Chapter 73

"Cloudy! I'm back!" Titus happily rushed into the house. Long before reaching home, he saw the bright fire inside, indicating that Cloudy hadn't slept and was still waiting for him!

As soon as Titus entered, he saw Cloudy crouched at her table, scraping something with a stone, creating a very unpleasant and grating sound. There were two fire pots on the workbench for illumination.

Seeing Titus return, Cloudy set down the stone. She had been working tirelessly all day but now seemed completely energetic, "I made a big discovery today!" She picked up a piece of charcoal from beside her and handed it to Titus, who was approaching her, "This is excellent fire starter. It burns even better than wood and lasts a long time."

"…?" Titus squeezed the dark lump a bit, causing it to break into two halves. "What does this mean?"

"Don't squeeze it!" Cloudy saw Titus still exerting pressure on the charcoal and had to snatch it back. After weighing her options, she decided that explaining this to Titus would be too tedious, so she opted to show him her "building plan" instead. "Take a look at this." Cloudy pointed to the thin slate on the workbench, where rough white lines sketched out the formal insulated house she planned to build with mud bricks in the future.

She had no experience in drawing architectural plans or sketches, so what was drawn on the slate were simple squares and rectangles. The cross-sections of the walls were also extremely abstract. It could be said that no one other than her could understand it. Titus furrowed his brow and studied it carefully for a while, "Cloudy means to place a newborn inside this and then light the wood?"

That was a correct summary, but it sounded like she was going to roast a baby over a fire. Cloudy pulled over a large wooden stool customized for Titus, had him sit beside her, and added some firewood to the fire pots on the table. "Let me tell you about this…" However, before Cloudy could finish speaking, Titus sitting next to her reached out and touched her forehead, interrupting her.

Titus wiped away a big bead of sweat directly. He knew Cloudy was very sensitive to heat, and with the current weather, it was already very hot for her. Yet, she was working between two fire pots. "Aren't you hot, Cloudy? You're sweating all over, and you feel very warm to the touch."

"Oh? Is that so?" Prompted by Titus, Cloudy realized she had indeed been feeling uncomfortable. Her head was a bit dizzy, but she had been so focused on drawing the architectural plan and her thoughts that she completely ignored her physical discomfort. She raised her hand to touch her neck, feeling her veins pulsating rapidly, with sweat dripping as if she had just been pulled out of water.

Her eyes seemed a bit blurry, having been exposed to intense firelight for a long time.
"Cloudy felt a bit scared at the thought of her poor eyesight; she didn't want to develop nearsightedness in such an environment. She decided to leave drawing for when there was ample sunlight in the morning.

'It's a bit hot,' Cloudy breathed out, the surge of energy she had just experienced fading away. Titus was still wiping the sweat from her forehead and cheeks with his hand. 'After showing you this, I'll go wash up, and then we can sleep.' The structure of the house was quite simple; the challenge lay in ventilation. Cloudy explained for less than ten minutes, and Titus completely understood what was carved on the stone slab.

'I'm not quite sure how the houses in the settlement are built. Cloudy now probably knows more than I do.' Titus felt really happy at this thought; he had worried that Cloudy might be ostracized when she arrived at the settlement, but she seemed to have integrated well. However, because she had integrated so well, he also felt a bit unhappy...

'Cloudy, are you going to teach the godmothers how to make jars?' Titus pointed to the two fire basins on the table, which were also made using Cloudy's techniques. 'Next, are you going to prepare to teach them how to start a fire?'

Regarding the technique of starting a fire, Cloudy was still unsure. It's not that she was holding back any secrets; rather, the skill of starting a fire was her biggest asset in this era. She wasn't exactly altruistic; although the settlement seemed to treat her well now, it was all based on her contributions. If she wanted to settle in the settlement permanently, she needed to carefully consider how to use this skill of starting a fire.

'Titus hasn't told anyone yet, right?'

'Of course not! If Cloudy doesn't say anything, neither will I.'

In this regard, Titus could be considered extremely loyal to her... She looked at the big guy in front of her, and she didn't know when his face, which had a strong alien feel to it, had become 'adorable' to her.

'My first acquaintance here was Titus, and I'm very happy about that. If it were someone else, I might not have survived until now.' She leaned over, took Titus's hand, and shook it a few times. 'When the external hunting begins, the hunters will bring back the materials I need. I think... the newborns will be very safe next rainy season. I've fulfilled the promise to Titus, so I consider that a success.'

'Cloudy is really amazing.'

'Of course, look...' Cloudy said, lifting her vest to reveal two extra red dots on her chest. 'The Matriarch accidentally added two more; now I'm a very powerful mother.' Cloudy accepted all compliments wholeheartedly, doing her best within her capabilities.

Titus looked at Cloudy's slender chest with the additional marks and suddenly burst into laughter.

'What are you laughing at?' The current Cloudy no longer had any sense of 'body shame'; she had spent this time in the settlement."
In the face of it, she had seen too many locals running around naked, so sometimes she couldn't be bothered to get dressed in the morning and just went out bare-armed.

It turned out that it was really refreshing to do so after getting used to it. When it got hot outside, she would directly go to the pond to bathe, without worrying about changing clothes afterwards. Clothes truly were quite inconvenient!

But now, being laughed at by Titus like this, she suddenly felt a bit ashamed and instinctively covered her chest, regretting why she had teased her clothes in front of Titus. Upon careful thought... the reason she wore clothes to go out today seemed to be because Titus was going out with her, so she casually put on a tank top.

"Cloudy has no muscles at all, looks so pitiful," Titus said, puffing up his chest and patting his biceps with his hand. "When will Cloudy be like me?"

Being like you would be terrible. Cloudy looked at those robust dark brown muscles illuminated by the firelight and couldn't help but reach out and hit them hard. "Are you looking down on me? My strength has also increased."

"Uh..." Titus pretended to cough from being hit. "Cloudy, you're really strong."

"..."