Before the flames grew too intense, he picked four of the straighter pieces from a pile of chopped firewood and stuck them in the ground around the fire. Then, he grabbed a banana leaf.

He jammed the thick petiole into the soil, packing it down firmly. The leaf blade draped over the wooden supports, creating a makeshift, ninety-degree roof.

With the leaf blocking the way, the thick smoke could only billow out to the sides.

He then laid another banana leaf on the left and right, loosely enclosing the area above the Ant Nest.

Smoke still escaped through the gaps, but the majority was now forced to drift toward the petiole—in other words, toward where he was standing.

Once the smoke flue was in place, he tore up the last two tobacco leaves from his basket and tossed them into the fire. Then he pulled up all the weeds growing wild inside the cabin and threw them in too.

The fresh leaves contained a lot of moisture, so to prevent the steam from extinguishing the fire, he stuffed in another handful of firewood.

As the fire raged, thick smoke billowed from the pile.

He fanned the fire with a banana leaf, forcing the smoke inward. With nowhere else to go, the smoke was funneled down by the leafy flue, pouring into the Ant Nest below.

Once the fire was stable, he covered it with large quantities of weeds, leaves, moss, and the like.

This kind of damp vegetation produced thick smoke when it burned. Being flammable and not very bulky, there was no risk of it failing to catch fire.

As he fanned the fire, his eyes scanned the surroundings, searching for any telltale plumes of white smoke rising from the ground nearby.

The Ant Nest below was deeper than he had imagined. He fanned for a good two or three minutes, but nothing unusual appeared on the surrounding ground.

This continued for a full five minutes until, finally, the first wisp of white smoke emerged from the ground a few meters to the left of the cabin.

The instant he saw the smoke, he dropped the banana leaf, rushed over, piled fresh soil onto the opening, and stomped it down, completely sealing the exit.

He had just straightened up when several more wisps of smoke appeared nearby.

He blocked nearly ten exits in quick succession before the smoke stopped appearing.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and returned to the fire to continue fanning the smoke.

’The principle of this smoking method is the same as the heated earthen bed I built in Alaska. The hot smoke circulates through the Ant Nest, heating the soil and killing the termites inside.’

’Smoke travels much faster than termites can crawl. Other than the few already near the exits, the rest have no chance to escape, especially since I plugged the holes immediately.’

While Lin Chen was dealing with the termite infestation, Robert and his group were conducting a medical check-up for Andre in a river valley forest not far from the Mangrove Forest.

Bored while obediently cooperating with Ariana, Andre tapped his watch screen to see what the viewers were chatting about.

Someone like him, who spent most of his time in the wild, was accustomed to solitude. He was long past Lin Chen’s habit of talking to himself; in fact, he rather enjoyed the feeling of living with loneliness.

That’s why he rarely interacted with the viewers, only remembering to check in with them when he was eating or had nothing better to do.

But this time, he saw several messages that left him stunned.

"What the hell?!"

Andre’s sudden, choked cry startled Robert and the others, and they all turned to look at him.

"Lin found an abandoned cabin? With a lot of supplies around it, and even a tobacco field, a pineapple field, and a few orange trees?"

"What the hell????"

Having been on the move all day, Robert and his group had no idea what the other contestants had been up to. They usually only found out once they arrived on site.

This time, because of the coastline, they had a new vehicle.

A speedboat.

Based on the distances, they had to check on Andre first, then Lin Chen. After all, the Dalian Mountain Range was a continuous chain with no passages to the inland forest.

To use the speedboat, they had to take a helicopter over the mountains, land by the sea, and then switch to the boat.

While this might seem like a waste of money, from the viewers’ perspective, all they would see was the team making their entrance on a speedboat.

As long as it gave the viewers a new visual experience, the money was well spent.

"That Lin guy... his luck is just too good, isn’t it?"

"We found a number of abandoned structures when we scouted this area, but they were mostly just shelters. I never imagined we’d find signs of cultivation on the coast around here."

Daniel raised his eyebrows in surprise. Clearly, events were unfolding in a way that was even more absurd than he had imagined.

He was getting antsy and wanted nothing more than to rush over to Lin Chen’s location and see the remnants of local cultivation with his own eyes.

"Wait, that’s not right."

He suddenly had a thought.

"If it were just an abandoned cabin, that would only suggest someone once lived here—a survivalist, like us."

"But signs of cultivation mean it was a long-term residence. That changes things completely."

"Normally, people are very careful when choosing a permanent shelter. The previous owner even went as far as to cultivate fruit and tobacco fields. It makes no sense for them to have abandoned it. There must have been a reason they were forced to leave."

"That’s right," Andre said, looking up and pointing at his watch. "The viewers say Lin is in the cabin now, using a fire to smoke out an underground Ant Nest."