Forest Ranger, starting from Picking Up a Lynx Girl-Chapter 172 My Love is in the Forest

Last night he had too much to drink, and when he got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Chen Ying vaguely saw an additional dark figure in the luxury cat house.

At the time, he was bursting to go, and by the time he came back after taking care of business, that dark figure had vanished.

After searching around the front and back of the house and not finding anything, Chen Ying thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He scratched his head, wrapped his clothes tightly around him, and jogged back to his room to continue sleeping.

At seven-thirty, bursts of exclamation came from outside. Chen Ying woke from his sleep, still not quite awake, rubbed his eyelids, yawned, and poked his head out from the second floor to look.

"Holy crap, what the heck is that?"

"A pig, maybe?"

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"It doesn't look like it, whose pig looks like that? It doesn't seem like a wild boar either."

A group of people gathered in front of his uncle's yard, pointing and gesturing toward the ditch.

Someone with sharp eyes spotted Chen Ying on the balcony and quickly beckoned him to come down and have a look.

The ditch where the little creature was hiding was right in a blind spot from his view. Chen Ying looked down but didn't see it, so he decisively threw on a coat and rushed downstairs.

His uncle's ditch had been renovated the last time they worked on the cat house, widening the old dirt ditch and laying it out neatly with stone slabs and precast concrete boards.

The little fellow, adorned in black and white, was trembling and hiding at the far end of the ditch, where a clump of withered camellia branches stretched overhead, providing effective cover.

No wonder he hadn't seen it last night; it had been hiding there.

(The coloring is very classic, but its appearance is quite striking.)

"This guy is a pig badger, also known as a local pig. The elders should have seen it a lot, right?"

An old man, carrying a long smoking pipe, came over, examined the creature closely, and nudged it with the end of his pipe handle.

The animal raised its head and opened its mouth, its short paws stretching and retracting, embodying the essence of "weak, pitiful, and helpless."

"It's a local pig, but the ones we used to catch in the village weren't this color, more of a brownish-yellow. I've never seen this color before; I almost didn't recognize it."

Cadre Xiao Qin had already arrived with some people after hearing the news and even picked up a dog cage from a villager's house.

"Brother Ying, what should we do with this little thing, just let it go?"

Pig badgers are a protected species, so they can't be killed easily, but they aren't that rare either.

"First, get it into a cage."

Chen Ying observed it and didn't notice any injuries, but pig badgers hibernate. Considering how cold their winters can be, why would this little one leave its warm cave to come to a human-populated area?

This little fellow wasn't strong in attack but could cause significant damage to crops, frequently stealing them, even seeds sown by farmers, like peanuts, corn, potatoes, and red potatoes.

There used to be a lot of them in the countryside, and farmers hated the crop-stealing pig badgers. Because they were small and their meat was tasty, their numbers dwindled year by year.

In the last ten or twenty years, the village's young people have hardly ever seen this kind of animal.

The villagers consciously stepped back, watching as Chen Ying coaxed the little creature out with food and successfully locked it in the cage.

As the pig badger was being caged, Chen Ying noticed something off about the way it walked; there was an abnormal bulge on its left hind leg and abdominal area.

The pig badger was incredibly calm; even as it was being lifted in the cage to be moved, it clung to a red potato, gnawing on it earnestly.

The place it was moved to was a rescue shelter built on Chen Ying's suggestion, yet to be inaugurated and still without a doctor stationed.

The room inside had just been freshly painted, and there was no equipment. They had barely managed to set up a makeshift examination table by bringing over an empty office desk from the village committee office.

Not daring to administer anesthesia to the little guy, they could only use a piece of clothing to cover its mouth while two strong men held down its limbs so Chen Ying could examine it.

Feeling its belly, the faint movements inside revealed that it was a pregnant mother.

But the next part of the checkup caused Chen Ying to look rather serious.

"It's confirmed there's something in its left abdomen, but I can't be sure what it is yet; it needs further examination."

Xiaozhai Village definitely wouldn't be suitable, and neither would sending it to the mountains. While Chen Ying was contemplating where to send the animal, she saw Yin Li come in with a cellphone.

"I just contacted Sister Dai and others, the car is coming soon to pick it up."

Although the rescue center was an option, most of the animals there had a higher status. A pig badger like this would definitely be better taken care of at Sister Dai's than at the center.

It's not about discrimination, but when human resources are strained, the higher the status of the animal, the more attention it gets—it's just human nature.

Xiao Song and Duanmu were the ones who came to pick up the pig badger.

They also brought gifts for Chen Ying and Yin Li.

The two had met each other's parents previously and had pretty much settled the marriage arrangements, planning to have the wedding banquet next May.

After hearing about Little Sen's tip-off, they took the initiative to come and pick up the pig badger and to check in on Yin Li.

After hearing where Yin Li planned to go, Duanmu hesitated before proactively explaining the situation.

"Brother Li, you go ahead. It's possible that my wife and I might go there too in the second half of next year."

Xiao Song bashfully lowered his head.

"The person mainly in charge of that reserve is somewhat related to my family. I guess you could say I'm using backdoor connections. When we go there, we might be in charge of the medical and rescue operations."

Though they mentioned using backdoor connections, the reality was that the conditions there were harsh and similar to Jiamu Gully—poor conditions and low pay made few people willing to go. Some even treated the rescue work as a stepping stone, biding their time while looking for better options.

After Chen Ying finished writing the pig badger's file and handed it over to Xiao Song, Duanmu secured the animal's cage and prepared to drive back to the Cuomu River shelter.

After sending them off, Chen Ying prepared to return to fetch some items, calling Old Gao to hit the road home.

But just as they entered the courtyard, they got a shock.

How come there was another critter freeloading food and drink inside the luxury cat house?

Chen Ying and the little guy stared at each other through the glass for a few minutes, hands on hips, exhaling heavily, and then steeled herself to open the door of the cat house.

This little fellow had a big heart. Seeing Chen Ying enter, it acted completely different from its kind—unchaotic and not even bothering with the characteristic threatening behavior. Instead, it was very interested in gnawing on a red potato.

Was that in the diet of red pandas?

Although they liked eating plant fruits, and they preferred those with a sweet taste, wild red pandas hadn't really been seen eating red potatoes.

Maybe they didn't know how to dig up the soil?

This red potato, of unknown origin, wasn't big. From the part that had been eaten, it appeared to be a red potato, the kind high in sugar content.

Chen Ying squatted down to greet the little guy, but it didn't give any attention in return—not even slightly. Instead, it grasped the potato and turned halfway around, laying its fluffy tail over Chen Ying's hand.

Was it offering its tail in exchange for food?

Such a people-friendly red panda, could it have escaped from a zoo?

Thinking this, Chen Ying quickly took out her phone and dialed the Giant Panda Protection Center's number.

Although they primarily protected giant pandas, red pandas were also under their protection, and they even had a specific place to keep red pandas.

The place where Meng Yan had been sent for retirement was under the jurisdiction of the Red Panda Valley of the Protection Center.

As it turned out, it was likely that it had escaped from there.

It wasn't much related to the staff, but rather to an unruly red panda that had self-taught the art of lock-picking. Seizing the opportunity while the staff were cleaning and distributing food, it secretly made its escape along with two others.

"We've already caught two of them—they didn't run far, just wandered outside the grounds and then stuck around the bamboo forest to eat. But one has not been seen up to now. We reviewed the surveillance and found it had run off to the wild."

Right now, the center was at their wits' end over this, so receiving Chen Ying's call was like a shot of relief.

Chen Ying tousled the little guy's head. "Look at you, you run off to the wild and then decide you prefer human feeding, so you come here to turn yourself in. You might as well have stayed put from the beginning."

"Who says that? I'm just resting temporarily. I'm still going to continue on my journey." The red panda's voice chimed in. "I heard from the newcomer that its forest home has many females. I'm going to find the most important other half of my life."

So, was this a red panda brother who braved the world for the sake of love?