Chapter 481 - 26: Completion (Part 2)
As long as the mysterious reward dares to give, not to mention an improved version of a rifle, even producing a 99A tank wouldn’t be out of the question.
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After a grand celebration, the natives, like a group of diligent little ants, began to transfer materials from the cave dwelling to the factory bit by bit.
The cave where Chen Zhou had lived for three years quickly became empty, with carts shuttling back and forth.
And the factory, located in a sunny place, a more solid and larger residence, was gradually being decorated.
A gray-white patchwork carpet sent by the mysterious reward added some new color to Chen Zhou’s room.
In this modern building, the ancient 17th-century exhibits always seemed so out of place. Entering Chen Zhou’s room, one might even experience a sense of temporal dislocation.
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Moving was a tedious and lengthy process.
The items that could be moved casually were easy to deal with; the problem was that Chen Zhou also kept some living creatures.
Xiao Huihui, Tizi, Tiger Head, Kuang Dang, Little Dragon Cat, and Hui Qiu - these cats alone consumed a lot of everyone’s energy.
Xiao Huihui and Hui Qiu, who often stayed at home, and the Little Dragon Cat, who always lived in the "luxury villa," were easy to handle as Chen Zhou could pick them up by their scruffs and carry them away.
Although Kuang Dang liked to roam around the fields outside the courtyard, it was still quite attached to the home, and Chen Zhou successfully caught it after a day.
Tiger Head and Tizi were different, especially Tiger Head.
This guy could obtain food independently, didn’t need human feeding, and due to a rich nutrition from a young age, coupled with good genes, it was strong and healthy, already in a semi-wild, semi-domesticated state, with little dependence on Chen Zhou.
Tiger Head was a cat Chen Zhou had watched grow up, and he had quite a bit of affection for it.
Although Tiger Head was the king of the forest in this area, Chen Zhou was not comfortable leaving it to live here alone since anything could happen in wilderness survival. It wasn’t just small cats; even tigers, creatures at the top of the food chain, could perish due to injury or hunger.
In order to get Tiger Head to live with him at the factory, Chen Zhou spent several days squatting in the woods outside the fields, attempting to lure Tiger Head into a cage with its favorite dried fish and mutton jerky.
But Tiger Head’s attitude towards humans wasn’t as friendly as it used to be.
When Chen Zhou led the natives to build the factory, Tiger Head had lived here alone, and the long-term separation, plus the freedom of living in the wild, had blurred its memory of Chen Zhou as its "owner."
Each time it smelled the aroma of food and was about to step into the cage, it would cautiously pause.
At this moment, even if Chen Zhou suddenly tried to catch it, it would be too late.
Having learned climbing skills from its mother, Tiger Head could climb up the canopy in seconds with a leap, disappearing from sight.
After dozens of attempts, each ending in failure, using other methods to catch Tiger Head posed risks to its safety.
Ultimately, Chen Zhou gave up moving Tiger Head with him.
He hand-drew a portrait of Tiger Head for the natives to memorize, instructing them not to harm this cat and to rescue and bring it to him if found injured, with rewards offered for doing so.
As long as Tiger Head had humans as a backing, it could live freely here.
Its unique appearance and robust physique made it easily recognizable from other wild cats, ensuring no mistakes.
Chen Zhou thought, when Tiger Head got old and was no longer able to struggle, it would remember its time living with humans, and having it return to the factory to enjoy its twilight years wouldn’t be bad.
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Besides animals, Chen Zhou also had some plants to move.
For instance, the mint, nettle, and fennel growing under his window, along with the Autumn White Almonds and cocoa trees he had planted on the slopes.
Mint and fennel were already being grown in bulk as seasonings, but these plants tasted different fresh and dried. Chen Zhou hoped to have a small vegetable plot near the factory to provide him with fresh greens anytime.
The Autumn White Almonds and cocoa trees were still saplings, but moving them without harming their roots wasn’t difficult.
Chen Zhou selected some exceptionally strong saplings and successfully transplanted them around the factory—where he had reserved tree pits.
Ten years later, these saplings would become large fruit-bearing trees, providing abundant fruits for consumption.
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Actually, being able to eat the freshest fruit wasn’t that important to Chen Zhou; he wanted the feeling of home.
Whether it was reinforced concrete buildings or Autumn White Almonds, they were all products of modern times, and seeing them occasionally made Chen Zhou forget he was in the 17th century.
Regardless, he didn’t belong to this era.
No matter how close his soul was to the natives, it couldn’t change the fact that no one in the world could truly understand him.
The puns, internet slang, various industry terminologies, and ancient poems from Huaxia Civilization were like celestial scripts to the natives.
Sometimes, Chen Zhou would accidentally blurt something out, and the natives would look at him in confusion, always making him awkward.
After these awkward moments, all Chen Zhou could feel was endless loneliness.
During the first two years of the challenge, he was too busy surviving alone to clearly feel the loneliness.
He simply didn’t have time for it; just staying alive took all his effort.
Once he had people to share the workload, or didn’t have to do it himself and had time to think, this sense of loneliness became increasingly strong.
Sometimes, Chen Zhou would think of a classic deserted island survival movie—"Cast Away."
He thought he might never become mentally unstable from prolonged island life like the protagonist of that movie.
But the torment of loneliness, spiritual loneliness, might continue indefinitely.
Moreover, the more leisure he had, the clearer and deeper this sense of loneliness became.
Chen Zhou could only seek meaningful things to help himself forget where he was, or realize spiritual value to comfort his mind.
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After transferring all the materials and organizing them into storage rooms on all levels of the factory, Chen Zhou did not immediately try to manufacture a steam engine or use the two lathes to produce bullets.
The Spaniards showed no signs of activity, and it’s been nearly a year now.
Chen Zhou figured it was unlikely they would come around anymore.
So the production and upgrade of weapons were no longer the top priorities to address.
The pressing issue, as outlined in Chen Zhou’s plan, was the lack of manpower.
The natives captured last year had mostly completed their domestication; most had learned Chinese and could communicate normally and even write using Chinese characters, with some exceptional ones able to keep diaries using Chinese characters.
Besides that, the natives had adapted to the new island customs, especially in food, where they were vastly different from their former cannibalistic ways.
Some natives had learned to recite ancient poems, others were immersed in carpentry, while some were engrossed in painting—unfortunately, without Saturday’s talent.
Amidst their busy work, everyone had found their own hobbies, even the herding natives with less fluent Chinese were passionate about cooking, eager to make creamier dairy products.
With full bellies, everyone’s cheeks were fuller, and their faces frequently carried smiles.
Despite having no income, the island’s resources were more than sufficient to support ten people, allowing the natives to eat their fill every meal without enduring hunger.
This Eden-like life enveloped every native, as if they were drinking nectar.
Through nearly a year of observation and analysis, Chen Zhou could affirm the psychological state of the natives.
They were like tamed wild goats, naturally developing a sense of allegiance and loyalty to this "paradise," and took for granted that the new knowledge and habits they learned were correct.
If placed into a modern, remote mountainous area, aside from lacking common sense and looking different from typical people, they were almost no different from ordinary folks.
Chen Zhou believed that since the successful domestication of the nine natives, including Saturday and Sunday had been achieved,
he could attempt to increase the island’s population, through trade or theft, to boost the island’s productivity.
In the past, his worry about an attack by the Spaniards stemmed from having too few people on the island, insufficient combat power, and relying on weapon superiority to defend against numerous sailors’ matchlock guns and cannon.
With a larger island population, this issue would naturally resolve itself.
It wouldn’t require too many, just having two hundred elite warriors armed with Chen rifles on the island would be enough to make those arrogant sailors bow their heads, ready to discuss anything with him at the dinner table in a peaceful manner.