My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 311 Leopard Cave, Going Home
"Uncle Han, I'll go out tomorrow and get some dry rations for us. I also need to go home and check on things at home."

As night fell, the exhausted expedition team gathered around the campfire for a meal.

Chen Ling spoke while munching on a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger).

Tonight's dinner is steamed buns with meat filling—pheasant, duck, and boar meat, all smoked. You can add whatever meat you like.

There was also a pot of pheasant stew with mushrooms simmering in the soup pot.

There are plenty of game in the mountains. Although big game is hard to catch, with guns and dogs, they can hunt some small game to fill their stomachs.

However, the steamed buns they brought are almost gone, and all that's left is a large pile of noodles. The noodles were specially bought by Han Ninggui's expedition team. These things are durable, easy to carry, and can last for several days if you carry a bag of them.

It's like eating this stuff three times a day; you can't stand it after a while.

They had experienced this firsthand during their previous days in the mountains.

Wang Lixian and the others didn't say anything; they had noodles three times a day, plus meat, which was quite a treat.

But the young people in the expedition team couldn't keep up. Last time, after finishing the steamed buns, they ate noodles for a week. And now they're going to have to eat like that again. How can that be allowed?

Upon hearing Chen Ling's suggestion, he immediately agreed.

Han Ninggui knew that Chen Ling had a child who was still young, so he understood Chen Ling's feelings.

He said, "It's good to go back and visit. Tomorrow will be the third day, and your wife and children miss you too."

He laughed as he spoke, "We came in a hurry the day before yesterday. When you go back this time, you have to get us some good food. It would be best if you could buy more steamed buns from the city. Meat steamed buns or vegetable steamed buns are fine. We're all craving them."

Last year, the old man was so impressed by the steamed buns in Fenglei Town that he couldn't stop thinking about them and made sure to eat them every time he came here.

They also sell it in this county town, but fewer people buy it every day, and the taste is not as good as in Fenglei Town.

It's not bad, though.

Chen Ling readily agreed and then asked, "Uncle Han, how many days will it take you to observe this miasma this time?"

"Well, it'll probably take about two weeks."

"What? Half a month? How can that take so long?"

"It won't grow much longer; the main thing is to do more experiments."

Han Ninggui said with a smile, "If you've had enough of staying in the mountains and miss home, you can take turns going home. Just leave a few people behind to help us with some small things."

However, apart from Chen Ling, no one else would listen to this, since staying an extra day means getting paid for that extra day.

In addition, you can also go hunting to earn some extra money, making double the income.

Such opportunities are rare, and it's far better than going out to work.

However, what they didn't know was that Chen Ling's return to the public eye was not for the sake of the wine.

He spent three days in the mountains, partly because he wanted to go home and visit his family.

Another was to act alone and track down the leopards over at Eagle Claw Ridge.

……

The night passed peacefully without incident.

At dawn, as the first rays of sunlight pierce through the forest, the entire mountain awakens.

The water murmured, and the birds chirped.

After a simple breakfast, Chen Ling, with Heiwa and Ertuzi in tow, embarked on his journey home amidst the farewells of the crowd.

Xiao Jin left it with them as a warning.

Otherwise, the other hunting dogs are not as perceptive as Little Gold, and sometimes they only notice danger when it is close at hand.

"Let's go, let's go to Eagle Claw Ridge to find that leopard first."

After crossing a hill, Chen Ling, carrying a gun and a knife, waved his hand triumphantly and led his dog and eagle in a different direction, heading towards Eagle Claw Ridge.

“Blackie, start Nassau.”

As they walked, he took out a stone that was stained with the urine of the leopard from the cave and made Heiwa smell it.

Although it wasn't the same leopard's urine, for the hunting dogs, the search was as long as it was from the same kind of leopard.

Just like the pungent smell of a fox, even if they are different foxes, as long as a person smells this fox odor, they can tell whether a certain hole has been inhabited by a fox.

The same principle applies to hunting dogs in Nassau, but they can find targets further and more accurately.

Unlike humans, they don't know what prey is until they get close and smell it.

Heiwa sniffed the stone, then raised his head and started sniffing randomly at the sky.

This is called "Li Sao".

As the name suggests, it involves sorting out the mixed smells in the mountain air and finding the target smell.

Only after you've sorted out the trouble can you start to find trouble.

"Wang Wang~"

Heiwa tilted his head back and sniffed for a while, then opened his mouth and barked twice. He glanced at Chen Ling and started trotting forward.

This is what it means to take a smug look.

The hawk in the sky flapped its wings twice and flew forward.

"Hopefully, things will go smoothly. Once we confirm the leopard's territory, we can lure it in."

Chen Ling looked up and saw that it was only a little past seven o'clock. He would spend half a day catching the leopard and the other half rushing home.

They traversed mountains and valleys, running freely, with Chen Ling following closely behind.

Finally, Heiwa stopped on the riverbank below Eagle Claw Ridge.

Leopard tracks were found on the riverbank.

A leopard treads on plum blossoms.

The footprints resemble plum blossoms, with five toes in front and four in the back.

Chen Ling can now recognize them at a glance.

"These footprints are very fresh, and there are quite a few other tracks on them. It seems this leopard often comes here to drink water." Seeing Heiwa still sniffing at the footprints, raising his head, and occasionally sniffing the opposite bank of the river, he barked.

Chen Ling frowned again upon seeing this: "What's wrong? It's not on Eagle Claw Ridge anymore? Did it go to the other side of the river?"

Leopards are creatures that can travel far and have a wide range of activities; they are, by nature, wanderers.

As the old saying goes, leopards can travel a hundred miles at night, always keeping wild birds and beasts by their side. They can travel a hundred miles in one night, chasing their prey along the mountains and forests for a very long time. They have no fixed abode and often make their home wherever they are.

When there are fewer prey, they move to a different location.

Across the river from Eagle Claw Ridge is Millstone Mountain, where they took shelter from the rain last year in a cave.

Just then, a cry was heard from the sky. Er Tu Zi, who was as swift as the wind, had already flown back from the opposite mountain and was circling and chirping above him and Heiwa.

The meaning is self-evident.

"Good heavens, it really is on the opposite mountain, it can run incredibly fast."

Chen Ling glanced at the leopard tracks on the riverbank. The tracks were clearly on this side, but the leopard had actually run to the other side long ago.

Muttering to himself, Chen Ling looked at the fresh footprints on the ground and suddenly had a bad feeling.

"Could it have sensed our arrival and run to the other side?"

Thinking this, he led Heiwa along the river and crossed it at a narrow point.

As autumn draws to a close, water levels drop, and the rivers in the mountains shrink considerably.

After easily crossing the river, they entered Mopan Mountain with the dog and the eagle.

Before long, Heiwa and Ertuzi started barking anxiously, their barking and howling confirming Chen Ling's bad premonition.

Sure enough, the leopard heard the noise and ran away.

Just in front of a cave halfway up the mountain, the leopard emerged from the cave carrying a deer in its mouth.

This means they not only want to run away, but they also want to take the food with them.

They were still quite a distance from the leopard at this point, and could only just see the leopard emerging from its den.

Upon seeing this, Heiwa barked loudly and pounced on the leopard like a black whirlwind.

The two bald men in the sky also transformed into arrows and plummeted down.

The leopard was startled.

This leopard was clearly not as fierce as the leopard in the cave. Perhaps it was because it was not injured. Unlike the leopard in the cave, which could not be provoked and would pounce on people and bite dogs, this leopard was much more aggressive.

The leopard was very cautious. Chen Ling didn't fire a shot or shout to scare it. It didn't know if it smelled the menacing aura and blood on Heiwa, but it prepared to escape early on.

Just as Heiwa and Ertuzi rushed towards it, the leopard was so frightened that it immediately dropped the deer it was carrying in its mouth, and leaped from the cave entrance into a tree.

This caused Heiwa and Ertuzi's attacks to miss completely.

Then, with another leap, he jumped from the tree to the steep cliff of Mopan Mountain. Each jump was more than three meters short and as long as five meters.

Under the sunlight, the leopard's golden fur with black spots the size of copper coins seemed to shimmer and shine with each leap on the mountainside, making it incredibly beautiful.

Until they jumped onto the high cliff, they could no longer see the leopard.

Chen Ling slowly closed his wide-open mouth.

"Damn it, a leopard with a tail can jump high and leap far. No wonder they say leopards run on mountain rocks. We've seen it for ourselves today."

"Yes, and also, leopards with tails are prettier than those without tails. They're bigger and more beautiful, much better than cats."

He tilted his head back and muttered to himself.

I felt increasingly regretful. I chased after it so far early in the morning, but I didn't pay attention when I came. The noise made a big fuss, and the leopard noticed me in advance and chased me away.

He couldn't help but sigh, "Who knows where they'll go next? They'll be hard to find."

If you discover a leopard's territory quietly, you can try to lure it, but once you startle it, you can't do that anymore. It will frequently change its territory in a short period of time to ensure its own safety.

Then, suppressing his resentment, he walked toward the dog and eagle that were also resentful, circling and howling outside the cave.

Upon reaching the cave entrance, they discovered that the deer the leopard had abandoned was not a deer, but another red muntjac.

It is a large deer with bright red fur that barks like a dog.

"Looks like there are a lot of these things in the mountains lately. We've found them so many times in the last few months."

Unfortunately, the leopard didn't even get to enjoy such a fine red muntjac before it was scared away. No wonder it kept thinking about it even as it fled.

It would be heartbreaking to abandon a prey you've worked so hard to catch without even eating it.

It felt like I'd lost a hundred dollars.

Grabbing a leg from the red muntjac, Chen Ling picked it up and put it back in his cave. He glanced at the cave again and was surprised to find that the leopard seemed to have lived there for quite some time.

"It's a pity I don't know if the leopard was male or female. If it had left behind a litter of cubs, why would I have bothered to catch it?"

Thinking this, he had an idea. He asked Heiwa to retrieve the leopard fur left in the cave and then dug out two clumps of leopard droppings buried at the bottom of the forest.

They were taken back to the cave and thrown into the forest of the man with the broken tail.

After throwing them in, I waved my hand to bury them in the soil, just a shallow layer.

The entire process was completed entirely through his mental control of the cave, without a sound, and the leopard with the severed tail was completely unaware.

As Chen Ling walked down the mountain, he secretly observed its reaction.

When it finally discovered the scent of a strange leopard in its territory, its reaction pleased Chen Ling.

"Hmm, it looks like a female leopard. If it were a male leopard, it would definitely be baring its teeth and acting suspiciously."

"Heiwa, remember this mother leopard's scent well. If we don't catch her this time, we'll come back next year. We'll keep an eye on her."

He patted Heiwa's big head and then headed home without lingering any longer.

Having a baby really changes things. I've only been in the mountains for two days, and I already miss home terribly.

I miss my wife and my son.

His main purpose in going into the mountains was to catch the leopard, but he failed and the leopard escaped. Naturally, it's better to stay at home with his wife and children and a warm bed.

(End of this chapter)