Chapter 42: A Relatively Peaceful Life

Chapter 42: A Relatively Peaceful Life

No matter what, Chu Ye knew that he had to strive to live on. Whatever dangers and difficulties lay ahead, he had to face them with resilience.

After this incident, the male lion seemed to realize its own dereliction of duty. Over the next few days, whenever the lionesses were away, it would stay close to the cubs.

Especially at night, Jike would always lie down near that patch of bushes, diligently fulfilling its duty of protecting the young lions.

During these days, Chu Ye was also extremely cautious. Although he could protect himself and had no need to worry about attacks from other predators, he constantly fretted over the safety of the other cubs.

However, after the wild dog attack on the pride, the Jike pride enjoyed a period of profound tranquility for many days.

For some ten days, everything was peaceful, as if nothing could ever go wrong again.

At first, Jike diligently performed its duties, guarding the cubs well.

Yet, as time dragged on, the king of beasts began to lose patience. Male lions naturally disliked babysitting; perhaps they believed that raising offspring was strictly the domain of the lionesses.

Consequently, the male lion occasionally resumed wandering off to patrol its territory. It likely felt that no other predators would dare to sneak in and attack the cubs again.

Chu Ye, however, could not completely let his guard down. He knew that the most peaceful days often harbored even greater and more perilous threats.

To the cubs in the pride, it seemed as though everything was behind them. They would not remain worried day in and day out just because they had encountered a few dangers.

Those little lions continued to play and frolic as if nothing had happened at all.

Chu Ye was not like those carefree cubs. As a little lion bearing a human soul with grand aspirations, he could not simply live day by day without a care in the world.

"I cannot be like the other cubs, knowing only how to play and frolic. I must constantly watch out for any predators that might try to ambush us."

Every night, Chu Ye would climb up into a large tree to survey the surroundings. If anything seemed amiss, he would immediately signal the cubs to scatter and flee.

Fortunately, following that wild dog ambush, the Jike pride remained extremely peaceful for several days straight, and even nomadic male lions refrained from disturbing their territory.

Liza and Aisha worked hard at hunting over the past couple of days, finally managing to capture some small prey to temporarily sustain the pride.

Chu Ye and the other cubs were now five months old and were gradually adapting to a diet of meat. Liza and Aisha seldom nursed them anymore, focusing instead on providing them with solid food.

Often, the two lionesses would feed after a successful hunt and return home to regurgitate semi-digested food for their young.

As a human, Chu Ye certainly found this method of feeding offspring impossible to accept.

Consequently, Chu Ye practically never touched the food regurgitated by the two lionesses, as he was already capable of hunting on his own.

Chu Ye now weighed just over twenty kilograms. With a mere one or two kilograms of food per meal, he could go two or three days without eating and feel no hunger at all.

Animals possessed dietary habits entirely different from those of humans, and human standards could never be equated with theirs.

To attempt to understand animals through the lens of human lifestyle habits was a grave mistake. The powerful capacity to adapt to the environment that animals had evolved over millions of years far exceeded human imagination.

Lions, for instance, could go a whole month without eating after a single full meal.

This, of course, did not mean they did not feel hungry for a month after one meal; rather, it meant their resistance to starvation was exceptionally strong, allowing them to endure a month without food without risking their lives.

For humans, however, let alone a month, going without food for a mere three days could prove fatal.

If lions were like humans and would starve to death after three days without food, the lions on this vast savannah would have perished long ago, and such creatures would have vanished from the earth, long since extinct.

In reality, feline predators like lions could easily go a month without food or water during times of extreme food scarcity when necessary.

Reptiles and cold-blooded animals like snakes and crocodiles could go without eating for several months after a single hearty meal without any issues.

Thus, an animal's survival capability easily surpassed that of humans by leaps and bounds.

This was merely in terms of starvation resistance. When it came to immunity, the gap was even wider, far eclipsing humanity.

Humans required food that was thoroughly cleaned, cooked at high temperatures, and sterilized.

Yet, despite this, humans frequently fell ill.

Animals, on the other hand, consumed food covered in mud and dust every day, sometimes even eating rotting and spoiled meat, yet they rarely became sick.

Comparing animal immunity to human immunity was almost like saying humans had no immunity at all.

Take the current pandemic, for instance. It was widely known that these viruses likely spread from animals to humans. Yet the animals carrying these viruses remained completely unharmed, while humans suffered deadly consequences.

This was because humanity's ability to resist viruses was vastly inferior to that of animals. For this reason, various epidemics and pandemics continually erupted in human society.

Ever since humanity discarded the primitive lifestyle of eating raw meat and drinking blood, it had, to a certain extent, completely detached itself from nature.

Humans inherently belonged to nature, and detachment from nature inevitably led to degeneration. The various illnesses plaguing humanity were the result of a constantly degenerating body.

Because human bodies had severed ties with nature and lost the many protective elements found within it, they had become prime targets for viral attacks.

People consumed meticulously sanitized and hygienic food while simultaneously falling ill with all sorts of diseases. Was this not a deeply ironic and absurd phenomenon?

If humans possessed even half the immunity of animals, they would practically never fall ill.

Comparing humans and animals in terms of illness, animals essentially never got sick. Indeed, animals rarely fell ill unless they were extremely old; young and robust animals virtually never caught diseases.