A spicy meal was a harbinger of more pain to come for one unfortunate teen in China, who was diagnosed with a rare fungal infection after developing a smelly, mulch-filled palatal hole.

Doctors say the otherwise healthy 18-year-old, who worked in textile and frozen food warehouses, first noticed a purplish lash on the central palatal mucosa after drinking and eating spicy food.

He attended a local hospital and was prescribed oral antibiotics for 21 days, they reported in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

But his symptoms failed to improve, and 12 months later, he presented to the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital within days of noticing his palate “communicated” with the nasal cavity.