parentshiftbook Chapter 49 Guiding Humanity
Chapter 49 Guiding Humanity
Once on the ground, Sel moved the stingy creature away from its belly, bent down to check its paws, and then checked its back.
The little miser is about four and a half months old. The cub spots on its body are starting to fade, the muscles in its hind legs are a bit stronger than they were two months ago, and its gait is starting to show a little directionality, no longer just wandering around randomly.
Sel licked its forehead, then lay down again, placing the stingy creature between its belly and the ground. The spot she chose for her landing was backed by a shrub belt, surrounded by grass on three sides, with the only open direction being the east, which directly faced the direction of the sandstone platform where Chen Fei most often stayed.
This location is not accidental.
On the first day after Chen Fei took over the territory patrol, she spent three days slowly moving her base in this direction, a little bit each day, until Chen Fei noticed that the location had been fixed.
The stingy creature kicked its hind legs and crawled two steps forward, only to be blocked by Sael's front paws.
It protested with a soft meow, its voice tender and milky.
Sel did not release his claws.
The stingy fellow thought for a moment, then buried his head in the fur on Sel's belly and refused to come out.
Chen Fei returned to his lodgings and lay down two steps away from Sair.
Night began to fall, and the grassland changed from orange-red to deep blue. This transition usually takes only twenty minutes in Africa, faster than anywhere else. It seems that there is no hesitation about darkness here.
The night vision system slowly took over, and the grassland in his eyes changed from deep blue to a high-contrast blue-gray tone. The outline of each blade of grass became clear, and the outline of the wildebeest herd in the distance changed from the blur of dusk back into a recognizable shape.
Three kilometers to the north, the sound of off-road vehicle engines had disappeared.
They stopped.
The campsite was right there, and the lights were an overexposed white dot in the night vision system—glaring and fixed in position.
Chen Fei noted down the location of the white dot and overlaid it with the direction of the dust during the day to confirm the precise location of the camp.
He knew where the camp was, how many lights were in the camp, and roughly how many tents there were.
This information gap is one of his most important assets at present.
The wandering creature circled back from the northwest, circled the perimeter of its lodging, confirmed something, and then lay down at the edge of the grass on the east side.
The stray dog lay down next to it and flicked its tail twice.
The entire place where we stayed fell silent.
Only occasionally would the stingy creature peek its head out from the fur on Sel's belly, sniff into the darkness, and then retreat back inside.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 869↑]
The white overexposed spot on the north side burned steadily in the blue-gray image of the night vision system.
Inside the tent, there were lights and shadowy figures moving about.
Chen Fei knew what they were doing.
Organize data, discuss, debate, and write reports.
They collected a lot of things today.
Unusually deep claw marks, an unfired gun, a herd of zebras exploding, and a whole scene that cannot be explained by any known framework.
They would piece these things together in the tent, trying to come up with a conclusion that would convince themselves.
Tomorrow morning, when that white dot at the campsite disappears, that will be the time for them to set off again.
Chen Fei turned his gaze away from the white dot on the north side and closed his eyes.
The night vision system left a layer of bluish-gray afterglow behind the eyelids. The sounds of the grassland pressed in from all directions: a cheetah was calling in the distance, a small animal was rustling in the grass nearby, and the mocking laughter of a pack of hyenas came intermittently from the south, but did not approach.
He turned his ear to the north.
The light inside the tent stayed on for a very, very long time.
Then, next to the white dot, an even smaller bright spot lit up.
It's the screen of some kind of device, blue and white.
The direction the screen was pointing was clearly visible in the night vision system.
The white dots at the camp went out an hour before dawn.
Chen Fei opened his eyes in the darkness, switched on the night vision system, and three kilometers to the north, the outline of the tent disappeared from the blue-gray grassland background.
The tent was packed up.
They set off earlier than yesterday.
Chen Fei got up from where he had been standing, without disturbing Sair, and walked around the spot where the stingy guy was huddled up, heading towards the sandstone platform on the east side.
The grassland is quietest before dawn. Predators have just finished their nocturnal activities, and herbivores have not yet relaxed from their deepest vigilance. The entire grassland seems to have been paused by something, with only the chirping of insects and the croaking of frogs from the distant water source operating at a low frequency.
He lay down on the sandstone platform, activating both night vision and super vision simultaneously.
On the north side, the outlines of two SUVs are already moving.
It wasn't fully light yet, so they used their car headlights for illumination. Two beams of white light cut two lines across the grassland, pointing in different directions—
It's slightly southwest, and the angle is about twenty degrees different from yesterday's advance path.
Chen Fei mentally connected this direction with the terrain.
Twenty degrees southwest, bypassing the central area of the open grassland, we traveled through the transitional zone between the acacia groves and the low rocky area.
Yesterday, he was upwind of the location where the zebras blew out, right in the middle of that route.
Their pressure instruments read data from that stationary individual yesterday, and they're coming around today to conduct a more detailed ground survey at that location.
This team's working logic is to trace back.
Expanding outwards from the scene of death, each ring is larger than the last.
Each step forward involves tracking down a specific data anomaly.
Yesterday's data anomalies have become the new target coordinates today.
"This is truly a textbook example of on-site reconstruction procedures."
In his past life, he had watched a documentary about wildlife surveys, and the surveyors in the documentary were doing exactly this.
Pushing from the known to the unknown, each step is supported by data, and each step narrows down the scope.
The problem with this method is that it can only track things that have already left traces.
Chen Fei needed to ensure that every trace they followed could only lead them to a dead end.
...
The protection organization's camp is located in the northwest of the entire territory, about four kilometers from the base.
Chen Fei's understanding of this camp comes from his continuous observation over the past.
The conservation organization has a relatively stable staff of about seven to nine people, equipped with two off-road vehicles. They have a fixed patrol route every day, setting off in the morning and returning in the afternoon. The patrol area covers an area of about twelve square kilometers in the northwest of the territory. Their core focus is on the dynamics of large animal populations in this area.
They have video equipment, radios, and tagging and tracking systems.
They also remain highly vigilant against any personnel from unprotected organizations entering the monitored area.
This is one of the reasons for their existence, and also the inherent conflict between them and any intruder.
What Chen Fei needs is this conflicting relationship.
He needs to guide the investigation team's route into the protection organization's monitoring area.
There is a premise to this.
The investigation team must take the initiative to move in that direction!
Only investigation teams that proactively approach the area will maintain their investigation status while entering the monitored zone, allowing the protection organization's cameras to fully record their equipment, vehicles, and actions.
The presence of armed personnel in a wildlife conservation monitoring area is a top-priority alert in the procedures of any conservation organization.
Chen Fei needed to give the investigation team a reason to let them go there on their own.
That reason is what he's going to make today.