"Squeak!"
The monkey let out a scream, clutching its bleeding rear end and climbing higher, while turning back to snarl at me threateningly. It was clearly terrified of me, this honest and simple big monkey.
I let out a fierce, low roar like a tiger, and my wooden spear kept striking the tree trunk in response. Monkeys are most afraid of animals like tigers and leopards.
The bloody hole in its rear end convinced it that I was a tiger pretending to be a monkey, and it immediately fled back to its companion's tree without looking back.
Back home, it scratched its head and chattered in front of its companions, pointing to its own rear end. Many monkeys immediately gathered around to watch the spectacle, some even poking at the bloody hole on its rear end with their fingers, seemingly trying to confirm if it was really a bloody hole.
This made the monkey jump high in pain, and it started squeaking and biting the monkey that had poked its butt.
Having suffered real damage, the monkeys now knew I was not someone to be trifled with, and they all obediently turned their heads away, no longer daring to meet my gaze.
Monkeys shouldn't be spoiled, or they'll cause big trouble. Sometimes their ability to cause trouble is no less than that of wild beasts, and their agility makes them difficult to defend against.
Having climbed the tree for so long, and with the weather so hot, I figured there didn't seem to be any immediate danger nearby, so I decided to climb down and find some water.
Just then, the monkeys, who had been dozing off, were awakened by a sharp monkey cry, and then they all let out noisy, sharp roars in the same direction.
What happened?
I frowned. These monkeys wouldn't sound the alarm for no reason. The sentry monkey must have discovered something that frightened it, which is why it was making such a panicked noise.
I looked intently in the direction the monkeys were calling, and just then, a brightly colored leopard calmly walked up to the tree where the monkeys were.
This leopard is a size smaller than the one I killed before; it looks like a sub-adult leopard.
The leopard arrived at the tree and didn't linger. It leaped up and grabbed the trunk. Then, it used its front and hind paws to climb upwards. The monkeys, seeing this, cried out even more sharply, and many began to shake the branches vigorously to express their unease.
Clearly, this leopard wasn't climbing the tree to play with them. While leopards aren't as agile as monkeys are in trees, there are exceptions.
They can leap up to six meters in a single bound. If the landing spot is right, even a monkey won't have time to escape and will be choked by a leopard.
I cursed inwardly, "What I feared most has come to pass. The tiger hasn't even appeared yet, but this leopard has already come knocking."
What's worse, quite a few monkeys, having nowhere else to go, actually ignored my threats and jumped directly onto my tree canopy.
Perhaps because it was smaller and lighter than the leopard I encountered, it quickly climbed to the top of the tree. But by then, the monkeys had either already jumped onto my tree or were standing on the edges of the thin branches.
The leopard tried to catch the monkeys on the edge, but the thin branches couldn't support its weight at all. As soon as it stepped on them, the branches swayed violently, scaring the monkeys on the branches into screaming.
After several attempts, it finally gave up. After all, it was brave, not stupid. A wild animal injured in the wild is basically doomed.
No matter where it was injured, it couldn't bear it. It looked around, then fixed its gaze on me and sniffed me intensely.
My heart skipped a beat. Could I have been so lucky as to be chosen by it?
Seeing the leopard retreating, my heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally calmed down a little.
But the next second, the leopard defied my expectations and began to run and accelerate on the treetop. You should know that the edge that the leopard could reach was at least ten meters away from where I could land. If there was one accident, it would be gone.
After all, it couldn't possibly grab the edge of a branch like a monkey and use its wandering momentum to jump onto my tree canopy.
However, I quickly dismissed the idea, because it had already taken off.
I stared in astonishment at this unbelievable scene; that was over ten meters! Was this beast really so confident that it could leap onto my treetop?
"Rustling..."
With a violent shaking of the branches, many leaves fluttered down from above. The monkeys in the treetops cried out even louder, almost all of them baring their teeth.
Previously, the tree they were on was taller than mine, so they could use the height difference to swing up to my canopy using inertia. But now they can't swing back up.
I stared at the scene in astonishment, hardly believing my eyes. The leopard had leaped more than ten meters and landed safely on my treetop.
The monkeys were so frightened that they fled to higher, more delicate branches. The leopard merely glanced at them without any intention of chasing them, and then turned its attention back to me.
It probably thinks I'm just a giant, silly monkey. While other monkeys know to run to the tall, thin branches, I'm just sitting foolishly on the tree trunk watching it.
I don't know if it's because we're somewhat related by blood, but when the monkeys on the branches saw that I was still sitting on that platform, not running away, they started to shriek at me.
The voice seemed to be saying, "You idiot, the leopard is coming right up to you and you're still not running? Hurry up and run!"
I'm speechless right now. I'm halfway up the tree, how am I supposed to run? Climb down and then have a 100-meter sprint race with the leopard on the ground? Who do you think will reach the end first?
Anyway, having too many lice doesn't make you itch, and having too many debts doesn't make you worry. I've already taken down a leopard and a wild boar before, and this one looks even smaller. Thinking about this, I actually feel a little comforted?
The leopard probably smelled the wild boar meat too; I could see drool dripping from its mouth. I just don't know if it planned to only eat the wild boar meat, or if it intended to kill me along for a side meal.
However, I don't plan to share my pork with it this time, because the lesson I learned from my last confrontation with the wild boar has already given me a good answer.
Wild beasts are wild beasts; their nature is greedy. They would rather kill and not eat than let their prey escape.
As I watched the leopard crawling downhill, I made up my mind, and I couldn't help but tighten my grip on the wooden spear in my hand.
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