Chapter 49: Chu Ye Avenge Mao Mao

Chapter 49: Chuye Avenge Maomao

However, these carefree days lasted merely two days before trouble struck again.

That morning, Chuye was resting under the giant tree as usual.

The two lionesses had gone off to hunt.

After a while, the two lionesses returned, bringing with them a half-grown warthog. Today, they finally had some harvest.

This half-grown wild boar was not dead yet; only one of its legs was injured.

Lisa and Aisha now made a habit of intentionally injuring sub-adult prey whenever they encountered them, rather than killing them outright.

They would bring these relatively small prey animals from afar back to their own territory, and then let their cubs practice hunting skills.

Previously, Lisa and Aisha had brought back an adult springhare from the hunting grounds to let the cubs practice hunting skills.

Today, they brought back a half-grown warthog, wanting the cubs to practice their hunting skills once more.

The springhare from last time was somewhat small, and its strength was not much to speak of, failing to truly give the lion cubs a sense of the difficulty of hunting.

This time, however, the small warthog brought back by the two lionesses was much larger than that springhare, and its strength was considerably greater.

Therefore, Lisa and Aisha now wanted to teach the cubs how to hunt again.

Yet when Lisa and Aisha went into the bushes to look for their children, Lisa discovered that one of her lion cubs was missing.

This particular cub was Lisa's young male lion, the one Chuye had named Maomao.

At first, Chuye did not pay much attention to it, wondering if Maomao had wandered off somewhere far. Surely, once the lioness gave a few calls, it would come back from outside.

After all, the lion cubs were nearly six months old now; they already possessed some ability to survive independently and would increasingly venture far from their den with growing boldness.

Lisa initially thought the same—perhaps Maomao had run rather far, and a few calls of her own would bring it back.

However, much to the dismay of both Lisa and Chuye, after Lisa searched the surrounding grass for a long time and kept calling out for ages, Maomao still did not appear.

At that moment, Lisa probably sensed that Maomao must have been killed and devoured by other predators.

After all, lion cubs during the dry season were extremely vulnerable to being killed by other predators.

In the previous two instances, hyena packs and wild dog packs had already ambushed the lion cubs.

Regarding Maomao's disappearance this time, Lisa was extremely anxious at first, continuously searching the nearby grass and roaring endlessly, hoping to see Maomao come running out from the vegetation.

Yet after struggling for half an hour with no sign of Maomao emerging from the grass, Lisa felt certain that Maomao must have been killed and eaten by other predators. Thus, finding Maomao now was simply out of the question.

Lisa likely also felt that the culprit who killed Maomao was undoubtedly that annoying pack of wild dogs to the north of their territory.

Seeing that Maomao failed to run out from the bushes, Lisa glared fiercely toward the northern part of the territory, clearly convinced that the murderer of Maomao was none other than the wild dogs.

"It must be that pack of wild dogs. Aside from them, there could be no other predators." Chuye thought the very same thing.

Yet now that Maomao could no longer be found, although both Lisa and Chuye were furious, it was already beyond remedy.

After roaring toward the north twice, Lisa returned to the side of the other lion cubs. As for the lost Maomao, Lisa and Aisha, like all animals, felt a momentary pang of sorrow, but being mere beasts, their grief over losing a child would only last a short while before they forgot about it entirely.

After all, a lioness could give birth to five or six cubs in a single litter; even if only half of them survived to adulthood, that would still be three or four.

Lisa did not immerse herself too deeply in the grief of losing Maomao. She soon busied herself with hunting and caring for the other cubs.

The other lion cubs no longer cared about Maomao either. They continued living their carefree lives as if nothing had happened at all.

For Chuye, however, it was entirely different.

Chuye felt deeply saddened in his heart over the loss of Maomao. After all, he possessed human emotions, and Maomao was his brother.

"No, I must avenge Maomao. These damned wild dogs don't know what's good for them. We lions have already decided not to bicker with them, yet they still dare to come and ambush our cubs."

Chuye now firmly believed that the Kute wild dog pack had once again ambushed their pride, and this time, they had slaughtered a lion cub.

"These bastards, I'm going to deal with you for sure."

Although Chuye was only a small lion, he could not bear the fact that the wild dog pack had once again ambushed their pride.

While none of the other lions in the pride cared about Maomao's disappearance—even Huahua and Meimei lived their carefree lives as though they had no idea Maomao was gone—the male lion, in particular, acted throughout the entire ordeal as if nothing had happened at all. To Zike, losing a lion cub was akin to having a few hairs scratched off by an opponent during a fight with another male lion.

Zike did not care about Maomao's loss whatsoever; he went on living his life just as before, completely disregarding the feelings of the two lionesses and Chuye.

During these days, unable to see Maomao, Chuye felt an overwhelming anguish in his heart. This was something Chuye himself found hard to understand. Considering he was a human reborn as a lion, he ought to be different from these beasts.

He shouldn't feel such deep attachment to these lion cubs either. Yet, day after day, Chuye kept thinking of Maomao.

One night in a dream, he even envisioned Maomao gripped in the jaws of a wild dog, crying out in agonizing pain.

This scene left Chuye feeling intensely distressed. He felt that he simply had to avenge Maomao, or else he wouldn't even be able to sleep peacefully at night.

Consequently, over the past few days, Chuye secretly slipped away from his own territory into the wild dog territory, covertly observing the movements of the wild dogs.

Through several days of observation, Chuye discovered that these wild dogs typically went out hunting in the morning, leaving only a few young sub-adult female wild dogs in the den to protect the pups.

Even the wild dog queen went hunting together with Kute. It seemed that life was very difficult for the wild dogs as well; otherwise, the wild dog queen wouldn't have had to go hunting, as she would normally stay at home tending to the cubs.

Chuye felt this was truly a golden opportunity. He had to avenge Maomao.

One morning, Chuye stealthily slipped out of his own territory and once again sneaked into the territory of the wild dogs.

Because Chuye was not very large in size, prowling through the tall grass allowed him to move about generally without being detected by the wild dogs.