Protected by the unique pungent smell of the camphor tree, the protagonist slept safely until dawn.
As soon as he got up and stretched out as usual, the protagonist felt that his injury was recovering well. Just this stretching action made my teeth clenched in pain yesterday morning. Now there is only a slight pulling sensation on my back, not too severe pain.
The protagonist touched his right hind limb again, and it seemed that it didn't hurt that much anymore. The protagonist took two steps in the gap between the bark of the tree where he was resting. Sure enough, yesterday his foot hurt when it touched the ground and he had to carry it. Today he can barely touch the ground with a limp.
This is an unexpected surprise. The protagonist has rarely been injured before, so he didn't realize that his healing ability is so strong. Before, the protagonist was pessimistic and thought that it would take a hundred days to break his muscles and bones.
However, after the joy passed, the protagonist felt that his stomach was even more thirsty and burning, as if the stomach acid was protesting crazily and even starting to erode the stomach wall.
With no food to eat, the protagonist could only endure it and crawled out of the place where he spent the night.
At this moment, the sun has not completely risen from the horizon, and the sky has just turned fish belly white. Normally, the protagonist would not get up so early as long as he had the conditions. I didn't sleep well last night, so I woke up early in the morning.
However, getting up early naturally has the advantage of getting up early. Suddenly, the protagonist's eyes lit up, so he climbed up a nearby branch, then lay down on the camphor leaves and drank to his heart's content.
What he drinks is the dew that condenses on the leaves in the morning.
Dew was often considered a very mysterious thing by the ancients, and was even specially collected to make tea and make elixirs. In fact, when ground objects are cooled by strong radiation at night, the temperature of the air in contact with the surface of the object drops. After it drops to the "dew point", there is Excess water vapor precipitates, and the excess water vapor condenses into water droplets and adheres to ground objects. This is dew. There are no special ingredients.
In the eyes of humans, dewdrops are crystal clear, transparent and shiny in the sun, and disappear easily. This is why it is endowed with a lot of beauty in literature or art. But the protagonist is so tall, he can see the turbid soil inside the dewdrops...
If he wasn't too thirsty, the protagonist wouldn't be willing to drink this kind of water.
After drinking enough, the protagonist feels that his physical strength has recovered a lot. But he didn't rush to get on the road, but waited until the sun rose high. At this time, the nocturnal predators completely returned to their nests.
Although there are many predatory insects during the day, they are still easier to deal with than those who are good at sneak attacks at night, at least for a strong man like the protagonist.
Today, the injury has lessened and the protagonist is walking faster than usual. He saw the direction of the sunrise from the height of the camphor tree and confirmed that he had not gone in the wrong direction yesterday.
So the protagonist continued to move due south, overcoming various obstacles along the way and maintaining a forward speed of about twenty to thirty meters per hour. This speed is much faster than yesterday, but it is still slower than the speed of ants on flat land with fewer obstacles.
Fortunately, the protagonist did not encounter any dangerous insects along the way. Instead, many timid gnats were frightened by the protagonist.
There are also big bugs, such as earthworms crawling out of the ground in the dark, giant snails, etc. They are all vegetarian and docile bugs, and the protagonist will not be attacked even if he passes by them.
The protagonist couldn't help but think that the forest was not as dangerous as it seemed!
But the protagonist's stomach is getting hungrier unstoppably, and he even feels like he can't walk. The little water he drank in the morning cannot offset his hunger.
Although there are many insects around, the protagonist has never hunted alone, nor does he want to catch an insect and eat it alive. After being a human being for so many years and living in a country rich in gourmet food, the protagonist still has some bottom lines when it comes to diet.
The protagonist can only keep paying attention to the plants around him. It would be great if there was a pine cone full of pine seeds. The pine seeds are still cracked, and the kernels inside are wrapped under a thin and crispy skin. The kernels are light yellow, and they are all full after one bite. It's oil!
But it's spring now, and last year's pine nuts have long been eaten up by various insects, and the rest have been buried by dead branches and loose soil, so the delicious pine nuts can only exist in the protagonist's fantasy and saliva.
Such hopeful observation is not without rewards. The protagonist sees a malnourished shepherd's purse. This small shepherd's purse barely survives on the forest floor and has actually bloomed.
Shepherd's purse is widely distributed in temperate regions around the world. The whole plant can be used as medicine, the stems and leaves are eaten as vegetables, and the seeds contain oil. In the protagonist's impression, the meat-filled dumplings wrapped with shepherd's purse are particularly delicious.
This shepherd's purse has already bloomed, the leaves are probably old, and the seeds have not been produced. The protagonist tried to take a bite, and sure enough, the fiber was very thick, very chewy, and tasted very bad when eaten raw.
The protagonist reluctantly swallowed it and then gave up. The body began to resist eating. Although they are omnivorous insects, big-headed ants still eat more meat than vegetarian food. Vegetarian food also eats some nutritious seeds. Unlike cabbage caterpillars, which like to nibble leaves, this may be because the ants lack enzymes and microorganisms in their stomachs to digest raw vegetables.
The protagonist continues to move forward, but once he is on the road, he senses something is wrong.
This feeling of something wrong was not due to any unusual sound or smell, but rather a sense of vigilance emerging from the bottom of my heart.
The protagonist didn't dare to be careless. He raised his head and looked around. There were too many obstacles around him and he couldn't see anything unusual at all. I felt the air with my tentacles. The air flow in the forest was not violent. There were various rotten smells and damp smells in the air. There were also various sounds: the rustling of leaves, the occasional chirping of insects, etc., but I couldn't smell it. Nothing unusual could be heard.
The protagonist was not completely relieved, but he could not stop moving forward. He cautiously took three steps and then turned back, continuing to move forward, trying to walk on an open road where he would not be easily ambushed.
At this time, a bright red color right in front caught the protagonist's attention.
what is that? It's too far away and the protagonist can't see clearly. All he can see is a red round thing?
In nature, such bright colors on animals are generally warning colors, meaning they are poisonous and not easy to mess with, or they pretend to be not easy to mess with.
Is this a ladybug? Or a lily beetle? For a moment, the protagonist can only think that these two bugs are red and round.
Lily beetles are okay, they are vegetarian. But ladybugs are carnivorous, and smaller ladybugs will eat aphids. The protagonist of larger ladybugs has personally seen them dare to attack pavement ants during the wedding flight ceremony.
What on earth is this? It's blocking the protagonist's direction. If you go around it, you might have to walk half an hour longer.
After observing for a while, the protagonist noticed that this round red thing did not move. Could it be an insect?
The protagonist boldly moves forward little by little. As long as he is not attacked by a sneak attack, the protagonist will not be afraid of any fierce insect with all his strength!
