After Crossing the Grasslands, I Became the Leopardess’s Cherished Mate - Chapter 2

After a night’s rest.

Thanks to her good physical condition, Zhou Mingwu touched her forehead when she woke up and found she didn’t have a fever.

The wound on her lower leg had gone numb, only flaring with pain when she moved.

The temperature on the savanna was very high. Inside the narrow cave, Zhou Mingwu quickly felt the oppressive heat.

She crawled out of the cave, her throat incredibly dry, and took water from her bag to drink.

Affected by the magnetic field of this other world, her phone had become a useless piece of scrap metal. It could be turned on, but the signal was always blocked. Even the time on it hadn’t changed, frozen at the moment she was buried by the mudslide.

Zhou Mingwu didn’t know what time it was. Based on the height of the rising sun, she roughly guessed it might be between ten and eleven in the morning.

Getting out of the cave had already cost her a lot of strength.

Zhou Mingwu leaned against a rock and took out a compressed biscuit from her bag to stave off hunger.

Hunger made her thoughts even clearer.

The injury on her lower leg hadn’t healed yet, and she couldn’t walk too far. Therefore, this natural cave was the best shelter for now.

She could heal her injury in the cave.

Then she would try to travel further.

Predators did this, frequently changing their dens. She needed to learn from their caution.

Therefore, she had to make the area around the cave more secure to prevent carnivores from intruding at night.

Finding clean water was difficult. The grasslands were teeming with animals, and any water source would likely have been claimed by others.

She could filter rainwater, but the intense heat made her wonder if it was currently the dry season.

After a moment’s thought, Zhou Mingwu carefully peeled the tempered glass screen protector off her phone. She dug a small hole in a patch of soft earth, placed the protector inside, and buried it, hoping it might prove useful.

The surrounding landscape was a continuous expanse of scrubland. Her compressed biscuits wouldn’t last long; she needed to find other edible food.

Dragging her injured leg and carrying her heavy backpack, Zhou Mingwu walked, then stopped, then walked again. Sweat poured off her, evaporating quickly in the sun and leaving white salt crystals on her skin.

Upon reaching the thicket, Zhou Mingwu discovered it was teeming with sand rats—small rodents feasting on the red berries scattered on the ground.

At the sight of her, the sand rats froze, their black, bead-like eyes all fixed on her.

Zhou Mingwu picked up a few of the red berries. They were quite firm to the touch, but when she squeezed harder, they burst, releasing a surprisingly abundant juice.

Her mouth watered, and she was tempted to taste them, but she didn’t know if the berries were poisonous.

If they weren’t poisonous, she reasoned, they would have been eaten clean by now.

The sun beat down mercilessly. Zhou Mingwu crouched down and noticed that the berry-laden branches were entwined within the thicket, covered in thorns. Human fingers were nimble enough to avoid the thorns—perhaps that was why some of the berries remained.

At least most of the herbivores on the prairie couldn’t avoid the thorns.

Her gaze shifted to the small sand rats.

Maybe I can wait and see if they show any adverse reactions after eating the berries, she thought.

As she crouched beside the thicket, the tiny sand rats raised their front paws, their black-bean eyes staring at her.

Zhou Mingwu was already familiar with these kinds of looks. If an “alien” appeared in the human world, her reaction would probably be the same as the animals on the savanna.

Now, her only thought was survival.

After about an hour, Zhou Mingwu watched as the sand rats, full from their meal, fell asleep in the bushes, occasionally twitching their heads and little paws. She boldly plucked a few red berries and stuffed them into her mouth.

The taste was mostly sour with just a hint of sweetness at the end, but they were incredibly juicy.

On the savanna, this was a rare delicacy.

Avoiding the thorns on the bushes, she picked the small red berries, eating until her teeth grew sore and soft. Only then did she stop.

She opened her backpack and picked more berries to store inside.

After a moment’s thought, she took a small knife from her pack and cut several branches of the red berries to take back. She planned to lay them around her cave, hoping they might repel snakes, insects, and other crawling creatures.

The midday savanna heat was unbearable. Even inside the cave, Zhou Mingwu could feel the stifling warmth through the thick rock walls. Staring at the bright sunlight outside the cave entrance, she began to ponder how she could escape this other world.

Senior Sister had mentioned that the archaeological team swept into this other world had recorded their daily events on parchment. After the Five Great Lion Groups fought, the Academy of Archaeology discovered the parchment. This meant there must be a connection point between this other world and the 21st century.

Zhou Mingwu rolled over inside the cave.

She sighed. But this connection point, on the vast grassland, was like a single grain of sand in the ocean.

Perhaps she needed to find animals that had established friendly cooperation with the time-traveling archaeological team to learn where they had lived or where they had died.

With this glimmer of hope, Zhou Mingwu fell into a heavy sleep.

When she woke, the temperature had dropped slightly. She took a small fruit from her backpack and ate it, quenching her thirst a little.

After changing the bandage on her wound, Zhou Mingwu wanted to go to a nearby water source to wash the old one. Under the scorching sun, she should be able to reuse it.

Moving the branch with the small fruits aside, Zhou Mingwu thought for a moment and decided to leave her backpack in the cave for now. Otherwise, carrying it back and forth would waste her strength.

Taking the empty water bottle and the discarded compressed biscuit wrappers, Zhou Mingwu decided to make a simple water filter.

Walking in the direction she remembered, she soon saw the small pond where she had stopped for a while yesterday.

With the vulture no longer tailing her, Zhou Mingwu relaxed slightly. She crouched by the shore, but any pressure on her injured leg sent a dull ache through the wound. She had no choice—this position allowed her to escape most quickly if danger appeared.

She filled a bottle with murky water, then folded the compressed biscuit wrapper into a funnel shape. After gathering a few stones and arranging them into a crude mortar-like base, she scooped up some of the abundant sand from the ground and placed it in the funnel. She then inverted the water bottle into the funnel to filter the water, making it slightly cleaner.

Despite the difficult conditions, Zhou Mingwu finally managed to wash the blood-stained bandages.

As she used the water, other small animals watched her from the sidelines, while a crocodile lurked, partially submerged in the water. Ever since she’d learned that carnivores could speak, Zhou Mingwu’s back would tense up whenever these creatures stared at her.

She hurriedly gathered her things and left the water source, limping back toward her cave.

Just as she caught sight of the cave’s entrance, an Emerald Monkey, struggling with her massive backpack, leaped down from the cave.

Zhou Mingwu’s heart sank. She gritted her teeth—the backpack contained all her survival supplies. She couldn’t let it be taken.

At the same time, she regretted ever leaving her backpack inside the cave to avoid the hassle. That damn monkey!

With its agile body, the Emerald Monkey easily dodged the branches of the red berry bush.

“Put the backpack down!” Zhou Mingwu shouted.

Hearing her voice, the Emerald Monkey bared its fangs and snarled, accelerating its efforts to drag the bag away. It was taunting her, exploiting her injured leg as it screeched sharply while pulling the pack.

Zhou Mingwu couldn’t care about anything else now. Her adrenaline surged as she sprinted toward the cave, an indescribable fury welling up within her. She felt utterly cursed—dragged to this strange world for no reason, left without water, food, or companions, and constantly terrified of being eaten by carnivores.

And now, even a monkey was bullying her.

The setbacks only fueled her resolve. The resentment she’d built up over the past two days almost made her forget her leg injury, and she ran faster and faster.

The Emerald Monkey, greedy and weighed down by the entire backpack, couldn’t keep up with Zhou Mingwu’s speed. After jumping around anxiously for a moment, it yanked open the backpack’s zipper, grabbed the food and water in its mouth, and bolted forward.

Zhou Mingwu gritted her teeth, feeling a sudden surge of resentment toward the monkey’s intelligence.

Without food and water, I won’t survive, she thought.

She ran out of the cave, scooped up the backpack from the ground, and resumed her pursuit of the monkey.

The monkey’s agility was best suited for the treetops. On this open ground, it struggled, its movements slowed by the heavy water bottle clamped in its jaws. Zhou Mingwu steadily closed the gap.

Suddenly, the Emerald Monkey stopped. It spun around and shrieked at her, leaping up on all fours as if trying to warn her of something.

The food in its arms and the water bottle in its mouth clattered to the ground. Before Zhou Mingwu could process what was happening, a dark yellow blur flashed before her eyes. The Emerald Monkey let out a pitiful scream as the blur pinned it beneath a massive paw.

Zhou Mingwu’s heart hammered against her ribs. She stood frozen, staring at the scene unfolding before her.

The creature pinning the monkey was a lioness.

Zhou Mingwu, who had gone to great lengths to avoid carnivores, had just come face-to-face with the savanna’s apex predator.

She looked numbly at the monkey. It wouldn’t even be a snack for that lioness.

Zhou Mingwu’s knowledge of lions came from nature documentaries and zoos. Without any protection, facing such a creature in person left her legs feeling like stone.

The lioness was massive, with powerful legs and a partially severed tail. Just the sight of it pinning down the monkey made Zhou Mingwu feel like she was suffocating.

Comparing the two, she suddenly felt that her water and food weren’t so important after all. She lifted a foot, intending to sneak away.

But the lioness had already noticed her, completely ignoring the Emerald Monkey it had just caught.

The lioness tilted its head curiously and stared at the bipedal Zhou Mingwu. “A human?” it said.

Hearing the lion speak sent a chill down Zhou Mingwu’s spine. She lowered her head and bolted forward, but the lioness easily outpaced her, leaping in front to block her path.

Zhou Mingwu swallowed hard and slowly backed away.

The lioness’s powerful limbs and the sharp fangs revealed in its open maw made Zhou Mingwu’s head spin. Was her life on this continent only going to last two days?

Zhou Mingwu refused to accept it.

So she suppressed her trembling and said to the lioness, “I only have some water and food. If you want it, I’ll give you everything.”

The lioness might not be interested in those compressed biscuits, but water was the best life-saving source in the scorching weather.

Although Zhou Mingwu vaguely felt that the conditions she offered were not as tempting as her own flesh.

The lioness crouched in place, its tail swishing a few times, as if considering the terms Zhou Mingwu had offered.

But Zhou Mingwu didn’t know how much trouble a human appearing on the savanna would bring.

Zhou Mingwu’s heart leaped into her throat, as if she were waiting for a death sentence.

The Emerald Monkey, which had been thrown on the ground, began to howl loudly again, trying to crawl away, dragging its fractured right leg.

Zhou Mingwu subconsciously turned her head, and a wind with a bloody smell brushed past her face. The lioness was knocked to the ground, and the roars of large carnivores fighting shook the very ground.

Amidst the rolling dust, a powerfully built leopard and the lioness were locked in a fierce struggle, claws tearing through flesh and leaving deep gashes.

In Zhou Mingwu’s understanding, leopards were solitary hunters. Compared to the social lion prides, they were always at a disadvantage. As for a one-on-one fight, lions might have the size advantage, but in the actual struggle, the leopard and lioness seemed almost identical in size. The leopard was exceptionally fierce and held the upper hand. Perhaps the lioness’s pride would arrive soon.

Zhou Mingwu realized this was her best chance to escape. She crouched low, packed the water and food scattered around the Emerald Monkey back into her bag, and planned to slip away by circling around the bushes ahead.

Glancing down at the injured Emerald Monkey crawling toward her, Zhou Mingwu steeled her heart and decided to leave it. On the savanna, survival of the fittest was the law of the land, the weak were preyed upon by the strong, and she couldn’t change that.

But humans were wiser than animals, destined to possess deeper, softer emotions. The monkey had just gestured wildly to alert her. After taking a few steps away, she sighed and returned to take the monkey with her.

As she circled the outermost edge of the bushes, Zhou Mingwu came across three fluffy leopard cubs hiding beneath a rock wall. Upon seeing her, they hissed and snarled in a low growl, but their childish milk teeth held no real threat.

Zhou Mingwu might fear the leopard that fought the lioness, but she wasn’t afraid of these cubs, none of whom reached the height of her calves.

Compared to their mother, their fur wasn’t as vibrant, their coats covered in a dense pattern of spots.

Zhou Mingwu harbored no ill will toward them. This grassland was likely the territory of the leopard she’d encountered earlier, and the lioness’s presence had threatened the three cubs she was raising.

Zhou Mingwu didn’t dare draw closer, fearing she might leave her scent and earn the leopard’s grudge.

As she retraced her steps through the thicket, she caught a glimpse of the lioness fleeing in disarray. The leopard remained, licking the fresh claw marks on its forelimb.

It seemed to sense Zhou Mingwu’s gaze, its golden eyes locking onto hers from a distance.

Her heart trembled, and she quickly looked down.

I’ve survived again, she thought, making a mental note: Never go back to that thicket.

Back in the cave, Zhou Mingwu’s entire body ached. She sat on a rock, watching the bandage on her calf turn red.

As the adrenaline faded, the pain in her leg intensified. She unwrapped the bandage, but the dried blood from her exertion had stuck the fabric to her flesh.

Pouring a bit of clean water to separate the bandage from her flesh, Zhou Mingwu’s forehead beaded with a few large drops of sweat.

After replacing the bandage, Zhou Mingwu had no strength left.

The red-gold glow enveloped the earth; night was falling.

The culprit lay curled on the stone surface, utterly exhausted. Zhou Mingwu, having recovered some of her strength, glanced at the monkey. She limped around, gathering several long, thin branches to splint the monkey’s possibly broken right leg.

The Emerald Monkey instinctively flinched away from Zhou Mingwu’s touch. She frowned. “Do you want to become a cripple?”

The Emerald Monkey curled its upper lip, then quieted down.

Zhou Mingwu used the soiled bandage to wrap its right leg.

Whether it would fully heal from here on depended entirely on the monkey itself.

The Emerald Monkey watched Zhou Mingwu enter the cave.

Zhou Mingwu shared some of the red berries with it, then broke more thorny branches to wall off the entrance. This place wasn’t entirely safe, what if the leopard changed its mind and decided to eat her, or if the lioness returned?

Lying down, Zhou Mingwu sighed.Tomorrow, she would have to quickly find a new place to recover. 

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