Become a Cheetah
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For cheetahs living on the savanna, it's not uncommon for their prey to be snatched away by other predators. Cheetahs believe the most difficult task isn't catching prey, but keeping it long enough to eat their fill.
Having been bullied many times, Luo Qiao deeply understood this.
Luo Qiao tore open the skin of the giraffe's hind leg, and the two small cheetah cubs immediately began to devour it. Luo Qiao stood to the side, warily watching for any predators that might appear.
The giraffe's massive body was an easy target to spot, and the vultures flying in on the thermal currents continuously spread the news of the kill. Other predators only needed to raise their heads to see the vultures circling in the sky, and could travel from several kilometers away.
This giraffe was large enough that Luo Qiao wasn't worried about the cubs not getting enough to eat; his only concern was that they would be driven away by approaching predators before they were full.
The vultures began to descend, and Luo Qiao finally caught his breath, ready to eat. The three cheetahs huddled together, taking large bites of meat. They barely had time to chew properly before swallowing it whole.
This was completely different from the leopards, who would pluck the fur before eating. Cheetahs were still struggling to survive, while leopards had already begun to be particular about the texture of their food. Cheetahs gulped down their meals, while leopards ate slowly and deliberately.
Comparing leopards to cheetahs was infuriating!
Luo Qiao had to admit he was jealous. But asking him to drag prey up a tree to eat slowly like a leopard was impossible for him.
Firstly, cheetah claws weren't suitable for climbing trees, and secondly, he couldn't drag prey that was even slightly larger. Even if he did manage to drag it up, he could only eat one meal before others would take advantage.
The two small cheetah cubs didn't just focus on eating; they would occasionally raise their heads and look around, taking turns with Luo Qiao to watch out for other predators, giving Luo Qiao more time to eat. Although Luo Rui and Luo Sen sometimes gave Luo Qiao a headache, they were indeed good cubs.
However, some things still needed to be taught properly, otherwise, they would definitely suffer one day.
Cheetahs never made noise while eating like hyenas; they ate silently, trying to consume as much as possible in a short amount of time, never considering issues like indigestion.
When Luo Qiao was about seventy or eighty percent full, the vultures finally attracted the first uninvited guests: two wandering female hyenas.
They had once been members of the Nali hyena clan, but after Nabi's power grab and the subsequent lion attack, the entire clan had fallen apart, their territory no longer existed, and they had become separated from other members.
Now, they could only wander the savanna, hoping to occupy a territory again and give birth to new hyenas to form a new clan.
The female hyenas coveted the giraffe's carcass. They could easily drive away the cheetahs, but they chose to remain silent, moving to the other end of the giraffe's body and silently tearing at the prey.
This wasn't their territory, and they had to be careful. If the sound of their struggle with the cheetahs attracted the attention of the local hyena clan or a pride of lions, they wouldn't get any food and would be severely punished as intruders, possibly even losing their lives.
Luo Qiao warily watched the two hyenas. The giraffe's carcass separated them. Hunger could trigger fights between predators, but it could also suppress their ferocity. After weighing the options between filling their bellies and driving away the cheetahs, the female hyenas clearly chose the former.
If the prey hadn't been an adult giraffe, this scene would never have occurred. Such large prey could hardly be monopolized by anyone other than a large group of lions or a sizable hyena clan. Both Luo Qiao and the two hyenas knew that the most important thing right now wasn't to intimidate each other, but to fill their stomachs as quickly as possible.
The two small cheetah cubs became alert due to the hyenas' presence. They weren't completely ignorant and naive; it was only Luo Qiao's presence that allowed them to relax.
But in their hearts, hyenas would always be an indelible scar and a nightmare. Hyenas had killed their mother; life and death were an insurmountable boundary for all animals.
The three cheetahs and two hyenas each occupied a side around the giraffe's carcass, tearing at the prey's flesh.
Two jackals quietly approached Luo Qiao's kill. They were a mated pair; jackals were a model of monogamy among carnivores. They lived together, raised their young together, and wouldn't abandon their family even during the food-scarce dry season.
This pair of jackals had given birth to five cubs in the rainy season, and four had survived so far. Before becoming independent, these small jackals relied entirely on their parents for food, forcing the pair to toil tirelessly for them day and night.
Jackals weren't exactly glorious figures on the savanna. Although they would catch some small rodents themselves, they mostly preferred to follow behind animals like cheetahs, waiting to scavenge the leftovers.
Some bolder ones would use their sharp calls to attract hyenas. After the hyenas snatched the cheetah's prey, they didn't mind sharing with the jackals, but at a cheetah's table, jackals were never welcome guests.
The two jackals cautiously approached the prey. The hyenas ignored them, but Luo Qiao lowered his head towards them, raising the fur on his back. He wouldn't drive them away, but this thieving couple had to learn to abide by the "rules" of dining!
Luo Qiao's threat worked. The jackal pair retreated a bit. They weren't hyenas, and the cheetah was fully capable of driving them away. The jackals couldn't complain about the cheetah's differential treatment; this was the rule of the animals. Luo Qiao felt he had lived a stifled enough life; occasionally stifling others wasn't a bad thing.
The saying "building one's happiness on the suffering of others" was truly a profound truth, and Luo Qiao deeply agreed.
"Dad, what are you thinking about?"
"Nothing, keep eating."
So, the cheetahs and hyenas feasted, while the jackals and vultures could only watch from the side, drooling while comforting themselves that the prey was large enough and they had plenty of patience.
Finally, all three cheetahs were full. The two small cubs glanced back at the remaining giraffe carcass with reluctance. So much meat...
But Luo Qiao knew they had to move away quickly. Now that they were full, staying near the carcass was definitely not a wise move. Who knew if the next to arrive would be a large group of lions and hyenas.
"Alright, follow daddy. Luo Rui, stop looking; you can't eat anymore anyway."
After the three cheetahs left, the vultures and jackals immediately swarmed in. The hyenas didn't drive them away; in fact, they were almost full themselves. But just as the hyenas were about to leave, three strong lionesses from the Oros pride suddenly appeared.
They looked at the giraffe's carcass, then at the two hyenas, somewhat hesitant. Such large prey could definitely not have been killed by just two hyenas. They suspected the hyena clan was nearby, but after waiting for a while, no other hyenas came. The two hyenas were visibly becoming more and more nervous.
This could only prove one thing: this giraffe didn't belong to these two hyenas either. With that, things became much simpler.
The lionesses approached step by step. The two hyenas had no intention of resisting; they didn't want to fight at all. Since they were already full, fleeing was the best option.
Shana saw through the hyenas' intentions. She didn't stop them, letting the two hyenas run away. Hona followed behind her, while Rosa went back to find the pride. The cubs in the pride would have a feast today.
This place was near the border of the Oros pride's territory and belonged to the leopards. The territories of lions and leopards occasionally overlapped. Leopards were competitors of lions and were accustomed to being solitary, so the chances of the two meeting were not high.
Once they did meet, the situation wouldn't be friendly. Adult lions were fully capable of hunting and killing leopards, but it wasn't easy for them to succeed.
The three lionesses had come to try their luck after seeing the vultures in the sky. Lions didn't like hunting during the day, but in the dry season, no opportunity to get food could be missed. There were eleven hungry cubs in the pride; without enough food, they would starve, and in severe cases, they might die.
Shana and Hona guarded the giraffe's carcass, driving away the jackals and vultures. In less than ten minutes, all the lions in the pride had arrived: twelve lionesses, eleven healthy cubs, and the pride's only male lion, Oros.
During this time, Oros had been patrolling the territory's borders, supposedly to guard against other lions invading. In reality, he had been looking for an opportunity to fight Nas, the king of the Hosbi pride, hoping to beat the male lion back into his mother's womb!
The lionesses in the pride were well aware of Oros's little scheme but didn't care much. If this philandering lion dared to develop some unspeakable relationship with the Hosbi lionesses, the lionesses would have their own ways of teaching him a lesson.
After all the lions had arrived, Oros naturally occupied the best spot at the giraffe's abdomen. The lionesses didn't compete with him, but Tina wasn't in a hurry to eat.
Instead, she walked to the giraffe's neck, carefully examining the wounds. She really couldn't figure out how these wounds were inflicted. Measuring them with her claws, the shape was very similar to ivory, but an elephant killing a giraffe? Elephants didn't eat meat, and giraffes were generally gentle.
Even the most temperamental elephants rarely clashed with giraffes.
So, who exactly killed this giraffe?
"Shana, when you all arrived, who else was there?"
"Two hyenas."
"Hyenas?"
Tina then shook her head, it wouldn't be hyenas either. Oh well, what's the point of thinking so much? As long as the fellow who killed this giraffe is still living in the delta, they will bump into each other sooner or later.
Tina flicked her tail, walked to Rosa's side, lay down, tore open the giraffe's skin, and began to tear at the meat of the carcass with big bites. Several naughty little lion cubs, having eaten halfway, simply jumped onto the giraffe's body, treating the giraffe's carcass as a toy to play with.
After the other cubs had their fill, they climbed onto the lionesses' backs, and the lionesses just let them play, focusing on eating themselves.
But Oros, who was being harassed by the youngsters, didn't have such a good temper. One little lion named Fanny was really going too far, and Oros directly slapped Fanny, knocking her down onto the ground.
Oros's slap seemed to use a lot of force, but by lion standards, it really wasn't much. Most of the lionesses just glanced over casually. Fanny's mother walked over and brought her back, biting her nape, indicating that being naughty was okay, but not to go overboard.
The lions of Oros's pride were focused on eating and didn't notice that a female leopard was lying on a fig tree two hundred meters away. She too had been attracted by the commotion of the vultures and the bloody smell of the giraffe. But cruel reality told her that even if this was leopard territory, the prey already belonged to the lions.
Beatrice lay quietly for a while, and after confirming that the lions would not leave in a short time, she climbed down from the tree and silently walked into the tall grass, disappearing from sight. Since there was no giraffe to eat, she might as well go catch some other prey for her cubs. Speaking of which, Monty seemed to be in this vicinity; was the death of this giraffe related to him?
After Luo Qiao left the giraffe carcass with the two cheetah cubs, he first led them to drink water, found a shady spot to rest for a while, and the father and sons helped each other groom their fur before returning to where they had rested last night.
Luo Qiao didn't plan to stay here for long; he wanted to go back to his own territory, even if there were lions there. But sadly, to go home, he still had to get a leopard's approval!
Monty was not in the same place. Luo Qiao stood under the tree, craned his neck and looked for a long while before confirming that Monty had indeed left, and it wasn't that the leopard's hiding skills were too good, deceiving his eyes.
"Dad, what do we do now?"
Luo Sen walked to Luo Qiao's side and nuzzled his chin. Luo Sen rarely acted spoiled like this anymore. Clearly, this clever little cheetah still remembered Luo Qiao's unpleasant expression after they killed the giraffe.
Luo Qiao rarely got angry with them, but the two cheetah cubs were very good at understanding Luo Qiao's emotions. This time, obviously, acting spoiled and rolling around wouldn't get them off the hook.
Luo Qiao narrowed his eyes and looked at Luo Sen, then glanced at Luo Rui, snorted from his nose, walked to the shade of the tree, squatted down, and patted the grass in front of him with his paw.
"Come here! Dad needs to give you a good education. Being disobedient, have you forgotten everything Dad taught you?"
While the cheetah father was vehemently lecturing his children, the leopard on the other side had already dragged a giraffe calf up a tree. This calf was the very target Luo Qiao had previously set his sights on. Although it had luckily escaped from the cheetah's claws, it had ultimately fallen into the leopard's mouth.
In order to find a suitable tree, Monty dragged the giraffe's carcass for some distance until he found a fig tree that could bear the weight of this small giraffe before climbing up.
This place was about three or four hundred meters away from Luo Qiao and his cubs. Lying on the branch, Monty could clearly see Luo Qiao, only to see that the cheetah was constantly waving his paws and calling out to the two small cheetahs in front of him.
The three cheetahs' bulging bellies indicated that they had already eaten. Monty was puzzled by Luo Qiao's constant paw-waving. In fact, Luo Qiao was just trying to illustrate more vividly that if they didn't behave, he would hit them.
However, this "paw-waving" gesture, when done by a cheetah, looked very strange no matter how you looked at it. Have you seen a beckoning cat? That was a true depiction of the cheetah father's current image.
In Luo Qiao's territory, Parson and Jairo carefully searched the surroundings of the rocky hill. They confirmed that lions had been here before, and Jairo had even seen leopard tracks on a patch of soft soil.
Parson couldn't help but frown. What exactly had happened?
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