The Evolutionary Path of the Lion

Chapter 58 London Assessment

"Yes," Ella said, "so I need more days' worth of data."

"We don't have any more days," Kenneth said. "Project funding is limited, and we can only stay here for a limited time—"

"Kenneth," Maurice said, placing a hand on the table, "let's finish what we're saying. Ella, assuming your judgment is correct, what does that mean?"

Ella looked directly at Morris. "This means that the young lion was deliberately deployed."

There was silence in the tent for about three seconds.

"Deployed." Morris repeated the word.

"The deployer is the target individual," Ella said. "The target individual lets the young male lion enter the triggering range first to test the response of our equipment, while staying outside to observe."

Kenneth placed his hand on the table. "Ella, you're saying a prairie animal is conducting tactical reconnaissance."

"I'm saying the data doesn't support an explanation for random behavior," Ella said. "I can't give you a satisfactory explanation, but I can tell you which explanations have been excluded by the data."

“That young male lion came over yesterday to sniff the equipment box,” Marcus said slowly. “Today it went into the camera but not the pressure gauge. If it really was deployed…” He paused. “Then its controller already knew the layout of our equipment yesterday.”

Kaller placed the kettle on the table with a soft tap. "We just set up the equipment yesterday morning."

No one spoke inside the tent.

Morris tapped his fingers lightly on the table twice, then stopped, looked up, and asked, "Marcus, has the data been sent back to London today?"

"It's been sent, sent this morning," Marcus said. "This afternoon in London..." He glanced at his phone. "Morris, I just got a message. London says they need to hold an internal review meeting for today's data and they want us to wait for further instructions."

"Internal evaluation meeting." Morris's expression remained unchanged. "When?"

"Tomorrow at 2 PM."

"Okay." Morris stood up and pushed the chair in. "Standard duty tonight. Continue setting up checkpoints on the east side tomorrow morning. Wait for notification from London." He walked towards the tent entrance. "Ella, compile all the records of that young male lion's appearances into a separate file and send it to me."

Ella looked up at him. "You think I'm right?"

“I think,” Morris stopped at the tent entrance, “whether I’m right or not, that young male lion is the only thing we can get a clear shot of right now.” He unzipped the tent and stepped out. “Let’s start with what we can get a clear shot of. What else can we do?!”

His voice carried a hint of resentment as the zipper closed behind him.

There were three people left in the tent.

Marcus glanced at Ella. "What did he mean by that?"

Ella put the monitor in her bag and zipped it up. "He meant that we might have been looking for the wrong thing all along."

She stood up and walked towards the door, pausing beside the zipper without turning back. "But I feel... the target individual may always be there, it's just that we've never been able to capture their true appearance, whether they are a person, an organization, or anything else..."

She unzipped her jacket and went outside.

[Host: Chen Fei]

[Identity: Sub-adult male lion]

[Energy Points: 879↑]

My place of rest, at dusk.

We've completed the western border crossing.

Chen Fei stopped on a low hill south of his landing spot, turned his gaze from the west and swept it around to the south.

This afternoon, he and Meimei retraced the western boundary. The boundary line extended westward by about 300 meters. The newly extended area was a mixed terrain of low grass and two rocks. There was no scent of other lion prides before. He and Meimei each left marks at several key points.

Meimei's way of walking the border today is different from when he first started patrolling last month.

Last month, she would wait for him to choose a direction first before following him.

Today, she walked ahead of him on the path between the two rocks, choosing a line closer to the shadow of the rocks. When she reached the middle, she stopped, looked back at him, as if to confirm whether he thought the line was suitable.

He didn't react; he just followed along the line.

Meimei turned her head forward and continued walking.

He never looked back.

Chen Fei turned his gaze to the south.

The wind is blowing from the northeast.

His nostrils opened slightly, letting in a breath of air.

The scent of wildebeest herds, the scent of dry grass, and the muddy smell of a distant stream.

There was also a very familiar scent mixed in, very faint, but he recognized it.

The smell of rotting flesh, weeds, and the body heat of the group.

hyena.

It wasn't a nearby scent; it was about two kilometers away, slightly to the east of south. Today's wind direction just happened to carry a little bit of that scent towards him.

He slightly adjusted the direction of the nose and re-filtered it.

Odor concentration.

It's higher than last time.

The last time he detected the scent of the hyena pack to the south, he confirmed it that night using night vision. There were more than fifty of them, with an unusually large individual at the front, about 110 to 120 centimeters tall at the shoulder, actively probing. At that time, they were about three kilometers away from the southern boundary of his territory.

The current concentration of this odor indicates that the group is now closer together.

It is getting close.

Approaching slowly and steadily.

Chen Fei stood on the low hill, without making any immediate move.

The hyena pack's northward migration before the dry season is a normal migratory behavior, heading towards areas with higher water density, a direction that borders the southern part of their territory.

This is not an intrusion, not yet.

But it's getting close.

He turned his gaze away from the south and glanced in the direction of where he was going to land.

Sel and the stingy guy were in the bushes. Big Head had just returned from his second patrol of the northeast corner with Stray A. Big Head was resting in the middle of his spot, while Stray A was stationed on the east side.

everything is normal.

Chen Fei walked down the hill and headed towards his lodgings; he had finished his work for the day.

Remember about the hyena pack.

We'll measure how much it moved north today tomorrow.

North camp.

The light inside the tent came on.

Ella sat at the folding table, compiling the record of the young male lion's appearance into a document. On the screen was a sketch, marking and connecting the coordinates of the two appearances.

She paused at the midpoint of the line.

The midpoint points in one direction.

Southeast side.

She looked at the map for a while, then lightly drew a circle with a pencil on the southeast side to mark that area.

Then she put down the pencil, leaned back in her chair, stared at the circle for a while, and didn't move.

Kale walked in from the tent entrance, glanced at the map in front of her, walked to her seat, placed her water bottle on the table, and did not make a sound to disturb her.

Ella flipped the sketch over, placed it face down on the table, opened her notebook, and began writing the document to send to Morris.

She typed the following in the title:

"An analysis of the activity patterns of young male lions."

Then she paused, deleted the title, and retyped it:

"Records of behavior of non-target individuals in the hunting grounds on the east side."

Kaller saw the action but said nothing.

Outside the window, the night wind of the grassland swept in, causing the canvas of the tent to billow slightly, then flatten, then billow again, then flatten again, as if it were breathing.

Ella sent out the file and closed her laptop.

The night watchman's light was on.

Tomorrow, the assessment meeting in London.

She didn't know what the meeting would conclude, but she knew one thing—

Regardless of what London says, they probably already know what they're looking for in that meadow.