Zhang Heng did not know the name of this giant pheasant. It was so ugly that he could not bear to eat it, but it tasted so good.
Zhang Heng had eaten seafood on the island for so long that he had almost forgotten what chicken tasted like. The chicken soup he stewed at night brought back a distant memory.
Strictly speaking, the meat was coarser than chicken, and it might be closer to pigeon in texture.
But for Zhang Heng, who was going crazy from craving meat, this was the best chicken he had ever eaten in his life.
He could not finish the chicken that weighed more than ten kilograms in one meal. He removed the guts, soaked it in seawater, and smoked it into jerky. He hung it under the eaves.
He found a piece of land behind the house with better sunlight, cut up the potato seeds, and planted them. He then burned some plant ash and sprinkled it as fertilizer. Finally, he fenced the land, looking forward to the surprise this place would bring him in a month and a half.
Zhang Heng originally recorded time by carving words on the wall, but after moving, he could not move the stone wall over. Fortunately, he still had the starfish on his right hand.
With its incredible hardness that surpassed all scientific explanations, Zhang Heng used it to polish stones in the early days.
According to the position of the hour and minute hands, he could calculate the current date based on a simple conversion relationship. It had been two hundred and one days since he landed on this deserted island.
His clothes were the first to rot, followed by a big hole in his shoes. Fortunately, he was in the tropics. Even in winter, he did not have to worry too much about the temperature. Now, Zhang Heng was topless during the day.
His skin was tanned to the color of bronze, and his beard was unshaven. His hair had also become strands, and he was somewhat slovenly.
That afternoon, Zhang Heng put down all his work, chose a rock wall by the coast, and climbed it. He sat cross-legged, quietly looking into the distance.
About half an hour later, the old friend Zhang Heng was waiting for appeared on time.
The explorer struggled in the waves, looking like he could drown at any time.
Zhang Heng looked at the undulating figure, and his expression was also very conflicted.
The great philosopher, mathematician, and historian Bertrand Russell once said that his life was dominated by three simple but strong emotions — the desire for love, the pursuit of knowledge, and pity for human suffering.
But for Zhang Heng now, things were a little simpler.
There were only two things that kept him alive for the past 500 days — going to the center of the island to take a look, and the adventurer who floated over every 40 days.
The former would keep him busy and reduce the time for his imagination to run wild, while the latter would remind him that he was not alone.
Zhang Heng had lost count of the number of times he had thought of fishing the adventurer out of the sea.
As long as he could drag her ashore, there would be someone to accompany him for nineteen days, giving him the communication and warmth that he needed the most right now.
However, Zhang Heng did not make a move.
He remembered a movie he had seen before called "Deserted Island". The main character's plane crashed, and he landed on a small island with a bunch of parcels. In order to survive, he opened all the parcels except for the last one, because that parcel represented hope to him.
The adventurer who came back every 40 days meant the same thing to Zhang Heng.
He had already stayed on this island for more than two hundred days, which was equivalent to five hours of gaming time for an ordinary player, and his return to the real world was still a long way off.
If he rescued the adventurer now, he would be completely alone for the rest of his days once the adventurer died 19 days later.
Although he was still lacking in many things after leveling up his wilderness survival skills to Lv.1 (for example, he really wanted a game console, even if it was just Tetris and Snake), he was no longer as eager to level up his skills as he was when he first arrived on the island.
In comparison, exploring the center of the island was lacking a helper. Of course, he could do it alone, but it would be safer if there were two of them.
Therefore, Zhang Heng planned to have the adventurer accompany him into the primeval forest after rescuing him.
From Ed and the man in shorts, Zhang Heng had also verified one thing. Although both of them were wilderness survival experts, they focused on different areas of expertise.
Ed's knowledge was mainly about basic survival skills, while the man in shorts was more inclined toward manufacturing. Judging from the adventurer's attire, if he was not mistaken, he was most likely an adventure expert. It would be a little awkward if Zhang Heng were to rescue him now.
Therefore, Zhang Heng restrained his desire and watched as the adventurer was swallowed by the waves for the fourth time.
Reluctantly looking in the direction where the adventurer disappeared, Zhang Heng jumped down from the rock wall and continued with his archery training.
He spent a month improving his accuracy at thirty meters to more than ninety percent.
In the end, he did not receive any skill upgrade notifications.
Zhang Heng did not feel discouraged. This was also within his expectations. The game was very strict in its assessment of skills. He had learned English for 14 years, and his native Chinese, but he was only at Lv.1 in language. However, considering that there were so many languages in the world, the grading was fair.
Similarly, it was the same for wilderness survival. Zhang Heng felt that if he were to throw everyone in the world onto a deserted island, even if he was not the last person to survive, he would still be in the top ten. However, he was also one of the more biased ones. If he were in another harsh environment, he might not be able to do so well. For example, in the polar regions or deserts, he would barely be able to survive. This was the biggest difference between him and a true expert.
Therefore, Zhang Heng was not in a hurry to level up his archery skills.
After improving his accuracy by thirty meters, he began to try shooting at moving targets.
At first, Zhang Heng used the fish swimming near the coral as his targets. However, after shooting two arrows, he remembered that his line of sight was distorted in the water. If he continued to practice like this, his archery skills might go awry.
So, he switched to using crabs as targets. However, crabs were the type that would not move if the enemy did not move, so the training was not very effective. As for birds, Zhang Heng did not consider them in the first place, mainly because most of them stood at the top of trees, and it was difficult to retrieve the arrows he shot.
Zhang Heng tried a few times, but in the end, he chose broken pottery pieces and made them into targets. He strung them with a rope and hung them on the branches. When the wind blew, they would float with the wind.
This way, it would be difficult to hit the target again.
This time, Zhang Heng practiced for a full two months before he finally got the hang of it. During this period, he accidentally harvested an ugly superstar "pheasant", and it was still in good condition. For some reason, it ran to Zhang Heng's vegetable garden, probably trying to sneak in for a free breakfast. However, its head got stuck in the fence.
Zhang Heng thought for a while, but he was not in a hurry to eat it. Instead, he found a rope, tied one end to the pheasant's leg, and the other end to a wooden stake. This way, he had an upgraded version of a moving target.
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