ebonymovies Chapter 107 The Tracking Dog
Chapter 107 The Tracking Dog
On the nineteenth day of the dry season, the last water source dried up completely.
It wasn't slowly steamed dry.
It completely dried up overnight.
When Chen Fei arrived in the morning, the mud pit was filled with only a layer of wet silt, and the edges had begun to crack. Several vultures were perched nearby, tilting their heads and staring at the mud pit, looking bewildered and unable to understand what was going on.
The water supply for all three prides in the alliance depends on this spot.
It's completely cut off now.
Chen Fei stood at the edge of the mud pit and surveyed the surrounding terrain.
He knew there was water in this place.
This isn't just a guess.
In his past life, he had watched a documentary that specifically discussed the distribution patterns of groundwater layers during the dry season in East Africa. If three conditions were met—low-lying areas, the boundary between basalt and sandstone, and places with unusual vegetation density—there was a high probability that water was hidden underneath.
Two kilometers to the northeast, there's a thicket of shrubs, unusually dense, much denser than the surrounding grass. From a high vantage point, it looks like someone deliberately planted it.
Chen Fei thought to himself: Last year I passed by here and didn't even glance at it. How could I have paid attention back then? Now it's different. I can tell something's wrong as soon as I sniffle.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 1109↑]
He turned and walked northeast.
Big Head followed behind, taking a few steps and then wandering around aimlessly, his eyes darting here and there. He tripped over a clump of dry grass by the roadside without noticing, stumbled and almost fell flat on his face, but got up and pretended nothing had happened, then trotted along to catch up.
Chen Fei didn't turn around; this guy was just too stupid to be helped.
The bushes were much denser than I remembered.
He circled halfway around the outer ring, sniffing and probing for a long time.
It's wet!
It wasn't the dampness of dew; it was seeping from underground, carrying a cool, mineral-like scent, hidden beneath the decaying leaves at the roots of the shrubs.
Chen Fei raised its front paws and scratched at the side twice.
The surface layer is dry soil.
Five centimeters down, the soil color deepens.
Big Head came closer, buried his head in the pit and sniffed hard. His eyes lit up. This guy finally got it!
It immediately used both front paws to dig, sending dirt flying everywhere and covering Chen Fei's face in dust.
"What are you doing, pushing so hard? Slow down!" Chen Fei raised his hand and slapped it.
Big Head paused for a moment, moved to the side, and continued digging with even more energy.
When you dig down to 15 centimeters, water starts gushing out.
The relocation didn't go as smoothly as Chen Fei had imagined.
The one-legged gang is alright; they were originally integrated later, and they listen to whatever Chen Fei says without question.
Of the three upstream branches, one is completely immobile.
The leader was a five-year-old lioness with an old scar running from her shoulder to her waist; she was quite ugly and had an even more fiery temper. Since she came back, she had been the most difficult to handle.
It lay on the edge of its old territory with three lionesses. Chen Fei bared his teeth and gestured several times, but the creature just lay there pretending to be dead.
Chen Fei stood in front of it for a while.
The lioness with the old scar stiffened her neck and glared back. The two lions stared at each other, frozen in place for almost a minute.
Chen Fei leaned forward, bent down, and gently nudged it with his forehead. The force wasn't great, but the meaning was clear: Let's go!
The lioness with the old scar paused, tilting her head half an inch to the side, which was considered an admission of submission.
Chen Fei waited for three seconds, then turned and walked northeast.
Immediately behind me, I heard it get up, its four paws stomping on the dry earth as it followed.
Just two hours after the transfer, the slit-mouthed gang couldn't hold back any longer.
Chen Fei had anticipated their arrival. With the alliance making such a big commotion, a bunch of auras converging on one road, heading in a fixed direction, moving slowly, and carrying cubs and wounded, it would be a waste of an opportunity not to cause trouble at this time.
We just couldn't figure out where they came from.
West side!
A foul odor wafted in the night breeze, and Chen Fei immediately locked onto the direction.
There were about forty hyenas, divided into two groups. The main force advanced from the southwest, while the other group circled around to the back of the column, where the cubs and strays were!
Chen Fei suppressed his breath completely, leaving no trace.
He circled around to the west side of the transfer team, his steps as light as a cat's, and crouched down in front of the main force of the split-mouthed group, his ears perked up to their maximum.
Night vision provides a panoramic view in the darkness.
I mentally visualized the location, movement, and spacing of the forty hyenas.
He opened his mouth and let out a roar from his throat, but it wasn't his own voice.
It's the roar of a grown male lion, with its resonant chambers fully expanded and the low frequencies drawn out for a long time, sent towards the front of the gaping maw.
And it wasn't just one, it was three!
He layered three timbres in his throat, each layer differing by 0.2 seconds, the sound waves colliding in the wind, pressing down simultaneously from the front, left front, and right front of his gaping mouth.
The main force of the split-mouth attack has stopped.
There was a four-second pause, and then things went awry.
It wasn't an escape; they started pushing and shoving each other. Those in front shrank back, while those behind pushed forward, crowding together in a heap, their howls turning from loud shouts into a chaotic cacophony.
Chen Fei had already circled around to the side of the hyena.
Suppressing their own scent completely, they replaced it with the smell of withered grass and soil, crouched low, and darted out from the bushes.
The hyenas didn't even have time to react.
Chen Fei slapped the leader's neck with his claw, activating a surge of heat. The power wasn't meant to kill, but to shock!
The hyena flew two meters, got up, turned around and ran away, with the rest following suit in a frenzy.
While the main force was still in disarray, once the signal for a rout was given, the entire Slit-Mouth Night Raid Team vanished within two minutes.
Chen Fei stood by the bushes, listening to the howling grow fainter and fainter.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 1124↑]
Big Head ran over from the group, circled him twice, sniffing around, then looked up with an expression as if he'd seen a ghost.
It's as if it's saying, "Where were you just now? How did you chase the hyena away in the blink of an eye?"
Chen Fei flicked his tail, "Enough with the nonsense."
Big Head turned around again to make sure he wasn't injured before casually bouncing back into the group.
The investigation team's tracking dogs finally entered the site on the fourth day.
Four dogs and two dog handlers advanced from the east, sniffing along the route Chen Fei had patrolled last month.
Chen Fei lay prone two kilometers away, his breath barely contained, not even daring to breathe heavily. The smell on his body was a mixture of red soil and withered grass, blending into the surrounding terrain.
The tracking dog circled most of the road he had traveled but found nothing.
The four dogs kept sniffing and circling in the same spot, looking up at each other, then sniffing again and circling again, like headless flies.
The dog trainer squatted down to examine the ground, looking at the footprints and the direction the grass stems were bent. He stood up, shook his head, and looked puzzled.
Chen Fei, lying prone in the distance, could see everything clearly. "Trying to play tracking games with me? Too naive."
That afternoon, Chen Fei found a hard earthen slope to the west where the tracking dog had failed.
The heat from the claw tip gathers into a single point, pressing down stroke by stroke on the earthen slope: FOLLOW THE TRACKS WEST.
The handwriting is evenly dark, the letters are neatly spaced, and the last letter curves slightly upwards, just like someone writing with their right hand.
He took two steps back to take a look. He had chosen the perfect spot: a slope with a wide field of vision, directly facing the direction the survey team was advancing, and at a height between a person's waist and knees, which was the perfect angle for him to squat down and make marks.
Alright, I turned and left.
Sure enough, Ella discovered the message the next morning.
She squatted in front of the earthen slope, lowered the flashlight beam, and shone it left and right along the writing, then back again.
The dog trainer stood behind him without saying a word.
Ella took off her gloves, hovered her fingers two millimeters above the horizontal stroke of the letter E, and traced it without touching it.
"Two to three millimeters deep, with clean edges, pressed out from a curved surface," she said in a flat voice.
The dog trainer cleared his throat behind him: "Dr. Ella, our dogs around here haven't smelled a single human scent."
"I know," Ella said without turning around.
She stood up and looked west. There was a vast grassland, the shadows of bushes in the distance, and further away was the place where the slit-mouthed swarms usually stayed.
She put on gloves: "Mark the scene, collect all the evidence, and tell the advance team that the westward advance is halted today."
The dog trainer responded and turned to leave.
Ella stood in front of the earthen mound for a while, but Kenneth was definitely not going to stop. With his personality, how could he possibly be willing to give up?
She turned off her flashlight and headed towards the campsite.
The advance team's westward progress report was sent back in the evening.
Three team members and two dogs entered the western bushes about 800 meters in when they encountered more than 50 hyenas and were forced to retreat. One team member suffered minor injuries, and one dog went out of control due to stress, but the equipment was intact, and they all made it back.
Kenneth threw the report on the table without saying a word.
Ella sat opposite her, with photos of the engraving site beside her.
"FOLLOW THE TRACKS WEST," Kenneth read slowly, drawing out each word, "Someone is deliberately leading us west."
Kenneth looked up at her and stared for a while: "Ella, our internal coordinate system, the equipment malfunctioned last month, the tracking dogs failed, and now this happens. Connect all these things and tell me your thoughts."
Ella didn't respond.
The tent was very quiet, with the camping lights casting two shadows on each other.
"I'm working on a report," she said. "I need to send the report on our westward journey to Linton tonight."
"Ella".
"Kenneth," she interrupted him, her tone not harsh but leaving no room for argument, "I'm working on a report."
The tent fell silent.
Kenneth picked up the photo, glanced at it, and then threw it back.
As Kale changed shifts at midnight, he passed Ella's tent, where the light was still on.
He paused at the doorway, then lifted the curtain and poked his head in: "Not asleep yet?"
Ella sat in a folding chair, a report on the westward advance beside her, her eyes fixed on the tent ceiling, her soul seemingly drifting away.
"Thinking about something."
Kale walked in, sat on the equipment box next to him, and placed the flashlight on the ground. The grassland outside the tent was eerily quiet, with only the occasional gust of night wind blowing through, causing a small dent in the tent fabric.
"Who do you think carved those words?" Ella asked.
Kaller was silent for a moment, then said, "I don't know."
Kenneth still believes there was a mole.
"I guessed it."
"And you?"
Kaller picked up the flashlight and put it down again. The wind outside the window shook the tarpaulin, and the camp lights flickered.
"Ella," he said in a low voice, "haven't you noticed? From the moment we entered until now, every single instance of interference against us has been deliberate. The timing, the location, the method—everything has been perfectly timed to our most critical moments. A mole couldn't have done this alone! And what exactly is their purpose?"
Ella didn't say anything.
"No matter what it is, there are many things I just can't understand!" Kaller added.