Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness

The bamboo board was taken off the bonfire, still giving off billowing hot smoke.

Bi Fang used chopsticks made of twigs to pick up the crispy fish belly dregs from the oily surface, popping them into his mouth, exceptionally crispy and slightly bitter.

After letting the bamboo board cool down a bit, Bi Fang held it with his bare hands, took out a can of boiling water, and a few pieces of charcoal.

“What’s most easily forgotten when traveling far from home or surviving in the wild is soap. Actually, it’s very easy to make soap in the wilderness, and it’s very important for maintaining hygiene, especially in life-or-death situations, where it’s necessary to clean wounds.”

Previously, Bi Fang had never made soap because it wasn’t very useful to him, and there was no need for social interaction. One could be dirty, as no one would see anyone else.

But in the rainforest, personal hygiene becomes crucial, as not being clean can be fatal.

“The ingredients required for making soap are just a few: one is alkaline wood ash, two is water, and three is grease from either plants or animals—whatever flies, swims, or runs. Lastly, if possible, add some antiseptic medicine.”

“Of course, the last item is not mandatory, but only added to give the soap antiseptic properties and a pleasant smell. In forests, you can find pine needles and resin, but here in the rainforest, I can use lemongrass.”

“Lemongrass is not just a spice; it contains citral, which has disinfecting and antibacterial properties as well as efficacy in treating neuralgia and muscular pain, hence it’s known as ‘Pain Relieving Swordsman’. It can be used for stomach aches, colds, and fevers—pretty much a panacea for common ailments, and it can even beautify, being good for the skin.”

Bi Fang smashed the charcoal into pieces with a rock, then mixed the ash with water, saying, “Be careful not to stir this with your hands, not only because it’s very hot, but also because the alkalinity of the wood ash is very strong and could burn your skin.”

After thoroughly mixing, he filtered out the particulate ash, pouring the water into a bamboo tube.

Then, while the oil had not yet cooled and solidified, he poured it into the bamboo tube that had just been filled with water, placing the tube filled with oil and lye water back into the bonfire to heat up.

“Next, we need to boil it again to sterilize it, but there’s a bit of oil left here, which we definitely shouldn’t waste. We can use it to make a pot of bamboo shoot soup.”

Bi Fang peeled three bamboo shoots that he had collected earlier, revealing their inner parts, which were even dripping with moisture.

“Bamboo shoots are fresh and tender food that don’t store well or travel far, so there’s no need to save them—just eat up.”

Bi Fang put the bamboo shoots into the semi-circular bamboo tube used for refining oil, added some water, and continued to stew them, with pale golden oil slicks floating on top.

He tore up a generous amount of lemongrass, crushed it, and added it directly to the bamboo tube in the fire pit. With this step, the making of the soap was essentially complete.

“If you don’t need a soap with strong effects, then there’s no need to worry about the ratio of fat to lye water because we’ll just steam it dry. Once the moisture has completely evaporated and we let it cool, we’ll have a rather nice bar of soap that cleanses and sterilizes.”

[Hiss, I’ve learned a new trick, only useful if I show it off in front of the natives after a time travel.]

[666, what an eye-opener!]

“Just time traveling might not be enough; you’d at least have to travel back to before the existence of primitive tribes, because even many primitive tribes know how to make this kind of soap.”

“This is actually a misconception held by many people who think that people living in primitive tribes must be dirtier than us, but in fact, in some existing primitive tribes today, hygiene is just as important as in modern society.”

Seeing the barrage, Bi Fang joked with the viewers.

“Lastly, I want to remind you that even if you bring biodegradable soap or shampoo, you must understand that they require soil to degrade. Therefore, to avoid pollution, we should dig a pit at least 25 meters away from any water source and pour all the wastewater into it.”

While waiting for the water to evaporate, the baked fish and bamboo shoot delicacy were finally ready.

The originally golden fish skin had turned to a charred yellow. Although it didn’t look as nice as before, it gained a rustic appeal and appetite-inspiring aroma, wrapped by a faint lemon scent.

Lifting the bamboo tube lid, steam rose, and the milky-white tender shoots tumbled in the boiling water, accompanied by a faint scent of fish oil. They were also sprinkled with quite a few black ants to add flavor, resembling tiny black sesame seeds.

Bi Fang picked up a shoot to taste, his eyes lighting up, as the crisp texture along with the scalding juice burst forth, and he couldn’t help but open his mouth wide to cool down while resisting the urge to spit it out.

The faint astringent taste mixed with oily slicks had no strong flavor, yet one could sense the inherent freshness and sweetness.

Bi Fang quickly picked up a slice of fish that was sizzling with oil, with the unique aroma of the lemongrass and the distinctive sour and salty taste of formic acid, which enhanced the inherent deliciousness of the baked fish itself.

Especially since the catfish had few bones, each bite brought immense satisfaction.

Having not eaten all day, Bi Fang now enjoyed the bamboo shoot soup and baked fish, basked by the campfire, listening to the rain patter on the banana leaves, feeling utterly content.

Utterly delightful.

Below the rainwater, hidden from the mundane world, was a smoke of life that seemed as refreshing as a mint leaf falling into a glass of soda water.

Bi Fang sipped the soup with a spoon and said contentedly, “The catfish is fatty and has few bones, perfect for grilling, while the carp can be used for simmering bamboo shoot soup. Tomorrow’s meals are sorted, but it would be better with some oil.”

“The only downside is that we don’t have salt. If we could sprinkle a little salt on it, the taste would be much better. I’ll think of a way to get some salt tomorrow. Going twenty days without salt is no good; you’ll start feeling weak.”

[Drooling, hehe]

[I’m hungry too, I want to eat, sob sob sob]

[It’s already 7 o’clock, the takeout I ordered still hasn’t arrived, I’m starving]

[By the way, can you really eat catfish? I saw a video last time that said catfish grow up eating feces and garbage….. Full of heavy metals inside…]

[Pfft, is that true? I see Master Fang enjoying it a lot]

Bi Fang swallowed the bite of fish he had in his mouth, and hearing this while eating did ruin the mood somewhat, so he simply shook his head and replied, “I don’t know where you got that from, but it’s not very reliable and quite biased.”

“First of all, in terms of diet, catfish are carnivorous. Wild catfish mainly prey on smaller fish, such as crucian carp, common carp, and loach. They use their sense of smell to detect their prey and then trap them with their teeth before swallowing them.”

“If we’re talking about eating feces, not just catfish, but any fish will eat it. However, feces is not their intended food.”

“In the countryside, those who raised fish in earlier years should know that many fish ponds, especially the larger ones, would have manure thrown directly into them. This would cause a lot of fish to stir.”

“That group of fish would eat vigorously, clamoring and jostling each other; and it wasn’t just catfish but also common carp, grass carp, silver carp, all sorts of fish, really.”

[Ah, I’ve seen this!]

[Same here, my grandfather had a small fishpond. Whenever we went fishing, we’d just sprinkle a bunch of dry grass and manure, and all the fish would surge to the top. We’d catch them and eat them at night, just as delicious.]

In his past life, Bi Fang once worked in a city where he lived near a big, stinky drainage ditch.

That thing was so smelly it could be detected from miles away, no exaggeration, and you could smell it even two miles downwind.

If it were just a smelly ditch, the problem wouldn’t be too big, but it was a stagnant water pit – not only was it the designated dump for the nearby residents’ sewage pipes, but many factory wastewaters were also discharged into this pit.

The water was extremely viscous, stirring it would hang on a wall like milk.

In that pond was not only a mix of manure and industrial wastewater and various kinds of trash, but also all sorts of dead fish and shrimp.

Nothing lived in that pond; no plants grew, no creatures survived, except for one mysterious life form.

That was it—the catfish, as well as a few other foreign species of catfish. At the time, Bi Fang couldn’t recognize what types they were, but that stinky ditch was the reason why the nearby houses were priced so low.

Once while passing by, Bi Fang saw an old man fishing there. He was shocked and stopped to watch. In just 10 minutes, the man hooked a catfish.

Over a meter long, its body color was a mix of dark green and purple that emitted an industrial stench. The whiskers were horribly long, and upon closer inspection, the fish was deformed. Its head was crooked, and its hind part was protruding.

What worried him even more was the cluster of unidentifiable growths on the left dorsal side of the fish, unknown substances protruding here and there.

As a biology researcher, Bi Fang witnessed for the first time the tenacious vitality of a living being, and also for the first time understood the terror of mutations.

“So, catfish are indeed very tenacious, capable of surviving in dirty environments, but that’s an extreme rarity. Moreover, all native Huaxia catfish have one trait in common: they are clean.”

“For instance, Bighead Catfish in the south demand very high water quality. If the water gets dirty, they’ll turn belly up and die right before your eyes.”

Bi Fang’s words made the audience laugh but also made them understand a fact,

Whether a fish is clean or not depends on its living environment.

As for the natural rivers in the rainforest, they naturally won’t be too dirty; they’re just slightly murky, so eating the fish from there is completely worry-free.

Species like Bighead Catfish and other wild catfish typically prey on small fish and shrimp as their food source. If you can find them in the wild, whether you grill them or boil them, it’s an absolute delight.

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