Ashley Grant stared blankly at Henry Clark. After regaining consciousness, she visibly relaxed, then immediately said weakly, “What’s wrong?”

“You have a fever, a high fever.”

Ashley Grant still looked dazedly at Henry Clark, the alertness in her eyes already gone. Then she collapsed back onto the kang, saying feebly, “I’m so tired, so sleepy, let me sleep. Brother, I’m so cold…”

When she was constantly hungry, scared, and freezing, Ashley Grant never got sick. Now that she was well-fed and warm, she fell ill before even a night had passed. This left Henry Clark feeling quite helpless.

But this was normal. If Ashley Grant had gotten sick and developed a high fever before, she would have died—not just possibly, but definitely. So she couldn’t afford to get sick, and somehow she managed to hold on until now.

Ashley Grant was truly weak, extremely weak, even to a dangerous degree. Now that she could finally relax both mentally and physically, her body immediately collapsed in retaliation.

If there was a lack of medicine, Ashley Grant wouldn’t recover from this illness. However, Henry Clark wasn’t a doctor, but he did have medicine.

It was probably just a cold. The fever had to be brought down first. Then, Henry Clark thought it would be wise to take some antibiotics too, because if a cold developed into pneumonia, that would be trouble. Of course, taking cold medicine as well couldn’t hurt.

Henry Clark immediately took out the medicine he had prepared. He felt the water in the kettle—it wasn’t too cold yet. He quickly helped Ashley Grant up and had her take the medicine.

Already delirious from the fever, Ashley Grant soon fell into a deep sleep again.

This time, there was no need to share a sleeping bag. Henry Clark wrapped Ashley Grant tightly in a sleeping bag.

He really had brought home a handful of trouble, but Henry Clark was still willing.

Why? Because humans are social animals. Although Henry Clark didn’t particularly like crowds, he couldn’t stand loneliness either. Even if Ashley Grant couldn’t do any work and could only talk to him, it would still keep Henry Clark from going mad from prolonged isolation.

After finishing all this, what Henry Clark needed to do was go outside and get the kang stove burning again.

Henry Clark stepped outside and found that everything was already covered in a blanket of white.

Snowflakes were still falling. Henry Clark reached out to catch a few, feeling their icy chill.

No wonder it was so cold—it was snowing.

There was no time to admire the snowy scenery, nor to feel sad or happy about the first snow of winter. Henry Clark first got the kang stove burning, then started another fire to boil water and cook rice.

He cut off a small portion of the wild boar heart he’d saved from yesterday, chopped it into tiny pieces, put them into the 78 kettle, added water and brought it to a boil, then tossed in two small pieces of compressed biscuits to cook into a pot of porridge.

If it wasn’t necessary, Henry Clark wouldn’t use the compressed biscuits. But now, it was definitely necessary.

Carrying a box of porridge into the house, Henry Clark hadn’t even called Ashley Grant to get up when the sleeping Ashley Grant started sniffing. By the time Henry Clark sat down beside her, Ashley Grant had already opened her eyes.

There was no need to call her; Ashley Grant struggled to sit up on her own.

Usually, people don’t have much appetite when they’re sick, but Ashley Grant was clearly an exception.

After slurping down the whole box of porridge, Ashley Grant licked her lips with lingering satisfaction and said, “That was delicious, really delicious, just not enough.”

After saying this, Ashley Grant lay back down and went right back to sleep.

It was still not very bright outside. Ashley Grant didn’t need attention for now, so Henry Clark had to take care of himself. He went out, cooked himself a lunchbox of wild boar meat, and after eating, came back to check on Ashley Grant. Seeing her temperature had dropped a bit, he decided to go practice throwing his stones.

Training couldn’t be neglected, but now that he had Ashley Grant, and she was still running a fever, Henry Clark couldn’t go check the traps he’d set.

Since he couldn’t go out, he looked for something to do at home. The spear had broken yesterday, so today was the perfect time to fix the shaft.

Why did the spear shaft break yesterday? Because when Henry Clark went into the mountains, he only brought the spearhead and cut a temporary shaft from an elm branch, which wasn’t very sturdy to begin with.

The spear was very important—arguably the most important weapon. Henry Clark had long planned to replace the shaft. He had already sawn off a white ash branch, which had been air-drying for almost two months. It was a bit early to use it, but since the old shaft had broken, he had no choice but to use it now.

The front end of the white ash shaft was a bit thinner, the back end about as thick as an egg. Henry Clark had carefully selected it for the right length and thickness. The only issue was that, being a branch sawn from a tree, it wasn’t very straight, so it needed some adjustment to make a proper spear shaft.

He carefully scraped off the bark, whittled the front end into a cone, and then began smoothing the shaft—a time-consuming task.

By the time Henry Clark had almost finished polishing the shaft, Ashley Grant finally woke up.

“Brother, what are you doing?”

Ashley Grant’s voice was still weak. Henry Clark looked up and said, “Making a spear shaft. How are you feeling now?”

Putting down the shaft, Henry Clark got up and felt Ashley Grant’s forehead, then frowned and said, “The fever’s back. Take another antipyretic, and I’ll make you something to eat.”