Duan Lili wasn’t craving fish—she simply needed to establish a stable food source to survive in this remote wilderness.
Her failed attempt to hunt deer that morning had taught her a lesson: without long-range weapons like bows and arrows, relying solely on her legs and a Small Wooden Knife made the chances of catching fast-moving land animals quite slim.
In comparison, fish seemed like a much easier food source to obtain.
That morning, she had managed to grab a fish with her bare hands, only to lose it because her grip was too slippery.
Slippery hands weren’t a problem this time—Duan Lili had no intention of catching fish by hand again.
She fixed her eyes on the fish, watching as it swam to the side. She followed along the bank for a few steps until the fish came to a stop. Then, she took out her Small Wooden Knife and swung it down into the water!
Unfortunately, she missed, and the plump fish darted away in fright.
Duan Lili felt a twinge of regret but stayed put, crouching by the water’s edge. The river seemed to have plenty of fish, so she decided to wait patiently.
Sure enough, before long, another fish swam into view.
The river fish had a Health Bar floating above its head. It had no Combat power to speak of, and its Health was pitifully low—a mere “2.”
While lamenting the fragility of fish, Duan Lili raised her Small Wooden Knife and struck down hard!
A red 【-2】 floated into the air. The fish flipped belly-up and floated to the surface.
Even with only a measly 2 Health points, this still counted as Combat. Loot from Combat didn’t auto-collect; instead, a dialog box popped up asking whether to pick it up. Duan Lili selected “Yes,” and the fish vanished from the water. Her Personal Inventory now showed 【Fish 1】.
After this experiment, she confirmed it: fish were a stable food source.
Duan Lili stood up. It was still only afternoon, but she had been busy since morning. And today’s achievements were significant. It was only her second day in this otherworldly place, yet she had already built a house, acquired a private bathroom, and secured a stable food source.
Filled with motivation, Duan Lili refilled her cola bottle with water and turned back toward home.
Back at her house, she transferred the raw wood, wooden planks, a bottle of medicine, 3/4 of a piece of roasted meat, steamed buns, and torches from her Personal Inventory into the storage box, freeing up eight slots.
She walked to the edge of the forest, where it was shady and a gentle breeze made it quite comfortable.
For the rest of the day, Duan Lili did nothing else. With a Small Wooden Hammer in her left hand and a Small Wooden Axe in her right, she alternated between Crafting and chopping trees. By late afternoon, another patch of tree stumps had appeared along the forest’s edge.
The Small Wooden Axe had almost no critical hit rate, so to conserve stamina, Duan Lili simply tapped it lightly against the trees. Ten taps, and a tree would fall.
In her left hand, she held the Small Wooden Hammer, focusing all her effort on Crafting more Small Wooden Axes.
Currently, including the time it took to walk from one tree to another, she could use up one Small Wooden Axe in five minutes, harvesting 30+ pieces of raw wood. But Crafting a new Small Wooden Axe took ten minutes. Production couldn’t keep up with consumption.
Every time she used up a Small Wooden Axe, Duan Lili would spend the few minutes waiting for a new one to be crafted by stretching her arms, kicking her legs, and twisting her waist three times to the left and three times to the right.
A healthy body is the foundation of all endeavors, and exercise is crucial too. With the tools provided by the System, there was hardly any physical exertion—just a slight soreness in the arms. When tired, she simply switched hands: hammering with the right, chopping with the left.
After two hours of tree-chopping, Duan Lili had used up the 12 Wood Blocks in her Personal Inventory, leaving only 6 wooden rods. She had also newly crafted a Small Wooden Axe.
Duan Lili sped up her movements, thud-thud-thud-thud, and soon wore out this Small Wooden Axe as well.
After a diligent session of work, she had harvested a total of 449 raw woods.
In the warehouse, a row of slots displayed:
Raw Wood 100丨Raw Wood 100丨Raw Wood 100丨Raw Wood 100丨Raw Wood 49
The sight of four consecutive "100s" was incredibly satisfying! Duan Lili absolutely loved this fully stacked state!
Turning around, she realized she had carved a gap at the edge of the forest, with nothing but fresh tree stumps in sight.
She had used 14 Small Wooden Axes and chopped down a full 140 trees.
Ah, this… seemed a bit environmentally unfriendly. Duan Lili felt a twinge of guilt. But she quickly comforted herself—this wasn’t Earth, after all. Not Earth.
Glancing deeper into the woods, she saw the trees gradually thickening, blocking her view and hiding the scenery within. Looking further across the river, the rolling hills were entirely covered in vegetation. Duan Lili felt slightly reassured.
But she resolved that once she settled down, she would study the System carefully and make sure to replant all these trees.
No matter where one is, environmental consciousness must never be abandoned.
It was already close to 4 p.m., and the sun was tilting westward. Duan Lili was starting to feel a little hungry.
Amidst the sea of tree stumps, a lone tree had escaped the Host’s axe, standing solitary and forlorn.
Duan Lili hadn’t missed this tree—she had intentionally left it. This was the bitter leaf tree. She plucked a few leaves and stored them in the warehouse before heading back to the house.
Inside, the light wasn’t as bright as it had been in the morning.
Duan Lili decided to start preparing dinner.
She took steamed buns and a torch from the Old Wooden Chest and placed them in her Personal Inventory. Then, she moved the wooden table and chairs from the house to the cool pavilion by the river, finally setting up a proper dining table.
Having eaten grilled meat for lunch, Duan Lili decided on grilled fish for dinner.
The flat, round stones and pebbles from lunch were still there. The branch from the bitter leaf tree she had brought earlier, though its leaves were all used up, remained.
Duan Lili took out a river fish and placed it on a stone, wondering how to prepare it. But when she retrieved the [Fish] from the warehouse, she found it was already scaled, gutted, and cleaned.
Duan Lili: "…"
Having cheats meant having cheats—convenience in the most unexpected places.
Duan Lili rearranged the stones she had used at noon. She broke off a thick, long branch from the bitter leaf tree, skewered it through the fish’s mouth all the way to the bottom, and then angled the branch into the soil, propping the fish upright above the pebbles. She took out two torches and leaned them against the pebbles, letting the flames roast the fish.
After handling the fish, her hands felt sticky and slippery. Duan Lili walked a few steps downstream, bent over, and washed her hands. As she focused, she suddenly spotted a palm-sized river mussel nestled in the crevices of the shallow shore rocks?
Duan Lili was overjoyed.
She turned around and fetched the branch from the bitter leaf tree—its leaves had been plucked and eaten at noon, and the smaller twigs had been broken off for various uses. Now only the main stem remained, just long enough to reach over and poke around.
The unknown species of river clam clung stubbornly to a crevice in the rock, resisting for a while before Duan Lili finally managed to pry it loose and pull it toward her. With a quick grab, she lifted it out.
It was larger than her palm, its shell tightly shut.
From elementary school through high school, Duan Lili had lived in dormitories, with no personal space or life of her own, growing up entirely on cafeteria food. In college, after receiving the final sum of money from her parents, she eagerly rented a place off-campus, bought a comfortable sofa, decorated her room beautifully, and purchased a complete set of pots, pans, and utensils. Every day after returning home, she would experiment with cooking.
Over the course of a year, she evolved into a food enthusiast with advanced culinary skills.
For a clam like this, she knew how to handle it—using a thin blade to pry open the shell. But she had no tools at the moment.
That didn’t matter, though, as her intention wasn’t for the small amount of meat inside anyway.
Duan Lili washed the clam’s exterior clean in the water and placed it on the wooden table. She then went over to rotate the branch, turning the fish to ensure it cooked evenly.
While waiting for the fish to finish roasting, she quickly crafted 16 wooden planks.
The Crafting process was truly time-consuming. Whenever her hands were free, Duan Lili would hold the Small Wooden Hammer.
The aroma of the roasting fish wafted through the air. If only she had seasonings, it would have smelled even better.
Duan Lili extinguished the torch, grasped the branch, and lifted the roasted fish to her nose for a sniff… delicious!
After blowing on it repeatedly, she took her first bite and still scalded her mouth. She gulped down two mouthfuls of water, blew on it some more, and then took another bite.
The meat was truly fragrant, but it lacked salt, alas…
The freshly plucked bitter leaves were washed in the river water and eaten alongside the fish. After a few bites, she set the roasted fish on a leaf, then took out a steamed bun.
Looking at the steaming bun, Duan Lili hesitated for a moment. She broke it in half, keeping one portion and storing the other back in the warehouse.
She only had six steamed buns left in total.
At this point, it seemed meat could be obtained relatively easily, but staple foods were still uncertain. Better to conserve what she had.
With the bitter leaves, Duan Lili devoured half a steamed bun and the entire roasted fish.
The fish meat was tender and flavorful, with few small bones—most were larger ones connected to the spine.
How scarce were Duan Lili’s resources? She couldn’t even bear to discard the fish bones.
She separated the tail, fins, and head from the spine, then took out the Small Wooden Pickaxe and dug a one-cubic-meter hole about two meters away from the cool pavilion. She tossed the unwanted parts inside and kept the fish bones and two gill covers. After placing the excavated soil back, it seamlessly merged with the surrounding ground as if it had never been disturbed.
As for the fish bones she kept, she first considered washing them but then decided against it. Instead, she stored them directly in the warehouse, opened the Crafting Interface, and placed them in the materials box.
As she had hoped, the fish bones could indeed be used to craft something—a set of bone needles.
A set of needles…
Although they weren’t useful at the moment, they were an item brimming with the essence of daily life! Duan Lili immediately began crafting them.
During the ten-minute wait, she didn’t idle either.
In her left hand, she still held the Small Wooden Hammer, so she could only press down on the clam shell with her fist to keep it steady. With her right hand, she took the gill cover from the grilled fish she had just eaten, trying to pry open the clam shell.
The gill cover was thin enough to wedge into the seam of the clam shell, but it was too brittle and couldn’t withstand force. As soon as she applied pressure, it snapped with a crack.
Duan Lili tried several times, and both gill covers shattered beyond use.
At that moment, a set of bone needles was completed.
Duan Lili took out the bone needles and placed them on the table. There were twenty in total, ranging from large to small, thick to thin. Each had a hole at the base, and the tips were extremely sharp, clearly having been processed and polished.
Perfect timing.
Duan Lili selected a suitable one and inserted the tip into the seam of the clam shell. Whether these bone needles had been reinforced like the earthenware or not, they were hard enough to finally pry open the clam shell.