7. Drought

◎Looking towards the south, I saw a fire in the distance.◎

The huge roar scared all the lions present, including the lioness who was feeding Qiao Jinnian.

Qiao Jinnian jumped up and quickly crawled over to take a look. Sure enough, he saw a territorial lion with a long scar on his face rushing towards Ryan.

The two lions roared at each other and started fighting.

Generally, the purpose of territorial lions to drive away stray lions is to expel them, so they will not hurt the opponent's vital points. The main goal is to use their momentum to overwhelm the stray lions and make them retreat.

However, the scarred lion had been deliberately attacking Ryan's spine, as if he was determined to bite him to death.

Qiao Jinnian was extremely anxious watching from the side, but she couldn't say anything. After all, she was now a burden to Ryan, and it would be bad if she distracted him.

Now, she already felt a little regretful. She shouldn't have been afraid of hurting Ryan's feelings and didn't refuse to drink milk. This caused Ryan to take the risk of bringing her over to get milk.

That's because Ryan thought she was a cub and might die without milk.

When two male lions were fighting, five female lions were either sitting or lying down, watching from the side, with no intention of trying to stop the fight or help the territorial male lion.

Qiao Jinnian knew that this was the rule of the lion group, that is, the territorial fight between male lions, and they, the female lions, would not participate. After all, this was their law of survival, survival of the fittest.

However, Qiao Jinnian is not a lion. In her eyes, Ryan is the only lion. He is her only friend since she came to this world. She even suspects that Ryan adopted her as a child.

Qiao Jinnian looked up and saw a high ground where he could look down from a high position, which was very suitable for hiding. He quietly crawled over and lay down behind the hillside, hiding himself in the grass and observing the battle situation on the scene.

Once there is any factor that is unfavorable to Ryan, she will definitely take action, but so far, Ryan still has the upper hand.

He looked a little bigger than Scarface and was also very skillful. He kept dodging Scarface's attacks on his spine, opening his mouth wide, raising his front paws, and pouncing and biting, but never once did he attack Scarface's vital points.

He didn't seem to want to really attack Scarface, and he had several opportunities to knock Scarface to the ground, but Scarface was never willing to give up attacking him.

The two lions were fighting fiercely, and their roars were getting louder and louder, scaring the surrounding small animals away in all directions. Even the giraffes in the bushes in the distance spread out their four hooves and began to flee in panic into the distance.

This is just a male lion. Qiao Jinnian remembered that the roar of a lion can be heard up to eight kilometers away. If it keeps roaring like this, another male lion in the territory will definitely come back to help, so she must start disrupting the rules of the lion world.

She always carried the simple slingshot with her. After hiding herself, she picked up a stone and aimed at Scarface's belly. The belly had a large area, so the hit rate was high and it was not easy to accidentally hurt Ryan. She fired the stone.

"Bang--"

Scarface was indeed shot. He cried out "Ah" and looked over here, but saw nothing.

There is no such attack method in the animal kingdom. He couldn't figure out what was happening. He just took a glance and continued to attack Ryan.

Unfortunately, Ryan was no fool. He waited for him to continue attacking and ran away with a few big strides.

After running out of the lion's territory in the valley, he seemed to finally remember that Qiao Jinnian was still drinking milk inside the lion group, so he turned around and came back, just observing where she was from the outside.

When Scarface saw him running away, he roared at the lioness again as a warning, and then he lay on the ground gasping for breath in anger. It was obvious that the fight just now had consumed too much energy.

At this time, Qiao Jinnian also saw Ryan sneaking around in the bushes outside, and relying on his small body, he quietly crawled over.

When they reached the periphery, Qiao Jinnian sped up and crawled towards Ryan.

Ryan was probably a little embarrassed about forgetting her, so he quickly lay on the ground and let her climb onto his back. After she sat down, the man and the lion walked back slowly.

Qiao Jinnian looked back at the scarred man who was still gasping for breath, and then looked at Ryan who was walking quite leisurely at this time. The difference in fighting power was obvious.

In other words, if Ryan really wanted to invade the lion group, he should be able to seize the territory, but he seemed to be accustomed to the wandering life and did not want to join the lion group.

Unfortunately, Qiao Jinnian had no way of knowing Ryan's true thoughts. She could only go forward, hug his mane, and rub the hair on his forehead to comfort him.

"Roar--" Ryan raised his head impatiently and growled to show that he had a bad temper and asked people not to mess up his hairstyle.

"Ryan, I'm not going to drink milk. It's too dangerous. Let's not fight with other lions." Qiao Jinnian talked to herself, knowing that he didn't understand a word she said.

"Did you fight with him last time? That's why you got injured?" she continued to ask, but thinking about it, the scar-faced man was no match for Ryan. Ryan didn't want to fight with him at all. It was that guy who insisted on biting Ryan's spine, so it must be another animal that hurt him.

When the man and the lion returned to the territory, Qiao Jinnian had already discovered that this place was really very small compared to Scarface and Golden Retriever's territories. There was only a small piece of river and a few trees. It was unknown how big Scarface's territory was, but based on the number of lions in their lion group, it could be inferred that it must be very large, at least ten times the size of this land.

Now, Qiao Jinnian has become very skilled at picking fruits. It has been proven that eating fruits like radishes will cause diarrhea, so she can only eat breadfruit.

Every time the monkeys saw her, they would watch and watch. When they saw that she was just using that tool to hit the fruit, they would laugh at her. It was like a game.

"Hi, Mianbao!" Qiao Jinnian would always take the initiative to greet Mianbao. Now she could recognize Mianbao. Mianbao's face was squarer and smaller, and there were a few white hairs among the black hair at the tip of his tail.

Every time she called him "bread", Bread himself also responded to the name "bread". It turned out that they were primates, so it was easier to communicate with him.

Mianbao now completely treated her as one of his own kind, except that it took her several months to finally grow two small baby teeth.

The bread, who was looking for salt grains in her hair, suddenly seemed to have discovered a new world. He opened her mouth and took a closer look. With his mouth wide open, he said something to his companion in a squeaking voice.

Soon, a group of black and white monkeys came over to watch her. Generally, monkeys have teeth after two or three months, so in their eyes, she was an outsider because she had been growing for a long time. Perhaps in their eyes, she was just a disabled monkey.

Every monkey would come over, pry open her mouth and take a look at the two baby teeth.

Qiao Jinnian was not angry. If they wanted to watch, they could watch. This was a good thing. It meant that she would be able to eat other foods soon and would not have to eat breadfruit every day. It made her stomach acid rise every day and it was driving her crazy.

But the problem is, without fire, she can't eat raw meat. Unlike river water, which she can get used to after enduring it, if she eats raw meat, she might as well die.

Therefore, finding the source of the fire as quickly as possible is of utmost importance.

Thinking that her teeth were finally starting to come out, Qiao Jinnian felt very proud. She went back to where Ryan was lying, opened her mouth, and showed him her teeth.

Ever since Scarface drove her away last time, Qiao Jinnian hasn't been asking for milk. This probably worries Ryan because he doesn't know how she will grow up.

Perhaps in Ryan's eyes, Qiao Jinnian is a little lion that is difficult to raise, so he would show a worried look in his eyes from time to time.

Ryan really saw her two baby teeth, and she opened her mouth wide, with a rare look of relief on her face, which meant that she could be raised.

The weather is getting drier and drier. It hasn't rained on the grassland here for a long time. The grass on the ground has dried up, the swamps have become dry again, and the herbivores have begun to migrate northward to places with more abundant water and grass.

The last time Qiao Jinnian saw Youyou and the others was last week. After Youyou drank water for the last time, he and the tribe began their migration northward.

However, there are fewer and fewer animals here, but Ryan has no intention of leaving.

Qiao Jinnian didn't know what Ryan was thinking, but she would naturally follow Ryan wherever he went, even if they just stayed in the same place.

Slowly, even Bread and the others disappeared, and the entire grassland seemed to be left with only Ryan and her, and it was very quiet.

As the climate changed, Ryan's prey became harder to catch.

The day before yesterday, Qiao Jinnian witnessed Ryan being besieged by a group of hyenas in the bushes.

She wanted Ryan to go north, so she pointed in the north direction and said, "Let's go north. All the herbivores go there."

In order to make him understand what she was saying, she pointed to the north several times, but Ryan was unmoved. Apart from hunting and fighting hyenas, he just lay under the tree and slept.

Until one day, a group of animals suddenly came running from the south. They were covered in dust and dirt, and they were running towards this side in a hurry with their families. They did not stop until they came to this grassland, and drank some water from the almost dried-up river and took a rest.

Among these animals were ostriches that were over two meters tall, a group of baboons, and even a few elephants.

Strangely, these animals did not go north. After drinking the water, they just looked back towards the south.

Qiao Jinnian faintly smelled the scent of burning trees. Looking towards the south, he saw a flame in the distance.

As a human being, her perception ability is definitely not as strong as that of animals. These animals, including Ryan, became a little agitated.

But the fire was obviously far away from here, and there was even a huge valley in between.

These animals were reluctant to leave and just looked south from afar.

Fortunately, after a few days, the fire was completely extinguished. The animals felt relieved and began to prepare to return home.

Qiao Jinnian also breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the animals would go back to the south and she and Ryan would leave here too.

As a result, one afternoon when Ryan went out hunting, Qiao Jinnian was sleeping peacefully in the bushes, but was suddenly pulled up by a baboon.

When she woke up, she found herself being grabbed by a baboon with one hand, jumping and running on the treetops. All the scenery was receding, and the familiar breadfruit tree was getting farther and farther away from her until it disappeared on the horizon.

Qiao Jinnian: "..."