Chapter 7

Titus's pace was really fast. The distance from the green slope to the rainforest, which would take Cloudy a whole morning to walk, even at the fastest speed, would still be around three hours. Titus's speed could cut that almost in half. It's like the difference between walking and riding an electric scooter.

But what was she doing in the rainforest now? Clearly, Titus was also pondering this question. When they reached the vicinity of the rainforest, he set Cloudy down.

The boundary between the rainforest and the flat grassland was very clear, like a border line. Right now, Titus and Cloudy were still standing on the grass, but just a few hundred meters ahead, there were immediately towering rainforest vegetation. The huge trees seemed to rise like city walls, and the colors of the rainforest plants were even darker, as if sunlight couldn't penetrate inside.

Cloudy still remembered a month ago, the days when she desperately tried to escape from it by crawling around inside... She didn't want to experience that again, especially since the rainforest was full of huge insects and animals. She really didn't want to encounter another insect almost as tall as a person, similar to a centipede.

"......&**%......" Titus squatted down, said something to Cloudy, then pointed towards the rainforest, making a ferocious face.

He bared his somewhat sharp teeth, his six round pupils suddenly turning into vertical slits, and a low growl like a wild beast came from his throat.

"W-what's wrong!" Titus's appearance scared Cloudy, who took two steps back, raising her hands as if to hit him. "It's too sudden for you to eat me now, aren't we friends?"

Titus's expression suddenly returned to normal. He closed his eyes, shook his head, then pointed towards the rainforest again, making a fierce expression, and very slowly said to Cloudy, "Cloudy, inside. Death."

What Titus said here was not Cloudy's native language, but a rough translation of what Cloudy had just learned from Titus. Titus must have said something else, but unfortunately, Cloudy had not learned enough yet, so she could only roughly analyze that Titus was reminding her that the rainforest was very dangerous, and she'd better not go in alone.

And making this fierce expression was probably also a reminder that there were extremely fierce beasts in the rainforest. Of course, she already knew that without Titus's reminder...

Cloudy was excited, her ears turning red, not for anything else, but because she could understand Titus's language a little bit. And Titus was also concerned about her safety... which meant he would come over for the next few days to check on her recovery from the poisoning?

Seeing Cloudy nodding continuously, Titus felt relieved. He reached out and grabbed Cloudy's arm, leading her towards the east side of the rainforest, talking as they walked. This time, he spoke very slowly. Although Cloudy listened, she didn't understand what Titus was saying.

After about half an hour of walking, Cloudy...
Titus led her to the remains of the huge crocodile they hunted a few days ago.

"Wow..." Cloudy looked up at the wreckage in front of her. There was only a set of eerie white bones left, embedded in the lush green grass, looking like some kind of desolate modern artwork from afar. There were no internal organs or chunks of flesh left, not even a hint of decay. Just bones.

Unable to resist, Cloudy walked into the space between two rows of ribs, gazing up at the sky divided by the ribs, feeling a sense of wonder. She circled around the bones several times, even poking around the crocodile's skull. Cloudy's head could even pop out from the eye sockets of the skeleton.

"... It feels like the playground's children's fort slide," Cloudy thought, feeling slightly pleased. She decided to name this giant creature the Fortress Crocodile. Besides playing around, Cloudy also found some new bone fragments. This time she only took the thinly sliced, sharp ones, leaving the more blunt ones behind to save space.

While Cloudy was trying to extract the last remaining value from the wreckage, Titus squatted next to the smallest rib bone in the wreckage, continuously digging downwards. When the rib bone loosened a bit, he stood up, grabbed the bone with both hands, and with a forceful twist, the whole rib bone came off the mud and skeleton.

"What are you doing?" Cloudy collected her fragments and ran over to Titus to see what he was up to.

Titus laid the removed rib bone flat on the grass nearby. This bone was about three meters long, with a cross-section slightly thicker than Cloudy's calf.

She tried to lift the bone but couldn't. She remembered how effortlessly Titus handled bones as if they were straws... Their strength and speed were beyond her comparison. Thinking about this, Cloudy became curious about what their women were like.

Titus gestured for Cloudy to move aside, then circled around the bone, continuously bending over to tap and knock on it. Finally, he stopped at a quarter of the bone, vigorously hitting it with a stone he picked up, and after several strikes, the bone cracked.

"*(&...!" Titus waved for Cloudy to come over. When Cloudy squatted in front of him, Titus picked up the bone, now broken into several large pieces. He turned it over, revealing some dark-colored, slightly disgusting organs inside, emitting a very unpleasant sewer-like smell.

Titus dug out a bit of that deep red, mud-like bone marrow from inside the bone and handed it to Cloudy: "Here."

What is this?! Can she really put this in her mouth?!

However, Cloudy just resisted in her mind. After all, this was food handed to her by Titus himself. What did that mean? It meant it was edible, and it must be good! Closing her eyes, Cloudy leaned in and ate the marrow mud from Titus's finger...

And then promptly spat it out.

It was too awful!! The taste...
The taste... Ugh! Cloudy covered her mouth, coughing uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Titus blinked innocently beside her, "?"

Cloudy had never eaten poop, but perhaps this thing was not much different from it. Initially, the soft, mushy bone marrow mud contained some small lumpy bits, not hard but the texture mixed in the goo made it even more disgusting. The smell was also... It wasn't exactly poop smell, nor was it body odor... It was bearable just by smelling it, but the moment it touched her mouth, the stench exploded.

It was too much, too much. Cloudy shook her head repeatedly, "No, I really can't eat this." Seeing Cloudy's resistance, Titus scratched his head, cleaned out all the marrow from the bone, pushed it aside, then scraped off some grass around, wiping the inside of the bone clean.

After cleaning the bone, Titus picked up a nearby stone, and with a few strikes, he made one side of the palm-sized bone fragments sharp, and the other end he polished with the stone, crafting a simple handle. After waving it a few times, he handed it to Cloudy.

Even though she couldn't eat it, was this meant to be held as a weapon...? Feeling a bit embarrassed, Cloudy accepted the bone knife Titus made on a whim. The difference between them was really significant. Not only was the bone blade she made herself lacking a grip, it was also not sharp.

After handing the bone knife to Cloudy, Titus returned to the wreckage nearby, searching for something. Watching Titus busily searching, Cloudy felt a mix of emotions. Getting help was indeed very good for her, but Cloudy knew her personality well; she couldn't rely on others, which would be destructive for her.

In other words, in the past, she had often relied too much on others, leading to many periods of anxiety...

In the current predicament, the sudden appearance of Titus, who was full of good intentions towards her, could easily make her let down her guard and start seeing Titus as someone she could rely on, bringing her a sense of security.

Looking down at the bone knife in her hand, Cloudy needed to understand Titus better and learn basic survival skills from him. Instead of relying on Titus for everything, she had to draw a clear line in her mind. This place was not the familiar world she knew.

In her original world, if the person she relied on suddenly stopped cooking for her, she could just order takeout. It was different here. If one day Titus didn't show up outside her cave to bring her food, what would she do?

She only recognized a few things she could eat, and the last time she discovered a new fruit, it poisoned her.

As Cloudy delved into deep thoughts, it seemed like Titus had made a big discovery. He joyfully stood up, his hands cupped together as if he had caught something.

"What... What's going on?" Cloudy suddenly snapped out of her thoughts, looking at Titus who had already walked up to her. "What did you find?"

Titus opened his cupped hands.
In his palm was a handful of wriggling, tender yellow flesh worms. Each flesh worm was as big as Cloudy's two thumbs, their bodies translucent and plump like grapes, with a soft red thorn at the end of each.

"Not again..." Cloudy looked at Titus with some reluctance.

"There!"

Indeed!

Seeing Cloudy's hesitant expression, Titus thought for a moment, then placed all the worms on the ground from his palm. He picked out one of the smaller ones, pinched the red thorn at its tail with his fingers, and pulled hard.

The worm, now without its thorn, began to wriggle frantically, then stopped moving after a while, changing from its original yellow to a dry grass yellow. He happily held the dead worm, offering it to Cloudy near her mouth, "Cloudy, there!"

After much thought, Cloudy concluded, "I won't eat the live ones, but will I eat the dead ones?"

Staring at the flesh worm now right under her nose, Cloudy's mind was a storm of mixed thoughts.

"We're stranded here, and you're picky about what to eat? You should be grateful for anything edible. Open your mouth and eat!"

"But it's a worm! It's as big as a thumb! A flesh worm, dead or alive, is still a flesh worm. You're killing me!"

"Don't be ungrateful. You're not a princess from somewhere. If you don't want to eat, then starve."

"But it's a worm!"

Cloudy's mind was in chaos, unsure whether to eat it or not. Unfortunately, her mouth mechanically opened, swallowing the flesh worm from Titus.

The taste...

"Mmm..." Cloudy began to chew. Despite some initial resistance before it entered her mouth, the worm wasn't smelly at least. The texture was somewhat crispy, almost like crunchy sausage. Overall, it was tastier than the bone marrow mud from earlier. A little comparison makes everything better!

Cloudy smiled, crouching down to pick up more worms from the ground to eat, and Titus joined in happily.