"We've probably found her, in the firewood shed at Qile's House in Xiaozhai Village. It should be the one we're looking for. You guys contact the center first and send a vehicle over, the panda doesn't seem to be in good condition."
Until they had confirmed that the panda was the little cub's mother, they had to continue the search. What if she wasn't? There was no time to delay.
"The weather this year is colder and earlier than usual. The pandas are already moving down the mountain, and I guess the fierce beasts are about to reach human settlements too."
"Ah, so conservation has its pros and cons. When it works, we have more animals, and the natural ecology recovers faster and better. But with the cold climate and lack of food, when animals can't find anything to eat, they can only consider humans as their last resort."
This topic was so heavy that eventually, almost no one talked, just heads down, following Great Bai.
Great Bai suddenly started jogging, and Chen Ying's spirits lifted, "Hurry, keep up."
Everyone sped up, two slightly overweight staff members turned pale, biting their teeth and continuing on.
About twenty meters ahead, there was a ditch, and the remains of the fight were still fresh in sight.
Chen Ying's heart tightened, and he rushed over.
Holding onto a large tree, he peered out and saw a dry riverbed beneath a cliff several meters high, and on the rocky riverbank lay a black-and-white creature, motionless.
Chen Ying forced himself to stay calm, arranging for the rescue rope to be securely tied, ready to go down and check the situation.
Great Bai paced back and forth anxiously at the edge, seemingly wanting to go down but unable to find a safe path.
"Great Bai, don't go, you have to protect yourself, and Jiaojiao and Leo need you too. I'll go take a look; if I can save it, I will save it," Chen Ying assured and patted Great Bai on the arm, gazing at it as it opened its mouth anxiously, Chen Ying rubbed its arm vigorously.
"You stay here and watch over them for me. If a fierce beast comes, we can only rely on you."
"Hmm, hmm, okay, I'll wait here."
Great Bai calmed down a bit, sat down to catch his breath, and looked around vigilantly.
"Brother Ying, the two of us will go down first, you wait up here."
"No way, I'm going down too. You two don't have enough experience with rescue, don't try to act tough," Chen Ying said as he stopped one of the interns, telling him to stay behind.
"Then Brother Ying, let me go down with you, sooner or later I have to be capable of doing it on my own, let me learn from you."
Fine, the kid had ambition. He couldn't be too discouraging.
Taking the two youngsters, Chen Ying quickly rappelled down to the riverbed. He approached the giant panda with heightened caution.
He didn't recklessly touch it, but first circled around the giant panda to get a better understanding of the situation before taking action.
"An adult giant panda, there's blood in its nostrils, two-thirds of its right ear has been torn off, there are traces of blood around the eyes' black patches, and it's unclear if the eyes are injured."
He continued to observe, "All four limbs appeared intact, not sure if there are any fractures. Three claws on the left front paw are broken with traces of blood, and there are bite marks on the paw."
His gaze shifted beneath the giant panda, and Chen Ying gasped.
"A tiger lies beneath the giant panda, there's a lot of blood at the scene, the tiger's limbs are limp, and it's unresponsive to touch."
They didn't dare to handle the animals hastily, using a walking stick to gently nudge the giant panda's nose. After several attempts, the giant panda moved slightly, opened its mouth, but didn't make any other movements for a long while.
Yin Li and the others arrived quickly, and several Forest Patrol Officers hurried to the scene, looking for ways to move the panda.
As it wasn't feasible to bring in a cage, they had to construct a stretcher out of wood to carry the panda out first.
While Yin Li was leading the making of the stretcher, Chen Ying, accompanied by the veterinarian from the center, performed a thorough check on the giant panda.
The examination revealed that the panda was severely injured, its mouth full of blood, indicating serious internal injuries.
And from the belly of the giant panda, it was evident that it was a mother panda still in the nursing period. Judging by Great Bai's reaction, they could almost determine that this giant panda was indeed the little cub's mother.
It seemed that the mother panda had encountered the Bengal Tiger while migrating with her little cub.
Under normal circumstances, tigers and giant pandas wouldn't easily engage in conflict, as there was no competition in their diets, hence no root cause for discord.
However, this Bengal Tiger was an old tiger, judging by its belly, it must have been hungry for quite some time. So, was it possible that the hungry tiger spotted the playful panda cub and consequently intended to prey on it?
Unfortunately for the tiger, its actions were discovered by the mother panda, which led to a battle between the two beasts.
While the panda might not be able to kill a tiger with a single bite, it could embrace the tiger and tumble it down with force, and although the tiger could wound the panda, such a bulky and thick-skinned bear, especially one so fiercely maternal, could possibly result in a mutual downfall.
Analysis aside, determining the facts would require either photographic evidence of their fight or first-hand information from the now-healed mother panda acquired by Chen Ying.
Either way, the truth was impossible to discern at this moment.
"The tiger is dead, confirmed to have fallen to death, likely with all its internal organs shattered. The giant panda survived because it landed on top of the tiger when they both fell off the cliff."
A cliff over ten meters high with hard rocks below, no matter how thick-skinned the giant panda was, there were limits to its physical defense.
Forest Emergency Station lacked large-scale diagnostic equipment, so the giant panda's injuries had to be examined at a human hospital with professional tools.
After treating the visible external wounds and administering some cardiac stimulant drugs, everyone worked together to lift the panda onto a stretcher.
Nearly three hundred pounds, it was a heavy lift even for four strong men.
It was impossible to climb while carrying the panda, so they had to follow the riverbed downward, hoping to find a gentle slope to ascend.
Halfway through their journey, reinforcements from Xiaozhai Village arrived.
With more hands to take turns carrying, they could move a bit faster.
"We found a subadult male giant panda in our village, seems to be ill, a bit underweight. It's been caged and sent to the Panda Protection Center," Xiao Qin relayed as he led the team, explaining the process and treatment upon discovering the subadult giant panda to Chen Ying and Yin Li.
"Brother Ying, why are there suddenly so many giant pandas around here? Has something happened in the mountains?" Xiao Qin couldn't help but wonder. It wasn't unusual to encounter a giant panda foraging in the village in previous years, but such instances were not this frequent.
One encounter in a winter was considered lucky.
After all, the reserve spanned almost 40,000 hectares, with less than two hundred giant pandas in total.
Yet this year alone, they had seen quite a few pandas, an abnormally high density.
Chen Ying remained silent. He couldn't very well say that these animals were all coming for him, in search of a mate!
Xiao Qin hadn't considered such an outlandish possibility. He was merely voicing his query.
"By the way, how did that Bengal Tiger end up here? I thought it was a Huanan Tiger when I heard about the tiger, it scared me half to death."
The rarity of the Huanan Tiger made its loss a tremendous one.
Of course, the death of a Bengal Tiger was also quite regrettable.
Chen Ying was even more curious.
He knew a bit more, the Bengal Tiger's primary habitat was in Tibet and the western part of Dian Province, which, though not on the other side of the world, couldn't be considered close by either.
He could believe it if there were Huanan Tigers, since according to the situation at the founding of the country, their reserve's latitude was well within the Huanan Tiger's range.
Indeed, the possibility of a few surviving Huanan Tigers in the deep, untouched forest wasn't out of the question.
But a Bengal Tiger... had it come specifically to find a Huanan Tiger for courtship?
(Which tiger do you think is the most handsome?)