The Evolutionary Path of the Lion

What does Chapter 71 mean?

Chen Fei pushed the heat a little more to make the outline clearer.

It has a broad head and heavy forelimbs. It is the same head as the one that was 1.5 kilometers away last night. Today it is 700 meters closer than yesterday.

Chen Fei lay down on the sandstone platform, flattening his body, letting the heat flow over his limbs, maintaining a state where he could jump at any moment.

He stared at the silhouette, which was unaware that he was being watched, or perhaps aware but indifferent; in any case, it made no attempt to avoid him.

The two animals faced each other, one on the sandstone platform and the other in the darkness eight hundred meters away. The wind of the grassland flowed between them, carrying away their respective scents and bringing them back.

Chen Fei put his nose into the wind.

That metallic, metallic scent returned, closer and clearer than last night. The indescribable smell from the depths was stronger, like a kind of stability after extreme wear and tear, the kind of scent one develops only after witnessing too much.

He held that breath in his nasal cavity for a long time.

Then the outline moved.

It wasn't rushing, but turning around, extremely slowly, the kind of slowness only large animals have. Its forelimbs moved first, followed by its hind limbs, its entire body drawing an arc in the darkness before moving south. Each step was heavy, each landing was steady. After about twenty steps, it stopped, without looking back, and then continued walking. The grass gradually obscured its outline until finally, it disappeared.

Chen Fei lay on the sandstone platform, looking in that direction, without moving.

Big Head rolled over on his back, made a muffled groan, and fell asleep again.

After waiting for a while, Chen Fei pushed the night vision coverage to its maximum and scanned the entire area three kilometers to the south.

Gone.

really gone.

He stood up and rubbed Da Tou off his back, which startled the latter. Da Tou jumped up, looked around blankly, and then stared at Chen Fei with a wronged look.

Chen Fei had already begun descending from the sandstone platform.

Instead of finding a place to stay, he headed straight for the southern border. Using the night vision, he located the patch of grass that had been trampled flat the day before and scanned the surrounding area.

There are new ones too.

Today's paw print is two steps inward from yesterday's two paw prints. It's a single paw print, front paw, right paw, and the landing point is deeper than yesterday's, about a third deeper.

Chen Fei pressed his nose against the claw mark.

It's fresh, still warm, within an hour.

I've been here before.

Not much, just this one step, just this one paw print. Step in, stop, raise your paw, and leave.

He looked up and pushed his super-long-range vision southward. The outline of a heat source appeared in the darkness. There were several wildebeest in the distance, and a group of unknown things moving further away, but the broad-headed, heavy-stepping outline was not there.

He looked down at the claw mark.

It stepped on the side with its front paws to compare the depth.

The other person's claw mark was almost half again as deep as his.

[Host: Chen Fei]

[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]

[Energy Points: 889↑]

The wind came from the south, bringing that metallic scent once more, lingering and dispersed, but its direction was precise—it extended from the scent of that claw mark, southward, deeper, towards a place he could not yet see.

He circled back to his lodgings, walking about 300 meters east of the paw print along the southern boundary, scanning the ground with his nose and stopping every few steps.

Meimei was at the western gap. As he passed by, she glanced at him sideways. He nudged her south with his nose, and Meimei turned her ears south without making a sound. He paused beside her for two seconds, drew a line on the ground with his front paws in a direction slightly southeast, and then glanced at her again.

Meimei turned her head, looked at the scratch, looked at Chen Fei, and nodded. It wasn't a human nod; she lowered her head slightly and then raised it again, her eyes showing a sense of confirmation that she had received something.

Chen Fei flew east to find the homeless man, Jia.

Stray A was still lying in the northeast corner. When Chen Fei approached, the other creature turned its ears first, then raised its head. Chen Fei squatted down in front of it, pointed with its front paws towards the southeast, then nudged it with its nose towards the southern boundary, before pointing back at Stray A.

The wanderer A stood up, shook himself, and shifted his gaze to the southeast. He looked in that direction for a few seconds, then bowed to Chen Fei and spoke in a short, low voice, not as a question but as a confirmation.

Chen Fei turned around and went to find Da Tou.

Big Head suddenly appeared out of nowhere behind him, nearly bumping into Chen Fei. He took two steps back, giving him a "I've always been here" look. Chen Fei glanced at him, nudged him to the south with his nose, then squatted down in front of him, pressing his front paws lightly to the ground—just to "hold him down"—before pausing in the direction of the Stray Armor.

Big Head connected the two actions, took a second to process them, and his eyes slowly changed from bewildered to cautious and serious. He turned his head to the south, his ears perked up, and his tail drooped down, unlike its usual high-held position.

Chen Fei stood up and walked towards the sandstone platform.

Behind him came the deep, rumbling footsteps of the Stray Ape and the light, shuffling footsteps of Big Head as he trod through the grass. The two animals began to move towards the southeast, widening the distance between their positions. Chen Fei didn't turn around, but his ears remained open, listening to the rhythm of the two footsteps. Only when the Stray Ape's voice stopped and Big Head's voice also stopped, and they settled down, did he turn his attention to the front.

Sandstone platform.

He climbed up, lay down, and pushed the night vision to its maximum coverage, scanning the entire area three kilometers to the south.

It lacks that broad-headed, heavy-stepped silhouette.

There was only the heat from the wildebeest herd, a few small dots of warthogs in a more distant direction, and a thin line of a snake whose species he couldn't identify coiled among the grass roots. He moved the heat flow from the south to the east, then to the north, towards the survey team's camp. Inside the three tents, the outlines of the heat sources were stable, and they were all asleep. Only in one tent, closest to the edge of the camp, was one heat source still sitting, not lying down.

Chen Fei lay prone on the sandstone platform, maintaining night vision until dawn.

No further outlines appeared on the south side.

But that metallic scent, in the last moments before dawn, grew stronger and then weaker as the wind shifted, coming from due south, and its source was a little closer than the night before.

Chen Fei suppressed this change in distance in his mind.

It didn't appear, but it's closer than last night.

It did not appear, meaning it was chosen not to appear.

These two things are different.

After daybreak, Chen Fei descended from the sandstone platform and found a medium-sized Thompson gazelle on the west side of the hunting grounds. He chased it for four hundred meters before finishing cleanly. Instead of dragging the prey back to his lodgings, he ate it on the spot behind a low bush on the west side of the hunting grounds. He ate until he was about seven-tenths full, left the rest there, patted his mouth, and walked back.

On the way back, Big Head ran towards Chen Fei with its head down and its pace quick. It stopped when it was about seven or eight meters away from Chen Fei, meowed in his direction, turned its tail, paused in the direction of south-southeast, and then looked back at Chen Fei.

Chen Fei turned his ear in that direction.

The wind came from there, carrying the scent of hyenas, faint, not fresh, but the remnants left behind, though more than yesterday.

He walked towards Big Head, who moved aside two steps to make way for him and then followed behind him. Chen Fei didn't walk in that direction, but instead went around to the east side of the hunting grounds, and from a slightly higher grassy hill, he stretched his gaze out to the southeast.

The super vision range has been extended to two kilometers.

Have.

A small group, five or six heads, moved slowly two kilometers away, heading north-southwest towards this place, but not in a straight line, but diagonally, as if searching for something, or perhaps following a fixed route. He pushed the heat a little further, making the outline of the head in front clear; it was of average build, without the shadow of that broad-headed, heavy-stepping figure.

reconnaissance.

He held this judgment in his mind for three seconds, then withdrew the heat flow and turned to look at Big Head.

Big Head was struggling to climb up from under the grassy mound. When he reached Chen Fei's feet, he almost lost his footing. He used his two front paws to grip the edge of the grassy mound tightly and pulled himself up. He took a couple of breaths, then looked up and saw that Chen Fei was already walking down.

He sat on the grassy mound for a second, then jumped down and followed.

Chen Fei headed southeast, lying down in a patch of low grass inside the southern border. He flattened his body, turned off his night vision, switched to normal vision, and opened his ears and nose. He wasn't hiding; he was waiting. The five or six hyenas were coming in this direction, but slowly, at an angle, not charging. He estimated it would take another twenty or thirty minutes for them to reach the border area.

Big Head lay down beside him, flattening his body and pointing his ears south. He didn't speak or wag his tail, just lay there, sniffing south with his nose, smelling something, and then closed his mouth.

Chen Fei glanced at him sideways.

Improved.

Twenty minutes later, the five or six hyenas appeared about three hundred meters outside the border. They walked slowly, loosely, and in an irregular formation. Two of them were pushing each other and making short, sharp noises before being nudged by a nearby hyena and falling silent. The lead hyena stopped, nudged Chen Fei with its nose for a few seconds, then turned away, circled the border, and continued westward without crossing it.

Chen Fei lay motionless in the grass.

Five or six hyenas walked past the outer edge of the border, about 150 meters away, and disappeared behind a patch of tall grass. Their presence grew fainter and fainter until they were gone.

Big Head quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

Chen Fei didn't move. After waiting for a while and confirming that the aura from that direction had completely dissipated, he stood up, shook off the grass on his body, and walked towards his resting place.

Big Head followed and walked beside him, his steps carrying a carefree and unambitious air.

Chen Fei ignored him.

Two people set off from the survey team's camp at around 9 a.m.

Kaller walked ahead at a slow pace, his right hand gripping a machete, which remained sheathed, held only out of habit. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, the brim pulled low, his eyes scanning the direction of the grass beneath the brim, his lips pursed, saying nothing.

Ella followed two steps behind him, carrying a medium-sized backpack, holding a recording tablet in her left hand and a small video camera in her right. The camera screen was on, and she walked while looking at the screen, stopping every now and then to take a two-second video before continuing.

"Kaller," she said, "what did you mean yesterday when you said the sound layers on the south side were thinner?"