King of the Wilderness

Then, in the center of the isolation area, he lit a bonfire, continually adding dry bamboo joints and hardwood.

He didn’t want dancing flames but rather the red-hot charcoal left after the fire extinguished.

"Direct scorching with fire is unstable; the heat will scatter," he explained to the camera, "In the wilderness, the most efficient and controllable heat source for precision cutting is always charcoal."

After more than ten minutes, the fire had accumulated enough high-quality charcoal.

Using long chopsticks made from two wet branches, he picked up a piece of red-hot charcoal and walked toward the bamboo that had been marked with lines.

He pressed the scorching charcoal precisely onto the circular groove.

"Sizzle——!"

A piercing sound, like a branding iron searing wet wood, suddenly exploded!

The moisture inside the bamboo vaporized instantly under the high temperature, white steam spraying out through the groove’s gaps, accompanied by a strong burnt odor.

The bamboo wall directly in contact with the charcoal blackened, carbonized, and sank visibly to the naked eye.

Lin Yu’an held the charcoal, using it like a moving branding iron, slowly and steadily along the circular groove.

Whenever the temperature of the charcoal dropped, he threw it back into the fire to recharge, then picked up another blazing piece to continue his work.

This method was efficient, but even so, it was still a contest of patience and high temperatures.

He kept replacing the cooled charcoal and picking up new charcoal, over and over again.

Time passed in concentration for nearly an hour, and he had forcibly burned a layer of charred carbonization a finger deep into the circular groove.

He poked again with the tip of his Stone Spear, causing a large amount of charred bamboo to fall, revealing the dry yellow and severely damaged internal bamboo fibers, judging the time was ripe.

Lin Yu’an stood up, stretched his somewhat stiff knees, and walked to the bamboo, holding it with both hands. Using the scorched fire ring as the axis, he began to repeatedly push and press in one direction forcefully.

"Creak——creak——"

The bamboo emitted a groan as if overwhelmed, and the internal fibers destroyed by high temperatures began to break under his force, one by one.

With every push and press, the sound of breaking grew louder.

Finally, with one last full-strength push, "Crack!"

Accompanied by a crisp sound of the fibers being completely torn apart, the giant bamboo broke with a snap!

The upper half slowly tilted to one side, finally crashing heavily to the ground, kicking up a flurry of bamboo leaves.

"Alright, the most difficult step is completed." He gasped for breath, but there was no relaxation on his face yet. The real fine processing was only beginning now.

He dragged the fallen bamboo pole several meters long to an open area, which was his open-air workshop.

He began to plan how to maximize the use of this hard-won material.

After visually estimating the bamboo pole’s length, he selected the two most straight sections in the middle with the longest intervals between nodes, "The water storage cylinder needs to be as long as possible to have a larger capacity."

Lin Yu’an picked up the Stone Knife again and forcefully scored a new circular groove at the predetermined bamboo nodes.

Then he returned to the fire, picked up a piece of red-hot charcoal, and began a new round of branding work.

Since this time he was operating on the ground, he could use multiple pieces of charcoal simultaneously, speeding up the branding process.

Soon, the first cutting point was burnt through, and he repeated the same operation at the next bamboo node.

Over an hour later, a perfect bamboo tube approximately eighty centimeters long, containing two complete bamboo nodes, was successfully separated by him.

"The central bamboo node must be opened." He placed the bamboo tube upright on the ground and found a long and hard straight wooden stick.

He inserted it from one end of the bamboo tube, aimed at the thin diaphragm of the central node, and thrust downward forcefully!

"Thud!"

A dull sound, and the diaphragm was neatly pierced through.

He pulled out the wooden stick, emptied the debris inside, and a large-capacity long bamboo tube that could be easily carried on the back was born.

Next came the key to his cooking tonight—the bamboo pot.

He selected the thickest base of the bamboo pole, where the bamboo wall was the thickest and most burn-resistant, needing a container naturally sealed at the bottom by a bamboo node.

Afterward, he carved a cutting line just above a sturdy bamboo node.

This time he only branded one location; once this short, thick bamboo section was separated, it became a bamboo pot perfectly sealed at the bottom by a solid bamboo node.

By now, the sun was slanting to the west.

He sat on the ground, with two new works, one long and one short, placed beside him. Picking up that sharp flint shard, he began the final polishing work.

The flint shard’s edge was like a scraper, scraping off every bamboo tube’s charred, rough edge.

Carbonized bamboo shavings and torn bamboo fibers fell off under his patient scraping.

Using a rough piece of sandstone, he repeatedly polished the scraped edges. This process was like the final polishing of an artwork.

Finally, all the container edges became smooth and rounded, with no hint of burrs.

The entire bamboo cutting and tube-making process took him more than three hours and consumed a lot of physical strength.

But when he filled the first brand new bamboo tube with clear stream water, feeling the coolness of the water and the heaviness of the bamboo tube, a genuine smile appeared on his face.

With a truly heatable container, Lin Yu’an’s sense of security and control over the future instantly rose to a new level.