It was already very late, so late that most would hesitate whether to starve another night, waiting for daylight before setting out again.
Originally, Bi Fang should have prepared a shelter within two hours before dark, but when he saw the mountain range within reach, he acted impulsively.
He was too hungry; even in the wilderness, he had never felt such hunger. People under extre hunger don’t tend to be very rational.
Having not eaten for three days, and with the cold sapping his warmth, Bi Fang’s hunger was undoubtedly more intense compared to normal temperatures.
His shriveled stomach had taken command of his intelligence.
Of course, it hadn’t completely taken over; Bi Fang was still quite rational.
His exceptional vision allowed him to see clearer and further, and his sense of distance was also more accurate. He had a feeling he could reach his destination before dark.
Fortunately, Bi Fang’s bet paid off.
Now, less than half an hour remained before darkness fell—indeed, even a quarter of an hour was doubtful!
To ninety-nine percent of the world, the Arctic Ocean conjures images of a monochromatic world of ice and snow.
Indeed, due to its harsh climate, the Arctic Ocean region is indeed unwelcoming to plants, and it’s rare to see the trace of colorful flowers and green trees.
The vegetation on the islands consists mainly of mosses and lichens. So southern islands have cold-resistant herbaceous plants and small shrubs, but this doesn’t an that the area is bleak and barren.
On the contrary, the Arctic Ocean is a paradise for many animals, such as the famous polar bear, as well as seals, Arctic foxes, reindeer, hares, whales, herring, cod, and in the sumr, many birds visit the Siberian coast.
In fact, the potential of life is enormous. No matter how harsh the environnt of the poles is, living creatures always manage to claim their place and survive.
Even though Bi Fang had traversed nearly three thousand miles of vast ice plains, in essence, there would be Arctic foxes and polar bears, but because there was no bottom of the food chain, the already sparse numbers of these animals ant that Bi Fang hadn’t seen a single one.
"It might seem like there’s no food in the Polar Regions, but as long as you look carefully..."
"In these remote areas, animals are rarely disturbed by humans, so sotis catching them is not too difficult."
"For example, penguins. Of course, these creatures are only found near the Antarctic Circle—I’m just giving an example. Many early explorers used them for food. I heard penguin at tastes sowhat between beef and mutton, with clear layers of fat and lean at."
"There are also rabbits and voles, foxes and wolves, reindeer, musk oxen, arctic reindeer, elk, and moose, seals—seals have a lot of fat, but they’re quite large and can sotis be aggressive. Finally, there’s the polar bear, which you’d best not encounter— they’re very large and usually aggressive."
[I feel like if I were in the Arctic, even if I really had to take ergency shelter, it’s very unlikely I could defeat one...]
[Polar Bear: Thanks bro for the winter warmth. Just worrying about running out of food, and I’ve got three bear cubs to feed at ho. A debt of gratitude is inexpressible!]
[Be confident, normal people wouldn’t even attempt that icy expanse, completely unaware of directions. If I were out on the ice plains for tens of kiloters, I’d just be spinning like a headless fly, and would have frozen to death early on]
But in the current situation, it was impossible for him to catch animals.
There wasn’t enough ti, and it was impossible for Bi Fang to find animal trails, to construct traps in just ten minutes. Hunting was even less likely—unless he was waiting for hares to run into his lap. It would be good enough if he could eat so grass.
Bi Fang’s target was indeed so plants.
"Most plants in the Polar Regions are edible. They can usually be peeled, dried, and boiled, or added to brewed tea. So can be eaten raw, and so are rich in trace elents, which can supplent the body’s needs."
"For example, willows in the Polar Region—the bark, tender shoots, and newly grown roots are all edible and rich in vitamin C."
"Litmus can be used for boiling or soaking. Most of the lichens and mosses on rocks are also edible. Lichens and mosses are good sources of food but not abundant in quantity. They must be cooked or roasted before eating, and one should not consu too much at a ti. Rock tripe is the best ingredient and can be eaten raw."
"Spruce and pine needles, the young shoots and bark can be boiled and eaten. Back then, the Huaxia Volunteer Army used to make tea with pine needles to solve the problem of night blindness, enabling them to fight beautiful battles at night."
"In addition, there are bilberries, these red berries are rich in nutrients, and their leaves can be boiled or roasted. Wild lingonberries—the golden berries are very high in vitamin C, and their leaves can be used to make tea."
"If you have the materials for making a fire, like wood, plants, or animal fats, then you can start a fire and thus cook food. However, it’s difficult; without ample ti and luck, you hardly need to consider it. Don’t expect that you can easily find branches for kindling, as you might in lower-latitude regions."
"Still, exposed rocks with lichens and mosses on them are easy to find. Reindeer, for instance, survive on them. On Greenland, there have been records of 300 kinds of lichens and 600 kinds of mosses. In 1954, people even discovered bacteria and fungal spores at a depth of 3400 ters under the Arctic Ocean."
Bi Fang knelt on one knee in the snow, scraping away at the rock in front of him with both hands, sweeping the snow clean to reveal the cold and smooth surface of the stone that seed to lack the moss and lichen he ntioned.
But Bi Fang did not give up. He scraped the snow clean from between the stones and the frozen earth, and finally, a faint green color appeared before everyone’s eyes.
There really were plants!
The audience’s eyes showed shock.
Greenland is primitive. Here, every mountain the people see dates back hundreds of millions of years, and the icebergs thousands upon thousands of years.
Since ancient tis, it has been the realm of myths, this remote island becoming the fountainhead of all fantasies and mysteries.
The dazzling auroras, the boundless tundra, the shimring ice columns, the peculiar icebergs, and the nearly extre cold combined with the almost silent Inuit people create a world as pure as a fairy tale.
But that’s for travelers. For those seeking to survive, this place is simply the arctic Hell.
Yet even in a world blanketed in snow, there are stubborn green plants that grow in the crevices.
What do they live on?
In temperatures dozens of degrees below zero, wouldn’t the cell fluid freeze?
[By the way, why are polar plants mostly evergreen? It seems like they’re mostly green.]
[Holy crap, now that you ntion it, yeah, shouldn’t the high latitudes have seasonal changes?]
"Because the base is made of moss plants, also known as tundra, which is a biological community that grows on cold permafrost, an extre environntal community. It has many special adaptations to the harsh polar conditions."
"For instance, the stems and leaves of these plants are tightly pressed against the ground to withstand the pressure of the snow. As long as there is a short warm spell each year, the plants imdiately sprout, completing the process of growth, flowering, and fruiting within two months."
"And they remain evergreen to better absorb sunlight. There’s no seasonal change here, just half a year of daylight and half a year of night. It’s already good enough that evergreen plants can survive, let alone undergo seasonal changes."
"The shedding and growth of tree leaves are for better energy storage. For polar plants, just surviving is difficult enough, to say nothing of storing energy, and for that reason, they grow very slowly."
Bi Fang directly picked a tender leaf and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing it like an ice cube, without any taste or sensation, and it quickly entered his stomach.
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Although it’s best to boil moss before eating, Bi Fang currently didn’t have the conditions to do so; being able to fill his stomach was already a luxury.
Bi Fang was confident in his digestive capabilities.
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