dmims Chapter 69 Critical Point
Chapter 69 Critical Point
Chen Fei paused in front of him, waiting for him to calm down to a level where he could act. Then he gestured to him in the direction of a defensive position. Wanderer B followed, lay down, ears pointing south, tail tip flicked twice, and stabilized.
Da Tou stood in the middle of the landing area. After watching Chen Fei arrange everyone, he walked over, stood next to Chen Fei, pointed his ears south, lowered his body, and assumed what he considered a defensive posture.
With its back straight, head held high, and tail raised high, it was the posture of an adult male lion he had ever seen when it was showing off.
Chen Fei glanced at him.
Big Head lowered its tail slightly and relaxed its back a little, but its head was still held high, as if it was making a final stand.
Chen Fei ignored him, walked to the side of Sail, lay down next to Sail and the stingy girl, gently pressed the stingy girl under Sail with his front paws to make sure she was covered by Sail's body, and then raised his head to look south.
The sky began to brighten.
It was the kind of extremely slow process where the bluish-black color was gradually diluted on the farthest horizon, turning into a deep gray, and then the deep gray slowly pushed upwards, pushing aside a layer of black on top.
The smell on the south side reached its strongest point of the night in the pre-dawn chill.
Chen Fei twitched his nostrils and mentally marked the concentration.
Critical point.
It's the critical point he mentioned in his mind yesterday.
At this concentration level, it's no longer a question of whether the hyena pack will come.
He stood up, walked to the southern edge of his spot, and stood at the outermost edge of the bushes, where he extended his super vision to the south.
The sky was not yet fully bright, and the night vision effect still lingered. The two visual systems alternated during this period. The distant scene appeared grayish-white with some graininess, but the outlines were clear.
He shifted his gaze southward, one kilometer, one and a half kilometers...
stop.
At 1.5 kilometers, along the undulating lines of the grassland, there is a set of outlines.
It's not the outline of vegetation, which is static. This outline has subtle dynamics, the kind of subtle swaying that living organisms produce when they breathe and their muscles maintain an upright posture.
He focused his gaze on the outline, taking in the details.
The hyenas, in a pack, stood still, observing.
The foremost outline is larger than the other outlines beside it.
It is significantly larger, not just a little bit, but the kind of size difference that can be distinguished at a glance among its kind. The outline of its head is wider than that of an ordinary hyena, and the thickness of its neck is also different. It has a larger and heavier density. When it stands there, its entire outline is lowered. It is not arched, but a unique posture after the center of gravity has been lowered. It is low, stable, and the intention to move forward is already in the posture, but it has not yet moved.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 886↑]
Chen Fei turned around and started going downhill.
He walked slowly back to his lodgings, not because his legs were weak, but because he was thinking. His super vision wasn't working at this moment, so he relied on his ears to navigate, listening to the rustling of grass, the chirping of insects, and the faint, almost imperceptible, nasal breathing sound coming from the direction of his lodgings. He calibrated his bearings and circled around the outer edge of the bushes.
Sel is still here.
She lay prone where the bushes met the grass, the stingy boy huddled beneath her belly, only half an ear showing. Sel didn't look up, but his ear turned, the muscles on the side of his ear twitching slightly—a relaxation born of recognizing her presence.
Chen Fei walked past her without stopping.
Meimei stood guard at the western gap in the bushes. When Chen Fei approached, she crouched down halfway, looked over, and remained silent. Chen Fei stood in front of her for a second, then raised his nose slightly to the south. Meimei's nose twitched, and her eyebrows, if lions had eyebrows, squeezed together slightly before she lay back down, but her ears stood up even higher than before.
enough.
Chen Fei went to find Homeless A.
In the northeast corner, Stray A wasn't asleep. He lay sprawled on a low clump of grass, his body flattened, his head resting on his front paws, but his eyes were open, his pupils narrowed, his yellow irises resembling two amber beads in the pre-dawn light. Chen Fei walked over, and Stray A turned his ears toward him, but didn't move.
Chen Fei squatted down in front of him, pawed at the ground with his front paws, and headed south.
The homeless man raised his head, sniffed, looked south, and then looked at Chen Fei.
Chen Fei pressed down on the ground with his front paw, not hard, meaning "hold it down, don't move."
The stray A put his head back on his paws. But his ears remained.
Chen Fei glanced back in the direction of the homeless man. He was huddled in the grass, fast asleep, his back rising and falling with his breath. Chen Fei looked at him for two seconds, then didn't wake him. There was no need now; reacting would only cause trouble.
Where is the big head?
He scanned the area and found Big Head three meters north of Sel. The creature was curled up in a ball, its head tucked under its front paws, its hind legs kicking, as if chasing something in a dream. Chen Fei walked over and stomped on Big Head's back.
"Hmm,"
Big Head sprang up, his head spinning three times, unable to find its way. Before his eyes could focus, his legs gave way, nearly causing him to trip. He looked around in surprise and uncertainty, finally fixing his gaze on Chen Fei. His eyes shifted from bewilderment to grievance, and his mouth opened but no meow came out.
Chen Fei nudged his head with his nose and pushed him towards Sel.
Big Head was dazed for three seconds, then shook his body and moved his head closer to Sel, lying down again on the grass next to her, this time with his ears open and his eyes half-closed.
Chen Fei retreated to the east side of the shrubbery and lay down in a position where he could simultaneously observe the grass to the south and the core area of his landing spot.
The sky began to brighten.
The sun hadn't risen yet, but the light was already sufficient. The outline of the grassland in the distance changed from black to dark green, then to yellowish-green. The wind shifted, coming from the north-northeast. The metallic scent had lessened a bit, but hadn't disappeared.
Chen Fei pushed his super vision device out and scanned towards the southern boundary.
empty.
At 1.5 kilometers, the low-lying dark shadows had vanished. At the boundary between the dense and sparse grass, only grass remained, swaying gently in the morning breeze, without any outline or weight. He moved left, then right, pushing further away, until, at the three-kilometer mark, there was nothing.
They've withdrawn.
He withdrew the heat.
Retreat doesn't mean they're gone. Hyena packs are nocturnal, and retreating at dawn is their normal rhythm; it doesn't mean they've gone far, much less that they won't return. He ran through the image of that large, imposing head in his mind: heavy forelimbs, a broad head, and a stance that wasn't scanning but staring—not in the direction of the grassland, but right here where they were settling down.
He suppressed this information and refrained from drawing a conclusion.
Too early.
As dawn broke, movement began to stir where they had been resting. The stingy creature crawled out from under Sel's belly, wobbled a couple of steps, and then started biting at a blade of grass. Unable to break it, it tried swatting at it with its paws. After a while, the grass sprang up, smearing her face with its paws. She paused for a second, then started chasing after the grass. Sel ignored it, merely turning its head slightly to watch it until it was far away before looking away.
Big Head was fully awake. He sat up, yawned, and puffed out his cheeks, revealing two canine teeth that hadn't fully grown in yet. He then scratched his face with his paws, but halfway through, he noticed Chen Fei watching him. He immediately put his paws down and adopted a serious, guarding posture.
Chen Fei turned his head away.
Behind me came the sound of Big Head scratching his face again.
The early morning hunt didn't begin. It wasn't that there was no prey, it was that Chen Fei hadn't moved. He lay prone on the east side of the bushes, scanning his position and the southern boundary back and forth for most of the morning, but found nothing unusual. The wind shifted twice; each time the wind blew south, a trace of that metallic scent was brought over—faint, but consistent, indicating the source was still there, just farther away.
Meimei came over once.
She walked from the western gap to Chen Fei's side, lying down about a meter to his right. Neither of them made a sound. She was also looking south. After a while, she scratched the ground next to Chen Fei with her paw—not a signal, just the kind of gesture one makes when doing nothing—before resting her chin on her front paws.
Chen Fei glanced at her sideways.
She didn't look at him; her eyes were still fixed on the south.
Chen Fei looked away.
The two lions lay side by side, the wind flattened the grass and then made it stand up again, the sun climbed high overhead and heat rose from the ground, but there was still no movement on the southern border.
In the afternoon, Chen Fei went out for a while.
He didn't ask anyone to follow him.