The Evolutionary Path of the Lion

Chapter 81 First Contact

It wasn't the shrillness of an alarm, but rather a calm signal to "wait and see."

The scent of the lioness approaching from the northeast seemed to have been paused, completely halting in the wind.

Chen Fei sat down on the wet mud of the riverbank, his buttocks sinking slightly into the soft mud. For a quarter of an hour, he etched the image of his one leg into his mind: a deep scar on the joint of his right forelimb, where he only dared to land on the outer edge of his palm, rendering a third of its function useless; but the muscles of his left forelimb were taut, and with every breath, the tension in his shoulders and back was visible—the strength developed through long-term compensatory training, not useless, but simply a different way of exerting force. The thinness of the dry season made his ribs resemble mountains in the dark night, rising and falling clearly with his breath, but his yellow-green eyes shone with an astonishing brightness, without a trace of confusion, as clear-headed as if tempered by ice.

It works.

Chen Fei mentally solidified this conclusion, pushed off the ground with his hind legs and stood up. His mane was blown by the wind and stuck to the side of his neck. Without turning his head, he walked downstream with even strides, his hooves making a soft crunching sound as they stepped on the gravel.

After walking about thirty meters, a third low growl came from behind the one-legged creature.

The voice trembled slightly, unlike its previous deep tone, and lacked any warning sharpness. It was more like a crumpled piece of doubt drifting in the wind. It was a tune that Chen Fei had never heard in the pride of lions before, a pure and helpless confusion.

Chen Fei ignored the questioning voice, but continued walking forward without stopping.

On the way back, Chen Fei made a turn in the middle of the river, left the riverbank and ventured into the heart of the grassland, intending to circle around to the east side of the hunting grounds before returning to his lodging.

As he reached the northern edge of the hunting grounds, a pungent, fishy smell suddenly filled his nostrils, like rotting flesh mixed with damp earth, making him wrinkle his nose – hyena.

There was more than one.

Chen Fei abruptly stopped, lowered his body, raised his nose high, and rapidly flared his nostrils, breaking down the scents in the wind. Three heads, each with a pungent, fishy smell mixed with their own sweat, were heading southeast by south, about two hundred meters away. The rustling sound of their hooves on the grass grew closer and closer, indicating they were heading northwest, directly in his direction.

It wasn't aimed at him; the three-headed formation was a reconnaissance squad, not an attack force. But as long as they got this far, they could smell his presence and relay his location back to the other side of the split mouth.

Chen Fei stood still for two seconds, his ear tips twitching.

He was then awakened by a warm current deep within his abdomen, which flowed out like a warm spring, running along the meridians of his limbs to his claws, and then seeping from his claws to the surface of his skin. It was as if someone was squeezing his fur from the inside out, pressing all the scents attached to the surface into his muscles. In two seconds, his entire body was completely sealed off.

The wind blew past his ears, but couldn't carry away a trace of his presence, as if he had never been on this grassland.

Chen Fei lowered his body even further, bracing himself on his forelimbs and curling up his hind limbs, silently crawling into the waist-high grass beside him. He pressed his ears against his scalp and then suddenly turned southeast, like two sensitive radars, capturing the hyena's movements.

The smell of the three-headed hyena grew stronger and stronger, a stench mixed with the crunching sound of grass being crushed underfoot. One hundred and fifty meters, one hundred meters, eighty meters.

Chen Fei lay prone in the grass, his mane covered in grass clippings, watching them pass by seventy meters upwind of him.

The lead hyena suddenly stopped, its front paws digging into the ground, its nose almost touching the grass stems, sniffing fiercely a few times. Then it abruptly raised its head, its yellowish-brown eyes scanning its surroundings, its ears darting around. It smelled something—the scent of Chen Fei's footprints, but the scent stopped there, like a cut rope, without a source, just a lonely remnant.

It stood there for almost a minute, pawing at the ground with its front paws, sniffing the surrounding scents over and over again, before finally shaking its head and letting out a low, hoarse howl at its companion.

The other two hyenas immediately came over, rubbed their noses against the ground, and then exchanged a few short hisses, their voices full of confusion.

The source of the odor has disappeared.

They can't be found.

The lead hyena circled halfway around, its tail drooping, and changed its direction from northwest to due north, leading the other two hyenas northward, bypassing the area.

The footsteps and the fishy smell gradually faded away, carried by the wind across the grassland towards the horizon.

Chen Fei lay prone in the grass until he could no longer smell the hyena's scent in the wind. Only then did he slowly relax, withdrawing the heat from his abdomen. The pores on his skin reopened, and his own scent dissipated like mist, carried away by the wind into the distance.

He stood up from the grass, shook the grass clippings off his mane, and glanced southeast. The hyena was long gone, leaving only a hoofprint extending due north, which was the northern edge of the hunting ground. The snarling beast's breath had been probing that direction lately.

Chen Fei marked this direction in his mind and turned to walk towards his destination.

The three-headed hyena reconnaissance team's mission today is to confirm the scent distribution on the north and northwest sides of the hunting grounds, and incidentally, to find the breach upstream.

Unable to find him, they went around to the north side.

There was no gap on the north side.

[Host: Chen Fei]

[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]

[Energy Points: 906↑]

From the direction where they landed, the wind carried the faint scent of hay from Sel, the milky smell unique to stingy people, and the hurried footsteps of Big Head, heavy and a little shaky, as if he were carrying a heavy piece of prey and chasing something, his hooves thumping on the ground.

Chen Fei quickened his pace and increased his stride.

The upstream issue is only the first step for now.

The one-legged man's eyes were clear.

A clear-headed adversary is often more reliable than a muddle-headed ally.

He remembered those icy yellow-green eyes.

The evening wind pressed in from the west, carrying the lingering heat of the day on the grassland, pushing the clouds eastward.

Chen Fei stood at the edge of the landing spot for a while, his nostrils flaring as he confirmed the scent coming from the northwest. The scent of the one-legged creature lingered near the sandbar, steady and even, indicating it was resting and guarding its territory, and had not moved.

He turned and walked northwest.

This time he didn't take a detour, advancing in a straight line along the riverbank at a faster pace. The window of opportunity at dusk was too short; he needed to complete the second contact before it got completely dark, then return to the vicinity of the camp to handle another matter.

The twilight light dyed the riverbed a dark bronze color, and the slanting sunlight, like scattered gold, drifted on the water's surface with the current. The reeds rustled in the wind, just enough to cover the sound of Chen Fei's hooves stomping on the wet mud.

As soon as the sandbar came into view, a one-legged creature stood beside a dead tree on the edge of the sandbar, its forepaws alternately grinding the ground, its yellow-green eyes peering across the water as it waited.

Chen Fei stopped 100 meters downstream and returned to his original position from yesterday.

The one-legged creature didn't growl today; it simply raised its head higher. Its eyes still held the confusion from yesterday, but something else had appeared in them. It was waiting to see what he would do, rather than wondering whether or not to drive him away.