Aning said this as she reached for my belt. I panicked, not knowing what she was trying to do, and quickly covered my pants, shrinking back a bit: “What are you trying to do?”

Aning replied, “Those bugs are a type of tick. Getting bitten by them is really troublesome. If you and Fatty get bitten and don’t want to sleep on your stomach for the rest of your life, you better hurry up and take off your pants. If they crawl into your crotch, your life will be over!”

Upon hearing this, I really did feel a bit of an itch in my sensitive areas, but there was no way I was going to let Aning handle it. I held onto my pants tightly and said to her, “Just give me the knife, and I’ll handle it myself!”

“How are you going to see your own backside?” Aning asked.

I thought to myself that even if it came to that, I still couldn’t let her see. At that moment, Fatty, who was scratching his butt, chimed in, “Stop arguing,” and took the knife from Aning’s hands. He said to me, “What she said is true; ticks are really troublesome. Let’s go over there and help each other out.”

“Do you know how to handle it?” Aning asked.

“It’s just about heating the knife and cauterizing it. I’ve done it before, cutting in line and letting cattle and sheep go. This isn’t rocket science. You should check yourselves too; your delicate skin is the most attractive to these bugs.”

He pointed to a spot behind some branches and told me to go over there. The rain wasn’t too heavy, but the branches didn’t seem very sturdy, but at this point, I couldn’t worry too much.

When I climbed over there and looked back, it seemed like Aning and the others were out of sight. Fatty’s face twisted as he suddenly pulled down his pants and said to me, “Hurry up! I’m going to get bitten to pieces!”

I set my mining lamp on a branch and was stunned by what I saw. Damn! His thighs and butt were covered with pea-sized blood blisters, some as big as broad beans. Upon closer inspection, I realized those blood blisters were all from the little bugs that had gorged themselves on his blood, now swollen and transparent.

“What happened to you?” I suddenly felt nauseous and covered my mouth. “This is too exaggerated! How did so many get in?”

“My pants were too small! When I was moving stones in Devil’s City, the seam split!” He shook his pants. “There was a big tear. Damn it, at the time, I thought it was cooler with a tear, and I didn’t deal with it. I forgot about it when I entered the woods. It’s really a disaster—hurry up! These bugs can suck blood for two or three days, up to six or seven times their body weight. Thirty of them can drain a rabbit’s blood. I’m already anemic and can’t handle this kind of torment.”

I picked up the knife, feeling my stomach churn, unsure how to cut. After fumbling for a while, I thought about just using my hands to pull them out, but Fatty quickly pulled back his butt and said, “Don’t pull! They bite into the flesh, and their heads burrow into the skin to suck. If you pull, the head will break off inside, just like with snow fleas. You have to do it like I said earlier, heat the dagger with fire and cauterize it!”

I nodded, and in that moment, I even forgot about my own itch. Shaking, I took out my lighter and heated the tip of the dagger until it glowed red. Then, one by one, I cauterized the balloon-like bugs. As soon as they got close, they immediately pulled their heads out. I fell back, using the hilt of the knife to smash them, and each hit resulted in a big burst of blood. With every bug I cauterized, Fatty was in excruciating pain. Eventually, I noticed his legs were getting weak, and my hands were getting soft too.

It took a full half hour, and by the time the rain had lessened, I had finally cleaned up the fat guy’s thighs and buttocks. After checking himself, Panzi wanted to come over to help, but as soon as he approached, the branches started to tremble, so he had to give up. He insisted that we must disinfect after we were done, or else it would be easy to catch cold and hot diseases.

After finishing, I applied disinfectant on the fat guy and reluctantly took off my pants for him to handle. To be honest, squatting in that situation while someone observed my butt was quite embarrassing, but there was no way around it. Fortunately, my bites weren’t too severe; I was done in just over ten minutes. After a final check to ensure I hadn’t missed any, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Putting my pants back on, we climbed back to the group, exchanging awkward smiles. Panzi asked how we were, and I nodded, saying it was okay and that I hadn’t been bitten badly. I then asked if they had been bitten.

Panzi and Aning had only a few bites on their arms, while the “Dumb Oil Bottle” had no issues at all. “Ticks have a very sensitive sense of smell; they can detect your blood type. It seems you two are more appetizing,” Aning explained.

Thinking back to the earlier situation, which was quite awkward, I changed the subject and asked her, “How come there are so many ticks here? Aren’t they supposed to be lurking in the grass? Why are they all gathered on this tree? Do they suck tree sap too?”

Bloodsucking creatures usually hide in the grass because the chances of animals passing by are much higher; there are hardly any on trees.

Aning shook her head, indicating she didn’t understand either. “However, since there are these bugs here, we must be careful in the future. These insects are the most annoying bloodsucking creatures. Others, like mosquitoes and leeches, rarely kill their hosts, but this kind of bug can drain a host’s blood completely. Last time I was in Africa on a project, I saw a giraffe die from these things. Its body was covered in blood-filled lumps; it was horrifying. When we got close, all the ticks surged toward us, a dark mass, moving like shadows on the ground. The guide was so scared that he used the fire extinguisher in the car to fend them off and then drove away in a panic.”

I thought about the fat guy’s butt and then Aning’s description of the scene, and I couldn’t help but shiver.

Just then, I suddenly realized one person was missing. After looking around, I noticed that the Dumb Oil Bottle was gone. When I asked where he had gone, Aning pointed down with her chin, and I saw that the Dumb Oil Bottle had somehow crawled to the plants we had just sheltered under, shining a miner’s lamp, seemingly looking at something.