The Top Fishing
Chapter 703 - 296: Challenge Ends_3

Chapter 703: Chapter 296: Challenge Ends_3

An hour and a half later, a helicopter from the production team came to pick up Ken, who had given up on the challenge.

In the end, only three challengers remained: Lin Yang, contestant number six, the Indian lady, and contestant number eight, the black guy, Claude.

Contestant number six, the Indian lady, was a botanist. She also started off with a bit of difficulty. For the first week, she nearly survived solely on various lichens and plant roots. With the audience’s reminders during the live broadcast, she tried her hand at net fishing. During that period, the catch from the nets was decent, and gradually, her days began to stabilize.

However, at this critical juncture of the challenge, the ice was over thirty centimeters thick. The simple fishing nets were no longer practical, and now, contestant number six also had only three fish left in her food reserves, putting her in not too great a situation either.

Then there was contestant number eight, Claude, the veteran. Aside from Lin Yang, he was the most comfortable player in the challenge. On the first day of the challenge, he had caught a porcupine, securing almost a week’s worth of rations.

Afterwards, he scouted the hunting grounds very adeptly, and besides setting daily small traps to supplement his food supply, he was keen on hunting larger game.

Hard work pays off for those who persevere, and he truly managed to kill an adult muskox. At this moment, in Claude’s wooden "safe" for food storage, there was at least a few hundred pounds of top-quality muskox meat, enough to last him another month with ease.

The weather was bitterly cold, and venturing out to hunt was almost impossible. However, the black guy’s everyday live broadcast routine became somewhat lackluster. Initially, he tried to have some fun interacting with the audience, but with Lin Yang setting the bar, responses to his own shoddily made guitar and clumsy clay sculptures were few and far between. Many people would visit his broadcast room to check the situation, then report back to Lin Yang.

Days went by in their usual unhurried manner. Lin Yang’s daily routine also started to become relatively fixed, resting in the shelter at night and fishing during live broadcasts in the snow hut during the day. He would play with the foxes or look for opportunities to train Little White with the bait disc. His days were pretty comfortable.

After four or five days of consecutive feeding, Lin Yang’s relationship with the little fox had become very stable.

He and his viewers named the white fox, Big White. After becoming more affectionate, Big White even trusted Lin Yang enough to let him pet its soft belly. At night, no one knew where it went to spend the night, but come daytime, it would trot to the snow hut to look for food from Lin Yang.

Facing such a little foodie pet, Lin Yang gradually let go of his taming method of controlling food and became more indulgent towards Big White.

Little White ate once a day, and Big White ate twice. In the morning, without saying anything, he would give it a live fish to fill its belly, and save a portion of food before dark.

Arctic foxes in the wilderness, other than when they nurse in their burrows, rarely have such opportunities. In less than a week, Big White had grown a thick layer of fat, its formerly loose fur now taut and feeling great to the touch.

Unbeknownst to them, the challenge reached its fifty-fifth day. Through information provided by the viewers, Lin Yang made a simple analysis and judged that all three contestants would likely endure until the end. The Indian lady, who was having the toughest time, found some grass roots she had stored before the heavy snow after she finished her smoked fish. It seemed there wouldn’t be any problem persisting for the last few days.

But reality is always more exciting than expectation. It wasn’t contestant number six, the lady, who encountered trouble, but rather contestant number eight, Claude, who fell just before victory.

Claude, who ate large amounts of meat and drank plenty of soup daily, lived in a rather low cabin. Although it had good insulation, the roof had been filled with lichen and soil to prevent drafts when constructed.

After more than fifty days of continuous fire-making, the simple stove in the wooden cabin had thoroughly dried out the wood and the lichen on the roof. One midnight, when adding more wood to the fire, a spark unfortunately ignited the roof’s lichen, quickly setting the wood ablaze.

Claude was awakened from his sleep by the flames, and his attempts at extinguishing the fire failed to solve anything. He could only watch as his dwelling turned to ashes in the howling northern wind.

If Claude had been a bit more rational, perhaps the fire wouldn’t have interrupted his sixty-day challenge. For instance, if he had managed to save his sleeping bag, weapons, and other equipment, the loss of the cabin wouldn’t have been a big deal. He could have just rebuilt it. With plenty of food and energy, these problems wouldn’t have been fatal for the strong young man.

But the misfortune was the fact that he was too caught up in trying to put out the fire and failed to secure his essential items in time. The sleeping bag was completely burned, the bow and arrows were smashed and ruined by falling wood, and the fire-starting magnesium rod was lost. Covered in soot and dirt, his campsite was a mess.

In the night’s sub-zero temperatures of more than thirty degrees below, without a sleeping bag, a fire, weapons, or shelter, Claude, who was once considered a top contender in the challenge, called the production team on the morning of the fifty-sixth day to withdraw from the challenge.

Thus, of the ten challengers, only Lin Yang and contestant number six, the Indian lady, remained.

Many people say that when facing some unknown difficulties, women can be incredibly resilient. It’s worth mentioning that contestant number six, the Indian lady, was one such person.

Her meat reserves were depleted, and she could only rely on hot water and grass roots to barely get by. However, she did not give up easily. Instead, during her free time, she went through the rabbit skins she had previously saved, one by one.

Though there isn’t much in the way of fat or meat on dried rabbit skins, out of convenience, she hadn’t processed the short tails at all, just cutting them off and leaving them.