NOVPUBChapter 311 -311: Crowdfunding to Raise a Child?
As soon as Chen Ying shared his plan in the small group, Duanmu was the first to respond.
After coming here, his job had become much more relaxed, but he still hadn’t settled comfortably in Jiamu Gully.
Especially since Xiao Song had run off to the front-line protection station, dating him felt like a long-distance relationship, all kinds of awkward.
If there was a project, he could use research as an excuse to work together with Xiao Song, just thinking about it made him delighted.
In response, a few cheeky friends privately rolled their eyes at him and messaged: dummy
After gallivanting outside for five days, Er Niu and Jinya returned, bringing along a rumored boyfriend straight into the household.
Er Niu rushed over to Chen Ying in a flurry, stood up on her hind legs, pulling at him with claws and teeth to go outside.
Chen Ying had no choice but to hold her with one arm and clutch his down jacket with the other.
“Let go, Er Niu, let go; if you pull any harder, my clothes will rip…”
Before he could finish, “rip” went his jacket, tearing open a gash about a dozen centimeters long on the outer layer.
Luckily he had the foresight to wear a removable lining; otherwise, he’d be watching the down feathers fly around.
Once past the outer fence of the pasture, he saw the Yellow Fur Snow Leopard sitting demurely about fifty meters from the pasture.
In front of the snow leopard was a floundering mid-sized Snow Leopard Cub.
“This is…” definitely not something Er Niu had behind his back, it’s too big, impossible!
“We found it, its mother is dead.”
Er Niu squatted down, licking the blood-covered eyes of the cub.
“Dead? What happened?”
“Killed by a bear. When we arrived, the bear had just eaten its fill and was about to leave.”
This cub was saved because its mother had shielded it with her body.
Or maybe the bear sensed Er Niu and the others arriving and realized it couldn’t take on the three of them and decided to flee.
Otherwise, with a brown bear’s nature, it would not leave the cub.
During this conversation, Chen Ying had already picked up the cub to check its health.
The cub appeared relatively healthy, with no clear injuries on its body.
The blood scabs on its eyes were just stuck on; the cats lacked experience in caring for cubs and couldn’t lick them clean.
Without minding the dirt, Chen Ying stuffed the little leopard into his arms and called them all to come over.
He didn’t go into the tent; instead, he directly opened the car door and found the necessary tools from a hidden drawer beside the transshipment cage.
An older boy who had been watching Chen Ying closely came over with a thermos and a small basin without waiting for Chen Ying to speak.
“Mr. Chen, here you go.”
Chen Ying was momentarily stunned, then smiled at him.
“Come, let me show you how to handle this situation.”
Using the car as cover, Chen Ying mixed snow with hot water; the temperature was kept around thirty to forty degrees Celsius—warm to the hand but not too hot.
He dabbed a clean medical gauze in the water and gently wiped from the inner corner of the eye outward.
“Not too wet or the cold wind will freeze it. Also, not too dry, or it won’t remove the blood scab and might scratch the Little Snow Leopard’s eyes.”
Allowing the boy to feel the wetness of the gauze, Chen Ying began cleaning the cub’s body from blood and dirt.
After cleaning three times, the little guy was finally tidy.
Chen Ying asked Er Niu to lie down and stuffed the cub into her embrace.
“You found it, you raise it.”
Er Niu’s ears turned into airplane ears, startled.
After hesitating for a long while, she tentatively licked the baby.
Luckily, the Snow Leopard Cub was big enough and already weaned; otherwise, in this freezing cold, where would Er Niu find a nanny?
Nearby, Jinya laughed heartily, rolling on the ground with Little Jin who came to watch the fun.
The Yellow Fur Snow Leopard, having kept a certain distance, sighed and moved forward to snuggle the Snow Leopard Cub into her chest, warming it and licking its cheeks.
The goal was to mark it with her scent.
In Chen Ying’s heart, the status of the Yellow Fur Snow Leopard slightly increased.
There was no helping it, since his own snow leopard daughter was a bit of a simpleton; they could only rely on external assistance now.
At that moment, he missed Leopard Sister immensely.
Though Leopard Sister was a bit gossipy, her role as a mother in Jiamu Gully set the gold standard for credibility!
Fortunately, even though those two cat girls were unreliable, there was still a reliable cat candidate.
On the third day, Lynx Sister, who came over for a stroll again, was conscripted by Chen Ying.
“Are you out of your mind? Asking me to teach them how to raise a Snow Leopard Cub?”
Even Lynx Sister’s voice cracked.
She had seen absurd things, but never anything as preposterous as this.
Sand fox and mole slept together, and she hadn’t been this surprised.
The three female cats formed a small circle inside the tent, watching the pitiful, innocent, and helpless cub, unsure what to say.
“Well, good thing we don’t have to feed milk!”
Lynx Sister’s first reaction was also this; she definitely would not have taken this job if it had involved feeding milk.
How far off the mark is this “crowdfunding for cubs” thing the two-legged beasts talk about? n𝚘vp𝚞𝚋.com
As it roamed around the shelter’s rescue, that recently learned phrase could not be more fitting here.
The little snow leopard was also bewildered, managing not to tremble was already its greatest act of bravery.
Mother often said that unfamiliar brethren could harm them, especially male leopards, who would kill cubs that weren’t theirs.
Now, however, there was a beautiful female leopard beside it, along with the long-haired cat Mother often scolded.
Listening to one of the long-haired cats, were the three of them going to raise him together?
Touched? Didn’t dare move, not one bit!
Er Niu lay down and casually licked the cub’s forehead a couple of times.
“How do we raise it? Should we take it out hunting? But I can only catch rabbits.”
Struggling so hard, barely able to fend for itself, and now saddled with a cub, what a human tragedy.
Lynx Sister might teach it a thing or two, but—Lynx’s staple is rabbits! Their diets overlap significantly, hence their long-standing quarrel.
“Let’s keep it for now; after winter passes and it grows a bit, let that male leopard teach it.”
Jinya poked the little cub to confirm it was a little brother.
The little cub helplessly let them turn it over and over until Little Jin couldn’t watch anymore and went over, grabbed the little snow leopard’s ear, and led it away from the circle.
Yellow Fur had not entered, staying active about fifty meters away, paying casual attention to the cub.
Seeing Little Jin approaching with the cub, the playing Yellow Fur stopped, looking a bit foolish as it watched them draw near.
“The three of them aren’t quite adept at childcare. They can learn other things, but hunting needs to be taught by you.”
Yellow Fur froze, its ears tensely plastered to its head so that it seemed, at a quick glance, to have no ears at all, its whole head as round as a ball.
Chen Ying, holding a tablet, rounded the corner just to see two male leopards worrying over the naive little leopard.
“What’s going on here?”
Chen Ying walked over, casually stroking Little Jin, “Weren’t Er Niu and the others supposed to take care of the little leopard? Why did you two bring him here?”
Though it had stopped snowing, the temperature had dropped significantly these past few days, peaking at only seven degrees, nearly reaching minus twenty at night.
Chen Ying had also considered sending the little snow leopard to Qing Ye until it grew a bit and underwent rewilding training before release.
But after communicating with Qing Ye’s veterinarian for a long time, they both felt it would be better if an adult snow leopard was willing to foster and care for the little snow leopard.
He had, however, completely overestimated Er Niu’s capabilities.
That silly girl really couldn’t handle a cub.
Lynx Sister could only teach Er Niu how they, the lynxes, cared for their cubs; yet, the biggest issue was that snow leopards and lynxes live in different environments.
Surely couldn’t have the snow leopard adopting too many lynx-like traits?
Today, he had brought the tablet to talk with Yellow Fur, hoping it could teach the snow leopard cub survival skills as a foster daddy.
After all, when the giant panda Hu Zi became the overlord of the Qinling Mountains, it owed much to the dedicated teaching of its foster father.
As Chen Ying negotiated with Yellow Fur, he remembered to casually pluck a couple of hairs, take some saliva, and even audaciously clip a bit of nail.
The snow leopard cub received the same treatment.
Yellow Fur was dumbfounded, its gaze involuntarily drifting toward the calmly composed Little Jin.
Little Jin underwent this treatment annually; of course, blood drawing was a must, yet Yellow Fur, having not yet experienced the awe of blood drawing, was this nervous, which surely lost it some leopard’s dignity.
Chen Ying intended to let Er Niu and Lynx Sister spend this winter with the little snow leopard, at least teaching it how to find caves in the wilderness.
The snow leopards of the Snowy Plateau didn’t always live on bare, high mountains.
They never missed the annual feast during summer.
And during that month, with preparations taking nearly two more months, they roamed the wilderness targeting their mark.
How to spend the night, how to search for food and water, those were the first lessons they needed to learn to establish themselves in the wilderness.
Er Niu wasn’t great at hunting, but its survival skills were decent.
Without its mother’s protection, the little snow leopard should learn how to survive from Er Niu.
After all, by next spring, Er Niu might want cubs of her own.
At that time, the little snow leopard cub would become an awkward presence.
Learning survival skills early, it could at least mooch some leftovers until Er Niu had her own cubs.
The vehicle from the Budong River Protection Station, bringing supplies to Chen Ying, arrived at noon.
It brought the necessary supplies and also reading material for the local children.
Three hundred books were enough to set up a reading corner.
Though the pastoral area moved for the summer, there were still permanent structures.
The reading room was arranged in the far right of the single-story building, with a small garden next to it. Chen Ying planned to buy some planting tools to turn it into an experimental base.
Though small, the sparrow has all its vital organs.
The reading room even had a projector and three computers for learning.
The first video played after setting up was the movie “Kekexili”.
Older herdsmen had lived through that dark time, but the children could only glimpse the past through their elders’ stories.
Besides helping the children understand the importance of animal conservation and environmental protection, this reading corner also played a crucial role in broadening their horizons.
Various encyclopedias on plants and animals, geographic publications, and children’s literature were the best ways to introduce them to the world.
Conservationists couldn’t rely solely on their own efforts to protect animals and the environment; the best method was to plant the seeds of conservationist ideas in the children’s hearts.
As they grew, so would the seeds sprout and blossom into beautiful flowers.
