The next day, before dawn had fully broken, the dark green tropical jungle lay in an unnerving silence.
"Hiss-"
Bai Chen opened his eyes and suddenly felt a faint, stabbing pain in his arm.
He quickly pulled back his sleeve. A large lump had swollen up near his elbow, with the stinger still embedded in it. The area looked puffy and hurt when he touched it.
He had felt no pain the previous night. Perhaps the stinger had a numbing effect, and now that it had worn off, the pain had suddenly hit him.
Judging by how swollen his arm had become, those hornets must have had some potent venom.
More importantly, he could not afford to get hurt in here. In an environment like this, bacteria could easily breed and cause a wound to become infected and deteriorate. If he failed to treat it promptly, it could quickly reach the point where he needed an amputation, or even cost him his life.
But Bai Chen had no medicine on him now, only a bottle of alcohol.
So he sprayed some alcohol on his hands before he dared to pull out the hornet's stinger.
Pain jolted through his brain. The sensation as he pulled it out was excruciating.
After removing the stinger, Bai Chen squeezed hard at his badly infected arm.
"Hiss-"
Only after several minutes did Bai Chen manage to squeeze out most of the blood and pus. Finally, he sprayed some alcohol over the wound.
By the time he finished, his forehead was covered in beads of cold sweat. He rested against the tree trunk for a while, then packed his things, stood up, and put out the fire.
He headed toward the stretch of forest that had been shrouded in thick fog the day before.
Fortunately, the