Holy crap! What's going on?

I was a little scared. I had just thought I had been bitten by a few mosquitoes, but now it seemed that it was more than just mosquitoes that had bitten me.

I have a vague feeling that I must have been bitten by some kind of parasitic insect, such as the horsefly in the jungle.

When they bite their host, they simultaneously lay their eggs inside the host's body, using the constant body temperature of warm-blooded animals to incubate their eggs.

After hatching, the larvae will continue to secrete an enzyme that prevents wounds from healing, causing their skin to become red, swollen, and suppurating.

These maggot-like creatures don't have sharp mouthparts to eat muscles, so they feed on bacteria and putrid pus, a process that lasts about seven to eight days.

They only emerge from the skin to continue their horsemanal journey after they have pupated inside the body and become adult horseflies.

Thinking about this sent a chill down my spine. It felt as if countless worms were wriggling under my skin, causing my muscles to tremble slightly.

I never imagined that after surviving so many storms, I would still fall victim to a truly deadly creature in the jungle.

Most of the time, the deadliest creatures are not the large, ferocious beasts. It is these seemingly insignificant little things that kill hundreds of times more people each year than large predators.

I feel itchy all over, and I wish I could peel my skin off with a knife and pick out those damned bugs and tear them to pieces.

However, I know that horseflies themselves are not very harmful. In fact, some foreigners with peculiar ideas will use their bodies to raise these parasites, saying that this is the only chance a man can have to reproduce.

No wonder I said this lump hadn't gone away after all this time; it turns out there was something alive inside.

I feel disgusted just thinking about it. I'm not going to let it stay inside me any longer; I have to get it out.

These things usually require surgery, and then tweezers are used to pull them out of the skin.

It seems I have to put my plans to continue on the road on hold. I need to find a suitable campsite and set up a shelter first.

Removing these insects would inevitably involve surgery, and to avoid infection, I had to stay in the shelter for a while to wait for my wounds to heal.

I do have some wild Sichuan pepper leaves and thorns that I've collected.

I originally planned to use the Sichuan pepper leaves to make a tea to dispel dampness, but now I can crush them and use them as a folk anesthetic to relieve some pain.

Ideally, it should be made with the juice of Sichuan peppercorns, but it's almost impossible to find Sichuan peppercorns this season.

The Sichuan pepper thorns are intended to be used to make some delicate hooks and the like in the future, but it seems they will come in handy soon.

I need to hurry; I must build the shelter before I can collect the bugs. Otherwise, if I build it later, I might get an infection on my hands.

My anxiety grew, and I had unknowingly committed a major taboo in wilderness survival. Never be impatient; impatience will only lead to problems.

Perhaps because I was infested with horseflies, I was so focused on finding a suitable campsite that I completely ignored the muddy, slippery ground beneath my feet, which was already a mess.

Suddenly, I accidentally stepped on an oval-shaped stone covered in mud. The slippery mud immediately dissipated, and I lost my balance, my left knee hitting the stone.

The excruciating pain caused me to sit down on the ground, and the fall landed squarely on my kneecap. A short while later, the area swelled up considerably.

"hiss!"

I gasped in pain, and just then Top ran over.

Seeing me sitting on the ground, it squeaked and tried to pull me up, but how could it possibly move a person weighing over 100 pounds?

Just as I limped over to a tree and sat down to check my injuries...

A familiar rustling sound came from a bush about fifty meters away.

The next second, a huge swarm of black ants crawled out of the anthill like an army that obeyed orders, and even the weeds they passed through were trampled flat.

"Top, let's run!" I shouted, urging Top to come back to my side.

Top had seen those fist-sized ants long ago. He remembered the past clearly, so he didn't dare to linger and followed me all the way back.

We've known these ants for a long time.

Back in my hometown, even in snowy weather, they would still come out of their burrows to forage for food. This creature was far more terrifying than those wild beasts.

Cold sweat streamed down my forehead. Ignoring the injury on my foot, I quickly dragged my injured leg and ran for my life before they could find me.

My knee was just injured, and now I was struggling to run away, the excruciating pain contorting my face.

"Damn it! My luck has really hit rock bottom today!"

The sharp pain in my foot made me angrily curse.

Top was getting anxious and started squeaking when he saw that I wasn't running fast enough. We had witnessed how ferocious those ants were; if they had targeted me today, I would have been dead for sure.

Fortunately, they seemed to be just passing by today and didn't notice me. After limping for a while, my legs just couldn't go on anymore.

I carefully pulled up my trouser leg, and at that moment my eyes fell on my left knee, which was swollen high. The red and swollen bruises showed that I had bumped it quite badly.

At that moment, the sky started raining again at an inopportune time. The ashes on my body were washed away by the rain, and the mud on my face peeled off in pieces.

Perhaps the leeches smelled blood; now, swarms of leeches in the grass are dancing in the air, mouthparts outstretched, trying to find suitable prey to climb.

I started to regret running away to this godforsaken place. Although my old home was also dangerous, it was still largely under my control, and there weren't these annoying vampires there.

However, once the arrow is released, there is no turning back; this is not the end, but merely the beginning.

The rain poured down, blurring the distant scenery. Just then, even worse news arrived.

Top suddenly pointed to a spot and shouted nervously.

Top's senses are very sharp; since it has sounded the alarm, there must be some threatening creature nearby.

At first I thought it was the ants that had come over, but when I looked in the direction Top was pointing through the hazy rain and mist, I didn't see a large, dark swarm of ants.

I could only see a black dot through the rain and mist; it was slowly moving closer to us.