bookbashuk Chapter 21 The Camp Was Destroyed
Chapter 21 The Camp Was Destroyed
The scents of the eastern grasslands are most complex before dawn.
The muddy, fishy smell of the reeds is the underlying tone, pressing down at the bottom, thick and still.
The smell of bison dung is the second layer; because the temperature was low last night, it remained on the surface and did not dissipate, making its concentration almost twice as high as during the day.
The third layer is the true scent of the bison herd itself, a warm, grassy aroma that wafts out in waves from the dense outline at the edge of the reeds.
Chen Fei pressed his nose to the east and carefully reviewed the third layer of energy.
The stress smell was milder than last night.
It didn't disappear completely; rather, the pungent, sharp smell from the tight glandular secretions transformed into a relatively mild background odor.
This indicates that the bison herd was not disturbed again last night, their stress levels are decreasing naturally, and the overall level of relaxation in the herd is returning to normal.
This is today's hunting window.
But the window won't open for long. After the sun rises and the temperature increases, the bison herd becomes active again, and the cows on the outer ring will re-enter a state of high alert, increasing their defensive density and trapping the calves even tighter, thus closing the window.
Chen Fei mentally went through the timeline and placed the two events side by side.
First task: We must complete the hunt today and push our energy points from 491 to 500.
The second thing: the sound of the river last night, the light and quick movement was already probing for a place to cross the river, and the window, which had been closed for five days, was now filled with an urgent sense of urgency.
With these two things happening together, there's only one conclusion—this morning is crucial and cannot be missed.
Sel was already awake. She was sitting two steps to his right, her nose twitching slightly as she took in the scent of the eastern meadow, her ears perked up to the east.
She didn't move forward, but simply sat there, staring intently at the outline of the bison herd at the edge of the reeds.
Chen Fei glanced at her sideways before turning his gaze back towards the direction of the bison herd.
There was a pattern to the outer defenses of the bison herd, and it took Chen Fei nearly nine days to fully confirm this pattern.
The cows on the outer ring don't stand in fixed positions. Every twenty to thirty minutes, the cows on the outer ring take turns standing. When a cow gets tired, it moves to the inside and a cow on the inside moves up.
This rotation mechanism allows bison herds to maintain collective defense for extended periods without exhausting their energy, making it one of the most efficient collective defense strategies on the grasslands.
But rotation comes at a cost.
At the moment of handover, a brief gap will appear in the outer defensive line, lasting about three to five seconds. The cow in front steps back, and the cow behind has not yet fully taken its place. The defensive line is thinnest in this gap, and there is the least obstruction between the calf and the outer circle.
Three to five seconds.
Chen Fei previously summarized three key points, defining the "judgment window" as the moment when the prey's attention shifts, which begins about 0.5 seconds before the prey moves.
Today's judgment window is the three seconds during the cow rotation handover.
He mentally went over the timing and the three-node framework.
Positioning: Position yourself about forty meters upwind of the bison herd, shift your weight back, lower your profile, and tighten your breathing to prevent the bison herd from sensing the threat and approaching.
Advance position: Wait for Sel to take the lead, use Sel's sprint to draw the attention of the bison herd to the front, compress the stride, reduce the sound to zero, and advance along the outer flank.
Judgment Window: At the moment of cow rotation and handover, Sail creates pressure from the front, while Chen Fei cuts in from the flank, blocking the calf's escape route, and cooperates with Sail to finish the job.
This was the first time he had used the three-node framework in its entirety in an actual hunt.
Big Head is still asleep.
He lay down beside the roots of the acacia tree, burying his face completely in his front paws, his tail resting on the grass, breathing evenly, his ears relaxed, in a state of tranquil and deep sleep.
Last night, he turned over in the smell of manure and found a new spot. Today, this spot was sheltered from the wind by the tree roots, and the smell was almost ten times better than on the east side, so he slept exceptionally well.
Chen Fei glanced at him silently before looking away.
Today's hunting doesn't require the main player's involvement. His positioning accuracy is still lacking. In this kind of flanking coordination that requires precise positioning, positioning errors will directly reopen the calf's escape route.
It's better to let him continue sleeping, so he doesn't make things worse.
Let him practice for a while longer.
The sun climbed over the reeds on the east side, baking the grass with its first layer of heat.
The bison herd began to stir, with several calves emerging from their mothers' legs, taking a couple of steps outward, and grazing with their heads down. The outermost cows, whose stress levels hadn't fully returned to normal, were standing a bit more loosely than last night, with the distance between the calves and the outermost cows about the length of a calf.
Sel slowly got up, lowered his body, and touched the ground with his nose, and began to move to the east side without making a sound.
Chen Fei followed, and the two of them approached the bison herd along an upwind arc, keeping their scent outside the herd's range of perception.
Forty meters.
Thirty meters.
At 25 meters, Sail stopped, shifted his weight back, lowered his profile to its lowest point, pricked up his ears, and stared at the positions of the cows on the outer ring, waiting for the rotation signal.
Chen Fei landed about ten meters to her right, spread his body on the grass, pressed his front paws firmly into the ground, and stored half of the heat in his right front paw, not releasing it, but keeping it in reserve.
and so on.
There is an ironclad rule in hunting on the grasslands: it is not the strongest who wins, but the one who can wait the longest.
A skilled lioness can lie motionless on the grass for up to two hours, waiting for her prey to come within her attack range.
This isn't about patience; it's about energy economics. The heat consumed in chasing for over 200 meters is close to the reward of a successful hunt. If you lose, you get nothing. So, don't run; just wait.
That's the kind of hunter that Sel is.
She lay on the grass, her outline blending into the color of the withered grass. From the side, Chen Fei could hardly find her boundaries.
Nearly twenty more minutes passed.
A cow on the left side of the outer circle began to back away from the inner circle, her steps slow and labored, a sign of fatigue and a rotation signal.
Sel moved.
Without any warning, the switch from lying down to sprinting at full speed happened in less than a second. Her body sprang up from the grass, her four legs spread out, and she charged straight at the outer edge of the bison herd, her sprint route precisely aimed at the cow that was taking turns retreating.
The bison herd has broken out.
The cows on the outer ring squeezed inwards, and the calves were pushed by their mothers toward the reeds. Their retreat was blocked by the crocodile smell of the reeds, and the whole herd formed a chaotic confrontation at the edge of the reeds.
Three calves had become separated from their mothers in the opposite bank, and one of them ran out to the right, heading directly towards Chen Fei's position.
Decision window.
Chen Fei pushed the heat from his right forepaw to his limbs—no, only one side, left front and right back, in the direction of the burst. He spread his body out from the grass, compressing his stride to the minimum and reducing his sound to zero. He cut in from the flank, blocking the calf's right escape route before it could change direction.
The calf turned left and ran right into the route that Sair was taking from the front.
Sel bit the calf's neck cleanly and swiftly; the calf struggled on the ground for less than ten seconds before stopping.
Throughout the entire process, Chen Fei did not make a sound.
After eating, the energy points jumped once.
[Host: Chen Fei]
[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]
[Energy Points: 499↑]
Almost.
It was so close.
Chen Fei pressed his paws to the ground, looked at the number in his mind for a few seconds without any expression, and then lowered his head to continue eating.
Sel stood beside him, offering him the calf's abdominal cavity, then stepped back to the edge, waiting for him to eat first, his eyes calm.
Big Head woke up at some point. He walked over from the acacia tree, his ears perked up and his nose twitching. After smelling the scent, he quickened his pace and trotted over. He stopped about two meters away from Chen Fei, sat down, and glanced back and forth between Chen Fei and the prey a few times. He didn't go forward, but just sat there, his tail gently patting the ground behind him.
He was waiting for Chen Fei's signal to let him eat.
He couldn't do this move last week.
Last week, he pounced on it directly, but Chen Fei pushed him away twice with his shoulder. Now he knows how to wait. Although the frequency with which his tail slapped the ground betrayed his inner anxiety, at least he was waiting.
Chen Fei turned his head to the side and tilted his chin slightly toward his prey.
Big Head immediately pounced on him.
...
After nightfall, the wind shifted.
The scent came from the direction of the old territory, carrying a smell—the earthy odor of dry grass mixed with the damp mud of the riverbank. It was fresh, very fresh, indicating that the other party had just made a move near the waterline, no more than two hours ago.
Chen Fei strained his ears toward the old territory, trying to separate the layers of sound in the night wind.
The sound of the wind, the rustling of reeds, and the low breathing of a wildebeest herd in the distance.
Then came the sound of water.
It wasn't the continuous sound of flowing water, but a short, tentative splashing sound, with irregular intervals and pauses of about three to five seconds each time, as if something were digging its paw into the water to sense the depth and current, then lifting it up to reassess.
Lightweight.
It is the landing point for crossing the river.
Chen Fei kept his ears perked up, listening intently to the sound of water in the night breeze, and roughly reconstructed the other party's probing route in his mind.
About 30 meters downstream from the upstream reef area, there is a shallow area where the water is no deeper than belly-deep and the current is slow. Crocodiles do not like to lie in the shallow water for a long time, making it the most likely landing point for crossing the river on the east side of the island.
Lightweight has already found this location.
The sound of water came again, then stopped.
Only the sound of the wind remained at night.