In the early morning, the sun rarely comes out. The warm sunlight slowly shines into my rocky dwelling, and I feel a warmth on my eyelids, as if a hand is stroking my face.

I don't know if Top slept last night, but it's sleeping soundly now.

I didn't disturb Top's sweet dream. I quietly got up and went to the earthen stove made of stones. I hadn't been feeling well all day, so I hadn't eaten anything all afternoon.

I feel much better today than before; I feel refreshed and invigorated.

I found that I, who have never had a good appetite, was actually feeling a little hungry.

This is a good sign, proving that my antibiotics were successful. The bacteria and viruses in my body should have been eliminated.

My body is now starting to function normally again, and having not eaten much for many days, I naturally can't resist the hunger.

I started a fire beside the earthen stove. I had already eaten all the internal organs; now all that was left was some dried meat from the sand monster.

I put the dried meat into the boiling pot and cooked it for a while. The dried meat absorbed the water and regained its original shape, becoming somewhat elastic.

I poured the broth from cooking the meat into two bowls, then took some lard and put it into the pot. Soon the lard melted, and my stomach, which hadn't had any oily food in a long time, began to stir.

The boiled dried meat is stir-fried in lard, and the lard is immediately absorbed into the meat, soon releasing a caramelized aroma.

At that moment, Top's nose twitched, clearly having also smelled the aroma of meat. These past two days, it had been eating whatever was available to fill its stomach, so when it suddenly smelled the aroma of hot food, it naturally dashed over to me.

The broth was still a bit salty, so I poured out half of it and added the rest back into the stir-fried dried meat.

After simmering for a while, I added some more water and brought it to a boil, and also added some dried dandelions to stew together.

Soon Top and I were eating the meat soup. As I drank the perfectly salty and savory soup, I felt like my body had come back to life.

In just one meal, I ate up all the food I had lost over the past few days, and the little bit of dried sand beast meat left was eaten down to just a few pieces.

After eating and drinking my fill, I let out a satisfied burp.

Afterwards, I added a little salt to distilled water to prepare some saline solution. The maggots from yesterday were still there. I used the same method to make a tube of diluted antibiotic solution and injected it into my body.

I even left some high-concentration biological antibiotics. The places that were previously infested by horseflies are now swollen up like small hills, and you can still vaguely see the horsefly larvae's abdomens wriggling.

These larvae are already quite large now, and they will probably emerge from their cocoons in a day or two. At that time, it will probably be impossible to remove them intact.

These antibiotics happened to be used as disinfectants, so I took out the razor and applied a layer of antibiotics to it.

Next, use a sharp blade to cut a slit in the area where the horsefly has bitten you. The razor is very sharp, so the irritation from cutting the skin is much less.

Even with a razor, I still winced in pain the moment my skin was cut, my whole face turning into a mask of agony.

After cutting it open, use the hard barbs on the tiger thorn to insert into it, hold the body of the horsefly larvae, and slowly pull them out of the skin.

This was the first time I'd ever encountered this thing. You don't know until you see it, and when I actually pulled it out, I felt a chill run down my spine.

The largest larvae of the green bottle fly are only about the size of a grain of rice or popcorn, which I think is already quite large.

But these nearly fully grown horsefly larvae are even more exaggerated in size, almost three times the size of green bottle fly larvae, and about the thickness of a chopstick.

This thing has tiny, fine hooks in its mouthparts that can constantly disrupt the healing process of tissues. If it had been any later, I reckon they would have continued to produce more of these things inside my body after they emerged from their cocoons.

Just thinking about it makes my whole body tremble. This thing doesn't suck blood, but it's even more disgusting than a blood-sucking mosquito. Once it gets inside your body, it can stay for a week.

Without realizing it, I felt that the pain from the razor cutting my skin had lessened considerably.

It's just a small opening, it's nothing serious, I can handle it.

These things drive me crazy. Every time I pick them out of my skin, I shudder. What's worse, they even stung my butt twice.

You can't see from behind, so operating it is really a pain. I carefully held the razor to the back of my butt, afraid of using too much force and making another hole.

That really proves the saying: "The knife opened his eyes after pulling his butt."

I made the incision, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the tiger's stinger to accurately penetrate the horsefly larva. At that moment, I wished I had eyes on my butt; I twisted my head back so hard it would break, but I still couldn't get that thing out.

In the end, I had no choice but to hand the job over to Top and tell it to be gentle with my butt.

Top, who was doing this kind of work for the first time, was also very curious. After taking the tiger thorn from my hand, he poked and prodded my butt from left to right.

"Why!"

I screamed in pain.

"Top, you've poked the wrong spot. The suture in the middle was already there; the suture that's swollen up on the side is the real one!"

When Top suddenly hit my chrysanthemum, I felt cold sweat pouring down my forehead.

Fortunately, Top mastered the technique and managed to pull the two nasty bugs out of his skin.

At this point, all the horsefly parasites on my body were pulled out. Looking at the open wounds with fresh blood, there were actually eighteen such wounds.

This also means that there are at least eighteen of these disgusting things inside your body.

I really need to come up with a workable way to deal with this thing, otherwise I'll have a mental breakdown before I even leave this rainforest.

I remember that mosquitoes and flies really hate menthol, as long as they can find some wild mint.

If you crush it and apply it to your body, mosquitoes, flies, and leeches will all stay away from the smell.

Mint thrives in warm, moist, and well-drained soil. There's a stream here; following it might lead to some significant discoveries.

With a "let's give it a try" attitude, Top and I embarked on a journey to find wild mint.

I don't know if mint grows in the tropics, but it was quite common back in my hometown. I've heard that mint is very resilient, so maybe you can find some near this stream.

Top and I walked for an unknown amount of time, and considering the complex and unpredictable environment, and since my body hadn't fully recovered, we didn't dare go too far.