Chapter 243 — Little Brothers, Prey
“Eagles this stupid are truly a once-in-a-lifetime sight.” Luo Xun couldn’t help but grumble when he saw Zhang Su finally support the second eaglet as it landed in front of everyone. Seriously, you could excuse the first one’s fall as an accident, but this second one… it clearly followed the cries of the first one straight down! It was truly foolishly brave.
“B-Brother Luo, what do we do now?” One of the half-feathered eagles was about half a person high, and the other was a head shorter, but regardless, they were both massive creatures! Their volume was almost the same as the puppy when it sat down.
Luo Xun looked up at the roof of the high-rise, then at the windows of that building that had been nailed shut from the inside with wooden boards, and finally at the two half-grown, half-downy, half-feathered, ugly-looking eagles huddling closely together. Honestly, birds were cute when they were chicks, and when they grew up, they were either sleek or beautiful, but birds in the intermediate stage were at the absolute ugliest phase of their lives.
Right now, these two half-grown eagles, trapped in their “ugliest” phase, were huddling there like helpless little lambs facing a hunter, staring in sheer terror at this row of “frightening creatures.”
What now? Luo Xun really wanted to say “we’re cooked,” but the continuous “chirping” of the two, along with their lonely and helpless little appearance, made him look up again at the roof where he couldn’t see anything clearly. He then turned to his companions and said, “Should we find a way to send them back up?”
Everyone looked at each other. Little Xinran, however, stared longingly at the two huddling eaglets from a distance and asked somewhat reluctantly, “Can’t we raise them?”
Luo Xun’s expression showed a mix of pity and hesitation. He turned to look at the two eagles, then at the expectant little Xinran, and finally at the puppy crouching next to her with wide, curious eyes, seemingly ready to pounce at any moment. “Their appetites are too massive… and we don’t even know how large they will grow.”
Birds were completely different from dogs. They could occasionally help hunt for those two silly wolves at the front door, but even then, there had to be enough space for them to frolic and stretch their legs, so they truly couldn’t raise them. These two eagles were even out of the question; they didn’t just need massive amounts of fresh meat, they also required enough airspace to fly! If it were a tiny, cute little bird that the little girl wanted to raise, their base had plenty of room, but these two…
Little Xinran’s eyes were filled with disappointment. She looked up at Luo Xun, then back at the two pitiful half-grown eagles.
On the side, Zhang Su suddenly frowned and asked, “Why are they only this big now?”
“Huh??” Luo Xun was completely bewildered and looked at him in confusion.
Zhang Su shot him a sideways glance. “It’s already over August. In another month or two, birds will be migrating again. These two don’t even have full feathers yet. When winter arrives, how can they possibly keep up with the flock flying back south?”
Everyone was left tongue-tied, looking again at the two half-grown eagles who were visibly massive but appeared somewhat thin and weak due to their mottled plumage.
“…Are eagles migratory birds?” Wang Duo suddenly couldn’t resist asking.
“Use your brain! With that atrocious weather we had last winter, even if they aren’t migratory, they wouldn’t be able to catch any animals to eat! If they didn’t follow the flock south, they’d just be waiting to starve to death.” Zhang Su shot Wang Duo an exasperated look, then raised his head to look back at the roof of the high-rise. “There are no other animals up there right now.”
Luo Xun agonized over it for a tiny moment, looking again at those tightly sealed windows, then straight up, and finally at the two eagles… “Xinran?!”
Following Luo Xun’s shout, the others hurriedly scanned left and right, only to look at the two eagles and discover in horror—little Xinran had somehow slipped over to their side. She was pulling two strips of beef jerky, which Luo Xun had made back at the base, from her pocket, feeding them to the two eagles with one in each hand!!
How sharp were those eagles’ beaks?! And they might even possess superpowers! If they pecked her…
But little Xinran was already right beside the eagles and had successfully caught their attention! If they rushed over frantically to pull her away now, heaven only knew what might happen!!
Everyone’s hearts leaped into their throats. Only Zhang Su and Yan Fei could quietly deploy their superpowers to shield the little girl. What made Luo Xun’s teeth ache even more was that the puppy had also tags along beside Xinran to join the fun, inquisitively poking its head around and using its nose to sniff the two eagles!!
“Here, eat.” The little girl wasn’t actually foolishly brave; she carefully held onto the absolute tips of the meat strips and handed them over.
The two eagles seemed to shrink back a bit, but the nature of a raptor still held a slight upper hand. After flinching momentarily, the one that had fallen second—the smaller of the two—craned its neck and snatched a strip of jerky from the little girl’s hand. Seeing this, the other quickly snatched the remaining one.
Seeing that the two eagles had eaten the food she offered, the little girl suddenly spun around and smiled brightly at the adults behind her. Her face was like a blooming flower in the early morning, amidst the faint morning mist and pale dawn. Behind her stood two somewhat clumsy-looking eagles that weren’t particularly sleek or handsome, alongside a German Shepherd that sat obediently, appearing quite fierce when motionless. This scene appeared exceptionally beautiful.
Little Xinran didn’t actually possess an outstanding appearance like the two ladies in the squad; she had always been a quiet, plain-looking little girl, but her smile at this moment was the most beautiful.
Luo Xun suddenly felt his heart soften completely. He couldn’t resist nodding, which caused the little girl to bounce around in excitement.
Behind her, the two eagles showed absolutely zero adverse reactions after eating the jerky. Each craned its neck, intermittently leaning toward little Xinran—they seemingly wanted more!
After burying the massive pit where the mushroom juice had been poured to thoroughly obliterate the evidence, Yan Fei used his metal manipulation to extend the truck bed by an extra section. Little Xinran wasn’t sitting in the small electric car this time; instead, she sat inside the truck, leaning against the massive cage at the rear, feeding her snacks piece by piece to the two eaglets inside, who didn’t seem to feel any fear even after changing environments.
Up front, Luo Xun drove while checking the sky outside from time to time, muttering suspiciously all the while, “Why haven’t we seen those two adult eagles?” Taking their children away left him feeling somewhat guilty inside.
For safety reasons, they hadn’t climbed to the roof of that building. Firstly, because they knew the adult eagles weren’t up there right now; secondly, there might still be humans nesting inside that building.
However, Luo Xun and the team were also puzzled. Logically speaking, when the chicks hadn’t grown up yet, one adult bird would always remain in the nest to care for the offspring, but this nest bore zero signs of the adult eagles besides these two eaglets, which was truly unscientific.
“Let’s just bring them back first. Those two large ones might come over to our side to hunt anyway,” Yan Fei comforted when he saw him constantly checking the sky.
Luo Xun could only give up for the time being. Even if he spotted the parents of these two little ones in the sky right now, he harbored zero intention of returning the children, nor did he want to push his luck by trying to abduct the two adults. He was just a bit puzzled not seeing the eagles…
“Forget it, I won’t think about it. But how are we going to raise these two eagles in the future?” Luo Xun felt a bit of a headache at the thought. Although their base wasn’t small and the greenhouse was quite high, it was only two stories high at best, okay? Right now, when they couldn’t fly, it didn’t matter, but once they grew a bit larger… where were they going to keep them? Not to mention there were so many mutated plants around! He wouldn’t feel at ease letting them fly out, okay?
You had to realize that alternative mutated animal cubs at least had their parents to guide them for a while, but these two eagles… communication was difficult, truly difficult.
On this run, it had taken Luo Xun and the team nearly two days to travel from their compact base to the Southwest Base of City A. They had spent a full day managing their stall, and then they were shadowed upon departure, weaving and detouring for several more days. Now that they were finally rushing back, everyone calculated the days—they had actually been out for a full ten-plus days!!
Ten-plus days; a great number of vegetables inside the base must be getting overripe, right?
When they drove back to the perimeter of their base, they felt an earth-shaking tremor, and a horde of mutated rabbits came charging furiously from the opposite side—yes, a whole horde of mutated rabbits!!
Looking at the two familiar silhouettes sprinting behind the rabbits, that bizarre sense of deja vu was truly “touching”…
“Why do we run into this exact scene every single time we return?” Thinking about the two gluttons in the back of the truck, although Luo Xun grumbled, he still instructed everyone to prepare—hunt, hunt!!
Spotting the familiar large red truck and catching that familiar scent, the two wolves drove the herd of rabbits toward Luo Xun’s direction with absolute, frolicking joy.
Luo Xun looked at this horde of mutated rabbits, which were only about the size of ordinary cows and sheep, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He immediately said to Yan Fei, who was prepping the traps, “Try to catch as many alive as possible!!”
Yan Fei merely pondered for a tiny moment before instantly grasping his meaning. He immediately modified the metal traps, and little Xinran rapidly sandified a massive pit at the coordinate Luo Xun specified.
Luo Xun and the team trusted those two idiot wolves implicitly in certain aspects. Although the physical engagement hadn’t commenced yet, they had already deduced that nine times out of ten, this horde comprised entirely non-elemental mutated rabbits!
What an excellent prey! Easy to fight, immense in numbers, substantial in size, and completely dimwitted! There was truly no superior hunting target than this!
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