Chapter 33

This was an unparalleled meal. Cloudy believed she had become the answer to the future, the only one who could answer the question of what dinosaur meat tasted like for modern people.

Generally speaking, those who are used to eating beef, pork, chicken, and fish on a regular basis would not find dinosaur meat delicious. It has a very subtle taste and texture. Cloudy was eating the dinosaur tail meat recommended by Titus, which Titus described as...

"Here! The best!"

Cloudy wasn't nitpicking because she was busy devouring the food. However, the taste of dinosaur meat is a curiosity for many modern people, so she thought a bit more while eating. The raw meat was a very fresh tender red color, and after being roasted, it turned into a slightly lighter brown color. It lacked fat and did not have an overpowering meaty smell.

The taste was hard to evaluate. It had a faint gamey flavor, but the meat was plentiful and large, making each bite very satisfying. The texture wasn't that of tightly packed muscle fibers; at the moment of chewing, it felt very chewy, but this was just an illusion. After breaking through the charred surface layer, the meat inside became very tender, but it didn't crumble into bits; instead, it turned into soft, flexible strands.

The tail meat was hard to completely chew. Cloudy had to chew for a long time before she could swallow a bite. After swallowing, there was a slightly astringent feeling in her mouth, not uncomfortable. Since there wasn't much fat, only the aroma of the flame-roasted meat was felt in the nasal cavity; there was no other meaty smell.

Next, Titus shaved off the meat from the dinosaur's leg. When this part was roasted and eaten, it had a more chewy texture, like a frog's thigh meat that had been toughened several times over. It tasted slightly better than the tail meat.

Cloudy thought that maybe her expectations for dinosaur meat were too high, and it wasn't as delicious as she had imagined. Could it be because this was a carnivorous dinosaur? Wasn't there a study showing that the meat of herbivores is more suitable for human taste buds than that of carnivores? Of course, her assumption that dinosaur meat would be delicious was her own issue.

Titus believed that dinosaur tail meat was very tasty. Does this indirectly prove that their taste systems are different? Or is it simpler, just a matter of different preferences?

With her cheeks bulging, Cloudy observed Titus while eating. He ate much faster, and for those sharp teeth of his, dinosaur meat was easy to chew. This made Cloudy realize that perhaps beings like Titus, with their sharp teeth, existed to tear into dinosaurs and various prey.

"What's wrong?" Titus asked when Cloudy suddenly stopped halfway through her meal and stared at him. "Is it not good?"

"It's delicious, very delicious! But, I'm full." Cloudy patted her stomach. She had eaten two meals of meat today, which was quite extravagant. "I want to make something." She rubbed her hands together and went to move the ingredients next to the fire pit. Titus sat nearby, eating and watching.

Animal fat, several...
Different vines and plant stems, hollow bone sticks. The bone was the shinbone that Cloudy had just asked Titus to remove from the dinosaur. She split the bone in half from the middle, scooped out the marrow, washed it several times, and turned it into a cylindrical small jar.

Cloudy was busy with her materials, while in Titus' eyes, Cloudy was about to do something amazing beyond his imagination: "This preparation, what is it for?"

"Well... to make fire, so that even without anyone, it can keep burning." Cloudy explained without knowing how to say it properly. She didn't have high hopes for this experiment because animal fat is solid at room temperature... but she still wanted to try. She first cut the fat into several small pieces with a bone knife, then stuffed them into the bone tube. After filling about half of the tube, she placed it next to the fire to heat up.

"So strange." Titus stared at the bone tube. "By doing this, can you keep the fire burning all the time?"

"No, there are other things needed, but I'm not sure." Cloudy moved the vines and stems in front of her and began to vigorously rub them with her hands. Titus joined in rubbing the vines halfway through after eating. There were about 6 different vines and 13 types of plant stems. Only 3 of them had something like a grass core inside. Cloudy carefully pulled them out and observed them in her palm.

She had never seen a wick before, so she couldn't compare the plant core in her palm with it. Now she could only try her best. She regretted not reading more survival books before crossing over... she had almost forgotten most of "Robinson Crusoe."

The 3 types of wicks felt slightly different to the touch, with different colors: pure white, beige, and a strange brown. The brown one felt the most moist and sturdy.

At this point, the fat inside the bone stick started boiling, making crackling sounds and emitting a very unpleasant greasy smell. She used two wooden sticks to take out the bone stick and then soaked the three wicks in it to absorb the fat. She then used a thin stick to hook them out and let them dry for a while. After repeating this process several times, she obtained... a very strange-looking candle, soft and sticky. It was fine when placed alone on a stone, but deformed when touched.

Hmm, understood, candles definitely weren't made this way. Cloudy stared at the strange thing she had made and began to reflect.

Titus was also very curious about the candle she had made and tried to reach for it several times, but she stopped him: "You can't touch this yet. I need to test it to see if it's done." After being warned by Cloudy, Titus had to put his hands down and sit obediently on the side, watching.

Next, Cloudy lit the three candles in succession, letting them burn quietly on the stones. The first one, with a pure white wick, did not last long. In less than five minutes, the wick part was burned off. The beige and brown ones lasted longer.

About 30 minutes later...
Around midnight... but it's still not enough. She couldn't keep getting up every half an hour at night to tend to the fire. Today, all her time was spent pondering this matter, which seems a bit of a waste. While Cloudy was unhappy with the poor-quality candles she made, Titus saw them differently; he found the peculiar three small sticks quite fascinating: "This burns for a long time. Just do it like you did before, right?"

Cloudy nodded, "If done correctly, it will burn longer, but I'm not sure how to do it." She couldn't dwell on this any longer; she could always try to start the fire again later. Today, she needed to process all the loot Titus brought back before nightfall.

Dealing with the four small prey was manageable; she had already handled most of them, but the remaining dinosaur posed a challenge. Her strength wasn't enough to handle such a massive creature; she needed Titus' help to complete the task. The dinosaur's innards were numerous and smelly; Cloudy wrapped them in leaves and transported them several trips out of the cave, burying them about a kilometer away.

As Cloudy dealt with the innards, Titus stayed inside the cave removing the dinosaur's bones and meat, a task he found simple. He could handle prey several times larger than this dinosaur on his own.

Once Cloudy finished with the innards, she and Titus tore the decomposed meat into strips or thin slices together, then moved them next to the fire to roast vigorously. To ensure all the meat was dried and cooked in one go, Cloudy set up four additional fire pits.

It was an incredibly busy day, with so much accomplished. As the sun set and the moon rose, she and Titus were still sweating over roasting meat slices. The already roasted meat was piled into two tall stacks nearby.

When the sun set, Cloudy actually urged Titus to hurry back to the settlement. However, Titus insisted on helping finish everything before leaving. Unfortunately, there was just too much to do, and he stayed in the cave until midnight helping Cloudy make a new wooden frame to store the dried meat.

As the last piece of dinosaur meat finished roasting, the fire still burning brightly, casting a warm glow around the wooden house, she finally had a moment to appreciate her first night with a fire companion. Watching the flames, she felt a slight reluctance; once she fell asleep, it would vanish by morning.

Cloudy tossed a few sticks into the fire pit, stood up and stretched. Amidst the busyness, she had calmed her mind; what's gone is gone, she would work hard to start the fire again when needed!

Titus stretched alongside Cloudy, "I should go back now."

"No," Cloudy held his arm, "It's too late. You can head back early tomorrow morning. Rest here today."

He had expended a lot of energy today, not just hunting but also helping her with the prey. Titus must be very tired now. She couldn't bear to let him wander in the deep forest at this late hour.
Night fell in the rainforest: "Come on, let's go wash up," said Cloudy. Cloudy picked up a burning stick and casually lit some kindling, then led Titus to the edge of the pool to make a new fire.

Exhausted and feeling sticky from the day's activities, Cloudy didn't care about gender issues at that moment. She took off her clothes and jumped into the water to bathe, followed closely by Titus, who seemed very happy. With both ears perked up, Titus remarked, "Cloudy didn't chase me away this time. It's nice!"

As the bulky Titus submerged into the pool, causing water to spill over and almost extinguish the fire nearby, it was clear that he didn't care about Cloudy's appearance; he was solely focused on cleaning the dirt off his body.

Taking advantage of the situation, Cloudy saw things she shouldn't have seen. She hadn't encountered the real thing before, only in paintings and videos, which seemed somewhat different from modern males, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly how.

"What are you looking at, Cloudy?" Titus asked as he scrubbed the mud off his arms, catching Cloudy staring at him intently. "Our... lower parts look different, don't they?"

Well, they certainly did!

Feeling embarrassed, Cloudy averted her gaze, feeling like she had tainted something with her eyes.

After they finished bathing and the fire by the pool was nearly extinguished, Cloudy decided not to wear clothes to sleep since she had washed them during her bath. She climbed out of the pool, stood for a moment, shook off the excess water from her body and hair, and then lay down to rest.

While Titus intended to go straight to bed, Cloudy caught him sitting by the fire outside the cabin, drying his wet hair before they finally went inside to rest.

"So comfortable..." they both sighed as they lay down. The fire outside continued to crackle, casting a faint light through the wooden walls onto them, accompanied by the sound of the crackling firewood. Cloudy adjusted on the bed, taking out a pillow from under her head and placing it under Titus', saying, "Use this, rest well."

Titus lay contentedly on the feather pillow, remarking, "This place is good. Better than my settlement."

"No, your home must be better."

"No, Cloudy isn't there."

"..."

Is that so? Cloudy covered her face with her hands, reminding herself that Titus' words surely didn't mean what she thought they did. It was time to rest and sleep; tomorrow was another early day...