110 Valley
◎ Lie down in front of daddy's front paws, let him rest his chin on his body, and let his long mane cover his belly, which is very warm on cool nights.
The lion lay on its side on the ground, twitching all over, somewhat like a human having an epileptic seizure.
Qiao Jinnian had never seen such a situation in this world, but she felt that it was somewhat similar to canine distemper. However, if it was really canine distemper, where was the source of the virus?
Shouldn't this disease come from dogs?
This looks like an infectious disease. Qiao Jinnian doesn't dare to take the risk. If it really is an infectious disease, she, as a human, will not be infected, but her father will definitely be infected.
The mortality rate of infectious diseases is very high. Without the intervention of modern medical care, death is almost certain. Therefore, when it comes to the safety of the lion father, what Qiao Jinnian thinks about at this moment is not how pitiful this lion is, but that they, father and daughter, must leave here immediately!
The lion father was probably also confused. He had never seen a sick male lion. He had only seen lions that were injured or eaten.
Before he could figure out what was going on, Qiao Jinnian climbed onto the lion's back, pointed to the west, away from the lion, and roared, "Roar—"
This is the way of communication that the father and daughter have been familiar with since they met, and it means moving forward.
At this moment, her voice was very loud and sounded very anxious, indicating that the situation was critical. The lion father understood what she meant in an instant, took a step forward, and ran wildly towards the west.
This is a tacit understanding between father and daughter. Don't ask the reason first, just run forward.
Fortunately, it was night in the desert and the weather was cool, so the lion father could run very far in one breath. If it were daytime, with the temperature in the desert reaching over 40 degrees Celsius, he would be exhausted and collapse after just a few hundred meters.
The lion father kept running with his head down, sometimes running across the sand, sometimes stepping on the soft sand, and sometimes stepping on thin and brittle rocks. Because of the father's weight of more than 300 pounds, the rocks he stepped on broke, making a "crackling" sound.
This area seemed to have left the edge of the desert, and the father and daughter came to a valley between two hills.
Because it is a valley on the edge of the desert area, there is a river in the middle. There are many herbivores along the river, but there are too many rocks on the ground. As the lion father approaches, the rocks are constantly being crushed. The special geographical structure of the entire valley adds an echo effect to the "crunching" sound of these broken rocks.
Now, all the herbivores in the entire valley were frightened by the huge echo and ran around in panic.
Then, after the "crunch, crunch" sound, the entire valley was filled with the endless echoes of "ahhh," "baa-baa," and "moo-moo" sounds of various animals...
What should have been a quiet night was now bustling with activity.
Maybe it ran really far. Lions don't have very strong endurance, and it was also because it was at night that it was able to run so far in one breath.
Looking at his old father and thinking about how he was already 13 years old, which was the age of a grandfather in human terms, Qiao Jinnian felt heartbroken instantly.
Qiao Jinnian quickly climbed down from his father, and he and his father found a relatively clean place by the river and lay down on the ground.
"Huff, huff..." The lion father was too tired. After taking a few deep breaths, he stood up again, walked to the river, lowered his head to lick the water to moisten his throat which was almost smoking due to long-distance running.
The environment here is pretty good. Qiao Jinnian also noticed that there seemed to be no crocodiles or hippos in the river here, and the water was very clean, so he lowered his head and started drinking water.
Because there was suddenly a lion in the valley, the herbivores that had gathered here just now had moved to another place to graze.
Some of them just stand there and sleep. The herbivores on the grassland are very alert and must be ready to escape at any time even when sleeping.
This place feels much better than the central desert area. In fact, she has never understood why the lion father came to the desert area. The ecology here is even worse than the sandy area they went to during the dry season.
She knew that there was abundant groundwater in the desert here, but the daytime temperature was too high and there was little prey. Apart from the antelopes that lived exclusively in the desert and the drought-resistant giraffes, it was almost impossible to find edible prey.
Therefore, she almost always found a shady place to escape the heat during the day, otherwise she would die of the heat.
Lions are indeed very drought-resistant animals, but they clearly have better options, but Dad insisted on coming here.
As he thought about it, Qiao Jinnian thought about his father's recent abnormal behavior. In fact, his father seemed to have an inexplicable familiarity with the desert area, as if he had been to this desert before. He would often squint his eyes and look at a corner of the desert, as if he was looking for something.
For example, if it were normal times, the lion father would not have stared at the sick male lion. After all, there are lions everywhere on this grassland, so there is nothing strange about it.
At this moment, Qiao Jinnian looked at the lion father who opened his mouth to dissipate heat and had a bold guess.
That is, could the lion father be a male lion born into a desert lion group?
Just like humans have the feeling of returning to their roots, male lions, after being driven out at the age of 3, will also want to go back to the place where they were born when they are old.
Thinking that his father was already 13 years old, Qiao Jinnian felt that he must want to come back to see if his mother and sisters were all right.
Therefore, it can be explained that the father looked around from time to time during the day. He might be looking for the mother's tribe.
However, even if a lion group stays in the same territory, they do not stay in one place. They will move around because they always have to chase prey.
In order to verify his guess, Qiao Jinnian decided to continue observing tomorrow to see if his father was looking for his mother's tribe here.
They cannot go through the desert area for the time being. There is a sick lion there. If it is an infectious disease, then it means that there must be many lions infected there. They must not go through there.
Lying in front of his father's front paws, he rests his chin on his body, and his long mane covers his belly, which is very warm on cool nights.
There is a lion sleeping here, so Qiao Jinnian can sleep very soundly until dawn.
Starting from the next day, Qiao Jinnian carefully observed the movements of the lion father to see what he was doing here.
The temperature in the valley was not as hot as in the desert, and the lion father had slept enough last night, so he decided to catch a prey here.
However, the rocks at the bottom of the valley were so annoying that if you stepped on them, they would make a loud noise, and the prey would run away before you could get close to them.
Qiao Jinnian is small and weighs about 50 kilograms. He tried to step on it. This kind of rock is really brittle and thin. It also made a "crunching" sound, but it was not as loud as the sound made by the lion father.
Although this was annoying, Dad quickly adjusted his hunting methods.
He tentatively stepped over the rocks, padding his soft flesh and walking slowly.
It took almost 5 minutes to take each step. After trying it for a while, there was finally no sound of rocks breaking.
However, with the prey only 50 meters away, this hunt took Dad almost two hours...
I have to say that Dad has great patience, and it turns out that his new hunting method works.
The herbivores also knew that this valley had an echo effect, so they relied heavily on echoes to alarm. As a result, they did not expect that the lion was so patient that he could walk such a short distance for so long.
When the lion was 5 meters away from them, it pounced and strangled the defenseless antelope. At this time, they were probably still very confused, and maybe they suspected that the echo effect in the valley was not working today...
Having tasted the sweetness of hunting, the lion father actually began to treat it as a game, or as a new technique he had learned, and wanted to try it a few more times.
So, Qiao Jinnian had no choice but to sit on the ground bored, holding up her chin, and just admire her father's playful hunting skills, which took him several hours to perfect the concealment tactics.
I have to say that Qiao Jinnian was quite happy to see such a lion father.
The advantage here is that you don't need to run wildly to chase prey like you do on the grassland. Here you just need to practice your stealth skills to catch prey.
While her father was hunting, Qiao Jinnian went to cut grass and prepared to choose a dry place that was warm in the sun during the day to use as her bed at night, and spread the dry grass there.
However, during the day, she needs to choose a shady place, otherwise it will be too sunny.
After getting herself a stove, Qiao Jinnian cooked a pot of broth with the meat her father gave her. The weather was too dry, and eating barbecued meat all the time would make her get a sore throat.
After spending quite pleasant days here, Qiao Jinnian did not notice that the lion father wanted to go out of the desert to look for the mother lion group. She thought that she might have guessed wrong. The lion father actually just wanted to come to the desert to take a look and experience a different life, just like humans like to travel.
But this day, after the lion father had eaten and drunk enough and rested for a while, he roared at her: "Roar——"
This meant that she should move forward. Qiao Jinnian did not ride on her father, but walked beside him, keeping the same speed as him.
There was no need to chase prey, and the sun was shining brightly. If he rode on his father, he would definitely not be able to bear it.
The father and daughter walked very slowly. The father paced and when he came to the edge of the desert area, he stopped, squinted his eyes, and looked at the desert in front of him, as if thinking about something.
He lowered his nose and moved his ears back and forth, catching the tiny sounds in the air. As if he had discovered something, he continued walking into the desert.
Qiao Jinnian thought that it had been almost a month since the lion fell ill. If it was only on the edge of the desert, it should be fine.
So, she didn't stop her father from walking over there.
They walked for another two hours and came to a piece of soft sand, but there were towering rocks here. The rocks were earthy yellow and blended with the lion's hair, which seemed very suitable for the lion to hide here.
It turns out that this is an excellent hiding place.
As if smelling something, the lion father suddenly lowered his head and looked towards the rocks below.
Not far from this rock, there is another huge rock, which is about 50 meters higher than this one.
And, beside the rock, there were two adult female lions and six cubs, lying in the shade formed by the rock to cool off.
Looking at the expression of the lion father, Qiao Jinnian couldn't help but start to wonder, maybe the old-looking lioness was the father's mother, that is, her grandmother?
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