"Are you sure?"
The production staff nervously wiped the sweat from their brows. The host beside them even pressed their hands together and started praying to God.
"I'm sure," Daniel said with a solemn nod. "He's a chef. He definitely knows that wild food must be cooked thoroughly before it can be eaten. Since he dared to pick mushrooms, it proves he must be confident."
"With an ingredient like mushrooms, even experienced survival experts—let alone anyone else—wouldn't dare to touch them casually. This is the first time I've ever seen a contestant dare to forage for unconventional types of mushrooms in the wild."
He didn't know whether to praise this Great Xia contestant for his confidence or his audacity. In any case, the kid's actions were enough to give someone a heart attack.
Although they had received reliable information, the production team still notified the medical team to be on standby, just to be safe. The helicopter pilot had even started pinpointing Lin Chen's location, ready to take off at a moment's notice.
Lin Chen had no idea that in just one day, he had terrified the production team and countless viewers. Right now, his mind was completely consumed with how to make a delicious, rich soup.
Under a tree about a few dozen meters from where he had picked the butter bolete, Lin Chen found two more, but these two combined weren't as thick and fleshy as the first one.
Looking up, a cluster of tiny figures on the tree trunk caught his attention.
Dense, slender stems topped with small, round caps grew in clusters, looking like sturdier versions of enoki mushrooms.
"Honey mushrooms! Heh, what a great surprise!"
A clear arc formed on Lin Chen's lips. He patted the two bolete caps in his hand twice, sliced off the muddy ends of their stems, tossed them into his basket, and reached out to pick the honey mushrooms.
"Honey mushrooms are also great. They're delicious and have a unique fragrance. They're especially famous in the northeastern region of Great Xia. I'm sure the Great Xia viewers are familiar with its other name, the hazel mushroom."
"It's the mushroom used in Chicken Stew with Mushrooms."
He said the last sentence in his native language. It didn't matter if the foreign viewers understood or not. It wasn't like he could see the live stream or get a response from anyone. He could say whatever he wanted.
"Honey mushrooms usually grow on the ground. If they're growing on tree roots or the trunk, it typically means the tree has started to decay or is already dead."
He looked up at the top of the large tree and, sure enough, saw no leaves—only countless bare branches.
He knocked on the trunk with the pommel of his combat knife. Unlike the dull thud of a solid tree, it made a crisp sound, almost like a ripe watermelon.
Lin Chen looked around, picked up a large rock and placed it at the base of the tree, then carved two marks into the trunk as a marker.
"If I'm not mistaken, there should be a good amount of quality protein hidden inside this tree. But I have too many spoils on my hands right now and no space to carry more. I'll come back for it tomorrow."
On the way back, although he saw many more edible mushrooms, he didn't pick any more, merely making a mental note of the route.
Mushrooms weren't the kind of thing to disappear in a day or two. In the right environment, they would just keep growing. Leaving them for another day would let them get bigger. There was no need to drain the pond to catch all the fish.
By the time he got back to the shelter, he felt his stamina had reached its limit.
He lay there for a full hour before finally recovering some energy.
"Next, I'm going to search for some firewood nearby. Once the fire is going, we can begin the long-awaited cooking segment."
He felt like one of those awful authors who gathered food last night but then dragged things out for a whole day before finally saying they'd start.
'There was nothing I could do about it. Night fell too early yesterday. I couldn't even find the Yukon River.'
'The unwashed rock tripe was inedible, and with no other ingredients, just boiling it would have been worse than not cooking at all. I have no intention of disgracing the chefs of Great Xia.'
"Dry branch +1, dry branch +2, dry branch +3, dead moss +1… Hmm?"
Just as he was continuously bending over to pick up firewood, a rotten, round object caught his eye.
Judging by its shape, it seemed to be the fruit of some plant.
The surface of the fruit was already rotten and moldy, but dense swarms of ants were crawling all over it. It looked like it had only fallen a few days ago.
Realizing this, he abruptly looked up and was stunned to see... apples?? ...hiding among the dense leaves, greenish-red in color.
"Those are apples, right? I'm not seeing things, am I?"
He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. When he looked again, the round apples were still hanging high on the branches.
"Looks like they're unripe wild apples. That makes sense. Alaska's growing season is only three months long. Apples are supposed to ripen in October, but the growing season here is forced to be shorter, and the nutrition can't keep up, so of course they can't ripen naturally. Only specialized orchards can cultivate normal apples."
Unripe meant these apples would probably taste like limes—sour enough to set your teeth on edge.
Although they couldn't be eaten directly, they could be used in cooking.
He kicked the trunk, jumped up to grab them, and even tried to climb the tree directly. After struggling for a good while, he finally managed to get two wild apples down.
The things weren't large, about the size of a girl's fist. They were greenish-red and covered in strange patterns, looking anything but delicious.
Driven by a chef's curiosity, he still cut a small slice for himself.
It was just a thin slice, but the moment it touched the tip of his tongue, Lin Chen's expression changed dramatically.
"Ptooey, ptooey, PTOOEY!!!"
Though it was only for a moment, he felt a sour numbness on the tip of his tongue as if he'd been electrocuted, followed by an extreme sourness that made his face twist uncontrollably.
"Have you ever eaten a lemon? It's probably like the taste of concentrate."
However, thanks to the wild apples, his stomach, which had been numb with hunger, slowly began to awaken under the sharp, sour stimulus.
He returned to the vicinity of his shelter carrying a bundle of firewood, dug a shallow pit in a downwind spot, and built a new campfire.
With the experience from yesterday, the fire started much faster and more smoothly this time.
He built a simple wooden rack with branches and hung the pot full of clear river water over it to heat.
"It's not recommended to drink any water source in the wild directly. It's best to boil it before drinking, or to distill it for storage."
After putting the water on to boil, he took out the stainless steel pan and set it on the rocks at the base of the campfire. He then took four cleaned fish fillets, made a cut near the tail, grabbed the skin with his left hand, angled the knife blade, and with a slight pull, easily removed the entire skin.
He tossed the four pieces of fish skin into the pan.
The moment the skin touched the side of the pan, which was already hot enough to smoke, it let out an enticing 'TSSSSS'.