I was there before and didn’t find much. That just leaves the two bamboo forests in completely opposite directions.’

Come to think of it, he hadn’t yet been to the mountain in Andre’s direction.

’That settles it!’

He slung the bamboo basket over his back and grabbed his bamboo knife, just like usual. He stuffed his combat knife in one pocket and his slingshot in the other. He didn’t bother bringing any other weapons, since he wasn’t planning on hunting anyway.

Facing the slowly rising sun, he expertly made his way to the bamboo forest he knew well, then continued straight through without stopping.

He passed the area he had logged, crossed through the entire bamboo grove, and arrived in a completely new and unfamiliar region.

Perhaps because of the large bamboo grove nearby, the surrounding trees were generally not very tall. They lacked the lush, dense canopy of a primeval forest, looking more like a typical woodland you might find on a suburban hill.

He continued onward for another half an hour or so. He felt he had gone far past the location of Andre’s shelter, and he had a nagging feeling that he was following a curve in the mountainside.

In other words, if he were to head down the mountain from here, he would most likely find a plain, a river valley, or some other terrain where the hills curve inland, like an estuary.

Just as he was looking around for anything new or interesting, his eyes were drawn to an exceptionally tall tree visible through a gap in the dense canopy.

"What is that?"

He aimed his chest-mounted camera in that direction. "It looks like it’s about twenty meters tall. That’s insane. C’mon, let’s go check it out."

With his mental encyclopedia of wild plants, several possibilities immediately sprang to mind.

A tree that could grow that tall was unlikely to be an ordinary species. It was probably a valuable one with high ornamental worth.

It looked close, but it still took him another ten-odd minutes of walking to finally reach it.

It was only then that he realized the tree wasn’t just twenty meters tall—it was probably closer to thirty.

Standing beneath it and looking up, the canopy blotted out the sun, as vast as a world tree. Its large, bright green leaves shimmered brilliantly in the sunlight.

Even from the ground, he could clearly make out the shape of the leaves. Each one looked like a palm, or perhaps a bit like a taro leaf, only with many more splits along the edges.

In addition, its straight, smooth trunk was clearly different from the other trees.

The moment he saw these features, a peculiar name automatically surfaced in his mind.

Breadfruit tree.

Related information automatically came to him, and his gaze followed the sprawling branches.

Soon, his eyes lit up. He spotted many round, yellowish-green fruits hidden among the branches.

"Found them!"

Despite the breadfruit tree’s impressive height, its trunk was very slender—only a little over a meter in diameter by his estimation. This gave it a somewhat top-heavy, cartoonish appearance.

Luckily, this was a tropical forest, and the numerous surrounding trees could help disperse the force of strong winds, so he didn’t have to worry about it being blown over.

Or rather, that was probably the main reason it had managed to survive for so long.

He scanned the ground around the tree and quickly found the remains of several torn-open breadfruits. The pulp inside had long since been devoured by some unknown creature.