Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl
Chapter 519 - 471: Big Beauty's Late-Night Call for Help_2

After preserving the footage of the three clouded leopards, Chen Ying analyzed it with zooming tools and could almost confirm that at least two of them participated in the ambush of the gibbon family.

In the animal kingdom, fights don't care whether you're a rare species or not—the side involved in the ambush shows no mercy.

Early the next morning, the silent older cousin took the team to look for minerals nearby, leaving the guide and the chatty cousin to accompany Chen Ying in searching for signs of the clouded leopards.

"Clouded leopards are fond of eating squirrels, and the scarcity of squirrels in this area might be related to them,"

On the way here, they saw plenty of squirrels and giant flying squirrels, but after searching here for half a day, they couldn't find a single squirrel.

Though giant flying squirrels aren't squirrels, they're also on the clouded leopard's menu.

It's too difficult to find a cat hiding in the vast forest.

On this trip out, Chen Ying didn't bring the small animals from the emergency station, and now he had no clue where to look for help from the beasts.

The main issue was that he'd been standing there for a long time and hadn't seen a single animal, which felt utterly unscientific.

"Brother Lei, why don't you and Brother Bian head back to the camp first? I'll wait another half hour, and if nothing shows up, I'll head back too."

He wasn't sure if it was because of the chatty cousin or the guide Brother Bian being natural insulators, but he decided to send them away first, regardless.

After the two left, Chen Ying stood guard for a while and decided to change locations.

A few meters down the slope, there's a woodland with a gentler incline.

Earlier, he had seen several pheasants foraging nearby.

He found a relatively concealed spot to lie down, wearing camouflage clothing and a hat to minimize his visibility.

After a long time, he was almost drifting off to sleep when the sound of two pheasants fighting startled him awake.

Focusing his eyes, he realized it was two gray peacock pheasants.

Right under Chen Ying's nose, the two gray peacock pheasants fought, their calls crisp and loud, fiercely pecking at each other, and soon feather tufts flew everywhere.

As Chen Ying was capturing the fight between the peacock pheasants with his camera, he sensed something and looked up, locking eyes with a beautiful cat on the opposite tree.

Judging from its markings and size, it was immediately clear that this was an adult clouded leopard.

But its coat pattern and color differed from the three in the footage, suggesting it was a fourth clouded leopard.

The Gaoligong Mountain range stretches over six hundred kilometers; four hundred clouded leopards would not be too many, let alone four.

However, having four clouded leopards in such a small area would undoubtedly disrupt the ecological balance.

After a brief stare-off with Chen Ying, the beautiful clouded leopard diverted its gaze, lowered its body, and locked onto the gray peacock pheasants still fighting on the ground.

The two oblivious fighting peacock pheasants had no idea a predator was descending upon them from above.

In the instant they determined a winner, a fierce predator from the sky descended; just as the victorious peacock pheasant spread its wings to celebrate its triumph, its neck was bitten through.

The other peacock pheasant, terrified, darted into the nearby shrubs, then flapped its wings and slid several meters, rolling and tumbling away from the scene.

Chen Ying's camera faithfully recorded this dramatic turn of events.

The clouded leopard, clutching the peacock pheasant's body, agilely climbed a tree and disappeared after a few jumps.

Chen Ying stood up, looked around for a while, brushed off the leaves from his body, and happily returned to the campsite.

"Did you get it?" Seeing his expression, the chatty cousin, who was cooking mushroom soup, asked, "Do you plan to keep shooting?"

"I saw one, and its coat color differed from the previous three, so I'm not sure if it participated in the ambush."

Chen Ying transferred the video from the camera to the computer, "This cat seems very young; it killed the peacock pheasant but didn't eat it. I suspect it's planning to bring the prey back to feed. But whether it's feeding an adult cat or kittens, that's unknown."

He hoped to make contact with that beautiful cat, at least to see if he could learn the cause of the gibbon family's death from it.

For the next two days, luck was not on his side, and he never saw that beautiful cat reappear.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, with the nearby surveying work completed, the silent cousin planned to lead the team to another survey point, and Chen Ying's decision to stay alone was simultaneously vetoed by the two brothers.

"It's not that we don't support you; the terrain around here is very complex, and you're unfamiliar with it, so it's too easy for something to go wrong. Besides, you've more or less confirmed it's the clouded leopards' doing, which is enough. Are you planning to avenge the gibbons?"

Joking about avenging was all fun; Chen Ying just felt that coming here was rare and wanted to stay longer, hoping to go up the mountain to see if there were any other undiscovered rare animals.

The chances were slim, as areas with signals had been patrolled endlessly, and the unfrequented zones, without a guide, sufficient partners, and supplies, would be a death sentence to venture into.

"You're leaving tomorrow; let me think it over."

Chen Ying looked around somewhat reluctantly.

If he couldn't stay, he would have to follow the team tomorrow to continue forward, reaching a village at an altitude of around one thousand meters, where he could take a vehicle back to the Dao family's base camp.

The team of his two cousins would also go to the village to replenish supplies and rest for a night.

That night, Chen Ying didn't sleep very soundly; in a daze, he seemed to hear something scratching at the tent.

His single-person tent was close to the large tent, but there was one side without any cover.

Could it be some kind of rodent digging, trying to open his tent?

Chen Ying did not turn on the light and listened intently in the dark; the sound came from the left side of his head.

He quietly lit up his phone screen and, by the dim light, shone it towards the source of the sound, a round shape was pressing against the tent fabric.

Although his tent was a single-person tent, it had a door and window.

The window was above his head, and the zipper was inside, so there was no way to open it from outside.

Luckily, he was brave, otherwise encountering such a situation in the wild would have made his hair stand on end.

He extended a finger and gently poked the round object, which seemed to freeze.

But after a few seconds, the scratching sound grew louder, and the pace quickened.

Deciding to act decisively, Chen Ying opened the window and held the baton in his hand.

The creature didn't expect that after all the effort, not a gap was made, when suddenly a hole was opened above.

It didn't hesitate, stepped back half a step, and jumped inside through the opening.

As it jumped in, Chen Ying turned on the camp light.

The sudden light made the little animal, that had entered in the night, let out a "meow", shut its eyes, and turn its head, its body stiffened for a moment.

"Is it you?" It turned out to be the beautiful cat that was seen catching a peacock pheasant earlier.

"Coming to find me so late, is there something wrong?"

"Meow, can you heal?"

The beautiful cat adapted to the light, looked up to meet Chen Ying's eyes, and meowed rapidly.

"Mama is going to be sick, and little brother and sister are sick too; can you save them?"

Chen Ying didn't have time to ask for details, simply nodded, "I can take a look, but I can't guarantee if I can save them."

The cat appeared very anxious, so without delay, he put on his clothes, grabbed the emergency box, and decisively opened the tent door.

"Let's go, you lead the way, but don't travel up the trees; I'm not as agile as you."

The member on night watch saw Chen Ying coming out, just thinking to ask whom he was speaking to, when a cat ran out from the tent.

People from the other tents woke up too, peeking out.

Chen Ying didn't have time to explain, leaving a quick word with the silent Brother Ang to check the situation, and chased after the beautiful cat into the darkness.

"Wow, in the middle of the night... should I follow?"

The team member was about to reach for his coat, but Brother Ang stopped him.

"No need, his speed is very fast, you won't catch up and might easily get lost."

Though brother Ang was a man of few words, his observational skills were strong; he glanced at the open tent door, went over to help close the window, zip it up securely, then turned off the camp light, closing the tent door tightly from the outside.

"You guys rest first; Old Chai and I will wait for him to return."

Seeing this, the others lay back down to sleep, while Brother Ang sat by the fire with the team member Old Chai.

"Brother Ang, this Dr. Chen is not ordinary, can he understand animal speech?"

Old Chai asked in a low voice. Being local, he had a great belief in some legends and showed a hint of excitement at Chen Ying's strangeness tonight.

"A-Mei said he is just good at observing animals' movements and understanding their psychology. Learned something like 'Animal Psychology.' Old Chai, don't be too superstitious, trust in science."

Hearing Brother Ang's words, Old Chai laughed dryly and stared at the orange-red flames without saying another word.