Seeing this, I was somewhat moved. This spider was so similar to the one that survived when I set the mountain on fire.
They were all already mutilated, yet they still stubbornly lived on. At that moment, an absurd thought arose in my mind: Did I still have a chance to live?
I feel lost, like standing in a bustling metropolis, watching the traffic on the main street, not knowing what I'm pursuing with my whole life.
Nobody can tell me what to do now, and I don't know myself.
I want to live, and I dream of one day returning to my own world and finding my familiar family members.
But just surviving is so difficult, how can I save myself?
I felt like a lost, confused ghost wandering through this forest, with Top following me closely. Having learned from my previous experience, it stayed within a meter of me.
I know there's no point in continuing like this. If Top wanted to leave, it could have easily abandoned me and the monkey troop when they were besieged by the black ant swarm back in their hometown and fled for their lives.
But Top didn't do that; it truly considered me an important friend in its life. Even when its entire troop of monkeys fled, it still resolutely embarked on the journey with me.
So I have to live, I absolutely must live. If I die, how will my friend, who is so devoted to me, continue on this path?
Dragging my shaky body, I returned to my lodgings.
Lying in bed, I was thinking about how to deal with this situation. I figured that ordinary herbal medicine wouldn't be very effective, so I could only think of intravenous injections as a solution.
The antibiotic I know of is penicillin, which is an antibacterial drug extracted from Penicillium mold.
However, extracting penicillin requires the use of vegetable oil for adsorption, and whether or not such vegetable oil can be found at present is another matter.
The time required to produce the penicillin mold and then to test the efficacy of the penicillin takes several days. Even if I could produce it, I don't know if my body could withstand that long.
I still have some herbs, but they only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. I feel that these herbs can only sustain me for about three days at most, and after that, if no suitable treatment is found, I will most likely lose my life.
I took all the medicine out of the basket; it was a motley collection of all sorts of herbs. I selected some that could clear heat and detoxify for later use.
I have one last method, but it is extremely risky. Everything I've come up with is just a combination of theories, and only a genius knows how effective it will be.
However, before implementing this method, I need to hold onto this broken body for at least three days. After three days, we'll see whether it's good or bad.
I steeled myself and decided to go all out; my priority today is to survive.
I mixed several herbs with detoxifying properties together and then boiled them in half a bamboo tube of water. Because the infection had become somewhat serious, I increased the dosage of the herbs.
After letting the decocted medicine cool, I drank it down without hesitation. Afterward, I lay down to rest; I needed to recover before proceeding with the next step.
As for whether the medicine I drank will work and temporarily relieve my pain, that's up to fate.
Top was a little worried when it saw that I had just come back and fallen asleep again. It tugged at my hand, trying to get me to stay awake.
I turned around, smiled, looked at Top, patted its paw, and said...
"Don't worry, Top. I'm just taking a rest, I'll be fine."
Seeing that my expression seemed to have returned to its previous state, Top obediently let go of my hand and quietly sat down beside me, watching me lying on the bed.
Perhaps because of the medicine I had taken, I fell into a deep sleep not long after lying in bed.
I woke up in the afternoon. I feel much better now, but I know it's just the medication suppressing the spread of bacteria, and it's all temporary.
But that's enough. Next, I need to hurry up and help myself.
I still have a few small taro roots that I dug up by the stream. I haven't been able to bear eating them, thinking I'll plant them in a place with suitable soil when I get there.
They can now come in handy, because I'm making a pathogen indicator and don't need a large quantity, so I only took the smallest taro.
First, get the fire back on and heat the pot.
I put the taro in a jar and mashed it with a wooden stick. Then I poured a small amount of water into a pot and put the mashed taro in to cook.
These taro roots need to be cooked until they reach a thin porridge consistency. This taro porridge is used as a nutrient source for inoculating the virus. Therefore, nothing other than water, such as salt, can be added.
After the taro paste cooled down, I used a tiger thorn to prick a small hole in my festering arm, and white pus immediately flowed out from the wound.
This is the pathogen that caused my infection. Now I need to inoculate them into the taro paste to make them multiply.
Now I need to find my lifeline, but before that, I need to catch some live fish in the stream to attract the thing that can save my life, as they are especially sensitive to fishy smells.
Catching fish used to be no problem for me, but times have changed. My body is still too weak to make traps now.
Right now, we can only use the most primitive methods to catch a few small fish.
I cut a stick out of a bush. The water in this stream isn't very deep in some places, so I figured I could create a huge sound wave by tapping it around the fish and stun some of them.
This method works on the same principle as hitting a rock with a hammer; both utilize the sudden impact of sound waves to stun the fish.
I took the stick and went to a shallow spot where several small fish, about two fingers wide, were swimming upstream.
I gritted my teeth and, with all my might, slammed the stick down hard on the spot where the fish were. Water splashed everywhere, and two fish immediately floated belly-up in the water.
After using a stick to pull the fish closer and put it in my bag, I used the same method to stun the fish in the same spot and got a few more fish of medium size.
After getting the fish, I didn't linger and headed straight for my lodging. I wasn't worried that what I wanted wouldn't come; as long as I had these fish, they would naturally come to me.
On the way back, I found some resilient *Paederia scandens* vines. These vines also bear a medicinal herb, *Polygonum multiflorum*.
However, this medicine is not very useful for me at the moment. I only took some of its vines, which may come in handy later.
After returning to my lodgings, I cut a one-meter section of the appropriately sized vine and soaked it in a jar filled with wood ash water.
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