Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl

The matter of the young Snow Leopard was left to Aleksey to investigate. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Chen Ying and Kelas followed Little Altai for a walk in the forest, where they even encountered a female lynx.

Unfortunately, Little Altai is still an inexperienced young boy. Facing the beautiful female lynx, he opened his mouth wide to make a noise to drive it away.

The female lynx glanced at him, turned around, and left without the slightest hesitation.

Perhaps it was a psychological effect, but even though the animals in the overlapping areas looked the same, Chen Ying simply felt that these dual-nationality animals were not as beautiful as his own simple, furry ones.

Little Altai was an exception. This naturally friendly beast had a kind of brain-stem-deficiency beauty, making people subconsciously put a filter on him.

Little Altai, accompanied by Meidi, led the two two-legged beasts to a ridge. There was still unmelted snow here, but some chubby squirrels were already out visiting.

Maybe it was because they had eaten too many Mouse Bars recently and were a bit sick of it, or perhaps this was Little Altai's homeland. He got along well with these red-haired little elves, and anyway, from the appearance of the little squirrels to now, more than an hour had passed, and the two big cats still had no plans to attack them.

In a relatively flat rocky area, Chen Ying found a place to sit, while Kelas played freely with the two big cats.

"Chirp chirp, do you want to eat one?"

Chen Ying tilted his head. A chubby red squirrel stood on a branch above his left shoulder, holding an unknown nut in its claws, reaching out to him tentatively.

"No, thanks, I don't want to eat it."

The little squirrel chirped again and ran back and forth on the tree several times.

"Chirp chirp, are you here looking for that injured fellow?"

"Injured? Who's injured?"

Chen Ying raised an eyebrow curiously and also took a small handful of pistachios out of his pocket.

Seeing the pistachios, the little squirrel dropped the nut it was holding and jumped to Chen Ying's side.

"Can I have some of this?"

Chen Ying was more than happy, as he had brought them out to feed the little squirrel or other birds, after all.

Holding a full pistachio nut, the little squirrel bit a bit off. The taste was a bit strange but still edible.

"Chirp chirp, you're really nice. The two-legged beast I used to follow was just like you and would also feed me, but he hasn't been seen in a long time."

Chen Ying was slightly taken aback. Could it be a squirrel raised by the previous owner of the little farm? Such a coincidence?

Generally, squirrels have a lifespan of six to eight years, with those in the wild living slightly shorter lives.

This squirrel seemed to be in its prime, likely able to live for another three or four years, so it was entirely possible that it had been raised from a young age by the old farm's owner.

After casually chatting with the little squirrel for a while, the little fellow directly jumped onto Chen Ying.

"Chirp chirp, I'll take you to see that injured big guy."

This little thing was pretty gossip-loving, constantly urging Chen Ying to go with it to see the commotion.

Chen Ying did not refuse, as he was also curious to find out what animal was injured and so preoccupying the little squirrel's mind.

After calling out to Kelas, under the guidance of the little squirrel lying on his shoulder, he arrived at a hillside.

Approaching the hillside, Chen Ying noticed something amiss; there was an animal carcass here. Though it had been eaten down to just remains, it was still possible to tell from the skeleton that this was a canine animal's body.

Could it be a wolf that the little squirrel was talking about?

Chen Ying hesitated whether to proceed. If it was a lone wolf, that was manageable, but if there were more than two, it would be troublesome to deal with.

If it were three wolves... it would undoubtedly be delivering himself as food.

Hesitating for a moment but still progressing further, this time, there were three corpses in the forest—all wolves.

"Who went and ransacked a wolf den?" Kelas, who caught up from behind, also saw this scene. He squatted down and carefully probed the wolves' bodies with a stick, trying to discern from the wounds what animal did this.

Chen Ying furrowed his brow, quickly stepping over the wolf carcasses and walking forward.

About twenty meters later, an abandoned wolf den appeared, and sure enough, there were the remains of wolf pups at the entrance.

He basically understood who did this.

"It's the Snow Leopard?" Kelas also reached the conclusion but was curious because there were almost no records of Snow Leopards killing wolf pups. Usually, it was more likely for lynxes to kill wolves, right?

Speaking of lynxes, here comes the lynx.

Little Altai followed the scent trail, whining twice, sniffed around carefully at the den entrance, and finally trotted off in another direction.

Meidi followed behind, and her coat had picked up a fair amount of twig fragments and grass stems, intermingled with her beautiful fur.

Before long, Meidi's piercing cries were heard, "Meow-aow, meow meow aow!"

"Meow, hurry over here, two-legged beasts, there's a cat here about to die!"

Chen Ying hurried over to take a look. Little Altai had already rushed into the ravine while Meidi stood loudly calling for help on a stone at the edge of the ravine.

Little Altai went down the ravine but did not recklessly approach the big cat, staying about four or five meters away, cautiously examining the big creature that had collapsed.

While Chen Ying was still scouting, a little squirrel that had gone out and returned stood on a slanted branch above, chirping.

"It's this big guy, is it going to die?"

"I don't know, how about you go down and help take a look?"

Speaking in a small voice to the squirrel, the little thing, small in size but with a big heart, actually went down to check.

"Chirp chirp, it's still alive, but it's about to die."

The little squirrel even boldly ran around in front of the big cat's nose, unafraid of being grabbed and eaten by the big cat.

(Let this mouse see if you're still alive.)

Chen Ying had already recognized that the one lying below was a Snow Leopard, but the place where this Snow Leopard had fallen was slightly problematic.

Aleksey's little farm was located near the border. Otherwise, Little Altai wouldn't have lost his way and traveled into China.

The issue was that this border seemed to be at the tri-border point, and Chen wasn't entirely sure where exactly the national boundary was.

Perhaps because they had stayed here too long, they were detected by surveillance and border patrol personnel. A drone appeared in front and above, broadcasting to them.

Upon seeing the red star emblem on the drone, Chen Ying let out a big sigh of relief, directly waving at the drone.

Through the drone's communication, Chen Ying indicated to the drone operator that there was an injured wild animal below, the situation was dire, and assistance was needed.

Soon, a patrol squad came running over and started talking from across the ravine.

"Did you guys hurt the animal down here?"

"How could we!" Chen Ying hurriedly denied it, showing his veterinary certificate and work credentials on his phone.

"We were invited here to collaborate on a project. Today we came out with a partner to check out the surrounding environment and, by coincidence, discovered many wolf carcasses earlier and tracked them down here to find a Snow Leopard below, unsure whether it was still alive."

The Chinese side found it inconvenient to operate the drone into the Kazakh side to check the forest situation, but entering the gorge at the border was allowable.

As Chen Ying was describing the situation, the other side had already verified his identity and operated the drone into the gorge to capture photos.

The Chinese drone came equipped with an infrared temperature sensing system, confirming the Snow Leopard was still alive, though its condition seemed dire.

Chen Ying stated he was an emergency station veterinarian carrying some emergency animal medications and tools on him and needed their assistance to enter the gorge and check the Snow Leopard's state.

Kelas remained above, and the Chinese team left two people at the gorge to contact the rescue units, while the other two joined Chen Ying in going down the gorge to attempt Snow Leopard rescue.

The injuries on the Snow Leopard's body were deep enough to see bone, with two spots already showing signs of infection.

Beneath the Snow Leopard's body, there was also a wolf carcass, its claws dug deep into the Snow Leopard's right side abdomen. Yet, a portion of the wolf carcass appeared to have been consumed by the Snow Leopard.

Both suffered mutually damaging outcomes, with the wolf pack facing a heavier blow.

After inspecting the extremely weak Snow Leopard, Chen Ying stated it needed to be transported to a rescue center for treatment immediately. If they delayed another day, the Snow Leopard might not survive.

"Captain, this location might need to notify the Kazakh side."

Dealing with border regions is never simple, but fortunately, the wildlife organizations of the Three Countries frequently collaborate, and there are local branch organizations stationed here.

Soon, news of finding an injured Snow Leopard in the gorge was reported to the ecological protection departments of the Three Countries. After simple negotiations, a joint rescue operation was launched.

The nearby Russian Snow Leopard monitoring organization provided medical equipment, the Chinese side offered rescue equipment, and the Kazakh side provided a location to set up a temporary operating room. A cross-border Snow Leopard rescue operation quickly commenced.