Zhuang Rui didn't know how to handle this thing, but given the temperature on the mountain, it wouldn't spoil even if left for a few days. He could just hand it over to the villagers to take care of when he came down the mountain tomorrow.
"White Lion, why don't you go and have something to eat too? We'll have this for dinner tonight..."
After carefully putting the yak whip into his backpack, Zhuang Rui used a machete to cut off a piece of meat weighing more than ten kilograms from the yak's chest and abdomen, preparing to roast it and eat it.
Because of the low air pressure, Zhuang Rui had been eating boiled pork for two days straight. Now that he was in a place without snow, he was determined to have some barbecue.
After spending a few days with Gyatso and the others, Zhuang Rui is now doing his job quite well. Because the smell around the yaks was really unpleasant, Zhuang Rui chose a flat slope covered with wild grass, about thirty or forty meters away from the yaks.
After choosing a spot, Zhuang Rui first took a small shovel and dug a pit about 40 centimeters long, wide, and deep in the ground. Then he picked up some stones and placed them around the pit.
It's summer now, and below the snow line, there are still many dry shrubs and low branches. Zhuang Rui spent nearly an hour working with a machete, gathering several bundles of firewood, but his hands were also pricked in several places by the thorns on the bushes.
After walking another three or four hundred meters down the mountain, Zhuang Rui found a stream, washed the beef clean, and then sliced it into thick pieces next to the stream. Only then was the preparation work complete.
"Damn, they're here to steal our food?"
Carrying the yak meat in a plastic bag, Zhuang Rui returned to the barbecue area and found several vultures staring menacingly at the yak carcass, confronting the white lion and his companions, flapping their wings and making unpleasant cries.
Compared to the golden eagle I saw through the binoculars yesterday, this vulture looked rather ugly. Its bald neck and dark brown head were completely devoid of feathers, except for a ring of feathers above its chest, which looked rather strange.
Holding a machete that was seventy or eighty centimeters long, Zhuang Rui wasn't afraid of it at all. He brandished the machete and charged forward, scaring the vultures into flapping their wings and retreating.
Unlike the golden eagle, which actively hunts, the vulture mainly feeds on animal carcasses. Its hunting skills are not very good, so it has not dared to approach and waits for the white lion and other land-dwelling creatures to finish eating before coming forward to devour the carcasses.
Seeing the vulture retreat, Zhuang Rui quickly used his machete to cut off all the meat from the yak's hind leg, put it in the prepared bag, and weighed it. It should weigh about 30 to 50 jin (15-25 kg), enough for him and the white lion and snow mastiff to eat when they went down the mountain tomorrow.
"White Lion, come back..."
Although the white lion and snow leopard both had large appetites, this yak was simply too big. The group of animals spent half a day gnawing on it, but they only managed to eat a few dozen kilograms of meat, not even a fifth of it.
Zhuang Rui knew that guarding the yak carcass would be pointless; when he went to roast the meat, the vultures would still swarm. If a few days passed and the stench spread, vultures from dozens of kilometers around would likely be attracted, as these creatures have incredibly sensitive noses.
Just as Zhuang Rui was leading his pet team back towards the barbecue area a few dozen meters away, a clear chirping sound suddenly came from the sky.
Zhuang Rui looked up and saw a golden eagle swooping down from the sky. In Zhuang Rui's vision, it gradually grew from the size of a palm to the size of a bird. When it landed on the ground in front of him, its wingspan was two or three meters long. When the golden eagle folded its wings, it brought up a gust of wind that Zhuang Rui, who was more than ten meters away, could feel.
Seemingly somewhat afraid of the golden eagle, the vultures that had arrived earlier, despite their superior numbers, retreated far away.
Given the golden eagle's feeding habits, it usually takes its prey to a secluded place before it begins to eat. However, it was clear that this yak was beyond its reach. After flapping its wings and trying several times, the creature, which shimmered golden in the sunlight, finally gave up.
With its head held high and its golden eyes looking around indifferently, the golden eagle lowered its head and began to tear at the fresh yak meat with its claws and hooked beak.
The golden eagle's beak has tremendous tearing power. Zhuang Rui only saw the creature tilt its head, and a piece of beef, about two fingers wide and ten centimeters long, was snatched into its mouth. With a flick of its head, it swallowed it down its throat, its movements very practiced.
Back at his backpack, Zhuang Rui took out his DV camera, focused it, and started filming the golden eagle feeding. Zhuang Rui was now somewhat numb to the creatures of the snow-capped mountains; it seemed that he had seen everything except for the plateau bear.
Now Zhuang Rui finally had time to observe the golden eagle properly. This proud creature, as proud as a peacock, was about one meter tall when standing. Its head was yellowish-brown, and the feathers from the back of its head to the nape were long and pointed, shaped like willow leaves, with golden tips that looked exceptionally beautiful in the sunlight.
Golden eagles also have feathers on their legs, and their toes have thick, long, horny claws as sharp as those of lions and tigers. The claws on their inner and hind toes are even sharper. Even the thick hide on a yak's back becomes as soft as nothing under the golden eagle's claws, and one swipe can leave three bloody holes.
The occasional flapping of wings should also be one of the golden eagle's powerful weapons. At least Zhuang Rui saw it in Jin Yong's novel "The Return of the Condor Heroes," where Yang Guo's eagle brother could knock down his prey with a single flap of his wing.
"Damn, wouldn't it be so impressive to keep one of these?"
Zhuang Rui almost drooled while watching from the side. If he could tame this guy, he could drive an off-road vehicle and let the golden eagle fly over it. Then, with a whistle, it would immediately land on his shoulder. How cool would that be?
"Hmm, what are they doing?"
Just as Zhuang Rui was enjoying his thoughts, he noticed that after eating a few pieces of meat, the golden eagle tore off a lot more strips and laid them aside. When there were about five or six pounds of meat, the golden eagle grabbed the meat with its two claws, flapped its wings, and took flight.
"Could there really be baby birds?"
Zhuang Rui got excited, but looking at the golden eagle getting smaller and smaller in the sky, he was also a little helpless. Who knew where this guy's lair was?
Zhuang Rui watched an episode of a program about humans and nature that specifically introduced the golden eagle, a bird of prey. He remembered that the golden eagle's breeding season is around April or May, plus the 45-day incubation period. If this is a pair of male and female golden eagles, then there will definitely be chicks in its nest.
Generally speaking, chicks need to be raised by their parents for more than three months after they are born before they can leave the nest. It is now the end of July, so if there are chicks, they should be only a little over a month old.
Thinking of this, Zhuang Rui's heart couldn't help but burn with excitement. If he could find the golden eagle's lair, his dream of leading a yellow dog on one side and a falcon on the other might very well come true. "Snow leopard, can we find its lair?"
Zhuang Rui put his arm around the neck of the snow leopard, which had eaten and drunk its fill, and asked jokingly. He didn't expect the snow leopard to understand, after all, this guy was different from the white lion, and their tacit understanding had been formed since they were young.
"Ouch..."
The snow leopard let out a low growl, looked at the golden eagle in the sky, and actually nodded. After running a few steps, it turned its head to look at Zhuang Rui.
The snow leopard is the king of the land in this great snow mountain, its whereabouts are all over the snow mountain. It has seen the golden eagle return to its nest and has also thought of stealing the chicks, but it almost got its eyes gouged out by the golden eagle.
"Come back, come back, you can't go now..."
Zhuang Rui quickly called the snow leopard back. It was already three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and the golden eagles that had gone out to hunt would definitely return to their den. As long as the snow leopard knew the location, he could sneak over to check on it tomorrow when the golden eagles went out to hunt.
In high spirits, Zhuang Rui started grilling food. By the time he had eaten and drunk his fill, it was already six or seven o'clock in the evening. There were just too many animals here. In addition to the group of vultures fighting over the yak carcass, a few jackals appeared out of nowhere. Their green eyes made Zhuang Rui feel a little scared.
After stopping the white lion from attacking the jackal, Zhuang Rui thought for a moment, picked up his backpack, and climbed up the mountain for a distance. He stopped when he reached the snow line and set up his tent. The temperature was quite low here, and few animals would come up at night.
Although the white lion and its fiancée didn't get along with the snow leopard, they were able to live peacefully together under Zhuang Rui's reassurance. That night, Zhuang Rui slept soundly, dreaming that he was riding a giant eagle, soaring through the sky.
"Snow leopard, where's the snow leopard?"
The next day, the blinding sunlight shone through the thick tent. As soon as Zhuang Rui opened his eyes, he shouted loudly, "This guy mustn't run away in the middle of the night, otherwise where will I find the golden eagle's lair?"
Chapter 748 Golden Eagle (Part 2)
Although he was all alone, Zhuang Rui was happy and carefree during his time on the snowy mountain with the white lion and two other guys by his side. He even forgot about his pregnant wife without a care in the world.
Sure enough, the moment Zhuang Rui opened his eyes, his biggest concern was the snow leopard. He unzipped his sleeping bag and stepped out of the tent. The dazzling sunlight reflected off the snow, causing Zhuang Rui to squint slightly.
"Snow leopard, hey, come here..."
Just as Zhuang Rui took out his sunglasses and put them on, he saw a snow leopard covered in black and white spots dart out from behind the tent. At Zhuang Rui's call, the snow leopard obediently ran to Zhuang Rui's side and crouched down.
Lifting the snow leopard's forelimb, Zhuang Rui discovered that its wound had shrunk to a faint scar, a result of Zhuang Rui having almost completely exhausted the spiritual energy in his eyes yesterday.
However, after a night's rest, the spiritual energy had already recovered. Perhaps because it was in the snowy mountains, the recovery speed was much faster than usual.
"Where's the white lion?"
Zhuang Rui used his spiritual energy to cleanse the snow leopard's body and shouted loudly, "This guy has forgotten his buddies now that he has a wife. He's a typical example of someone who forgets his friends for the sake of a pretty face."
Four or five minutes passed before Zhuang Rui saw the white lion and the snow mastiff running up from the foot of the mountain. The snow mastiff shamelessly rushed up to Zhuang Rui and affectionately rubbed its big head against him.
"You rascal, it's not the female mastiff's heat season yet, stop doing bad things..."
Zhuang Rui patted the white lion's big head. Unlike ordinary dogs, female mastiffs usually go into heat in December, only once a year. If the white lion wants to consummate the marriage, it will probably have to wait a few more months.
After warning the white lion, Zhuang Rui took out a kettle from the tent, cooked the dozens of kilograms of yak meat left over from yesterday until it was tender, and then distributed it to the three guys who were already drooling with anticipation.
The only real hassle in living in the wild is eating. Getting a hot meal takes at least one or two hours. Zhuang Rui woke up around 6 a.m., and by the time he finished setting up the tent and getting everything ready, it was almost 8 a.m. ...
At the foot of the snow-capped mountain behind Zhuangrui Mountain, four people were climbing upwards. Besides Jiacuo, who was almost driven to the brink of collapse by Suonan's nagging, there was also Gesang, the guide hired by Peng Fei and the group of students.
Gesang was supposed to lead the way on the day the Tsinghua University mountaineering team went up the mountain, but Gesang, whose name in Tibetan means a person of good character, had drunk too much the day before and slept until the afternoon of the next day.
Those students were inexperienced and fearless, so they went up the mountain without a guide. Of course, they learned their lesson the hard way. Apart from one of them collapsing, the others slept for two days and still couldn't recover their strength.
However, Gesang had made a mistake because of drinking, so when he heard that they were going up the mountain to find Zhuang Rui, he volunteered to come along.
Zhuang Rui didn't return all night, and Peng Fei was starting to panic. Zhuang Rui had been on the snow mountain for three days. Although he firmly believed that Zhuang Rui would be alright, Peng Fei was still very worried. So, early in the morning, around six o'clock, he and the others started climbing the snow mountain.
"Gesang, you've climbed this snow mountain before. How long does it take to reach the summit?"
Of the four people present, only the tour guide Gesang had led a team to climb this snow-capped mountain.
"It will take at least 10 hours, and there's no time to rest in between..."
Although this snow mountain is not the most precipitous in Tibet, it is home to many animals, and some of the steep sections require rope climbing. Last time Gesang led a group up, it took them a full seventeen hours.
"I should have removed the satellite phone from the plane..."
As Peng Fei climbed up the mountain with his trekking poles, he muttered to himself that although a certain company advertised its global connectivity all day long, there was no use for mobile phones on this remote, snow-covered mountain.
"Brother Suonan, alright, you just wait here. We'll be coming down the mountain as soon as we find Zhuang Rui..."
More than two hours later, the search team arrived near the snow line, where the altitude was already over 4,500 meters. Given Suo Nan's age and physical condition from sitting in an office all the time, he was no longer able to climb any higher.
"Alright, thank you all for your help. I mean, I definitely...we must find Zhuang Rui." Suo Nan shook hands with the group, repeatedly urging them to find him. He had already decided that if they couldn't find Zhuang Rui, they would leave the mountain tomorrow to seek help and send a helicopter to search for him. They needed to find him alive or dead.
The instructions given by those bigwigs when they left Tibet made Suo Nan realize that if something really happened to Zhuang Rui, the consequences would be far beyond what he could bear.
"Brother Suonan, don't worry, with White Lion around, if Brother Zhuang is in any danger, White Lion will definitely come to find us..."
Peng Fei comforted Suo Nan, knowing the white lion's spirituality; if Zhuang Rui really encountered an unsolvable problem, the white lion would definitely come down the mountain for help.
Moreover, Peng Fei also knew that Zhuang Rui had gone up the mountain to find the female mastiff.
Based on Peng Fei's understanding of Zhuang Rui and the bond between Zhuang Rui and the white lion, if Zhuang Rui couldn't find another snow mastiff, who knows how long he might stay on the mountain?
"Hehe, Brother Suonan, Brother Zhuang is probably out sightseeing with White Lion right now. Alright, let's go up the mountain..."
Seeing Suonan's conflicted expression, Peng Fei joked, waved to Suonan, and caught up with Jiacuo and Gesang, who had already walked more than twenty meters away. ...
Zhuang Rui wasn't as happy as Peng Fei had imagined. He had been traveling through the mountains with the snow leopard for more than two hours.
After packing up his tent and backpack, Zhuang Rui had the snow leopard lead the way to find the lair of the golden eagle from yesterday.
In order to keep up with the snow leopard, Zhuang Rui carried a small bag and a machete, leaving the tent and backpack behind.
Even so, after walking and running for more than two hours, Zhuang Rui still hadn't found the golden eagle's nest. He looked at his watch and hesitated. He had originally planned to go down the snow mountain today, otherwise the people outside the mountain would probably organize a search for him.
"Xiaoxue, how much further?"
Zhuang Rui called out to the snow leopard that was running ahead. Bored along the way, he gave the snow leopard and the snow mastiff names. Since the snow leopard was cute and seemed to be young, he named it Xiao Xue (Little Snow).
As for the snow mastiff, Zhuang Rui called it Xue'er, because he really couldn't bring himself to say the name Da Xue.
Zhuang Rui had put in a lot of effort to get the two of them used to his address. He had heard of some animal training techniques, such as rewarding an animal immediately if it reacts correctly when you speak to it.
After three to five times, the animal will develop a conditioned reflex, and when you say the same thing again, the animal will react naturally.
As Zhuang Rui followed the snow leopard, he kept calling out Xue'er and Xiao Xue's names. Whenever the snow leopard in front heard Xiao Xue turn around, Zhuang Rui would reward it with his spiritual energy, which surprisingly made Xiao Xue remember his name.
Now that Zhuang Rui called out "Xiao Xue" again, the snow leopard stopped, turned around and walked to Zhuang Rui's side, looking at him suspiciously. It couldn't understand the meaning of Zhuang Rui's other sentence.
"How far is it from the eagle's nest, which is also the golden eagle's lair?"
Zhuang Rui gestured to the snow leopard, but no matter how he mimed the eagle in flight, the snow leopard didn't understand his meaning, leaving Zhuang Rui to waste his time.
Just as Zhuang Rui was at his wit's end, the golden eagle he had seen yesterday suddenly flew by in the distance. Zhuang Rui quickly pointed to the golden eagle overhead and said to Xiao Xue, "Look, that's it. How much further do we have to go to find it?"
Looking at the golden eagle in the sky, Xiaoxue was a little excited, but she still couldn't understand Zhuang Rui's words. She just raised her head and roared at the eagle. It seems that she had really suffered at the hands of the golden eagle before.
"Waaaaah..."