"Uh, after seeing the reminder from pals in the live chat, I’m having second thoughts. There are quite a few squirrels around here, but not many with substantial food stores—must be a rather old, experienced individual."
"If it gets knocked out of the fight for survival just because of our bad luck in taking its food reserves, that would indeed be a shame. So here’s the plan, we’ll leave everything else in the granary untouched, and only take the mushrooms back with us.
"Tonight, we’ll make a mushroom soup and reprocess the bear paw we didn’t finish at lunch using the fresh flavor of the mushrooms."
Having made up his mind, Lin Yang didn’t wreak havoc; he just plucked the mushrooms from one side of the nest and stuffed them into his pocket before climbing down the tree.
No sooner had he landed than the urgent chirping of a squirrel came from afar. The little guy was a very pretty, adult male Arctic squirrel, with its cheek pouches stuffed full of something, now hopping up and down frantically on another tree—no need to say, it had noticed the unwelcome guest in its granary.
Lin Yang: "Lucky you, I’m out of here."
Stumbling upon a dozen or so mushrooms had put him in a great mood, and he hummed a tune on his way back to camp.
Just walking along, suddenly a rustling burst from the bushes with a loud flapping of wings, and a bird-like creature, too quick to see clearly, took off from his feet and flew straight into the distance.
Lin Yang was startled by the noise and instinctively looked up.
There are no wild chickens in this area, but there are Thunderbirds, which are similar in size to chickens. If he wasn’t mistaken, the one that had just flown away was a Thunderbird.
The drone’s camera caught the sudden movement and followed with its lens.
Just then, about seventy or eighty meters above the ’wild chicken’ that had just taken flight, a white shadow descended at breakneck speed.
With a crisp slap, the ’wild chicken’, which had been flying just fine a second earlier, was solidly kicked by the shadow, feathers scattering in the air, and it plummeted to the ground like a kite without a string.
After hitting the ’wild chicken,’ the white shadow spread its wings mid-air, made a turn, and gracefully snatched up the now silent bird, swiftly vanishing from sight.
The entire attack was witnessed by Lin Yang and the live stream viewers, especially with the drone’s camera capturing every detail clearly.
Watching the replay, Lin Yang’s breathing quickened.
The bird was covered in white feathers, with an incredibly cool dive hunting pose.
The predator from just now was a white Spear Falcon!
Before taking on this challenge, Lin Yang had no concept of birds of prey, his only rudimentary knowledge being an encounter in his childhood with a bald eagle in a large metal cage at the zoo.
However, his cramming over this period had broadened his store of knowledge considerably.
And speaking of the Spear Falcon, it’s no ordinary creature. In ancient times, it was an exclusive bird of prey for the royal family. The Emperor Kangxi of the Qing dynasty once wrote a poem: "Of all the winged insects, three hundred and sixty in count, the most divine and agile is the Hai Dongqing. Its nature gold and spirit imbued with the virtue of fire, an exceptional material that reflects the light of jade stars."
The Hai Dongqing mentioned in the poem refers to the Spear Falcon.
To give a clearer picture if poetry doesn’t quite do it: this bird of prey is extremely rare and precious, so much so that even an emperor would have found it very difficult to possess one.
Yet now, on the plains near a large lake just outside the Arctic Circle, I’ve stumbled upon it, and it has performed a sleek and stylish hunting maneuver live on camera."