parentshiftbook Chapter 72 appeared at the same time!
Chapter 72 appeared at the same time!
Kaller didn't answer immediately. He stopped and looked at the grass on his right, making sure there was nothing there, before continuing on. "Sound layers," he said, as if he had thought for a moment before speaking, "the sounds on the grassland should have layers. Birds above, insects in the middle, and small animals in the grass below. These past few days, the insect layer on the south side has been less—not nonexistent, but significantly reduced, unnaturally reduced."
What does "unnatural" mean?
"It's like the bugs know something's nearby." Kaller paused for a moment. "Large ones. Bigger than a person."
Ella wrote two lines on the whiteboard as she walked, almost stepping into a shallow pit, but was pulled back by Kaller.
"Thank you." She looked up. "Would a pack of hyenas have this effect?"
"Yes, but not to this extent. When the hyena pack comes, the insects only quiet down temporarily; they return to normal once they leave." Kale stopped, squatted down, used his machete to part a clump of grass, and looked at the ground. "They've been decreasing in number for the past few days, with no signs of recovery, which means that thing has been consistently active in this area, not just passing through."
Ella crouched down to look with him, the camera pointed at the ground. "What's here?"
“Paw prints,” Kaller parted the grass a little more. “Small ones, probably jackals or small felines, but that’s not the point.” He stood up and continued walking south. “The point is that the paw prints in this area are distributed very systematically, with one at regular intervals, indicating that animals are patrolling this area along a fixed route. Patrolling, not foraging; foraging paw prints are random.”
Ella quickly jotted down the words, then looked up and asked, "What animal do you think it is?"
Kaller took a few steps, stopped, and turned to look at her. His eyes, beneath the brim of his hat, held a calm that spoke of someone who had seen much. "I think," he said, "it's something more lucid than any lion I've ever seen in this area."
Ella stared at him for two seconds.
Kaller turned back and continued walking.
They walked for about forty minutes and arrived at a low earthen slope about five hundred meters outside the southern boundary. Kaller told Ella to stop, and he went up the slope first. He lay on the top of the slope and scanned the south with his binoculars for a minute before signaling to Ella to come up.
Ella climbed up the slope, lay down next to Kaler, set up the camera, and started filming.
To the south is a large open area with short, low grass that undulates in the wind. In the distance is a waterhole where several warthogs are drinking. Further south is a tall grass area where the grass is higher than an adult's waist, dense and impenetrable.
"The hyena pack is active in the tall grass area," Kaller said in a low voice. "There's no sound in there now, but I can smell them."
Ella aimed her camera at the tall grass and filmed, zooming in at its longest focal length. The tops of the grass swayed in the wind, their outlines indistinct. "You said there's a boundary," she said. "Where?"
Kaller moved his binoculars north from the tall grass, stopping about two hundred meters north of their current position. There, a less obvious, slightly elevated natural ridge stretched from east to west, seemingly insignificant. "That's the line," he said. "The hyenas' tracks these past few days. I haven't surveyed the eastern side, but I've walked the western side once. They don't cross that line."
Ella's camera moved towards the raised line and filmed for about ten seconds. "What is this line related to?"
"The aura distribution of that large individual highly overlaps." Kaller put down his binoculars and turned to look at Ella. "Dr. Ella, I've been here for twelve years, and I've never seen a hyena pack actively avoid a boundary line for so long, unless there's something on that line they don't want to mess with."
Ella didn't lower her camera; the lens was pointed at the raised line. Her finger lightly tapped the side of the camera, a habitual action, and then she stopped.
"Let's move a little closer to that line," she said.
"No," Culler said bluntly. "That line is within the area we discussed with Morris when we came here. Going any further in would be beyond the scope of our authorization today."
Ella put the camera down, glanced at the raised line, and said nothing.
Kaller stood up, dusted off his trousers, and said, "We should head back, Dr. Ella."
"Wait five more minutes."
Kaller did not refute, but squatted down again on the top of the earthen slope, raised the binoculars, and continued scanning.
Ella lay on the earthen slope, with the camera set up. The view showed the open area to the south and the tall grass in the distance. Warthogs were still by the waterhole. One of them noticed something, suddenly raised its head, looked towards the tall grass for a long time, then lowered its head and continued drinking water.
Ella recorded this detail, her finger quickly writing a line on the recorder: Warthog reaction, high grass direction, 10:47, no visible cause.
Five minutes later, she stood up, packed up the camera and recording board, and walked down the slope.
Kaller walked a few steps ahead of her, then suddenly stopped and squatted down.
Ella walked over to him and looked down.
Below the earthen slope, near the inner side of the natural ridge, about fifteen meters from where they were standing, there were two flattened footprints in the grass. They weren't hoof prints, but claw prints, large and deep, with a gap between them wider than any leopard claw print Ella had ever seen.
Kaller hung the binoculars around his neck, slowly squatted down, and didn't get close, just looked.
"How big is it?" Ella asked in a low voice.
“I’m not sure,” Caller said, his voice even lower than Ella’s, almost as if he were talking to himself, “but I do know one thing: this claw mark was made from inside that line.”
Ella looked up towards the natural ridge line. On the north side of the ridge line, the side where she and Kaller were standing, two claw marks were clearly visible, pointing from south to north, from the inside of the ridge line to the outside.
I've been here before.
She raised the camera, aimed it at the two claw marks, and filmed for ten seconds. Then she zoomed in, and the depth of the claw marks was clearly visible in the image. Sunlight shone in, and there was a slight shadow at the bottom of the claw marks, indicating that they were deep enough and not shallow.
Kaller stood up, put his hand on Ella's shoulder, and gave her a push in the direction she was walking backward. "Let's go, let's go now."
Ella didn't move. She pointed the camera at the paw prints, filmed for three more seconds, and then followed Kaler back.
After walking a dozen steps, she glanced back at the two paw prints, then turned around, followed Kaller, turned to a new page on her notebook, and began to write.
Before it was completely dark, Chen Fei was already on the sandstone platform.
Extending his super-long-range vision, to the south, the outlines of the heat sources in the twilight began to become clear. The background temperature of the grassland dropped rapidly after sunset, and the temperature difference between the animal heat sources and the background grew larger, making their outlines sharper. He shifted his gaze west-southwest, towards the survey team's camp. Two heat sources were moving south from the camp, faster than in the morning, heading back to camp. Kaler was in front, and Ella was behind. Ella's pace was faster than when they set off in the morning, and she was carrying something in her hand; her posture was different from when they started.
The camera is still on.
Chen Fei shifted his gaze from the direction of the survey team to the southern boundary.
Night vision activated, the outline of the southern grassland unfolded against the gray-green backdrop, covering the entire area within three kilometers.
He pushed the heat flow a little further.
At 1.2 kilometers southeast, the silhouette of the broad-headed, heavy-stepping figure came into view.
Three hundred meters closer than last night, standing with my head facing north, towards where I'd landed, in the same posture as last night, but today I'm not standing outside the boundary. Today...
Chen Fei focused his gaze and confirmed the location of the outline.
About fifty meters inside the boundary line.
They're in.
His heat flowed slightly through his limbs, then spread out, covering the tips of his claws, holding, and waiting.
One kilometer to the southwest, the survey team's two heat sources were still moving north, and the straight-line distance between them and the broad-headed, heavy-footed silhouette was...
He mentally calculated the distance.
Less than two kilometers.
Two lines, entering the same field of vision for the first time.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 892↑]
Chen Fei lay down on the sandstone platform. In the night vision, he could see a silhouette standing 1.2 kilometers south of east, and two other heat sources moving northward 1 kilometer south of west. The grassland wind flowed from two directions and converged at his location, carrying the metallic smell, the scent of humans, and the last bit of moisture evaporating from the grass in the twilight.
He looked at the two lines.