Tiger, I rejected the iron rice bowl.

"Oh dear!" Tang Li laughed awkwardly and quickly waved her hand to apologize, "Sorry, sorry, my hand slipped! I wasn't paying attention."

She pointed to the dark forest ahead, her tone softening: "Go on, go home and stay there, don't wander off again!"

Wang Yu lowered her head, picked up the small ball from the ground, and gently rubbed her head against Tang Li's palm, as if responding to her instructions.

He gave Tang Li a deep look, a hint of reluctance flashing in his amber eyes, then turned around, took brisk steps over the roadside fence, and sped into the dark depths of the forest, his figure quickly disappearing into the night.

"He runs so fast..." Tang Li sighed softly as she watched his rapidly disappearing figure, feeling a strange emptiness in her heart.

Wang Jianjun walked over, followed her gaze to the forest, and nodded with a smile: "This is a real mountain tiger. Of course it'll be fast on its own territory!"

He patted Tang Li on the shoulder: "Alright, mission accomplished, let's go back! We still have to go to work as usual tomorrow."

Tang Li turned to look at Wang Weiguo in the SUV not far away, and complained with a sullen face, "The principal is so stingy! After all this trouble, can't he give us a day off?"

"You've only known him for a day?" Wang Jianjun rolled his eyes, his tone full of helplessness and acceptance. "If it weren't for the law requiring him to pay wages, he'd practically expect us to do all this charity work for free!"

He sighed and complained, "I've worked here for so many years, and I still haven't received a single penny in wages!"

"Uncle Wang, how dare you say that?" Tang Li looked at him speechlessly. "The zoo is yours to begin with. You're working for yourself, why would you want a salary?"

Wang Jianjun shrugged, looking aggrieved: "But it hasn't been officially handed over to me yet! I'm just a future principal, the kind without a salary!"

The two walked toward the SUV while arguing and bickering.

After getting on the bus, it slowly started moving and headed towards the zoo.

As the convoy withdrew, the temporarily controlled highway quickly reopened to traffic, and the flow of vehicles formed by headlights resumed, as if the thrilling and amusing "releasing the tiger back to the mountain" was just a trivial episode.

Deep in the forest, Wang Yuyu, with a small ball in her mouth, stopped behind a large tree, glanced back at the direction Tang Li's car had driven away, and only turned around and slowly walked deeper into the forest after the car lights had completely disappeared.

He was about to begin inspecting his territory.

"Sigh, how boring..." Wang Yuyu flicked her tail, feeling a sense of emptiness.

The lively atmosphere of his bickering with Tang Li and being "tricked" by her hadn't even dissipated when suddenly all that remained was boundless silence. The stark contrast made him feel a little uncomfortable.

He looked up at the sky, where starlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the ground.

The surroundings were quiet, with only the rustling of leaves in the wind and the occasional chirping of insects in the distance.

"Fine, fine, let's just have the inspection then."

Wang Yu shook her head, dispelling her boredom. "I can't let other clueless predators come in and steal my territory, otherwise I'll have a problem finding food!"

He carried the small ball in his mouth and walked steadily through the forest, patrolling the boundaries and keeping an eye out for other animals in his territory.

He memorized the hoofprints of deer, the droppings of rabbits, the root marks of wild boars... making sure he could find food whenever he was hungry.

Before they knew it, it was the middle of the night. The biting cold wind swept through the woods. Wang Yuyu was getting tired and didn't want to continue patrolling.

He found a sheltered snowdrift in the woods, cleared away the snow with his paws, laid dry leaves inside, curled up his massive body, and crawled in.

The soft snow and leaves insulated it from the cold. Wang Yu buried its head between its front paws, its tail gently covering its body, and soon began to snore.

A few days later, a light, fine snow began to fall from the sky. The snowflakes fell like shattered jade, covering the entire mountain forest with a thin layer of silver frost.

A team of television crew members, who came specifically to find Wang Yuyu in order to film the Siberian tiger episode of the documentary "Land of the Gods," entered his territory accompanied by a forest ranger.

However, Wang Yuyu had already figured out the distribution pattern of the infrared cameras, and would always deliberately avoid these devices when patrolling the territory, resulting in very little footage being captured, which was completely insufficient to meet the needs of the documentary filming.

In order to gather enough material and to record the wild life of this "King of the Forest" from a brand-new aerial perspective, the production team finally decided to place their hopes on drones.

Guided by the forest rangers, they located a "fast track" that Wang Yuyu always took when patrolling his territory.

It was a cement road leading to a small village deep in the mountains.

Early that morning, before dawn, a light snow was falling, shrouding the mountains and forests in a hazy gloom.

The film crew quietly made their way through the thin snow to an open field near the passage, quickly set up their equipment, and prepared to launch the drone.

With everything ready, the drone slowly took off, braving the fine snow and carrying everyone's expectations, heading towards the depths of the snow-shrouded forest.

The search operation lasted from dawn until noon. The drone's camera swept across the snow-covered forest, but apart from the white snow and bare branches, it did not capture a single living creature.

Everyone wrapped their coats tighter, rubbing their hands in the cold wind, their faces full of anxiety and exhaustion.

In the afternoon, as the wind and snow subsided, the staff, not daring to delay, once again took the drone into the air and expanded the search area along the pre-set route.

Time passed slowly, and before they knew it, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. The sky gradually darkened, and seeing that they were going to return empty-handed again, the mood of the entire film crew plummeted.

Just then, an excited shout broke the silence: "Captain! Captain! I've spotted a herd of deer!"

The speaker was Yu Shu, the drone operator, who was staring intently at the screen, his eyes shining brightly.

Upon hearing this, the people around him immediately swarmed over as if they had been injected with adrenaline, their eyes instantly fixed on the display screen in his hand.

Zeng Xinghe, the head of the production team, rushed over, his voice trembling with urgency: "Let me see! Let me see!"

The screen clearly showed a snow-covered hillside where more than twenty red deer were leisurely grazing on the withered grass beneath the snow.

The leader of the red deer was tall and imposing, with thick, long, clearly forked antlers on its head. When it chewed its food, its mouth moved, revealing a sense of vigilance, yet it also seemed strangely endearing.

It would occasionally raise its head, its keen eyes fixed on the drone hovering in the air, its ears perked up alertly.