After finishing breakfast, Jiang Ye injected himself with a dose of physical enhancement serum, then wrapped himself in two layers of cotton clothes and pushed open the base door.
He headed straight for the carcasses of the two small bears, starting with the larger one to begin skinning it.
The larger bear carcass was riddled with holes from the grenade, especially the head, which was basically pulverized.
Jiang Ye spent half an hour skinning the bear.
This bear hide was clearly inferior to yesterday's, with many missing parts.
He rolled it up, carried it back to the base, and tossed it into the trading pod.
[Item: Hui Xiong Bear Hide (Damaged)]
[Item Description: Something that would have been very valuable, but it's too damaged and can only be considered scrap.]
[Estimated Value: 50,000 Yuan]
Jiang Ye was surprised, then greatly disappointed.
Yesterday's bear hide could have sold for a full five hundred thousand!
Although today's hide was smaller, it was still a decent-sized hide. How could it only be worth fifty thousand yuan?
Sighing, he reached out, about to click to confirm the sale. But just one centimeter away, his finger stopped, hovering in mid-air.
Then, he slowly retracted it.
Fifty thousand yuan wasn't a small amount, but it wasn't a huge amount either.
Jiang Ye suddenly felt that he could forgo fifty thousand yuan to make this bear hide serve a greater purpose!
After all, this kind of bear hide was quite warm. The Hui Xiong relied on this hide and the layers of fat beneath it to remain spirited and frolic in the sub-zero winds. There was still a month of winter left, and the next two weeks would only get colder. He should try to utilize the warm bear hide.
What could he make with the bear hide?
Jiang Ye turned around and surveyed the entire base.
Finally, his gaze settled on his small bed.
For two consecutive days, he had been woken up by the cold.
Being woken by the cold was an unpleasant experience. His muscles were stiff, and he couldn't fully recover for a long time after getting up. Even his brain seemed frozen, leaving him groggy and disoriented, as if he had woken up in a refrigerator.
If this continued, he would surely catch a cold, or even fall seriously ill.
Jiang Ye made up his mind: he would make a quilt out of the bear hide!
Sleeping without a thick quilt in the middle of winter was no joke!
He first took the bear hide out of the trading pod and spread it on the ground.
Its area was larger than he had imagined, more than enough to make a quilt, and could even wrap the entire bed.
He didn't have a ruler, so he could only estimate its size by the length of his palm.
Jiang Ye measured his small bed with his hand, estimating its width to be six hands.
Then he measured the bear hide, finding its width to be fourteen hands.
Jiang Ye's eyes lit up. It seemed he could not only make a quilt but also an additional bear hide bedsheet!
With the intended item decided, it was time for the actual crafting.
The bear hide had just been peeled from the carcass, and it was still covered in dirt, greasy white fat, dusty soil, and dark red congealed blood. A whiff of it revealed a fishy stench.
Moreover, this dirt was difficult to clean; it wouldn't just come off with a little picking. It had seeped into the bear's fur.
It had to be washed clean, otherwise, how could he sleep with a smelly bed?
First, he needed enough water for washing.
Hot water would be ideal, as it could quickly dissolve the fat and congealed blood.
After careful consideration, Jiang Ye decided: he would build a hot water pool by the lake!
If he used the stove to heat water, it would take half a day to heat one pot, and he would have to keep breaking ice by the lake, which would be very troublesome. It might take three to four days to clean this bear hide.
However, building a hot water pool by the lake would be simpler. He could heat a large pool of water all at once, breaking ice nearby to melt as needed. It would probably take only an hour or two to process the bear hide.
Jiang Ye drank some hot corn soup, tightened his cotton coat, and went out with his shovel and pickaxe.
He walked to the lake and found a clear spot.
He swung his shovel and began to dig with all his might.
A hot water pool was actually quite simple: dig a pool to hold water, then excavate the area around the pool and the bottom to serve as a fire pit. He would pile coal in it, light it, and use the charcoal to heat the pool water.
Having dug for so long in the mines, Jiang Ye's digging skills, while not expert, were quite proficient. He flung his shovel with great speed.
He could clearly feel the soil becoming harder, likely due to the freezing.
Fortunately, the soil here was relatively dry. If it had more moisture, it would be what they called permafrost, where the ground was frozen as hard as stone. Russians suffered greatly from this; a pickaxe striking the ground would only produce a white mark and sparks. Digging a tunnel would require explosives and heavy machinery.
Two hours later, the main body of the hot water pool was dug – a circular pool the size of a bathtub, one meter deep.
The wind was too cold, and Jiang Ye shivered. He returned to the base for a short rest and some hot corn soup.
Then he went back to the hot water pool and dug fire pits on the east, west, and south sides.
He didn't dig on the north side for two reasons: first, to leave a passage for entering and exiting the pool; one couldn't be surrounded by fire on all sides. Second, the wind had been blowing from the north these past few days, and if he dug a fire pit on the north side, the burning smoke would blow into the pool.
Jiang Ye felt smug, thinking of himself as quite clever for considering such a profound matter.
Another hour passed, and the fire pits were dug.
They surrounded the pool on three sides, one meter deep and about twenty centimeters wide, capable of holding a lot of coal and firewood for burning.
Digging the pool and the fire pits was simple; it was almost a matter of just having hands.
The next step was the most crucial and also the most difficult, determining the success of the hot water pool!
This step was waterproofing!
The four walls and the bottom of the hot water pool had to be watertight. If water seeped out rapidly, it would be useless.
Standard waterproofing methods involved applying a layer of cement or using plastic sheeting.
However, Jiang Ye had neither cement nor plastic bags. He only had the burlap sacks used for coal.
Burlap sacks were completely unusable. Once filled with water, they would be riddled with holes and leak like a sprinkler.
Jiang Ye walked to the lake and, next to the hard ice, plunged his shovel in, excavating lake mud.
The waterproofing material he intended to use was lake mud!
This lake was not large, and there were no visible water sources. It was likely a stagnant lake formed by rainwater.
The mud at the bottom of the lake must be impermeable, otherwise, the water in the lake would have long since leaked away.
Jiang Ye dug up some mud and examined it in his hand.
It was already frozen, with sparkling ice crystals. But it was clearly evident that the lake mud was different from the soil elsewhere; it was darker in color and finer in texture, resembling clay or purple clay.
Jiang Ye's conviction grew; this lake mud was definitely waterproof!
He dug furiously with his shovel, spending half an hour excavating a large pile of lake mud.
Then, he put it all into an empty pot, carried it back to the base, and placed it on the stove to heat.
During the heating process, Jiang Ye kept reaching in to stir it.
The hard frozen mud softened under the high temperature, eventually becoming an incredibly viscous black mud, resembling melted dark chocolate in a large pot.
Jiang Ye quickly carried the pot outside!
He jumped into the pit and used his hands to spread the lake mud onto the pit walls.
He tried to spread it as evenly and tightly as possible, leaving no gaps.
Soon, the entire pit wall was coated with a layer of dark lake mud, which then froze solid in the cold wind.
Jiang Ye tapped the walls with his finger; the four walls of the water pit had become a hard shell, like a ceramic vat.
The water pit was completed. The next step was to add water and test if it would actually work.