He had thought that this big gift package would yield so useful props or skills or, at the very least, a few extra snack pieces.
But what was this? A nest of bird eggs?
The delicately woven nest made of grassroots and branches was only the size of two palms and contained four ordinary-sized eggs.
He was no ornithologist and couldn't determine the type of bird from the shape, color, or pattern of the eggs.
However, given the system's usual style, these eggs were definitely not ordinary.
He didn't have an incubator here, and if he wanted to hatch them, he would probably need to send them to the center or buy an incubator online.
This task could be done tomorrow, and for tonight, he could make do with using a lamp to keep them warm.
At half past four in the morning, Chen Ying woke up. Not lingering in the warm bed, he quickly washed up, first went to feed Leopard Sister's family, and then went outside to chop bamboo for ng Yan and ndun'er.
He also took the hidden nest and eggs out in the open finally, and then headed to the dical area.
The little monkey's condition was very stable. When he arrived, Duanmu was feeding the little monkey, with the Monkey Mother watching eagerly by his side.
"Brother Ying, last night the big monkey ca to have a look and took the fruits away. Here are the observations I noted down every hour for you to check."
Duanmu's eyes were red.
He had been up for over twenty hours and was still ticulously feeding the little monkey, a truly capable person.
"Oh right, Duanmu, does the center have an incubator? I found a bird's nest and four eggs in the bushes next to where I chopped bamboo this morning. I didn't see the parent bird, we'll probably have to incubate them ourselves."
"There might be one, I'll ask later. If there's a spare one, let them bring it up when they go to the mountains."
After handing over his duties to Chen Ying, Duanmu Lin left the office yawning.
anwhile in the surveillance room, two colleagues had just finished the daily checkup on ndun'er and greeted Chen Ying. They didn't have ti for pleasantries as they needed to rush to write the night shift report.
At eight o'clock, Group Leader Li of the dical team brought the incubator up.
The incubator brought up was a small one, able to incubate up to thirty eggs at once.
Chen Ying had already moved the little monkey and Monkey Mother to the matching room on the right side of the office building, the animal shed near the staircase where ng Yan used to live.
Currently, this side of the animal shed was empty. They arranged the matching table and placed the nursery box on the left and the incubation box on the right.
Monkey Mother sat beside the nursery box the whole ti, never taking her eyes off her child even when eating.
Group Leader Li also helped to check and confird that the little monkey was doing alright. After observing for another two days, if there were no problems, they could return it to Monkey Mother.
The visibility wasn't great last night, but now with better lighting, the pale blue face and elegant golden fur of Monkey Mother looked even more beautiful.
He brought over her favorite fruits and a piece of bamboo shoot cut into chunks.
These shoots were skimd off ndun'er's rations.
It was tough to find edible tender shoots this season.
Monkey Mother received the tender shoot but hesitated to eat it, wanting to give it to her child.
"No, it's still too small to eat, you eat it yourself."
It was clear that this was Monkey Mother's first birth; she was extrely caring and especially doted on her child.
Perhaps due to her own negligence or other reasons, the little monkey had faced great peril, and Monkey Mother felt very guilty, engulfed in an air of lancholy.
Chen Ying comforted her by patting her head, after ensuring the nursery box and the incubator were properly secured, he left to prepare lunch for Little Leopard and Leopard Sister.
Just a short ti after he left, Brother Monkey entered the room with a troop of little monkeys.
Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys were different from other monkeys; they mostly moved about in trees and rarely ca to the ground.
This ti, he deliberately entered human territory, all for the sake of the little monkey and Monkey Mother.
Little Sen had just returned from the Panda House and saw that the door at the stairway was open. Peeking in, he was so frightened that he stepped back a few paces.
The monkeys in the room were also scared, each squeaking and rushing out, quickly hiding up in the trees.
Little Sen, pale-faced, pressed his chest against the wall, wishing he could slap himself.
"It serves you right for being curious. What if you had terrified the monkeys?"
After catching his breath, he cautiously peered in again and imdiately made eye contact with Monkey Mother, who was stretching her arms in front of the nursery box to protect her baby.
Monkey Mother was scared, but she resolutely stayed by her child's side.
Little Sen retreated, thought for a mont, and ran to his room to grab a bag of fruit to bring down.
"Brother Monkey, Brother Monkey, I'm sorry. Here, you guys eat this fruit."
He opened the fruit bag, spread it under the tree, and then backed away.
Chen Ying, who had co out to check the situation when the monkeys started screaming, didn't say anything. After making sure everything was alright, he continued to cut at for the leopard cubs.
Two days quickly flashed by.
The little monkey could move around on its own the next day.
On the third day, it left the nursery box and clung tightly to its mother's chest.
"The test results are good; the child is fine now."
Chen Ying petted Monkey Mother's head and handed her an apple.
"Go on, go back to your companions and take good care of your baby. Just don't lose it again."
The little monkey quietly watched Chen Ying from its mother's embrace.
With just a thin layer of short fur, its head seed unusually large, paired with its rolling big eyes, it had a cuteness that transcended normal aesthetics.
Once Monkey Mother returned to the small group, a few larger female monkeys ca up to caress her and even helped her pick lice.
"Alright, you guys should leave now. Be careful next ti and co to if you run into any trouble."
Chen Ying handed a bag of tender carrots to the big monkey to distribute. He then retreated back to the yard of the rescue station and waved for the monkeys to leave quickly.
A group of beautiful golden snub-nosed monkeys swiftly left, and Duanmu Lin took out his phone to record the scene.
At noon, Little Deng and Master Zhao returned from patrolling the forest and found Chen Ying.
"Brother Ying, that black bear seems to have not left. We discovered its tracks in a valley seven kiloters away."
"Are you sure they were left by a black bear?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but my master said they probably were. He's been hunting in the mountains with his elders since he was a kid and can recognize most animal traces."
Right after he finished speaking, Master Zhao, who had taken Little Deng up the mountain, ca out of the restroom and confird Little Deng's words.
"It's the claw marks of a black bear, right over by the valley. There's a patch of huaqiu nearby, and black bears love eating huaqiu fruits. We also found so fecal traces there, containing undigested huaqiu fruit remains."
Little Deng, undeterred by the ss, had used his phone to take pictures of the traces left by the black bear, including claw marks, bite marks, and feces, now showing them to Chen Ying.
"Also, Brother Ying, I found the corpse of a bee bear nearby. Do you think that black bear found the bee bear's honeycomb and went to eat the honey?"
The possibility was quite high!
That black bear looked like a greedy fellow, and especially bold.
It could go steal golden snub-nosed monkey infants with no relation whatsoever, so going after a bee bear's honeycomb was completely normal.
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