During the day, they continued tirelessly catching fish. In the countless puddles left behind after the river receded, there was an endless supply of fish.

It wasn’t just fish—they even caught a turtle as big as a washbasin.

The turtle meat was pulled out by force, leaving Henry Carter with a complete turtle shell. His mother used the toughest vines to weave a bottom for the shell, and then, under Henry Carter’s direction, drilled four holes in the shell and tied on straps made from smashed vine fibers. Just like that, he had a turtle shell backpack.

The turtle shell was a glowing green, though no one knew what species of turtle it was.

The great fire on the grassland hadn’t gone out, continuing to spread slowly into the distance. As for this situation, Henry Carter didn’t care.

Wherever the fire reached, it would surely drive those terrifying predators far away. As for the thick smoke caused by the burning, it had already shrouded the sky.

The smoke had its benefits too—it drove away the big birds that competed with them for fish.

After washing up, his mother was still just as ugly... The older tribespeople, after cleaning up, were still just as ugly, and as for those young girls who had just started to develop small bumps on their chests, they were so ugly it was hard to look at them.

However, when these ugly people looked at Henry Carter, their gazes were off as well. Many of their expressions were basically ones of dislike.

A bunch of fools.

Henry Carter felt that he really needed a pair of shoes and a set of clothes. A life of running around naked every day didn’t matter much to little kids, but he still had a sense of shame.

With his mother only having a short leather skirt, the rest of the tribe was, of course, even worse off.

The strong men were a bit better—most of them had a short leather skirt to cover their private parts. As for the younger ones, every single one of them was like Henry Carter, with their bare buttocks exposed.

This was a very poor tribe.

The whole tribe originally had only two hundred and sixty-four people, with just eighty-seven strong men. When his mother staged her coup, she killed one, and to eliminate future trouble, he killed another himself. Now, there were only eighty-five able-bodied men left.

These days, men were responsible for hunting, and the mortality rate was just too high.

There were many women, especially girls who somehow managed to grow up. According to Henry Carter’s experience during early childhood, it was a miracle that these girls could survive to adulthood. Of the children who entered infancy with him, this year, only he survived.

According to his mother, this year they would take a dozen or so girls to other tribes to exchange for the same number of girls.

If the other tribe didn’t have that many girls, they would trade a girl for a clay pot.

Henry Carter thought it might be better to trade dried fish, but his mother didn’t even mention the idea of bartering with dried fish.

Of course, Henry Carter understood the reasoning—if the tribe couldn’t reproduce, it would bring disaster upon them.

Still, he felt it was too much to trade girls for pots.

He could make clay pots himself, and his skills were inherited from the famous black pottery of Tacheng. These were far better than the three red clay pots the tribe treated as treasures.

When the sun slanted westward, the tribespeople set off for home carrying heavy loads of dried fish. There was so much dried fish that not only was every person covered in strings of fish, but the little wild ox carried even more on its back.

Finally, after bringing all the dried fish, the group trudged heavily, stepping on the ashes left by the burning grassland as they walked toward the hills.

Back home, there was still no rest. Storing all the dried fish became the top priority.

His mother stored all the dried fish in a small cave, but before doing so, she set a fire inside the cave.

This cave, like the big one, still had lots of bugs inside.

To be honest, since coming to the tribe, Henry Carter had eaten more bugs than he’d ever seen in his previous life.

He always thought that, as a hunting tribe, people would be holding spears and bows, slowly closing in on prey in the wild, then suddenly throwing spears and shooting arrows, and finally swarming in to kill and capture the prey.

He had even seriously considered setting traps to catch elephants...

But he was completely wrong.

Their main food turned out to be bugs and grass seeds. Killing a wolf made you a hero, and catching a wild boar or a bear was something that happened maybe once in a decade.

As for prey like elephants and tigers, that was something they didn’t even dare to dream about—those creatures were at the top of the food chain.

This world still belonged to the beasts. They lived freely and ruled the land.

Humans could only eke out a living on bugs and grass seeds in places where beasts were scarce.

Of course, this was the life of savages.

Henry Carter didn’t think of himself as a savage.

Chapter 10: Cavemen and the People of the Nest

The little wolf didn’t run away last night, and the little wild ox didn’t flee at the last minute either. They were good companions.

So, Henry Carter took them to the creek below the cave to bathe.

This was a massive undertaking. Not only did he have to wash the little wild ox and the little wolf, but most importantly, he had to de-bug them.

The only cleaning tools Henry Carter could use were lye and plant ash.

He spent the whole day doing nothing but cleaning the little wild ox and the little wolf.