Chapter 179:176 From Sagittarius to Sagittarius
Lake after lake, hill after hill of pale green and white, snow cover had grown thinner with the passage of time, and many hilltops no longer bore traces of snow.
Buffeted by the chilly wind, Bi Fang felt much better, but he was still groggy and queasy, his thoughts significantly dulled.
It took him a while to remember he should say something. Scouring his memory for knowledge, he mustered the language with difficulty.
“Elders often say that when you have a fever, you should sweat it out by bundling up, thinking that sweating profusely will help, but inducing sweat can lead to a massive loss of fluids through the skin, along with a lot of heat, indeed resulting in a temporary drop in temperature—but this practice is very incorrect.”
“This is especially true for children; after inducing sweat and rapidly losing a large amount of fluids, it only leads to dehydration. Dehydration in infants and young children is more serious than a fever, as severe dehydration can cause organ failure.”
Bi Fang touched his forehead, his personal experience at the moment lending credibility to his words.
“If you’re really uncomfortable, you can remove some clothing to let out the heat from your body, but be careful-you should feel cool, not cold, and if you start feeling cold, you need to put your clothes back on right away.”
(I think Master Fang’s complexion is getting worse]
[It’s a bit alarming]
[I think it’s better to take a rest]
“No, actually I feel okay, just a bit dizzy and uncomfortable. It’s a good opportunity to make some things while we have the time, like bows, containers, and water bags.”
While chatting with the audience, Bi Fang opened the reindeer’s stomach sack. He weighed it, and the stomach sack kept shaking, like a balloon filled with water, bulging and taut.
Last night, he had kept the reindeer’s stomach, which was actually a very good container. Once rinsed clean, it could be used to hold liquids. Before leaving today, Bi Fang had also placed two scalding hot rocks in it to boil water, because there was water, he wasn’t worried about the stomach being damaged.
“To recover from a fever quickly, you need to drink lots of hot water. Not only can drinking hot water dissolve toxins, enabling them to be expelled from the body with the urine, but it can also enhance the activity of your body’s enzymes to fight the virus more effectively.”
Bi Fang made a small opening and drank more than half with gulps and slurps, then wiped his mouth afterward.
“So when you’re feeling under the weather, and your boyfriend tells you to drink more hot water, it’s not that he doesn’t care about you-it’s actually for your own good. Love can be shown in the simplest of details.”
[Even with a fever, he can think so clearly. Master Fang is such a straightshooter]
[I must admit, this move is pro level!]
[My wife is also watching Master Fang’s live stream, hehehe.]
[Man, my girlfriend told me she’s got a cold. I told her to drink more hot water, and wham, I got slapped back. Wuuwuuwuu.)
[Wait until you’re half as handsome as Master Fang, maybe it won’t end like that.]
Etienne, piloting the glider, pricked up his ears and interjected, “Where we come from, few people drink hot water. Even with instant noodles, we just use cold water and a microwave.”
[Really?]
[Indeed, I have a foreign friend who never drinks hot water either, which surprised me at the time.]
[Cultural differences, I guess, but hot water is still healthier.]
Bi Fang smacked Etienne’s head lightly. “Just focus on flying this glider, don’t get distracted!”
Etienne shrank back, deciding to temporarily avoid arguing with a sick person.
Bi Fang then grabbed another long piece of wood, intending to make the bow and arrows he had long coveted. Holding a wood length nearly as tall as himself and thicker than his arm, he began to cut and shape it.
“The bow is a widely used hunting tool, able to facilitate approach and kill various sizes of game. The bow I’m making today is suitable for short-term survival, often referred to as the ‘Father-Son Bow’, which means a larger bow has a smaller bow tied to its back, overlapping the two.”
Bi Fang placed a short stick behind the long piece of wood, giving a simple demonstration.
The reason for this design was because Bi Fang didn’t have good wood material or time.
A bow made from fresh wood, though easier to make, isn’t as sturdy as one made from superior wood.
By adding a small bow in this way, we can increase the strength of the bow despite using poorer wood materials.”
[Then why not use bamboo? It seems like bamboo has great elasticity and smoothness.]
My grandfather made me a bow out of bamboo when I was a kid!”
“Ancient people rarely used bamboo for bows, right?”
“No, how come I remember there being a lot of bamboo bows?”
“No, in fact, in ancient times, people from various ethnic groups around the world unanimously considered bamboo to be the lowest grade material for bow making. A truly fine bow would never be made of bamboo.”
“The wood for a bow can’t have knots, meaning branches. If there are any, it’s likely to crack. The only advantage of using bamboo for bows is that it’s easy to find uniform materials, so it’s low-cost and can be mass-produced. Wood knots are quite common, making it difficult to find suitable wood that meets the requirements for making a bow.”
“Bamboo is generally used for arrows, as it’s too soft and not tough enough for bows, so it doesn’t have much elasticity. People from rural areas who have made bows out of bamboo know that its too good elasticity means the arrows don’t have much power.”
Bi Fang whittled the wood with a knife, cutting off one end to make it about one and a half meters long, then split it in half. One half was the “Father”, the main frame, with the bark side serving as the bow’s back and the side without as the belly. He then carefully shaped it, polished it with a stone until it could bend evenly.
Having finished this part, Bi Fang paused for a moment, quietly opened his water bottle, and took a few sips. Just making this half of the bow had left him somewhat fatigued, something that would be impossible under normal circumstances.
The fever still affected him, causing him to break into a continuous cold sweat.
After resting for a good while, Bi Fang continued making the bow.
He treated the other half of the wood in the same way, carving notches at both ends to secure the bowstring, then he tied the two halves together.
“The shorter bow’s belly must be attached to the longer bow’s back, with some small wood sticks inserted between the two to increase the gap, which can enhance the bow’s toughness.”
“For the bowstring, I used the bark of a hardwood tree, taking the inner layer of the bark which is very tough once it dries.”
Bi Fang took out a strip of tree bark, rubbed it into a rope to serve as the bowstring, and tied it at both ends, thus completing a rudimentary bow and arrows!
He gave it a simple pull, and the grating sound of teeth aching with effort arose, showing the bow’s great power.
Bi Fang looked it over and was very satisfied, “Now the sound when pulling the
bow can alert the prey, but it’ll be fine after a few more practices.”
“Damn, that’s cool! A melee warrior becoming a ranged one?”
“The strongest archer has logged on!”
“The moment of hunting!”
“Why didn’t you use deer sinew for the bowstring?”
Bi Fang set down the bow and began making arrows: “The power of a bow and arrow comes from the limbs of the bow, not the bowstring. Therefore, the bowstring should have no elasticity and be as sturdy as possible. Animal sinew for bowstrings is a fabrication from novels or storytellers.”
Making the arrows was even simpler. Bi Fang sharpened broken deer bones to use as arrowheads and whittled wood for the shafts, and quickly, a complete set was ready.
Bi Fang nocked an arrow to his bow and shot it at the lake below. Before it hit the ground, it was blown away by the wind and drifted off to an unknown location.
“Hahaha, that’s sad.”
“That arrow’s really drifting (covering mouth)”
“Is this considered high-altitude littering?”
“Twenty-one days with no chicks hatched, such a bad egg!”
Bi Fang didn’t feel ashamed, “Normal, a newly made bow still needs to be broken in and doesn’t have the right feel yet. Plus, the height is too great, so it’s normal for it to drift.”
“Huff.”
His vision darkened again, and Bi Fang pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning back in the chair. Just these two hours felt like he had been active for a day, incredibly tiring.
Fortunately, he now had almost everything he needed, hoping for a smoother path ahead.
The days were too short, the sun didn’t rise until nine in the morning, and by four in the afternoon, it was dark, so there were less than five hours of flight time each day. He couldn’t get very far.
It might take several days just to fly out of Finland.
Quietly estimating the journey and time, Bi Fang delegated the clientacquisition task to Etienne and closed his eyes to sleep.