Because of my weak body, this kind of work is nothing to me normally, but now I'm already panting heavily.
My fur coat had been soaked through by the rain during my fight with those two sand monsters.
Although it's not cold now, wearing wet clothes is not good for your health at all; it will only aggravate the dampness invading your injured knee.
There was no one else around except for a monkey, so I took off my fur-lined onesie and put it aside. Without the wet clothes binding me, I felt much more refreshed being completely naked.
However, the clothes still need to be dried as soon as possible; it's fine during the day now. At night, the temperature on the mountainside cliffs will drop by five or six degrees.
In addition, my body is currently weak, and not having any way to keep warm at night may increase the burden on my body.
I bent down and found something tucked up like a bird's nest deep inside the crevice.
This appears to be a nest made of hay by a mountain rat, abandoned here for a long time, but it would be a good material for making tinder.
It had just rained, so dry branches weren't easy to find. I could only find some dry branches in the crevices and depressions near the campsite; most of the rest were just wet pieces of wood.
However, some dry branches are enough; the other wet wood can be left to dry temporarily by the fire.
This type of wood is already dry; only the outer layer gets wet from the rain. After being baked, it can be used as fuel.
Back at my lodging, I placed the wood I had gathered on the ground. I took out a small piece of nitrocellulose tinder and placed it on the rat's nest. I used the back of my machete to strike the basalt, creating sparks, and easily ignited the rat's nest.
The fire crackled and popped, and soon the flames were burning steadily. Looking at the warm, orange-red glow, I felt a surge of excitement.
I've only done a little bit of work, and I'm already feeling dizzy again. There's nothing I can do now; I can only work for one minute and then rest for ten.
Sitting on the dry, sandy ground, I began to clear away the blood-sucking leeches. After walking for so long, my legs were now covered with a dense swarm of leeches.
They have now spread to my groin, and my injured left knee is covered with leeches, probably because of the smell of blood.
At first, I was worried that these leeches would cause an infection in my left knee, but I smiled wryly and thought about it again.
If the injury on my arm were to become infected, it would probably have already entered the bloodstream by now.
Seeing that my knee was still covered in bruises, I thought I'd just let the leeches continue to suckle from that area. The situation was already bad enough; how much worse could it get?
When I was a child, I saw some elderly people in the countryside treat bruises in this way, but they used the kind of large leeches that grow in paddy fields.
It's said that leeches suck out stagnant blood from the body, making injured areas heal faster. I haven't verified this claim, but I know that leeches are a traditional Chinese medicine ingredient.
Leeches have the effects of promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, dispelling wind and dampness, and relieving pain. Their saliva contains an antithrombin that can activate stagnant blood and then suck it out through their mouthparts.
I suppose there's some truth to that, and since I have no better options right now, I can only try it as a last resort.
I don't hold back when it comes to leeches from other places. I catch them and throw them directly into the fire. With a crackling sound, those blood-sucking leeches are all turned into charcoal.
The internal organs of the sand beasts couldn't be left for too long, and I wasn't in the mood to prepare them carefully at the moment. I simply smeared them with herbal frost on the bottom of the pot and threw them into the fire to roast.
Next, the meat of the sand beasts that had been brought back was processed with a knife. This meat also needed to be dried as soon as possible to facilitate preservation.
I am too weak to go out and cut down some branches to make a frame for smoking meat.
There were many chunks of rock below the crevice. I moved some of these rocks to the fire, rubbed the cut meat strips with some fine salt, and then placed them directly on the rocks to let the fire roast them naturally.
There wasn't much meat, and I finished cutting it all up in no time. After laying it out on the stone slab, I started using a cleaver to remove the tiger thorns.
This place relies on it as the first line of defense for security.
The history of chevaux-de-frise dates back thousands of years. They were generally used as roadblocks to stop people, livestock, and horses from passing through. In ancient times, they were also used near military camps to prevent enemy cavalry from launching surprise attacks.
The place I need to block is at the narrowest point of this winding path, about ten meters from my residence.
The crack in the rock wall above was less than 80 centimeters long, and the distance from the crack to the cliff outside was only about one meter. I had to squat down and lower my head to pass through when I came in.
The area here isn't large; three tiger spikes are enough to block the road. I used a machete to cut the tiger spikes into more than ten pieces, sharpened one end, and heated it over a fire until it was black and hard.
In rural areas, thorny shrubs are often planted around fences around farmland to prevent cattle and sheep from entering damaged crops.
I did not remove those thorny branches; these hard thorns can strengthen the defense of my dwelling.
Then I carefully used vines to weave and fix these roadblocks of varying heights, arranged in a triangular pattern on the wall, into shape.
Now, as long as it is placed outside, the base will sink firmly into the ground due to external force, and no matter how much force the animals outside use to push it in, they will not be able to push it in.
Just to be on the safe side, I tied three more ropes to the inside of the barricade and secured them to the wooden sticks wedged into the stone gaps, and pulled them taut. That completed the spiked security door.
Unless I open it from the inside, no wild beast could possibly break through my defenses.
After doing all this, I felt that my body had reached its limit, and a drowsy feeling washed over me like a tide.
After eating some roasted liver, I took out the thatch I had brought back and spread it on the ground, then used the pigskin as a moisture-proof mat on top of the thatch.
I've prepared plenty of firewood; enough for at least tonight.
Once my fur coat was dried, the jerky next to me was almost done roasting, so I handed some of the roasted jerky to Top.
I put the remaining jerky and two large pieces of offal back into the basket. Especially the offal, I deliberately roasted it until it was quite dry in order to preserve it for a longer time.
When I put my fur coat back on, I felt as heavy as if my eyelids were filled with lead, and drowsiness washed over me like a tide.
After instructing Top to keep an eye on the fire, I lay down on the pigskin mat, fully clothed, and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
During this sleep, I had another dream.
In my dream, there was a dark wilderness, and I was standing at the edge of it, unable to see anything but desolation.
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