area51novel Chapter 408 The Walrus's Spoils
Chapter 408 The Walrus's Spoils
Chapter 408 The Walrus's Spoils
The winds of the fjord carried the smell of gunpowder and blood, and time seemed to stand still, frozen on the straight spine of Odak.
Kenta was the first to break free from this frozen image. Instead of immediately checking on his prey, he silently walked over to Odak.
The face, a blend of Eastern and Inuit features, showed no extra expression. He simply extended his hand, gloved with thick sealskin, and patted the old hunter's still slightly trembling shoulder heavily.
This gesture transcends the boundaries of language and village; it is one hunter's purest tribute to another.
Aki, the young hunter who had previously scoffed at Lin Yu'an's Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, also came over at this moment.
He looked at Odak, then at the walrus whose skull had been precisely pierced, his contempt completely gone, replaced by a deep-seated awe.
He whispered something in Inuit, which Lin Yu-an guessed was probably "sharpshooter," and then awkwardly imitated what he did in the movie, giving Odak a thumbs up.
Audak exhaled a long breath of white air.
That breath seemed to carry away the burden that had accumulated in his lungs for twenty years. He ignored everyone and went straight to the walrus he had killed with his own hands.
Its massive body still radiates astonishing heat, and warm blood gushes from the bullet holes, melting into an ever-expanding dark red area on the pristine ice surface.
Odak crouched down, drew the skinning knife with its handle worn smooth from his waist, and gently sliced it across the walrus's warm carotid artery.
He extended his index finger, dipped it in the freshest blood, and slowly smeared it on his forehead and cheeks.
He closed his eyes, facing the direction he had come from—the direction of the ice crevice that had swallowed his brother's life and was now nowhere to be found.
In the wind, his hoarse and low murmurs drifted, a prayer offered to the departed souls.
Lin Yu'an couldn't understand the meaning of each syllable, but he could clearly feel the weight of that emotion.
It wasn't the satisfaction of revenge, nor the joy of conquest, but a sense of relief and reconciliation that came from finally being able to let go peacefully.
Kenta didn't give everyone much time to reflect. "Stop spacing out! In this weather, a corpse will freeze as hard as a rock within two hours. Even if you chop it with an axe, you'll only get a few white marks."
As Kenta spoke, he rummaged through the toolbox on the sled and pulled out an oilcloth bag, which he then spread out onto the ice with a "whoosh." Inside were not ordinary hunting knives, but a row of knives of varying lengths and shapes.
He picked out a long-handled knife and threw it to Lin Yu'an.
Lin Yu'an grabbed the knife. It was heavy in his hand. The handle was made of a polished walrus rib, which was half a meter long. The blade was made of modern steel, shaped like a crescent moon, and extremely sharp.
"This is called a Pana," Kenta said loudly as he put on his butcher gloves. "A walrus isn't a seal. A seal is a water bag, a walrus is an armored vehicle."
"Watch out, don't pull with brute force, use your body weight to push." Your back will be ruined if you bend over for too long in minus thirty degrees Celsius; the long handle is for standing while working."
"Start from here, under the chin, between the two teeth," Kenta pointed to the spot. "That's the only relatively soft part of its throat."
Lin Yu'an gripped the long handle of the Pana with both hands, adjusted his stance, and firmly planted his feet on the ice.
He aimed the tip of the knife at Kenta's finger, took a deep breath, and used the weight of his upper body to press down hard.
"Hiss—"
A sickening tearing sound rang out. The blade sliced through the skin, but this was only the beginning.
"Can you feel it?" Kenta shouted from the side. "Don't stop! Keep pressing down! Its skin is five centimeters thick, and there's another ten centimeters of fat underneath."
"You need to cut through both layers in one go, until you feel the tip of the knife touch something as tough as parchment—that's the fascia on the surface of the muscle. Stop there, don't damage the meat!"
Lin Yu'an gritted his teeth; this was even more strenuous than chopping wood. The walrus's skin was not only thick but also full of gelatinous substance, an extremely tough structure that allowed it to withstand the claws of polar bears and the pressure of floating ice.
"Give it a try! Treat it like a giant zipper!"
He pushed forward with a sudden thrust. With a soft "pop," the blade finally broke through the resistance, and a large amount of dark red blood mixed with oil gushed out instantly, splashing onto the white ice surface and emitting billowing hot air.
"Okay! That's it, push along the center line all the way to the tail!"
Like a bulldozer, Lin Yu'an slashed a straight cut three meters long across the belly of the giant beast.
When the entire abdominal cavity is opened, the smell of semi-digested food, internal organs, and blood hits you right in the head.
Kenta didn't rush to cut the flesh. Instead, he directed Aki to bring several large fishhooks and hook them onto the skin around the incision. "Pull! Pull to both sides!"
The walrus's thick skin was being pulled away little by little. "Look closely, Lin."
""
Kenta pointed to the incredibly thick, milky-white subcutaneous fat, "This walrus fat is a treasure. It must be kept attached to the skin; it absolutely cannot be separated."
"Why?" Lin Yu'an asked, panting, as he carefully cut the subcutaneous tissue with the tip of his knife. "This skin is too heavy. The whole piece would weigh at least two or three hundred kilograms. Wouldn't it be easier to move it if it were cut into pieces?"
"Cut it into pieces? That's a wasteful way to do things!" Kenta exclaimed, as if he had heard something utterly absurd. "You think this is just the skin? This is our lifeblood!"
Kenta grabbed the thick edge and shook it vigorously: "If this piece of leather were whole, after tanning, it could be used to make the bottom skin of a Umiak (large kayak)."
"That kind of boat can seat ten people; we use it to hunt whales in the deep sea. If it's chopped up, it'll only be good for shoe soles!"
After a great deal of effort, the huge "leather blanket" was finally completely peeled off and spread out on the ice, like a huge red and white carpet.
The walrus, having lost its skin covering, revealed its dark red muscle mass.
"Alright, it's lunchtime now." Kenta didn't cut off the large pieces of tenderloin, but instead turned his gaze to the walrus's bulging belly.
He carefully cut open the peritoneum, and a stronger, salty, fishy smell wafted out. The enormous stomach slid out, heavy and seemingly weighing several tens of kilograms.
"Do you know what walruses eat?" Kenta asked, patting the walrus's stomach as he did so.
"Fish?" Lin Yu'an guessed.
"Wrong. They're too clumsy to catch fish." Kenta shook his head with a smile. "They're like vacuum cleaners on the seabed. They use their long teeth to plow through the mud and sand, and then use their powerful pump-like mouths to suck out the clams hidden in the sand."
After saying that, Kenta slit open the stomach with a knife.
"Splash—"
What shocked Lin Yu'an was what happened. What flowed out of his stomach was not disgusting chyme, but hundreds and thousands of shelled, plump clams!
Even after being soaked in stomach acid for a while, they still retained their original shape, and some were even still fresh.
"What... what is this?"
"This is a hot dish that Sila prepared for us." Kenta reached into his stomach, grabbed a handful of slippery clam meat, rinsed it briefly in the seawater, and then stuffed it into his mouth, chewing it heartily with a look of enjoyment on his face.
"Try it! This is top-notch. The walrus has already removed that damn hard shell for us, and the temperature in their stomachs is just right for warming them up," and the slight stomach acid gives them a naturally tangy and refreshing taste, even better than lemon juice.
Lin Yu'an looked at the slippery piece of meat in Kenta's hand, which was still covered with a trace of unknown liquid. His nostrils were filled with a complex smell of the sea, the smell of entrails, and a faint sour and rotten smell.
To be honest, the smell wasn't pleasant; it even made my stomach churn.
But seeing Kenta's blissful expression, he hesitated for a second before reaching out and grabbing one. The clam meat was warm and soft, feeling like touching a warm slug.
He held his breath, closed his eyes, and stuffed it into his mouth.
The first taste was a pungent, sour, and fishy odor that almost made him vomit...
"How is it?" Kenta asked with a smile.
Lin Yu'an swallowed with difficulty: "I find it hard to like something."
Hahaha, everyone burst into laughter.
After laughing, Kenta began to process the other internal organs, quickly sorting them. "Intestines, throw them to the dog."
"Lungs, give them to the dog. Spleen, don't want them."
"But this must be kept." He pointed to the enormous liver and heart.
"Cut them into large pieces and freeze them solid on the snow. When you get back, this will be the best supplement for pregnant women and the elderly, as it contains more vitamin A than pills."
"But remember, polar bear liver is poisonous; one bite can skin you alive or even kill you, but walrus liver is safe."
The meat was cut into large chunks. Lin Yu'an noticed that Kenta wasn't chopping bones haphazardly like a butcher, but rather carefully separating the bones along the joints.
"The wood here is more expensive than gold, so bones are our timber." Kenta picked up a thick rib.
"This bone, after being dried and polished, can be made into the front safety bar of a sled. It has just the right hardness, so it won't break when it hits ice. Its shoulder blade is broad and flat, and we used to use it to make snow shovels."
Suddenly, Kenta groped around on the walrus's lower abdomen for a while, a wicked smile spreading across his face.
"Lin, come on, test your eyesight. Guess what this is?"
With a forceful pull, he drew out a 60-centimeter-long, crystal-clear bone rod as hard as jade from deep within the muscle.
Lin Yu'an was stunned: "Is this... the one I was thinking of?"
"Hahahaha!" Aki and Odak next to him burst into laughter.
"That's right, this is a **bone**." Kenta waved the huge bone club, striking the ice with a crisp "clang." "Only walruses, seals, and bears have this thing, but the walrus's is the biggest."
"This stuff is a real bargain, denser than ivory. We'll make it into the perfect harpoon handle, or a special club to stun halibut."
"Of course, now many tourists are willing to spend a few hundred dollars to buy one to put in their living room, even though most of them don't know what it is, haha."
Lin Yu'an awkwardly held the huge "genital bone," feeling the coldness and hardness emanating from it.
This is truly a masterpiece of nature; in order to complete mating in the high-pressure, cold depths of the ocean, they evolved this weapon-like organ.
The final highlight was that enormous head.
"This is our biggest trophy today." Kenta squatted in front of the walrus's head, stroking the pair of ivory-colored tusks that were half a meter long. The tusks were flawless, with thick roots and sharp tips.
"Removing ivory is a technical job." Kenta pointed to the spot where the ivory root was embedded in the skull. "Many people think that it's as simple as just pulling it out, but that's what laymen do."
"The roots of ivory grow deep into the alveoli of the skull, with about one-third of its length buried in the flesh and bone."
"Then how do you remove it? By smashing the skull?"
"No, that would damage the tooth roots, and the tooth would be worthless." Kenta shook his head. "In the wild, we usually cut off the whole head and take it with us. When we get back, we soak the whole skull in hot water and boil it."
"Or you can leave it in a decaying pit and let it decompose naturally for a few months. Once the connective tissue has rotted away, the tooth can be extracted intact."
He handed Lin Yu'an an axe: "Now, we're going to take the head off. Your shot was very accurate, right at the atlas. Now, all you have to do is cut through the remaining fascia and muscles along the bullet hole, and the head will roll off."
Lin Yu'an grabbed the axe and chopped precisely along the gaps in the cervical vertebrae. With a crisp sound of bones breaking apart, the huge head, weighing tens of kilograms, rolled onto the ice.
Kenta immediately took a rope, cleverly threaded it through his jawbone, tied a knot, and made a handle that was easy to drag.
Soon, the three walrus heads had been partially dissected. Huge chunks of meat, lard, entrails, and heads were piled on the ice.
"Huskies!"
A whistle from Odak caused the pack of dogs, who had been anxiously waiting on the sidelines, to erupt in excitement.
"This is also the most crucial step in dealing with the walruses—refueling," Kenta said, looking at the sled dogs that were like hungry wolves. "They've just pulled us for dozens of kilometers, and their energy is almost depleted. They need to be recharged immediately."
Kenta cut off several large chunks of white fat and threw them into the pack of dogs.
"In the Arctic, fat is life. Dogs can't digest much lean meat; they need high-calorie fat to burn. Only by eating oil will their fur be shiny and their bodies as hot as an oven."
Watching the pack of dogs frantically tearing and swallowing, making satisfied chewing sounds, Lin Yu'an once again understood the meaning of making the best use of resources.
Nothing on this ice sheet is superfluous. Every inch of the walrus's skin, every bone, every drop of fat, and even the food in its stomach, is precisely transformed into resources for the survival of humans and dogs.
Death here is not the end, but another form of energy transformation.
"Alright," Kenta straightened up, patted the blood off his hands, and glanced at the increasingly gloomy clouds on the horizon. "There's too much meat; we can't take it all. Load the heart, liver, ivory, these three blankets, and some more meat into the truck."
As they worked diligently and methodically, loading the ivory and heart onto the sled, Lin Yu'an keenly noticed something amiss.
The winds of the fjord have changed.
It was no longer the howling that came from all directions, but a single, sharp whistle.
The sound seemed to come from the deepest part of the fjord, like an invisible arrow piercing straight down.
At the same time, the originally gray-white clouds on the horizon were visibly stained with a thick, viscous lead gray, as if a piece of the sky had collapsed.
"Oh no!" Kenta, who was binding the ivory, suddenly sat up straight, not even bothering to wipe the blood off his face.
He dropped the rope in his hand, grabbed a handful of powdery snow from the ground, and spread it in his palm.
Instead of drifting away as usual, the powdery snow was instantly torn apart by an extremely strong airflow and shot outwards in a straight line.
Kenta's expression turned extremely grave, a hint of fear even appearing in his eyes: "It's a Petrarch wind! It came too fast! We can't escape!"
"Petrach style!"
These three words pierced Audak's eardrums like an icicle. The nightmare that took his brother twenty years ago was now returning to the world with even more violent power.
It was not an ordinary blizzard, but an extremely cold and dense "gravity wind" that suddenly descended from the Greenland ice sheet.
It will accelerate down along the fjord, and the wind speed can soar from a light breeze to a devastating level of two or three hundred kilometers per hour in just a few minutes.
"Everyone, abandon the rest of the flesh and skin!" Kenta's command left no room for argument; it was a resolute decision made in a race against death. "Take only the ivory and the heart! Find a place to build a snow cave immediately! Hurry!"
The five people immediately sprang into action.
The vivid anatomy lesson just now came to an abrupt end, replaced by the instinct for survival.
They had to reluctantly give up the precious "blanket" they had just peeled off and the remaining hundreds of kilograms of fresh meat.
The group worked together to tightly bind three pairs of heavy ivory tusks and several severed hearts to the bottom of the sled to increase its weight. Then, they drove the sled against the strong wind that was already making it hard to stand, heading towards a huge ice ridge a few hundred meters away.
There is a sheltered snow slope there, with a layer of hard snow that has been blown and compacted by the wind over the years and is now covered with a layer of fresh snow, making it a natural air-raid shelter.
"dig!"
The five men jumped off the sled, pulled out entrenching tools and snow shovels, and began digging frantically. There was no further communication, only the scraping sound of shovels cutting into the snow and heavy breathing.
They weren't building one of those beautifully domed igloos, which would be too time-consuming to construct.
They were digging a primitive foxhole, a rectangular pit that could hold five people huddled together like sardines.
Just before the wind speed rose high enough to knock a person over, the pit was dug.
They quickly placed the three sleds side by side upside down at the mouth of the pit, the sturdy sleds forming a makeshift roof frame.
Next, the group worked together to pull over the heavy waterproof tarpaulin carried on the sled and cover it with the tarpaulin. Then, using the snow blocks they had just dug out, they quickly sealed all the gaps around the sled like bricks.
The pack of dogs demonstrated the astonishing intelligence of polar creatures.
Without human command, they had already found a depression on the leeward side of the snow cave when the storm first started, curled up together, let the snow cover them, and entered a low-energy state similar to hibernation.
When the last snow brick blocked the entrance, cutting off the last ray of light from the outside world, the world was plunged into absolute darkness.
A few minutes later, the devil officially arrived!
Outside, it was the end of the world. The whistling of the Petrarch wind was like the howling of countless vengeful spirits in one's ears. The wind was so strong that one could even hear the hundreds of kilograms of sleds overhead groaning in pain as they were blown by the wind.
Inside the snow cave, however, is a small and oppressive, yet safe and secure sanctuary.
Kenta carefully poked a fist-sized ventilation hole in the leeward side of the snow cave ceiling using the handle of his long-handled skinning knife.
After confirming that a cold draft was blowing in, he fumbled to light a traditional oil lamp fueled by walrus oil.
The tiny, dim yellow flame flickered, casting five blurry, grim faces onto the snow wall.
In this extremely enclosed space, time seems to be stretched out, and every second is clearly discernible.
Odak was unusually calm. Twenty years ago, he faced this demon alone, his heart filled with fear and despair.
This time, however, he had companions, a warm flame, and a sturdy shelter by his side.
He pulled out the somewhat dull knife from his pocket, and then took out his own walrus bone, still stained with blood, from his bag.
"In the past, if we were trapped, the old people would start telling stories or doing some handiwork."
"
Audak gently scraped the remaining flesh from the bone with the blade, his hoarse voice echoing in the cramped space, "As long as my hands are still moving, my heart won't panic."
Lin Yu'an took out high-calorie compressed biscuits and beef jerky from his backpack and distributed them to everyone.
"Audak is right," Lin Yu'an continued, "Why don't we talk about what you do on a regular basis if you're not hunting?"
No one spoke; only the muffled roar of the wind through the snow walls and the gurgling sound of melting snow on the stove.
In this isolated darkness, they were no longer hunters from different villages, nor individuals with different cultural backgrounds.
They were a makeshift, primitive tribe, relying on each other's body heat and silent trust to fight against Sila's rage.
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