hsntnovel Chapter 70 Risk
Chapter 70 Risk
They took a route that bypassed the main hunting grounds, hugging the southern edge of the territory, scanning the southern boundary from west to east. The heat pushed against their retina, flattening the grassland within three kilometers. They stopped every so often to sniff, pressing their noses to the ground; the scent of the grass roots was more real and lasting than that in the air.
No new hyena scents entered the border.
But there was one place where he lingered a little longer.
In the middle section of the southern boundary, about two hundred meters west of the earthen slope he observed last night, there was a clump of grass that had been trampled flat. The way it was trampled was not hoof prints, but claw prints, and front claw prints at that. They were deep and heavy, and the distance between the two claw prints was a bit wider than that of an ordinary hyena. The way it landed was standing rather than walking, indicating that this animal had stopped at this location.
Not today's.
Chen Fei smelled the scent of the grass roots through his nose.
Last night, or even earlier, after sunset and before sunrise, in this window. The metallic scent he remembered came from the same source.
He stood in that spot for a long time.
His superhuman vision extended beyond the boundary; within three kilometers to the south, the grassland was vast and empty, with a herd of wildebeest moving in the distance, without any unusual outlines. He withdrew the heat and looked down at the two paw prints.
The depth is about 1.5 times that of a normal hyena.
He suppressed the number in his mind, turned around and left.
He walked back to his lodgings even slower than when he left. This was not the outcome he had anticipated before leaving; he had expected to find traces of surveillance beyond the border. He hadn't expected the other party to have come in the previous night, stood in this spot for a considerable time, and then left.
It's not a test.
Probing is dynamic; it comes and goes, carrying uncertainty. Last night's action was an assessment, a pause to observe, to see what needed to be seen, before leaving.
He put the two things together in his mind: the outline and the claw mark.
Three kilometers to the north, at the survey team's camp, the tarpaulins on the tent roofs billowed and slumped down in the afternoon wind, making a soft pattering sound.
Ella sat at the folding table, her whiteboard open, but she wasn't writing. She was looking out the window, or rather, through the crack in the tent flap, at a corner of the grassland, yellowish-green, where the wind rippled like waves.
Morris lifted the curtain and came in, casually placing a bottle of water on her table.
"What time did you go to sleep last night?" he asked.
"I don't know." Ella didn't look at him. "Any new data from Kaller?"
"No." Morris sat down in another folding chair, which groaned. "He said the sound levels on the south side last night were different from the night before, but he couldn't quantify them, so he couldn't include them in the report."
"That means it's still the same as before: there's a perception, but no evidence."
"Yes."
Ella picked up the water bottle, unscrewed it, took a sip, put the bottle back on the table, and tapped her fingers twice on the surface. "Maurice, I'd like to request permission to make a push south tomorrow afternoon, not the whole team, just me and Kaller, lightly equipped."
Morris did not answer immediately.
Outside the tent, Kenneth's voice drifted in, as he spoke to Marcus in a low voice, the content of which was unclear, but it was evident that it was not a pleasant conversation.
"The south side is where the hyena packs move," Morris concluded.
"I know."
"I'm not asking if you know it or not, I'm talking about the risks and costs of this." He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Ella, London gave us a two-week window, not to push us in a high-risk direction, but to produce a verifiable plan. If we can't get verifiable data from the southward push, I won't be able to explain it to them."
Ella turned the whiteboard around and pushed it in front of him.
Morris glanced down. It was her assessment of "targeted interference," four pages long, with the last line marked in red: "The timing of the pressure rise on the south side highly overlaps with the interference on the north side, indicating that the target individual may be actively managing both fronts."
Morris pressed his finger on the scoreboard, paused for three seconds, and said nothing.
"I didn't say we were going into the core area," Ella said. "It's just observation from outside the boundary, with equipment, but without crossing the line. Kaller is familiar with the terrain on the south side, and we can make a round trip in two hours at the fastest, taking whatever we can get."
"What did you film?" Morris asked. "A pack of hyenas? What does that have to do with the target?"
"We captured changes in the distribution and activity patterns of the hyena pack." Ella pointed to a line on the whiteboard. "The hyena population density has increased significantly over the past three days, but it has never crossed a specific boundary line. This boundary line highly overlaps with the activity areas of the large cats we have previously tracked. If this boundary is maintained, rather than being chosen by the hyena pack itself, it means that an individual has sufficient capacity to manage along this line."
Maurice looked at her without saying a word.
Outside the tent, Kenneth's voice stopped, Marcus's voice stopped, and everything quieted down, with only the tarpaulin on the tent roof still flapping in the wind.
"I'm adding the application to today's log." Ella put the log back. "Will you approve it or not, Morris?"
Morris stood up, pushed the chair away, walked to the tent entrance, and paused for a moment.
"Write an application," he said. "I'll look at it tonight."
He lifted the tent flap and stepped outside. Light rushed in all at once, white and dazzling. Then the flap fell back down, and the tent went dark again.
Ella lowered her head, picked up her pen, and began to write.
The evening wind came from the east.
On the sandstone platform, Chen Fei pushed his super vision to the southern boundary and scanned it back and forth three times.
air.
The hyena pack didn't appear at dusk, which was unusual for the previous few days. In the past, small groups would roam outside the border at dusk, leaving scent trails, but not today. It was eerily quiet.
He withdrew the heat and sat on the edge of the sandstone platform, with his back facing the direction of his landing spot and in front of him a vast open grassland. The twilight light pressed the grass into a golden hue, stretching all the way to the horizon. When the wind blew, it was a sea of gold.
Big Head climbed up from below the sandstone platform with great effort. His four legs weren't working smoothly, and he slipped halfway up. He hung on the edge of the platform for two seconds before finally managing to climb up with brute force. He landed, stood firm, shook off the sand, and then noticed Chen Fei watching him.
He wagged his tail, trying to make the scene less embarrassing.
Chen Fei turned his head away.
Big Head lay down next to him, resting his head on Chen Fei's back, closed his eyes, and let out a satisfied groan two seconds later.
Chen Fei didn't touch him.
As the sun slowly sank below the horizon, the golden hue turned to orange, then to dark red. In the distance, the outlines of the wildebeest herd became a row of black silhouettes. The grassland quieted down, insects began to chirp, and in some distant direction, a bird took flight, its wings drawing an arc in the air before disappearing.
Big Head's breathing became deep, heavy, and even; he had fallen asleep.
Chen Fei was not asleep.
He was waiting for it to get dark.
After it got completely dark, he activated the night vision.
The grassland in his eyes changed from black to gray-green, with clear outlines. The light source became the residual heat reflected from the ground, and the roots of the grass were brighter than the tips. The outlines of the animals' heat sources were brighter than the background, and they were extremely clear.
He swept towards the southern boundary, three kilometers, two kilometers, one kilometer...