Chapter 142 - 59: Illness
From February 19th to February 24th, the rain hardly stopped.
Fortunately, although the rain was continuous, it was not heavy and far from reaching the level of a storm, so it didn't greatly affect going out.
Worrying that the mother goat and her kid tied on the grass had no shelter from the rain and could fall ill if drenched for too long, Chen Zhou untied the long rope around the mother goat's neck and put shackles on their feet to allow them to move freely.
The mother goat and her kid were very familiar with Chen Zhou and didn't fear him, making it easy to catch them as usual.
But considering the flock was nearby, and fearing the goats might run off with them, Chen Zhou specifically placed a bowl of salt inside a deserted cave on the hillside.
Every afternoon, he would spare some time to take the mother goat and her kid to the cave to lick salt, helping them develop the habit of going there to replenish salt.
This way, even if they were allowed to roam free, they would regularly go to the cave for salt, significantly reducing the chance of them running away.
Solving the goat problem only took up a small part of Chen Zhou's work time.
Last time, the rain gathered into torrents that washed away the edge of the sand platform at the cave entrance. Chen Zhou had always wanted to build a wall along the platform edge to reinforce it.
But busy with various tasks, so far only one-third of the outside wall of the cave has been built, not to mention the platform wall, which is a hundred-meter-long project that there's simply no time to do.
There is no telling when the torrential rain will strike.
Preparing ahead, Chen Zhou chopped some trees, turning them into stakes, sharpened the ends, and drove them into the landslide-weakened edges, tentatively stabilizing the platform edge.
He also dug several drainage ditches on the platform to release potential flooding caused by future storms.
...
The platform slope project didn't consume much of Chen Zhou's energy.
When he made a fire to boil water last time, he realized that cooking indoors, bending woods, and developing pottery during the rainy season would consume a tremendous amount of firewood.
To ensure that he had things to do every day and wouldn't waste time idly at home.
He started chopping a large amount of wood and moving it into the kitchen.
The kitchen is about 7.5 meters deep and 6 meters wide; it seems large, but it's only 45 square meters.
The stove, big iron kettle, bricks he brought in, grain rack, fish drying, seal meat, and seal skin racks occupy more than half the space inside, leaving the walking passage; only ten square meters are left for storing wood.
Considering the need to build a big stove in the future, possibly add facilities like a pottery kiln, and bending wood hearth, the kitchen space is insufficient.
Chen Zhou could only store a small portion of firewood in the kitchen, with most stowed in the storage room.
However, the storage room's area is no larger than the kitchen; once the camp's supplies are moved in, the available space will certainly be tight.
140 square meters of space is more than enough for an individual, but too tight for a large warehouse of supplies.
The second-phase expansion project will have to happen eventually, but for now, Chen Zhou makes do with the space.
To prevent the kitchen and storage room from appearing too cluttered, he compressed the bedroom's usage space, moving the drying rack and some supplies into the bedroom.
...
Chopping wood, moving wood, tending the farmland, building slopes, and other outdoor tasks occupied all of Chen Zhou's daytime.
At night, he lit an oil lamp and began processing the cut logs.
The wood of this tree was denser than camphor trees, with white wood; Chen Zhou hadn't named it until now, calling it "wheel tree."
It took more than an hour to fell the wheel tree, and peeling its bark then cutting it into thick blocks took even longer.
Currently, Chen Zhou has drawn a neat circle on its densely packed rings with charcoal and has chiseled away the excess wood around the "spare wheel."
Now, he is contemplating whether to add spokes to the wheel and how to make the axle more durable and reduce friction.
...
February 25th, cloudy, strong wind.
The rain stopped at dawn.
In the middle of the night, Chen Zhou suddenly felt cold all over, shivering, he hurried to get up, added an extra layer of quilt, and lit two oil lamps placing them on either side of the bed intending to warm up.
The lamp heat turned his face flush red, but the chill that seemed to come from deep within his bones did not weaken.
Chen Zhou realized he might have caught a cold.
Working in the rain for several days, his clothes were often wet upon returning home.
He always thought his body was strong enough, with higher immunity than the average person, not susceptible to trifling ailments like a cold, but unexpectedly he still got hit.
Forcing himself to stay energized, he curled up under the quilt and contemplated his next steps.
Typically, a minor cold can heal with one's immunity and isn't worth fretting over.
But here on the isolated island, with no doctors or medicine, a cold worsening could be life-threatening.
His first thought was Robinson's method of treatment—chewing tobacco leaves dry, soaking tobacco leaves in alcohol, or tobacco smoke.
The tobacco leaves brought from the ship were in the camp down the mountain, never depleted, enough to support his tobacco leaf treatment.
Fortunately, the rain stopped today, so there is no risk of being drenched going down the mountain.
Nonetheless, Chen Zhou is aware that Robinson's recovery process can't be certainly linked to his treatment method; given his physical stamina back then, he could withstand that chill and his improvement followed the natural timeframe of immune action.
As for the tobacco treatment, it's probably more psychological comfort.