The gentle flowing water warmed him!
Like it was filled with the warmth of tender love, washing away the filth and blood from his wounds.
Half a minute later, a notification sounded in Lu Zhe's mind again!
Quest 2 complete, +1 potential point!
Keep adding to Constitution!
Next was suturing the wound!
He had wanted to look for army ants, but ants were more suitable for clamping strip-like lacerations. These bite marks were round holes and not suitable. He had to use traditional suturing methods!
He suddenly thought of Tang Xiaoguo's earrings. Each earring had a sharp, pointy hook that would work perfectly as a suturing needle.
What about thread?
Lin Qianqian's long hair would be the best material!
"Xiaoguo, do you still have your earrings?"
"Oh yeah, I still have them! What do you need them for?"
"Don't ask, hurry and take them out!"
Tang Xiaoguo obediently found her earrings and handed them over.
Lu Zhe took one and bit off the decoration with his teeth, leaving only the metal hook needle. "Qianqian, come over!"
"Oh..."
Lin Qianqian walked over in a daze. Lu Zhe tugged at one of her hair strands and Lin Qianqian yelped in fright.
Next, she watched as Lu Zhe tied her hair strand to the hook needle.
Then, under the dumbfounded stares of the five girls, Lu Zhe started suturing his own wounds!
Strangely, the originally tough wound edges easily allowed the hook needle to pierce through, as if they were fabric.
The girls all watched in shock.
In the moonlight, they could only see a delicate, blood-soaked young man dripping sweat as he gave himself sutures using his teeth and left hand.
Shen Bing had wanted to help since she had learned first aid and suturing during her police academy internship. But with the sun already set, she couldn't see the wound clearly at all. Her arms were also trembling from exerting too much force while drilling wood for fire.
She would be of no help at all in this situation!
"This kid is too fierce..."
"Is he not in pain?"
"Lu Zhe, do you...need help?"
"I need help!"
Lu Zhe said clearly, "Find that lighter and try to pick out the flint, then use the rusted parts of the knife to scrape it! I need to burn some palm sheath ash!"
Palm ash was a decent hemostatic agent in the wild, able to stop external and internal bleeding.
Also, they might still be attacked by beasts of prey in the deep night jungle!
Just that one bear had been so difficult to deal with. If another bear came...
She didn't dare imagine it!
But that flint...
After so long, could it still be used?
Shen Bing hurried to rummage through the suitcase and took out the lighter!
It was a Zippo-style kerosene lighter. Both American and Japanese soldiers had been equipped with them during WWII.
Because of its age, the outside had completely rusted over and could not be used at all!
Shen Bing smashed it open with a rock and found a flint-like object inside!
But...
It had been too long. When she picked it up, it crumbled into hard little pieces!
There was still a way!
She carefully placed the ash-like crumbs on the edge of a rock. She put some pre-prepared dry tinder on the ground.
Pressing the paratrooper knife against the shards, she steadied it with her foot and suddenly yanked the knife sharply!
"Ca-cha..."
The knife scraping against the flint and rock produced a shower of sparks that fell onto the dry leaves and tinder below.
Shen Bing quickly grabbed the burning tinder and blew on it, causing the sparks to ignite into a flame!
Shen Bing gave a wry smile.
She had wasted an entire afternoon trying to start a fire with the bow drill and failed. Yet with just a simple prompt from Lu Zhe, he had easily accomplished it.
It was too frustrating!
No time to think too much about it. She hurriedly stoked the fire and added more firewood while starting to burn the palm sheaths.
After a while, Lu Zhe had also finished suturing his wounds.
Because he couldn't use his right hand, the stitch spacing was uneven. But it was still much better than expected!
The palm ash had also cooled down somewhat.
Lu Zhe sprinkled a bit of palm ash over the sutures, then looked for something to bandage it.
He didn't need to ask. The girls had long prepared some sanitary pads and cloth strips!
It was the last pad that Jiang Yao and Tang Xiaoguo had been reluctant to use.
Currently, it was the cleanest material available.
Jiang Yao used the absorbent side of the pad to cover the wound, then Lin Qianqian brought over some dried cloth strips to tightly tie around it. The wound treatment was complete.
Lu Zhe gained all the potential points.
All added to Constitution!
And at this moment, another notification sounded in his mind: "Congratulations, host! Your Constitution has reached 60. Wound recovery speed is 6 times that of an ordinary person. Scar recovery is 6 times that of an ordinary person!"
That meant if such an injury would take an ordinary person one month to recover from, he would only need 5 days!
If an ordinary person would be left with a scar, he would only have one-sixth of the scar.
Moreover, having a few scars from slaying a bear was pretty cool!
Even now, as Lu Zhe swung his arm around, it only felt like two mosquito bites on his arm.
Jiang Yao said worriedly, "Don't move around. You have to properly recuperate from your injuries."
Lu Zhe sighed, "I'm afraid that's not possible."
"Why not?"
Lu Zhe pointed at the big bear lying on the ground, "Can you guys handle that?"
Only then did they remember there was still a dead big bear sprawled in the camp.
"Ah right, what should we do about that?"
"Should we move to a different campsite?"
"We just got this place set up nicely. It'd be a waste to move after one day's work!"
"Besides, it's too late now!"
"Then we can only move it away. I don't want to sleep in the same camp as a corpse."
"It's so heavy, how do we carry it away?"
"Speaking of, what kind of bear is this..."
"Look at its tongue lolling out, wow, it's so long. What's it used for?!"
Lu Zhe felt the big bear with his left hand. Information appeared in his mind!
Lu Zhe contemplated, "The appearance resembles a Malayan bear, but Malayan bears are small bears. The largest Malayan bear is only around 150 pounds! Yet this one is easily over 200 pounds in weight with the build of a black bear!"
Ning Shu imagined a bizarre scenario and came up with a strange viewpoint, "Tsk...So which one do you think cheated - did the black bear fool around, or did the Malayan bear have an affair?"
Tang Xiaoguo exclaimed in admiration, "As expected of our resident pervert!"
But Lu Zhe said, "What the monitor said actually makes a lot of sense. This thing is likely a hybrid between a Malayan bear and black bear."
Shen Bing wondered, "Can bears of different species intermingle?"
Lu Zhe explained, "Most bear species don't have reproductive isolation. Despite the huge size differences, they can still produce offspring, like dogs."
"Huh?" Tang Xiaoguo imagined a Tibetan mastiff riding a Pomeranian, then the Pomeranian's belly swelling with 5-6 Tibetan mastiff babies. She couldn't help but shudder, "That's too scary!"
Jiang Yao frowned, "I'm guessing the Malayan bear must have been the father, since it also has the name 'sun bear'!"
Lin Qianqian nodded, "Mm, that would lower the risk for the mama bear during birth."
Ning Shu mused, "Then wouldn't the risk for the papa bear increase? Hey, don't you think with such a big size difference...the mama bear might have eaten her husband like a praying mantis?"
Jiang Yao frowned, "It's not some cheap cucumber to be used up and eaten. That would be too wasteful!"
Lu Zhe was speechless!
"Can we focus on proper matters and not go on and on about these kinds of questions?"