I watched as the harpy eagle struggled and cried out, its beak pointing directly at me.

To be honest, I was still a little nervous. The most powerful features of birds of prey are their claws and beaks. Getting pecked by their beaks is no joke.

At first, I thought I'd chop the harpy eagle down and take it home to make chicken soup. But then I thought, given its size, keeping it might be more useful.

This bird of prey's beak is like a sharp pair of scissors. If a wild animal only manages to bite a few bloody holes with its teeth, the bird of prey's beak can definitely tear off a large chunk of bloody flesh in one bite.

I carefully circled around behind the harpy eagle, but the creature wasn't stupid. Knowing that its claws' advantage had been limited, it wasn't going to let me easily control its only weapon—its beak.

Unfortunately, it wasn't an owl. Now the harpy eagle's claws were firmly restrained, and its neck couldn't turn around to attack me from behind.

I slowly put my hand around the back of its neck. At that moment, the harpy eagle tried to make a final struggle, but it was to no avail.

I seized the opportunity and grabbed the harpy eagle by the neck from behind, right under its head. After flapping its wings symbolically for a while, the harpy eagle gave up struggling and lay down on the basket, panting heavily.

We were now up in a tree over twenty meters high, so I dared not be careless. I took out a special hemp rope used for stringing fish and used a pig's hoof knot to firmly bind the horned eagle's claws.

This hemp rope is oil-soaked and very strong, so there's no need to worry about the harpy eagle damaging it. To be even more secure, I also need to restrain the eagle's beak.

However, I don't have an eagle beak sheath on hand right now, so I can only temporarily wrap it around its beak several times with thin hemp rope, and then tighten it from the inside like tying a knot on a fishhook.

"Squeak!"

When Top saw me again, he was incredibly excited, squeaking and chattering, but he still didn't let go of the branch. Clearly, the poor monkey was terrified.

"Shut up, the harpy eagle is already tied up, we need to get down, Top."

As I spoke, I tied the harpy eagle, which was bound hand and foot, to its waist with a hemp rope. The harpy eagle, which had already resigned itself to its fate, stopped struggling and became as obedient as an old hen.

Once Top saw that I had subdued the harpy eagle, it released its grip on the tree trunk and ran to me.

Top poked the harpy eagle with his finger, feeling both curious and a little scared.

Harpy eagles love to eat monkeys, and this was Top's first close encounter with its natural enemy, making him both nervous and excited.

"Let's go, Top."

I called out to Top and then took out the twisted vine I had used earlier and wrapped it around the trunk of the big tree in preparation for going down.

"Hmm? What's wrong, Top?"

Seeing that Top was still circling on the tree branch and showed no sign of coming down, I asked him a question, somewhat puzzled.

Top pointed to the tree, then spread its arms to show its size, and then pointed to itself. Having spent so much time with Top, I understood its gestures immediately.

Top meant that the tree was too big for him to hug and he couldn't climb down it.

That's when I realized that I had to use vines to extend my arms so that I could hold onto the tree trunk firmly when I came up.

Although Top is a monkey, our physical structure is essentially the same, and the principle of climbing trees is also to hug the tree and climb up.

If even he couldn't hug the tree, Top, being just a monkey, had even less chance of doing so.

Top is not light; conservatively estimated, he weighs over 30 kilograms.

If it were flat ground, it would be fine, but here it's more than ten meters above the ground, and it's already quite difficult for me to climb up by myself. Now I'm carrying a harpy eagle on top of me, and if I were to carry a monkey on top of that, it would probably be very dangerous.

For safety reasons, I took some thin hemp rope, twisted it into a rope, made a loop in the same way, and then twisted it into a figure-eight shape to form a braid.

The only difference is that the two ends of the stick are replaced by loops around the balls of the feet. This way, when going down, the feet form a semi-circle against the tree trunk, which increases the friction and reduces the pressure on the arms.

"Top, come on up. Hold on tight to my neck, we're getting ready to go down."

I called out, and Top immediately jumped onto my shoulders like a child riding a horse, his legs crossed and his hands on my head.

"You damn monkey, what are you doing grabbing my hair? Put your hand down!"

I scolded him, and Top obediently put his hands down and then gently wrapped them around my forehead.

I planned to continue like this, but when I got to the tree trunk, I realized that this idea was simply not feasible.

Because my arms were extended by the vines, my upper body and feet were in an inverted triangle shape.

Without any external force, my center of gravity is concentrated downwards on my feet. But if Top sits on my shoulders, my center of gravity shifts to my upper body.

In particular, the pressure on the lower back increases exponentially. The weight of more than 30 kilograms acting on the lower back feels like having a stone weighing tens of kilograms placed on your chest while doing sit-ups.

"Top, no, no! You go up there right away."

I suddenly felt like my back was about to break, so I quickly told Top to go back to the original branch.

Upon hearing this, Top obediently jumped back onto the tree branch, then stared at me expectantly, somewhat at a loss.

I couldn't free my hand at that moment, so I could only gesture to Top by bowing my head and pointing to where I was pointing.

"Top, get down and hold my waist, we're coming down now."

Top jumped onto my shoulder and sat down, then waited for me to climb down.

I kept gesturing with my head and shouting things like "Go downstairs." After a long while, Top seemed to understand what I meant, and he climbed up my body to my chest and waist, pulling my clothes tighter.

This time, Top moved to my waist and abdomen, shifted my center of gravity down, and returned to my feet. I felt my body instantly become much lighter.

I started moving down little by little, first bracing my feet against the ground, then moving down a short distance at a time along the vines that wrapped around the trunk.

Once the vines above are securely fastened, the semi-circular circle formed by the hemp rope underfoot moves down half a meter.

After carefully climbing for about five minutes, Top and the harpy eagle finally made it back to solid ground.

I let out a long breath and looked at my hands, which were red from being cut by the wooden stick, with some minor abrasions in some areas.

At that moment, Top ran off as soon as it hit the ground, and I had no idea what it was going to do. After a short while, it returned to my side, looking somewhat disappointed.

"What's wrong, Top?" I asked, somewhat curious.

Top looked at me, his eyes filled with disappointment as he pointed to his basket.

During the fight with the harpy eagle, quite a few taro fell out of the basket.

Now I see that Top's basket, which was originally full, has only yielded a few broken taro roots. No wonder it was disappointed.