Chapter 11
On the other side of the camera.
“Brother Ye, we succeeded!” Mo Fan stared fixedly at the strangely shaped device on the beach in front of him.
A mineral water bottle, a hollowed-out piece of bamboo, and a metal pencil case found in Gu Shengsheng’s backpack—the one he still had not thrown away after finishing the college entrance exam—had been connected together.
Together, they formed the simplest possible distillation device.
Beneath the metal pencil case, flames burned fiercely. At the other end, the bamboo served as a conductor, dripping clear droplets of water with a faint sizzling sound.
Gu Shengsheng stared intently at the fire, holding a handful of dry branches. Whenever the fire looked wrong, he threw branches into it.
Seeing that the fire was still burning but there was less firewood, he did not even need anyone to remind him. He ran back and forth between the forest and the beach, picking up fallen branches from the ground to use as backup firewood.
After several hours of effort, the mineral water bottle had already condensed a “full” big mouthful of water.
It was fresh water made by distilling seawater.
About one-tenth of a 500ml bottle.
Gu Shengsheng counted on his fingers. “Fifty milliliters of water is eight bottle caps.”
“If we boil it for another two hours, that’s sixteen bottle caps. Another two hours after that, twenty-four bottle caps. There are six of us, so each person can get four bottle caps of water!”
[Your math is pretty good, huh!]
[Pfft, why does that sound so heartbreaking?]
[Help, I really can’t hate Gu Shengsheng’s face. Even with his face covered in soot, he still looks like a fallen elf. How can he be this good-looking?]
[He really, I’m crying. For one mouthful of water, he doesn’t even care about his image anymore.]
[Qin Ye really has leadership ability. He’s the only one in all these seasons who figured out the top priority right from the start, right? A person can survive seven days without food, but without water, three days at most. Using distillation to filter seawater into fresh water and extracting salt at the same time—truly killing two birds with one stone!]
[Most importantly, Mo Fan and Gu Shengsheng are also cooperating really well.]
[Gu Shengsheng is really killing me with laughter. Didn’t he get pretty good college entrance exam scores? I think his cultural subject scores passed the first-tier line? Earlier, he actually clapped with admiration and said: Wow, Qin Ye, you actually still remember middle school science knowledge!]
[Mo Fan is even funnier. He stared blankly at the two of them and said: I recognize the two characters for “distillation.” Hahahahahaha.]
[Actually… there’s no need to force the praise, right? Isn’t this a required science experiment?]
[Uh, actually, little brother or little sister, using your middle school level to test us college students is a bit excessive!]
[Someone who’s been working for three years is sweating bullets.]
[Pfft, my defense is broken. Stop talking! Don’t force me to kneel down and beg you!]
[That said, learning it is simple, but applying it is really hard. If Qin Ye hadn’t taken the lead in making the distillation device just now, I wouldn’t even have thought about the fact that seawater can’t be drunk directly.]
In front of the screen, Sun Xinping’s forehead was sweating.
Sorry, he had not thought of that either.
Before Qin Ye started making the distillation device, he had not even set the debuff that drinking seawater would cause dehydration.
Beside him, Xiao Li watched the screen with a face full of surprise and excitement.
My god, this was really the most harmonious bullet comment section in all three seasons.
Even Gu Shengsheng, who had been implanted with the personas of “selfish and self-serving” and “arrogant and domineering,” had not caused trouble.
But just as he was thinking this, Gu Shengsheng, who had not “caused trouble” for a long time, spoke.
He sneakily looked in Qin Ye’s direction. Seeing that Qin Ye had not noticed him, he withdrew his gaze.
A few seconds later, he looked again, then withdrew his gaze again.
After several back-and-forths, his face was almost twisted into a knot from struggling.
[No, bro, if you have something to say, just say it!]
[Seriously, I’m dying of anxiety!!!]
Fortunately, Qin Ye noticed too.
“What do you want to say?”
Gu Shengsheng was startled all over.
[No… did he also take on Qi Xiu’s timid and afraid-of-trouble persona? Why is he so easy to scare?]
Qin Ye raised his eyes and looked toward him.
After hesitating again and again, Gu Shengsheng finally spoke. “Can I boil for another two hours and drink one extra bottle cap of water?”
“I mean, with the extra eight bottle caps of water, each person gets one bottle cap, and then I get half of the remaining two bottle caps?”
Xiao Li’s heart jumped.
Sure enough, the persona was not just for show. It would be strange if Gu Shengsheng did not think of taking advantage.
But somehow, it felt like something was wrong?
[??? Boil for another two hours just to drink one more mouthful of water than the others?]
[Be precise. One bottle cap. A tiny mouthful of water hahahaha.]
[No, he’s so humble. In real life, his workday salary is 2.08 million, but on “Being Human,” two hours of labor pays one mouthful of water. I suggest all celebrities come experience this.]
[…Is he trapped in the logic? He’s just going to keep boiling water there, and he actually wants to boil water alone for everyone else to drink! Is this selfish? This is so selfless he’s become stupid, right?]
Mo Fan did not find anything wrong with it at all.
“Then what do we do with the extra bottle cap of water?”
Gu Shengsheng blinked and asked Qin Ye, “Brother, do you want it?”
Qin Ye paused what he was doing, fell silent for a moment, and asked him, “What if I don’t want it?”
Gu Shengsheng thought for a while. “Then we’ll ask Boss if he wants it.”
[Why? Is it to repay him for the world’s best roasted fish?]
Gu Shengsheng said, “The fire by drilling wood was learned from Boss. Boss also contributed.”
Mo Fan said, “That makes sense!”
“Little Gu, your ideological awareness has improved!”
[This isn’t scientific.]
Qin Ye had not expected this answer either.
He nodded in agreement. “That’s very reasonable.”
Gu Shengsheng continued to add, “If Boss doesn’t want it either.”
?
“Then can the remaining bottle cap of water also be given to me?”
[…Iconic.]
[Actually, it does reflect the selfish persona, right? But… could you maybe be a little more boldly selfish? Why does this feel like playing house now?!]
“What does Boss not want either?” With Shen Jinfeng’s promise to later teach him how to “pick” coconuts with pebbles, He Erwang gave up the idea of continuing to practice on his own and walked out of the dense forest in high spirits.
As soon as he left the forest, he heard Gu Shengsheng saying something about “Boss doesn’t want either.”
He excitedly waved at the three teammates left on the beach. “Comrades, Boss and I brought good stuff back for you!”
Because he had decided to surprise Qin Ye and the others, he had wrapped the coconuts in his shirt all the way out.
And not only had he wrapped his own, he had also urged Qi Xiu to wrap his.
Qi Xiu stood to the side. Seeing that He Erwang had not added his name, he was not angry either.
He only stood beside Shen Jinfeng with a smiling face, looking deeply honored.
Shen Jinfeng was blocked behind the two of them, holding a coconut in one hand and covered so thoroughly he could not be seen.
With He Erwang’s shout, Qin Ye and the others looked over.
The netizens who had just been watching the livestream room of the “stay-behind” trio were all confused.
Stay-behind group: [What, what is it! What good stuff? Hurry and let me see!]
Stay-behind group: [Did they pick up gold?]
Travel group: [No, did the stay-behind group netizens leave their brains behind too? What use is gold on a deserted island?]
Stay-behind group: [We have a surprise here too! Guess what Qin Ye led Mo Fan and Gu Shengsheng to make?]
Travel group: [No, you absolutely can’t imagine this. Shen Jinfeng went into the dense forest for one round and directly wiped out the food crisis.]
Travel group: [With Shen Jinfeng here, is this season’s theme still called deserted-island survival? Should the production team raise the difficulty a little more?]
The stay-behind group froze. [We also solved the food crisis!]
Stay-behind group: [Why do I feel like the way He Erwang looks at Shen Jinfeng now is a little too passionate?]
Travel group: [Hahahahahahaha, go look on Weibo now. After you see it, you’ll understand hahahaha.]
Travel group: [Anyone who didn’t follow Shen Jinfeng’s livestream room just now suffered a blood loss. You can’t imagine how awesome Shen Jinfeng was! You can’t imagine how happy He Erwang was being flown like a kite!]
Stay-behind group: [What kite flying? They went into the woods to fly kites?]
Travel group: [Pfft, what the hell, flying kites hahahaha. It was clearly an aerial slide, a kindergarten favorite.]
Stay-behind group: [???]
The bullet comments from the stay-behind group and the travel group merged, becoming extremely lively for a while.
Meanwhile, Gu Shengsheng’s attention was successfully diverted. “What good stuff?”
Qin Ye and Mo Fan also raised their eyes curiously.
He Erwang beamed with joy and, with an extremely exaggerated and carefree posture, flung open his shirt in one motion.
“Coconuts! We found coconuts!”
“Sweet and delicious coconuts!”
“Tonight, we can eat big mouthfuls of coconut meat and drink big mouthfuls of coconut juice! We can even stew coconut fish with the coconut juice!”
“Drink freely and boldly. If the coconuts run out, we’ll go pick more. There’s plenty!”
Qi Xiu cooperatively presented the coconuts.
The two of them shifted aside, revealing Shen Jinfeng behind them, who was also holding a coconut in each hand.
Shen Jinfeng: “…”
He pursed the corners of his lips awkwardly.
He suddenly understood what the legendary saying “so embarrassed your toes dig into the ground” meant.
Opposite them, Gu Shengsheng and Mo Fan opened their mouths wide in surprise.
They had both bought coconuts and drunk coconut juice before.
Gu Shengsheng subconsciously counted on his fingers, unable to figure it out. “How many bottle caps of water are there in one coconut?”
Qin Ye was hit hard by his soul-piercing question.
With so many coconuts, the distillation device he had made seemed rather unnecessary.
Mo Fan stepped forward to help take the coconuts and cheerfully talked about the results the three of them had achieved earlier. “Brother Ye just led us to distill seawater into fresh water. Boss, later, when you get tired of drinking coconut water, you can change the flavor.”
Shen Jinfeng’s eyes lit up.
There were still people in this team who could do things.
Coconut water could quench thirst, but how could they possibly drink coconut water forever?
“Very good.” He praised them without stinting. “Fresh water is an indispensable and precious resource.”
Qin Ye smiled at the side.
The few of them gathered the coconuts together.
He then brought Shen Jinfeng to view another result he had spent more than two hours completing earlier.
“It’s late today, so there’s no time to build a wooden house. I used the torn tent fabric to make three beds.”
Earlier, after he had finished making the distillation device, he had handed the remaining operation over to Mo Fan and Gu Shengsheng.
The usable items left in the team were truly too few. The camping tents they had brought had all fallen apart after drifting at sea.
The remaining parts were not enough to assemble into new tents.
So Qin Ye had selected a few relatively intact pieces of tent fabric and, using tree trunks, made three beds.
Then he set up a circle of upright branches around them to form pointed tops, spreading thick banana leaves over the branches.
Three small huts with quite a wild charm were finished.
Only because the tent fabric was limited, he had made just three.
Six people, exactly two to each hut.
His gaze circled around the five teammates and stopped on Shen Jinfeng without hesitation. “Little Captain, shall you and I share one tonight?”
Shen Jinfeng’s heart jumped, and he abruptly raised his head.
Only, before he could respond,
He Erwang jumped up. “No, I want to share with Boss!”
Qi Xiu hesitated for a moment, then also stepped forward. “I also want to share with Boss.”
“Let’s play rock-paper-scissors!”
