Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl

Although the wetland area has significantly shrunk, it is still quite large within this protected area, making it nearly impossible to completely survey with human effort alone.

Moreover, fishing cats typically hide at the base of reed clusters near wetland edges or in the tree hollows near mangroves, and are typical night owls, making it very difficult to confirm their presence.

After preparing the plans for the upcoming week, Chen Ying plans to assist in locating the fishing cat that may have already given birth.

This time he is following Yan Han's cousin over, as a sister from Yan Han's family is married into the village there, hoping to seek the elderly villagers' help.

After arriving and meeting with the team there, summarizing their findings in the search, Chen Ying comes up with a hypothesis that perhaps this fishing cat is actually hiding in some corner of the village to give birth.

Possibly due to the blind spot under the lamp, everyone subconsciously thinks these felines would stay away from humans, but in reality, because of the rapid human expansion encroaching upon the territories originally belonging to these wild animals, their coexistence with humans is forced and a natural development.

The village by the Nanla River is somewhat larger than Yan Han's village; being close to a tourist area, and with Nanla being a large river, the village operates river cruise projects, with seasonal fluctuations in tourist numbers.

Coincidentally, the period they arrived falls within the tourism off-season, with very few boats on the river, as only two boats have set out all morning.

Yan Han's brother finds their older sister and tells her their purpose, and the beautiful Dai woman agrees to help without hesitation.

Villagers more familiar with the surroundings spontaneously help in searching for the cat, proudly saying that nowadays they place great emphasis on the environment, no longer dealing with rubber plantations, and dismantling places previously fenced off for farming to restore the natural ecology.

Many small animals frequent the area, and they educate their children not to harm them, while also regularly feeding the animals during times of food scarcity.

"We don't know much about this fishing cat or leopard cat you're talking about. Anyway, they're all cats, whether catching fish or catching mice and snakes; as long as they don't cause trouble in the houses, we'll just let them roam around the village."

The young lady accompanying Chen Ying in the village seems quite proud while talking, and as she mentions, Chen Ying catches a fleeting glimpse of a Clouded Leopard in the woods behind someone's house.

The Clouded Leopard is considered a relatively violent feline, but it clearly doesn't intend to harm, as it jumps from the second-floor railing of a house to a tree and disappears in no time.

"That's a Clouded Leopard that our villagers rescued and raised," the young lady explains when she too sees the Clouded Leopard and notices Chen Ying staring in that direction.

"A couple of years ago, it came to the village to steal chickens, killed them but had no strength to eat, and was discovered. Experts we called said it was a Clouded Leopard, probably suffering from a stomach ache due to eating something wrong. It was treated with medication in our village's health clinic for two days, given a chicken each day, and recovered in a week. Then it never left the village."

Besides the Clouded Leopard, Chen Ying even spots two monkeys feasting in the banana grove not far from it.

"These two monkeys were also rescued by our villagers. Last summer, when the river rose, a mother monkey with her newly born little monkey was seen pitifully clinging to driftwood, discovered by a young man from the village. They were rescued, observed for two days without issue, then released. After leaving, they returned ten days later with several more monkeys. See over there in the woods, that's their family."

Upon closer inspection, it was a group of Fei's Leaf Monkeys. He had seen this species the last time he came to Banna, but never so close to human settlements.

Fei's Leaf Monkeys are highly arboreal, forming a family structure with one male and multiple females, generally consisting of about 5-15 members.

This small family is not large, seemingly having only about six or seven members, even with the little monkeys.

Though they live near the banana grove, they seldom eat bananas, preferring the fresh, newly grown leaves.

After making a round of the village, they saw many cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, and common wildlife but found no trace of leopard cats or what seemed to be fishing cats.

"Mr. Chen, are you sure it was discovered near our village?" The two young ladies accompanying him for hours wore slightly serious expressions, confirming the information with Chen Ying while calling friends familiar to them on their phones.

Speaking in the local dialect, Chen Ying couldn't understand much, but from their expressions, he could tell there wasn't good news.

"I asked my mom, she said no outside cats have been seen in the village."

Similar to other ethnic groups, the village has its disseminating center of news, and the young lady on the phone's mom was part of the gossip group.

Chen Ying wasn't too disappointed; he hadn't come with high expectations, and not finding the cat was within the realm of anticipation.

Just as he was about to bid farewell to the two young ladies, a group of children returned on bicycles.

"Sister, sister, get me a fish, I want to feed the cat."

A little girl rushed on her bicycle to the young lady on the phone, "Sister, the mother cat at our school has given birth, right in the grass behind our classroom. I've seen it, it had three kittens!"

She even took out her phone to proudly show her sister.

Chen Ying instinctively glanced at it, then widened his eyes, leaning forward.

The cat in the photo, at first glance, looked no different from a leopard cat. With grass and bushes obscuring its features, it was hard to see its characteristics clearly, but the markings on its fur unmistakably belonged to the leopard cat family.

"Mr. Chen, is this the one?"

The little girl, seeing her sister hand her phone to a stranger, immediately froze, staring intently at Chen Ying's hand, fearing he was a bad guy going to steal her phone.

"It does look similar." Chen Ying examined the phone from all angles before returning it to the little girl, "Little one, can you show me the way? This might be a very rare fishing cat, one of our research team's target subjects."

Hearing it was for a research team, the little girl nodded energetically, "No problem, I'll take you there!"

Seeing the bicycle, not much bigger than a kid's bike, Chen Ying quickly waved his hand, intending to ask if they could walk over when the young lady nearby patted his arm.

"Mr. Chen, I have an electric scooter at home, wait for me a moment, I'll bring it over right away."

Twenty minutes later, Chen Ying met with the notified two small teams at the entrance of the village school.

School leaders also received a call, arranging for school security to cordon off the area, preventing students from getting close.

In fact, the students were quite mindful, mostly observing from upstairs without disturbing the mother cat who had just given birth.

"This cat is usually fed by the cafeteria chef, mostly eating fish but occasionally some chicken."

The village school is next to a forest, and about seven or eight hundred meters further is a pond, one end of which is connected to a small tributary of the Nanla River.

This cat occasionally follows the edge of the pond to the river to fish; it's likely it was photographed fishing by the river a while ago.

No one expected its home to be right next to the village school, considering these animals are usually scared of noisy environments and humans, so the research team never considered looking around the school.

Chen Ying entered the bush alone, trying to approach the newly produced cat mother to determine what kind of cat it really was.

However, upon arriving, Chen Ying found that something seemed not quite right with the cat mother's state. It already had three kittens, but its belly still seemed swollen, and the mother cat was restlessly twisting around in the nest, occasionally licking near its hindquarters. It seemed it hadn't finished giving birth?

Typically, fishing cats give birth to 2-3 kittens per litter, occasionally four, usually in human captivity.

But now this cat had already given birth to three kittens, another one would be more than just an additional burden for the cat mother.

Originally Chen Ying thought, if possible, to have this fishing cat mother adopt an orphaned kitten, but now... he felt too embarrassed to bring it up.