From the moment steam began to rise from the clay pot, the woman kept scooping out its contents with a wooden spoon and eating, continuing until she was completely full and her belly bulged. Then she added some cool water into the pot, and finally poured the greenish stuff from the clay pot into a naturally indented stone.

The youngest babies were wailing, while the children who could walk swarmed toward the stone, crowding around it like pigs, and finally dug out food with their hands to eat.

Without a doubt, Henry Carter was the cleverest one. After shoveling a mouthful of the warm food into his mouth, the strange taste made him want to vomit. He punched himself in the stomach to suppress the urge.

He ate a lot, as much as he could, stuffing his mouth with the green mush even when he couldn't eat anymore.

Having eaten too much, Henry Carter sat motionless like a statue. None of the adults paid him any attention; only a few hungry children gathered around him, with one even sticking out a tongue to lick the residue at the corner of his mouth.

When a person's face is being licked by five or six tongues, he can't help but feel like food himself. Henry Carter forcibly rolled away to one side, but no matter where he went, several hungry tongues always followed behind.

His stomach was very strong, extremely resilient. The diarrhea he had expected never came, and the children who had eaten the same food as him also did not get diarrhea.

It seemed that the children who would have gotten diarrhea had already been eliminated.

The fire in the cave gradually died down, still emitting thick smoke. By the time the sun came out, the smoke had thinned.

The women who had gone out to gather food returned, but the results were not ideal. There simply wasn't much food in the spring, and all they could bring back were some grass roots, grass seeds, and tree bark. Henry Carter also saw a piece of something resembling kudzu root or polygonatum.

He really wanted it, but unfortunately, the chief took it away and sat alone by a small fire, roasting it to eat.

The women looked very tired, sitting around the fire to warm themselves, nibbling on the wild vegetables they had gathered.

Everyone was waiting for the men to bring back more food, just like the day before yesterday.

Unfortunately, when the men returned, they only brought back two wild chickens and a wild rabbit.

The chief was furious, beating each man with a stick and uttering some monosyllabic words that Henry Carter couldn't understand.

Naturally, dinner was nothing special; they ate whatever they could find, and the chief showed no intention of using the stored food.

So, Henry Carter once again ate the same green mush as in the morning, only this time there were a few shreds of meat mixed in.

Henry Carter accurately found the woman who could protect him, threw himself into her arms, and affectionately nuzzled her chin with his head. The woman warmly embraced Henry Carter, and while everyone else was busy eating, she stuffed a bird egg into Henry Carter's mouth.

Henry Carter's mouth was stretched wide, and the woman, worried that others would notice the egg, held his chin and forcefully closed his mouth.

The bird egg cracked, and Yun Chuan sucked out the egg liquid, spitting out the broken shell, which the woman casually popped into her own mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed.

After eating, everyone went into the pitch-black cave. At this time, the cave was very warm, and unexpectedly, people discovered a large amount of food.

Judging by the number of centipedes roasted to death on the ground, Henry Carter once thought that this cave belonged to the centipedes, not to humans.

There were not only roasted centipedes, but also roasted snakes, roasted millipedes, roasted toads, scorpions, beetles, and so on.

The woman let go of Henry Carter, squatted down to pick up the poisonous insects, and ate centipedes with great skill. After twisting off the head, she held the centipede by the tail, pulled out a strip of white meat from the shell, tossed it into her mouth, and then grabbed another one.

Wherever she went, Henry Carter followed, until the woman found a large, crispy roasted bug, and only then did she remember she had a son.

The bug was charred black from roasting. Henry Carter bit into it with his few remaining teeth, and his mouth filled with rich juices. It was delicious—this was the taste of protein.

"Boom!"

A large rock fell from above the cave and landed next to the woman. She didn't seem surprised at all and continued squatting, searching deeper into the cave.

Chapter Five: The First Great Thief of Creation

Henry Carter followed behind the woman, pondering for a long time before finally deciding to follow her deeper into the cave to search.

He found a centipede that had been roasted to death in a crack in the rock. This centipede was huge, a full half a foot long, half of it charred, the other half still lifelike.

The woman received her son's gift, happily kissed Henry Carter's clean cheek, then pinched off the centipede's head, tilted her head back, and swallowed the entire centipede whole, just like slurping a noodle.

That night, the cave was brightly lit, and no one slept; everyone was searching for food.

Only the well-fed Henry Carter slept soundly.

The dry grass beneath him was new, with no bedbugs to bother him, no centipedes or scorpions to harm him, and no venomous snakes eyeing his tasty flesh.

This was almost the sweetest sleep he had had since arriving in the new world.

He woke up very late. If not for the intense hunger that forced him out of his dreams, he would not have gotten up at all.