Chapter 228: Chapter 228: Deserted Island Survival 6

After the New Year, the temperature plummeted to minus fifteen degrees, and a thick fog once again rose over the sea.

The waves were also crashing against the shore more and more frequently. The sea was a tempest of monstrous waves, and watching it from the island was enough to make your skin crawl.

Evelyn Ford had to admire the cabin’s resilience. Every time a storm rolled in, the wooden structure would sway from side to side, looking as if it might be blown away or fall apart at any moment, but it always held strong.

Aside from their daily trips to gather fish and shrimp and haul in their iron cages and fishing nets, the two of them hardly went out anymore.

Evelyn continued to work inside the cabin, making clothes and shoes, stocking her space with cooked food, steaming buns, brewing poisons, and occasionally even putting on a face mask to take care of her skin.

’Looking at this face, forever frozen at nineteen,’ Evelyn thought, ’I think I understand why the ancients pursued immortality.’

By her calculations, she was twenty-five this year and would turn twenty-six in October.

Twenty-six was still young, but compared to nineteen, it was a whole different kind of young.

In the morning, Evelyn found over a dozen jellyfish in the yard. They were poisonous, so she placed them in a separate basin. They might come in handy the next time she made poison.

During this time, Evelyn had truly come to appreciate the diversity of marine life. Most sea creatures were bizarre-looking—or rather, exceptionally ugly and disgusting.

It was said that deep-sea animals were so ugly because they didn’t need to see the light, so they could grow however they pleased.

’An interesting theory.’

Evelyn saved all the strange, unrecognizable creatures for her poison-making.

She took out all the mushrooms she had dug up in the safe zone and stir-fried them with sliced meat. Thankfully, she hadn’t thrown away her old plastic food containers; a good wash and they were reusable.

Evelyn hadn’t bought many containers—only a few tens of thousands in bulk.

She also turned the pumpkins into all sorts of sweets. Ronan Kendrick liked them, so Evelyn made a large batch.

She had just finished making lunch when Ronan returned. He was dragging a small great white shark behind him, and Evelyn stared, stunned for a few seconds.

"The waves washed it up into the woods behind us. It was already dead."

"This thing’s probably only good for fertilizer."

Ronan was puzzled. "Why?"

"It urinates through its skin."

"Then let’s put it in the space. We can use it to grow vegetables and flowers later."

A flicker of disgust crossed Ronan’s eyes. He dropped the great white shark he had painstakingly dragged back onto the ground. Evelyn ducked her head to hide a smile and quickly stored it in her space.

"Alright, time to eat. By the way, I cooked that squid we caught last time. I grilled it teppanyaki-style. Go on, give it a try."

"Is squid good?"

"It’s delicious."

Back in the cabin, Ronan took off his coat, washed his hands, and sat down in front of the fireplace, waiting for Evelyn to feed him.

"Try some."

Sprinkled with chili pepper, it was not only tasty but also very spicy.

Ronan took a bite, his face lighting up with pleasant surprise. "This is delicious! I’ll catch more of these from now on."

The next day, Ronan did indeed focus all his energy on catching squid. He even went out to sea, but unfortunately, he only came back with a net full of sardines.

"Sardines are delicious too," Evelyn consoled him.

"Really?"

"Of course."

For the next few days, Ronan switched his focus to catching sardines. Evelyn was amused by his behavior; he could be as stubborn as a child sometimes.

Starting from the tenth day of the first lunar month, the temperature dropped to minus twenty-three degrees. The waves grew larger, battering the small island several times a day.

Ronan brought back the iron cages and fishing nets. They couldn’t even finish collecting all the fish and shrimp on the island, so they decided to spare the ones still in the sea for now.

The buckets and baskets in her space were all full. Evelyn took out some fir wood, and together with Ronan, they built over a dozen large wooden crates. They then lined them with plastic sheets and sorted the fish and shrimp into them.

Evelyn kept all the pretty seashells and coral. When she saw Wendy and the others again, she could give them as gifts.

The most pleasant surprise, however, was a pile of freshwater mussels washed ashore by the waves. Evelyn opened them to find dozens of pearls inside.

Judging by their quality, a single one was worth a fortune.

’I could make a necklace out of these. I think Serena Lynch would like it.’

Their daily work now consisted of using tongs to pick up fish and shrimp. They had to come out every few hours to collect them, otherwise there would be no place to even walk.

To prevent the cabin from being eroded by the seawater, Evelyn took out a large tarp and covered the structure completely. She weighed it down securely with rocks, wood, and snow, making it so sturdy that not even a hurricane could blow it away.

In the middle of the night, while Evelyn was sound asleep, a loud CRASH from the cabin roof jolted them both awake.

"I wonder what washed up this time. It felt like the beams were going to collapse," Evelyn mumbled with her eyes still closed.

"I’ll go check."

"Don’t bother. We’ll find out in the morning, won’t we?"

After saying that, Evelyn fell back asleep. When she woke up the next day, she remembered the thing that had crashed onto the roof last night, so she threw on her coat and immediately went out to check.

"Is that a whale?"

Ronan had already dragged the whale out from the snowdrift where it had landed. It wasn’t very large; it was probably still a calf.

The whale was already dead, so Evelyn had no choice but to store it in her space for the time being.

"Go back and sleep a little more. I’ll pick these up." The snow was once again covered in a dense layer of fish, shrimp, and crabs. Ronan walked over, adjusted Evelyn’s coat snugly around her, and pinched her cheek.

"I’ll help you."

"No need. I’ll be done in no time."

"Then I’ll go make breakfast. I can’t fall back asleep anyway. What do you want to eat? Fried dough sticks, steamed buns, rice noodles, noodles, or malatang?"

"Noodles."

"Alrighty! If you’ll just wait a moment, your humble servant will go and prepare it right away."

Seeing her playful antics, Ronan couldn’t help but let out an amused laugh.

Humming a tune, Evelyn went into the kitchen. She first boiled a kettle of water, washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then cooked two bowls of beef noodles.

"Ronan, breakfast is ready!"

"Okay."

Ronan finished gathering all the fish and shrimp and had already sorted them. Evelyn went out, stored them in her space, and pulled him back into the cabin.

The firewood in the fireplace was about to burn out, so Evelyn added a few more logs. The embers crackled and popped.

"Ronan, we’re going to have to make more large crates."

"Are they full again?"

Evelyn nodded. "We collect several times a day, and we get three or four baskets each time. We won’t need to hunt anymore. There’s too much food in the space."

’If only the waves could wash up a small yacht,’ she thought. ’I’m not lacking anything right now... except a yacht.’

Ronan nodded. "Okay. Bring out some more fir wood later, and I’ll make a few more crates."

"The wind is so strong outside. Ever since the temperature dropped below minus five degrees, the seagulls have disappeared."

"The temperature might drop even further."

Evelyn had a feeling that might happen. It was already minus twenty-five degrees, but it was getting colder every day.

’It’s fine,’ she thought, giving herself a mental pep talk. ’We survived temperatures over sixty degrees. We should be able to get through negative sixty, too.’

Thankfully, she had stockpiled a lot of firewood over the years. They had enough to burn for more than a decade without any problem.