Noah walked back to the window. In a flash, he opened the window and tossed the pack of meat outside, marking the spot where it landed to prevent it from being covered by snow and hard to find. He quickly closed the window, but a blast of cold air rushed in, making his skin prickle.
Noah had only now had the chance to look around the abandoned house. At the back of the house, there was an old-fashioned hand pump. Noah was ecstatic. If this water pump worked, they would have an endless water supply here until the snowstorm stopped, as it was connected to an underground water source.
Noah looked at the two cockroach legs lying on the ground. He closed his eyes and tried to change his thoughts. These are the legs of a king crab. He took a deep breath, picked up the two cockroach legs, and went downstairs to wash them clean. After that, he used a knife to painstakingly peel off the thick outer shell of the cockroach legs, and after sweating for a while, he finally retrieved two chunks of tender white meat, which indeed looked a lot like crab meat.
He quickly ran back to the warm fire, took out the two wooden skewers that had been washed earlier, quickly skewered the two chunks of cockroach meat, and placed them over the flames.
After a while, he turned the meat, occasionally lifting it to prevent it from burning, until finally, it was evenly cooked. He held the two skewers of meat and approached where Kai was lying, softly saying:
"The food is ready! Come sit up and eat a bit!"
Seeing Kai curled up and not responding, he gently tapped his shoulder and said:
"Get up and eat a little to regain your strength!"
Kai slowly raised his face; his complexion was pale, his breathing rapid, and his eyes were bloodshot, making it obvious that he was not well.
"What's wrong with you?" Noah exclaimed in panic.
"Cold." Kai said in a hoarse voice.
Noah placed his hand on his face and felt that Kai's body temperature had indeed dropped, and his hands were very cold.
"Has the wound gotten infected? I applied the anti-inflammatory medicine earlier." Noah said in a panic.
"Eat a bit, then take the fever-reducing medicine."
Noah was so flustered that sweat beaded on his forehead. He reached out to lift Kai, intending to feed him, but was rejected.
"I can eat by myself." Kai pushed Noah's hand away and said.
Kai's taste buds could no longer taste the food; he struggled to get the food into his mouth and swallow it.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Seeing Noah just sitting there watching him, Kai asked.
"You just eat." Noah shook his head and answered.
"Are you scared? If you don't eat now, later you might have to eat things that might be even more disgusting." Kai continued to chew and swallow the cockroach meat.
Noah realized this and snapped to attention; in the current situation, to survive, he had to eat whatever it was; he needed to eat to live and wait for the day the world would return to normal. He picked up a skewer of cockroach meat, closed his eyes, and put it in his mouth. It wasn't as disgusting as he thought.
The two quickly filled their hungry stomachs. After watching Kai finish eating, he handed him the medicine and some hot water to drink.
Noah took off his jacket and laid it on the ground, then gently helped Kai lie down.
Fifteen minutes passed, and at no point did Noah stop checking Kai's temperature. He placed his hand on Kai's forehead, but the body temperature was still decreasing. At this moment, his heart felt like it had skipped a few beats.
He didn't want to face this world alone; right now, the only person he knew was Kai, his best friend, and he didn't know how he was doing, while the last god was too far away. He truly couldn't bear to think about what would happen if Kai died. If someone as strong as he couldn't withstand this harshness, he surely couldn't.
"You have to hang in there!" Seeing Kai's increasingly pale face, his heart felt heavy.
Right now, Kai was probably fighting against the moment between life and death, so he likely couldn't hear what Noah was saying. His body trembled, his teeth clenched, yet still, he shivered violently.
Noah unzipped Kai's jacket, lying down close to him, intending to transfer his body heat to Kai.
That ice-cold skin also made Noah shiver with cold, but his body quickly began to adjust. Humans are warm-blooded animals; their body temperature is quite high, and they conduct heat quickly, which is more effective than using a blanket. If this still didn't help, he would have no other options. If Kai's body temperature continued to drop, death was inevitable.
"I'm just a weakling, I can't face the apocalypse alone. You can't die like this; you have to live! Live so that we can wait for the apocalypse to end together," Noah said with tears in his eyes.
Kai followed the warmth, turned over, and wrapped his arms around Noah, his embrace seeming to want to meld their bodies together. After a while, thanks to Noah's stable body temperature, his shivering stopped.
Noah gently reached up to recheck Kai's forehead, noticing that the temperature had stopped dropping. At that moment, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Throughout that day, they had experienced countless mixed emotions, from despair to overwhelming joy, leaving them very tired. Thus, they embraced each other and fell asleep.
The light streaming through the window and the fishy smell woke Kai up.
The moment he opened his eyes, Kai was startled. The warm body temperature of Noah made him feel very comfortable, but he wasn't used to such intimate contact. The realization that he had slept with a stranger he had only met a few hours ago made Kai feel very uncomfortable. Wanting to pull away but unable to do so, he also couldn't force himself to push away the person who had just saved his life, so he ended up tapping Noah's face.
Noah felt like someone was slapping him a few times while he was half asleep. He woke up, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Kai's icy face right in front of him, slapping his cheeks to wake him up.
"What's that smell? It makes me want to vomit." Noah rubbed his eyes and asked.
"The rotting cockroaches." Kai replied coldly.
"Disgusting!" Noah looked at the decaying pile of cockroaches on the ground, crawling with wriggling maggots. The room was filled with a smell that made one nauseous.
"It's only been a few hours, and they've already started to decay like this." Kai said, looking at the wriggling maggots.
"Have you recovered?" Noah asked, pinching his nose.
Kai said: "Get up." Although his voice was hoarse, Noah felt that his face had already turned a bit rosy.
Noah happily exclaimed, continuing to hug Kai while the two were lying close together: "Do you know how worried I was yesterday? I thought you would die. If you died, I wouldn't know what to do." From the moment they met until now was the happiest moment for Noah; he smiled brightly with tears welling in his eyes.