Chapter 47: Two Amur Leopards

At that moment, I carefully observed the two Amur leopards. After all, this was my very first time seeing them up close. Their most prominent feature was their fur, which was noticeably longer than that of ordinary leopards, reaching around seven or eight centimeters. Their bodies were also considerably larger, easily a size bigger than standard leopards.

Right then, the lifeless man and woman, stripped of all their clothes, stared blankly with upturned eyes as blood flowed in streams from their corpses, pooling across the ground.

Human life is truly fragile at times. To quote old Master Chen, we are sometimes even more fragile than a chicken.

If you slaughter a chicken at home, even if you slice its throat and it bleeds, the old rooster will still flap and thrash around the courtyard for a long time before finally dying. But what about a human? If a person's throat is slashed, it takes barely any time at all—within ten seconds, essentially, a person is completely dead.

...

Just then, I saw the two Amur leopards gently gripping the bodies of the man and woman in their jaws. After looking around to the left and right, they strode deep into the forest.

I wasn't surprised in the least. Winter was right around the corner, and these animals naturally needed to start storing food.

Yet, at that exact moment, old Master Chen suddenly turned to me and said, "Sanqi, did you notice anything unusual about those two Amur leopards just now?"

I was stunned and instinctively asked, "Unusual? What do you mean?"

He turned his head to look straight at me and said word by word, "On the thigh of one of those Amur leopards... there is the mark of an arrow piercing through it."

Hearing those words from old Master Chen, I froze in place, staring blankly at him.

The mark of an arrow piercing through?

I quickly recalled that back at the hunters' camp, I had indeed fired an arrow and struck something. But at the time, both old Master Chen and I were utterly convinced that what I had hit was a person!

So I quickly asked, "Master Chen, what are you trying to say? Could it be that what I shot that day was actually this Amur leopard? But that makes no sense! If I had hit it, how could the leopard have removed the arrow? Besides, it's just a wild beast! Why didn't it make a single sound when I shot it?"

When my barrage of questions ended, old Master Chen didn't answer right away. Instead, he lay down in the bushes, gazing up at the sky and pondering for a long time.

Finally, he spoke to me.

"Removing the arrow is simple! Weren't there two of them? All the other leopard had to do was use its jaws to pull the arrow out! As for why it didn't make a sound, perhaps these two beasts are just unusually clever..."

I found it rather difficult to accept old Master Chen's explanation.

If what he said was true, did that mean even leopards were starting to act like humans?

This...

If the foxes I had encountered earlier acted like humans, it was somewhat excusable. After all, foxes naturally possess a very high level of intelligence. But a leopard... to be able to think like a human, understand that it shouldn't make a sound, and use its mouth to pull out an arrow—that was simply absurd.

So I argued, "Master Chen, I think you might be wrong. Is it possible that some other hunter in these ancient woods shot this Amur leopard with an arrow previously, which is why there's a piercing mark?"

Old Master Chen nodded. "That is indeed a possibility! But Sanqi, if another hunter shot this leopard with an arrow, where did the arrow go?"

I was momentarily left speechless. Old Master Chen continued, "Moreover, these two Amur leopards still don't feel quite right! They were shot right through the thigh, yet they can move completely unhindered! On top of that, Amur leopards had already disappeared from the Greater Khingan Mountains years ago, and now two of them suddenly appear out of nowhere! No matter how you look at it, something is fishy."

Hearing old Master Chen put it that way, I truly didn't know what to say anymore...

After waiting another three minutes until the two Amur leopards completely vanished into the depths of the ancient forest, old Master Chen softly said to me, "Sanqi, let's go! It's time to head back."

"Oh, okay!" I replied, then picked up my eagle whistle and blew it to signal Dahahan to return.

Dahahan answered me with a sharp, piercing cry...

...

On the way back with old Master Chen, walking through the silent and profound ancient forest, my mind was still entirely occupied by those two Amur leopards.

I even caught myself imagining the scene of the other Amur leopard using its jaws to yank the arrow out.

The more I thought about it, the more absurd and bizarre it felt.

Could these wild beasts really have reached such a level?

"Sanqi!" old Master Chen suddenly called out.

"Huh? What is it?"

"By the way, didn't I tell you to wait for me in the room? Why did you come out all by yourself?"

I let out a long sigh. "Master Chen, you hadn't shown up for so long, I thought something had happened to you!"

"Ah! I was chased around by that mountain spirit until my head was spinning, so I lost track of how long I was running! It seems that mountain spirit has vanished now, though! Oh, and Sanqi, did you encounter anything while you were searching around by yourself?"

Hearing old Master Chen ask this, the two foxes inexplicably popped into my mind. I nodded and said, "As a matter of fact, I did! Master Chen, I ran into two foxes burying something by the riverbank!"

"Burying something?"

Old Master Chen, walking ahead of me, paused and turned his head to look at me in puzzlement. "Burying what?"

"A sheepskin scroll!"

I quickly reached into my tunic, pulled out the sheepskin scroll, and handed it to old Master Chen.

Then, I carefully recounted how I discovered those two foxes and how they had buried the scroll right beside the stream.

I even told him how, after taking the scroll, I used water to wash away my scent and cover my tracks.

After listening to my account, old Master Chen's expression turned somewhat surprised. He first praised me and then reached out to take the sheepskin scroll.

Following that, old Master Chen's actions mirrored my own precisely at the beginning.

First, he carefully felt the sheepskin scroll with both hands, then brought it close to his nose to sniff it, and finally asked, "Are there any words on this sheepskin scroll?"

I quickly nodded. "I took a brief look earlier—there are words, and it even seems to have drawings on it! But because it was already dark, I didn't see it very clearly!"

"Hmm!" old Master Chen nodded, handed the sheepskin scroll back to me, and said softly, "We'll study it properly once we get back! This thing is old, and since those two foxes attached so much importance to it, it must be useful!"

I nodded heavily, took back the sheepskin scroll, and tucked it securely inside my tunic. Suddenly, a flash of moonlight cut through the trees, and I was shocked to discover that looks of perplexity and confusion had surfaced on old Master Chen's face.

However, in the blink of an eye, those expressions vanished without a trace.