The Evolutionary Path of the Lion

Chapter 73 Evolution Again

Last night, the snarling stayed within the border for less than two minutes before retreating. Tonight, four minutes have passed.

He didn't move or make a sound.

Meimei lay prone at the western gap, her outline flattened, ears open, tail still. She sensed it but didn't make a sound, which was the right thing to do. The wandering ape was to the southeast, too far for Chen Fei to see, but he had instructed it the night before to remain still as long as its mouth didn't cross the raised line.

The bulge line is still thirty meters away.

The split-mouthed creature raised its head and glanced at what was directly in front of it.

Chen Fei sensed the direction the gaze was sweeping towards. He lowered his stance by half an inch, burying his silhouette in the grass. The gaze wasn't precisely focused; the snarling creature didn't look directly at him, but the pause itself spoke volumes—it knew what lay ahead.

It just hasn't decided whether or not to come in yet.

five minutes.

The slit-mouthed hyena paced back and forth within the boundary twice, neither advancing nor retreating. It was measuring something, or waiting for something. Chen Fei stared at the outline, memorizing the landing point of each step: its right forepaw slightly inward, its left hind paw outward, its stride nearly a third wider than that of an ordinary hyena. This wasn't a compensatory gait after injury; it was a habit.

Big head.

Chen Fei glanced to the side. Big Head was lying about two meters behind him on the left, all four limbs flattened, chin touching the ground, its small eyes wide open, staring intently at the south side. It didn't make a sound, its tail didn't move, and its left shoulder was tense, but it didn't tremble.

It's fairly stable.

On the south side, the gaping mouth stopped.

It sat down fifty meters inside the boundary, its hind legs curled up, its forelegs supporting it on the ground, its head turned eastward and swept around once, then turned back to face directly ahead.

Just sit here.

Chen Fei continued to push the time forward, six minutes, seven minutes. The snarling creature neither retreated nor moved further in. It sat there, as if waiting for dawn, or perhaps wanting this place to remember its presence that evening.

Eight minutes.

He stood up with a split mouth, turned around, and left.

He walked slowly and steadily, stopping after about twenty meters, glancing back before disappearing into the darkness.

Chen Fei did not get up immediately.

He waited a while longer, twirling his ears twice to confirm that the aura was fading and retreating southwards with no sign of turning back, before slowly raising his body an inch.

The panel lit up briefly in my mind.

[Host: Chen Fei]

[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]

[Energy Points: 892↑]

Nothing has changed. Tonight is just about holding the line; there's no hunting, no chasing. The energy points won't move.

But the next evolution is coming soon!

He turned his attention away from the panel and looked southwest.

Those two heat sources are still there.

The one who had been crouching stood up, the two leaned closer and exchanged a few words, then moved north together. Chen Fei followed their outline, watching them pass through a gap in the low bushes, heading towards the survey camp.

They are walking back.

Ella placed the camera on the table but did not sit down immediately.

Only she and Caller were in the tent. Morris was outside, Marcus had gone to take care of charging the equipment, and Kenneth was nowhere to be found; he hadn't shown up all night.

"You can see the depth of the second claw mark," Caller said, not as a question.

"I saw it," Ella replied.

"It's newer than the one we saw on the slope yesterday; it was left over from today's daytime." Kaller draped his coat over the back of his chair and sat down across the table. "It was there during the day. Not on night patrol; it stopped during the day to survey that section of the boundary."

Ella didn't reply. She flipped up the camera screen and reviewed the footage from earlier that day. Close-ups of paw prints, clear in depth, showing the direction of the indentations in the surrounding grass. And the group of warthogs, at 10:47, all stopped, turned their heads in the same direction, and remained still for nearly twenty seconds. They didn't run, didn't make any alarms, just turned their heads and continued grazing.

She paused the camera on the warthog scene.

"What do you think of this?" she asked.

Kaller observed for a moment. "The warthogs sensed something, but didn't perceive it as a threat." He paused. "Or perhaps they did assess it and decided there was no need to run."

Ella turned off the screen. "In all your years of guiding, have you ever seen a herd of warthogs stand still in the same direction for twenty seconds without moving?"

“I’ve seen it,” Kaller said. “When facing a lion, if the lion is far enough away and there’s no approach signal, the warthog will do this.” He placed his hand on the table. “But that location was only three hundred meters east of our reconnaissance route. If there had been a lion three hundred meters away, I should have been able to smell it today, or at least see the grass moving.”

Ella said, "You don't."

"no."

Neither of them spoke again, and the wind outside the tent caused the tent fabric to move slightly.

Ella picked up the camera again, rewound the close-up of the paw prints, and stopped at the clearest frame. "Caller, you said today that it was more lucid than any known lion."

Kaller did not deny it.

"If it stopped at that border during the day today," Ella said, "that would have been the morning when we were advancing on the south side."

Kaller did not answer immediately; he stared at the image of the claw marks and remained silent for a considerable period of time.

"You mean," he finally said, "that it knows where we're going today."

Ella put the camera down. "I don't know. I'm just putting together a timeline." She leaned back in her chair. "The paw prints were left during the day. We went there this morning. The warthog stopped and looked for twenty seconds at 10:47, about 300 meters east of our route."

Kaller didn't say anything more, but he didn't shake his head either.

Outside the tent, Maurice's footsteps passed by the tent, paused for a moment, and then disappeared into the distance.

Ella took the record board, wrote a line at the end of today's page, and then closed it.

Chen Fei turned his gaze away from the sandstone platform.

The two heat sources had already entered the tent, their outlines disappearing behind the canvas cover. He turned his attention back to the south side, confirming that there was no new movement in that boundary area, before slowly retreating from the sandstone platform.

Big Head followed behind, took two steps, and his paws missed a pebble, almost slipping. He braced himself with his forelimbs, glanced back at Chen Fei, as if to make sure no one had seen him.

Chen Fei ignored him and turned to walk towards where he was going.

The split-mouthed man sat inside the border for eight minutes tonight.

It's not a test; sitting down is something else entirely. It's letting this place remember its presence, letting the soil, the grass roots, and the air all bear the mark of its visit tonight. The next time it comes in, it's entering the place it was once in, and the psychological boundaries will crumble before the physical ones.

Chen Fei walked to Sair's side and crouched down beside her.

Sel didn't move; she had been awake for a while, just with her eyes closed. Chen Fei leaned closer, and her belly rubbed against his shoulder, just like that.

The little rascal was curled up under Sel's belly, sleeping soundly, its claws twitching as if it were chasing something.

The gap is still 30 meters away from the ridge line.

But it sat down tonight.

As soon as it was light, Chen Fei had already walked along the southern border.

The scent of the spot where the slit-mouthed man had sat last night still lingered. He lowered his head and sniffed twice, gathering the information in his nostrils: a metallic, worn-out smell, and something deeper, like the stale odor emanating from a long-worn, weathered animal hide. The slit-mouthed man's signboard.

He circled outwards from where he sat, trying to find the edge of his breath.

When the creature with the split mouth came last night, its aura covered an area of ​​about two meters around where it sat. Now, the aura has seeped into the grass roots and topsoil within a radius of nearly four meters. Last night's body heat warmed the soil, and then it slowly cooled down, thus fixing the aura in place.

The experience of sitting down and waiting for eight minutes is completely different from simply strolling by.

Chen Fei looked up, his gaze sweeping across the ridgeline. Thirty meters—the distance hadn't changed this morning. He hadn't crossed it last night, but the imprint of that scent had lingered deeper and longer than any previous time he'd passed by.

He turned and walked back.

Big Head emerged from the bushes and followed. After taking three steps, he lowered his head to sniff the scent left by the split mouth from last night. He immediately raised his head, his ears perked up, and his hind legs slightly tensed.

Chen Fei didn't stop and kept walking.

Big Head paused for a second, then caught up, moved closer to Chen Fei's right side, lowered his head by half an inch, and followed without making a sound.

That's fairly accurate.

Over at their landing spot, Sel had already gotten up. She was crouching at the edge of the bushes, her gaze sweeping south. Sensing Chen Fei's return, she lightly brushed the ground with her tail. The stingy little devil was still asleep, curled up in a ball, its claws still clenched around Sel's belly fur.

The wanderer A returned from the southeast direction, walked to a position two steps to the left of Chen Fei, and stood there without saying a word, just waiting.

Chen Fei lay down in the center of the landing spot, tucked his limbs in, and closed his eyes.

I stayed up all night guarding my post, so I'll focus on replenishing my energy during the day today before hunting this afternoon. I need to get my energy points moving. The grind is progressing very clearly, advancing a little each night. Last night it sat for eight minutes, and tonight it will likely push further in, or stay there longer.

He went through the rhythm in his mind, but didn't think about it further; he just went to sleep.

Morris called everyone out of the three tents, including Kenneth, who hadn't shown up all night.

On the folding table outside the tent lay the footage Ella had filmed the day before, the camera screen facing upwards, the frame showing the paw prints in the clearest position. Marcus stood by the table, while Kenneth leaned against a tent pole, hands in his pockets. Caller and Ella stood side by side; Caller was still wearing his coat from yesterday.

Morris glanced at the screen and looked up.

"Kaller, repeat what you said yesterday in front of everyone."

Kaller didn't hesitate. "It surveyed that boundary earlier today before we advanced. The paw prints were fresh that day, and the time coincides with our advance on the south side this morning." He paused. "The warthogs turned around collectively at 10:47 AM, about 300 meters east of our route, and stopped for 20 seconds without any attempt to escape."

Kenneth straightened up from the tent post. "What does it mean if a warthog turns its head for twenty seconds? Any gust of wind on this prairie can make a warthog turn its head."

"Don't run for twenty seconds," Kaller said. "The threat assessment and the decision that you don't need to run are two separate things."

“You mean,” Kenneth’s voice flattened, “that a lion anticipated our route today, scouted the area beforehand, and then left before we arrived, leaving no trace of its presence within our reach.” He paused. “Is that what you mean?”

Kaller did not answer, but he also did not shake his head.

There was a moment of silence outside the tent.

Ella spoke up, "I didn't say it predicted us. I said the timelines overlapped, that's a fact." She picked up the camera and showed the footage of the warthog, "This is 10:47, this is based on the freshness of the paw prints, it's daytime today, not last night."

Kenneth glanced at the screen, then turned to Morris. "We're here to study unusual individual behavior, not timeline coincidences."

Morris didn't say anything. He rested his hands on the edge of the folding table and stared at the image of the claw marks for a long time.

Marcus whispered from the side, "The claw marks are 1.5 times deeper than those of a normal individual. I've checked this data, and there's no problem." He took half a step forward. "Adding the claw marks at the first spot on the embankment, the two locations are of the same depth, and the individual characteristics match, indicating it's the same animal."

Kenneth didn't refute this further; he looked away.

Morris finally spoke, "There are still eleven days left in the window." He straightened up. "Ella, what direction is your assessment going?"

Ella put down the camera. "Fixed-route patrols, border maintenance, and proactive reconnaissance of human advance routes," she said calmly, as if stating data. "If all three are true simultaneously, then it provides a predictive basis for our current mode of action."

Morris glanced at her, then at Culler, and finally fixed his gaze on the folding table.

"The day after tomorrow, the whole team will advance to the east side," he said. "Let's change direction and see the reaction."

He didn't say that the decision was to verify Ella's judgment, but everyone in the tent knew what it meant.

Kenneth didn't say anything, and turned back to his tent.

Three kilometers away, on a sandstone platform.

Chen Fei turned off the night vision coverage and switched to the daytime mode with super long vision, focusing on the direction of the survey camp.

Outside the tent, at a folding table, stood five figures. He recognized their positions: Maurice, Ella, Calle, Marcus, and Kenneth, who rarely appeared. They talked around the table for a long time. Some walked away for a while, then returned. Finally, Maurice said something, and the group dispersed.

Chen Fei couldn't see what they were saying, but he could see the changes in their positions, who was leaning forward while speaking, whose shoulders were tense, and who turned and walked away first after speaking.

He went through these actions in his mind.

Morris spoke last, and the crowd dispersed. A decision had been made.

They won't go south next. The two paw prints from yesterday have already given them enough information; continuing south would only yield the same results. Changing direction, the east is the most likely option, as the terrain there is open, offers good visibility, and is suitable for advancing with camera equipment.

[Host: Chen Fei]

[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]

[Energy Points: 893↑]

This morning I chased a lame Thomson's gazelle in the main hunting grounds, but it wasn't very useful; it only slightly increased my energy points. I have to go out again this afternoon.

He could sense that a new evolution was imminent!

He withdrew his super vision, jumped off the sandstone platform, and as he landed, the heat in his limbs tightened slightly, suppressing the impact.

East side.

They're going to the east side the day after tomorrow!