Chapter 111

Chapter 111: “Have you heard of the great auk?”

【W-what the—?!】

【Damn, that looked like he just launched straight out of frame.】

【Where did the polar bear come from?! It popped up so suddenly it scared me! I was ready to watch Feng Jingye pick the ice off Lin-jie’s hat—I even had background music queued up—and then next second Feng Jingye got launched. I give up.】

【I’m dying—CP fans just stood up and immediately got buried, and Xue Tuan even stomped on them twice.】

Feng Jingye tumbled downhill, while Lin Qianyu stood at the edge, still holding a scrap of fabric she’d instinctively grabbed from his clothes as he fell.

On a slope like this, once you start sprinting downward, there’s no stopping. Realizing he couldn’t stay upright, Feng Jingye simply gave in to gravity, rolled into the snow, and tumbled twice.

Lin Qianyu called out, “Mr. Feng? Are you okay?”

Wrapped in snow, Feng Jingye slowly raised a hand. He meant to gesture something, but after holding his arm up for a while and not knowing what to signal, he just gave a thumbs-up.

Rough translation: still alive.

After a full morning of exhaustion, Feng Jingye lay spread out in the snow, not even trying to climb back up.

Seeing this, the polar bear nudged Lin Qianyu, then turned and headed off to hunt.

Lin Qianyu gave Xue Tuan’s head a good rub before watching him walk away. Then she got up and went down the slope.

She’d wanted to chase after Feng Jingye when he first went flying, but just as she stepped forward, she noticed the polar bear had moved ahead of her.

On a slope this steep, the polar bear would be faster than her—there was a real risk that Xue Tuan would reach Feng Jingye first and, just as he managed to steady himself, land another paw on him.

Lin Qianyu made her way down and sat beside him. “Want me to help you back up?”

“Why’d you come down?” Feng Jingye said, resting a hand behind his head. “No need to help—I’ll lie here a bit, then head back up myself.”

He flexed his wrist. “That was my mistake.”

He hadn’t seen when the polar bear had gotten close.

After so many surprise attacks, Feng Jingye had developed a natural wariness toward the bear—but he’d let his guard down just once, and sure enough, got ambushed again.

The little snow leopard came padding over, diving headfirst into deeper snow like a little mole and popping out near Lin Qianyu.

“Awwoo!”

“Hmm?” Lin Qianyu raised her hand and caught the fluffy missile. “Weren’t you sleeping? Why’d you wake up?”

The little snow leopard sprawled across her lap, shook its head, and flung the snow off its face.

Lin Qianyu gently brushed the snow from its fur, pulled its tail forward, and gathered it into a fluffy ball in her arms.

Feng Jingye turned his head to glance over. Behind his goggles was a kind smile, and he gave a little wave.

“……”

The snow leopard looked at him, yawned, snorted, and turned a full circle in Lin Qianyu’s arms—leaving him with nothing but a furry and utterly indifferent back.

Feng Jingye’s hand paused mid-air. He smoothly rested it behind his head again, pretending nothing had just happened.The fire up top was still burning.

Though there were other guests around, it still didn’t feel right to leave it unattended for too long without watching it herself.

After sitting for a while, Lin Qianyu stood and extended a hand to him. “Ready to go up?”

Hearing this, Feng Jingye pushed himself up from the snow and placed his hand in hers. “Let’s go.”

The little snow leopard, who had been nestled in Lin Qianyu’s arms, turned its head and swatted at the hand he placed on hers. “Hah!”

Missing its target, it tried to stretch forward and open its mouth for a bite.

But Feng Jingye stood up first, pulling his hand away.

The little snow leopard snapped at nothing, still baring its teeth at him persistently.

Feng Jingye casually brushed the snow off his clothes. Seeing the small beast pretending to be fierce and trying to wedge itself between him and Lin Qianyu made him chuckle. The movement tugged at a sore spot in his back, and he clenched his gloved fist and gently pounded his lower back.

Good thing the polar bear had only meant to shove him, not actually knock him down. Plus, after the long chase earlier, the bear’s stamina had clearly worn out. Otherwise, that hit would’ve been enough to cripple him if not kill him.

Walking ahead, Lin Qianyu noticed something and turned back. “You’re hurt?”

Feng Jingye’s hand paused, then he patted at himself like brushing off snow. “Nah, just a bit of snow on me. Let’s go, back up.”

Lin Qianyu nodded. “Alright.”

At the mountaintop.

The mess kit over the fire was bubbling with thick gurgles. The meat from the canned food had started breaking apart, with large chunks surfacing and tumbling. A rich aroma of meat stew filled the low mountaintop.

“It’s so cute! Way too cute! That little chubby one looks so obedient!” Hang Sisi was crouched by the edge of the other slope, excitedly filming with the livestream device. Probably worried she’d scare off the penguins below, she kept her squeals contained in her throat, fists clenched and flailing in the air.

She noticed Lin Qianyu coming up and waved. “Qianyu-jie, look! I found a super funny little penguin!”

Lin Qianyu squatted and tossed two more logs into the fire. “Penguin?”

“Yeah.”

Hang Sisi kept filming the penguin enthusiastically, pointing toward the one sliding across the ice below. “Look!”

Hearing that, Lin Qianyu walked over.

Classic black-and-white coloring—black from head to tail on the back, white on the belly. The chick looked fluffier and rounder than the adult penguins. Even the way adult penguins waddled was adorable.

They’d probably just come back from hunting at sea. More and more penguins were climbing ashore. The chick kept poking its head around among the group, looking at one penguin, then turning to another.

Hang Sisi’s eyes curved with laughter. “It can’t find its parents. I’ve been watching it for ages. It just won’t turn around... and the penguin behind it isn’t even calling to it, haha.”

【Adult penguin: My child must have a reason for what it's doing.】

【That little penguin would squeal for hours if I grabbed it.】

The round, fuzzy body waddled along, not in much of a hurry.

On a distant ice floe, a polar bear was lying in wait, fishing.

It wasn’t far from the penguins, yet surprisingly, its presence didn’t seem to alarm the group at all.

Lin Qianyu rubbed the little snow leopard’s ears and smiled. “This reminds me of a joke—someone once asked why polar bears don’t eat penguins.”【They don’t eat them because they don’t like them.】

【Wait a second, sis—shouldn't the real answer be that one lives in the Arctic and the other in the Antarctic?】

【But now that the island has both polar bears and penguins, will polar bears eat penguins?】

...

“Not considering habitat differences, under normal circumstances, with a polar bear’s strength, catching a penguin would be effortless.” As the king of the polar regions, a polar bear walking across the snow and ice—any penguin it sets its eyes on wouldn’t be able to escape its claws.

Lin Qianyu said, “It’s just not clear if polar bears would even like to eat penguins.”

Anyway, in these past few days, she hadn’t seen Xue Tuan bring back a penguin to eat.

It still mostly hunted walruses and sea lions.

Feng Jingye stood beside her, watching the animals below with an unreadable expression. “Penguins… hard to say if it likes them or not. But it’s probably eaten most of the island’s animals at least once. Penguins are a bit far from its usual territory, and after a while it just stopped going after them.”

Lin Qianyu seemed to think of something when she heard that. She was about to tease him when Feng Jingye apparently caught her thought and explained ahead of time: “The animal rescue station doesn’t monitor the released animals that closely, and I wasn’t really watching either. I only know because after each hunt, it would stop by the station—and punch me before eating.”

“……”

Was that supposed to make meals taste better?

Talking about this, Feng Jingye couldn’t help but recall, “Back when it was first released, it got bored and would go hunting even when it wasn’t hungry. Probably to get familiar with the environment. Since it hadn’t found a fixed den yet, it roamed all over the island. It wasn’t until about half a month later that it settled into a regular territory.”

“Because… you were nearby?” Lin Qianyu recalled that after she first ran into the polar bear, its activity range seemed to be not far from the rescue station.

Feng Jingye nodded. “That’s what I think too.”

Lin Qianyu patted him on the shoulder, half wanting to speak, half hesitating. It was pitiful and funny all at once. For a moment, she didn’t even know what to say.

“Wow—baby penguins swimming are so cute, like little ducklings!” Hang Sisi was observing the penguins from a distance, her smile wide with joy.

Ducklings?

Lin Qianyu raised a brow, unable to see how baby penguins looked like ducklings at all.

She wiped her goggles and used the livestream device as a makeshift telescope. After adjusting it manually, the livestream feed zoomed in right on the penguin’s face.

From far away, the coloring and flocking behavior might lead one to think they were penguins.

But on closer inspection, the differences were obvious.

Lin Qianyu frowned. “Wait… that doesn’t seem like a penguin, does it?”

【Haha—don’t tell me the island master couldn’t get real penguins, so they just raised a close relative instead.】

【LMAO, you can doubt the existence of penguins in the world, but never doubt that the island master could get them.】

The chat teased playfully, not taking these penguin-lookalikes seriously, assuming they were just off-breed penguins.

“No, they’re not penguins,” Feng Jingye said, tearing open a pack of compressed biscuits and handing some to her. “Ever heard of the great auk?”

Lin Qianyu: “???”

Chat: 【?!!】

Feng Jingye said calmly, “That’s the species that was declared extinct after six separate evaluations.”Lin Qianyu listened while zooming in on the livestream feed. Looking closely, the sides of the head, the chin, throat, and wings were a dark brownish-black, and the toes had brown webbing between them.

According to records, the last pair of great auks died in a volcanic eruption.

But the real culprit behind their near extinction was humanity—the relentless pursuit of rare specimens by scientists.

Great auk feathers were considered high-quality down by Europeans, leading to mass hunting. Their meat was also edible.

By the time people realized they were at risk of extinction, it was already too late.

First in the British region, then in the Americas, they eventually disappeared from the world stage.

Only a few skeletons and eggs remain in the world.

【Feng Jingye, what the hell are you doing?! Why did you say it was a great auk with such a calm tone?!】

【Aaaaah am I going crazy or is he? How can he just say something like that?!】

【Seriously... if any other guest on the show had said that, they’d be trending for being mocked as uneducated and not knowing the great auk is extinct. But of all people, it was the island master who said it.】

After Feng Jingye spoke, the other guests who had been busy at the mountaintop all paused what they were doing.

“For real?!” Su Yuxing was the first to speak and break the silence. He dropped the tree he was halfway through chopping and rushed over. “Let me see, I wanna see too!”

Earlier, when Hang Sisi said it was a penguin, he had only glanced down quickly before going back to preparing lunch.

Gong Xinming and Nie Lingyang exchanged stunned looks, both frozen in place.

Logically speaking, after what they’d experienced with the thylacine-like animal, they shouldn’t be this shocked.

But strictly speaking, that thylacine wasn’t a real one—more like a descendant or close relative. The great auk, however, was different.

Feng Jingye hadn’t even prefixed it with “pseudo” or “variant” when he spoke of it.

Lin Qianyu blinked and, for no particular reason, commented, “After the great auk went extinct, someone claimed in 1852 to have seen one on Newfoundland Island—but it was never confirmed.”

Feng Jingye’s lips curled into a faint smile. “I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t been born yet.”

Even his great-grandfather’s grandfather would’ve still been an infant back then.

It was too long ago. Some things can no longer be verified.

Hang Sisi, who had been excitedly calling out to the "little penguin," had completely frozen now that she realized she had misidentified it. She asked sincerely, “President Feng, are you sure you're not wanted by the authorities?”

Lin Qianyu couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing. “Haha…”

Feng Jingye glanced sideways. “Is that very funny?”

Realizing too late that she had just laughed at her own boss, Lin Qianyu thought that might not be very appropriate. She cleared her throat and quickly tried to stifle her smile—but the snow leopard cub in her arms had had enough of the vibe and immediately slapped a paw at Feng Jingye, baring its teeth with a fierce hiss: “Hah!”

Feng Jingye leaned back to dodge the blow and replied repeatedly, “Okay, okay, fine, it’s funny, it’s funny. Alright?”

The corners of Lin Qianyu’s mouth, which she had just forced down, curled right back up again.

Cradling the little snow leopard, she laughed uncontrollably, burying her face in its back, her shoulders trembling with mirth.

The snow leopard cub licked her hand. She wasn’t wearing gloves, so after just a short while exposed to the air, her fingertips had gone icy cold.

Licking couldn’t bring the warmth back.The little snow leopard seemed to pause for a moment, then curled its paws in, tucking Lin Qianyu’s hand under its belly, adjusted its posture, and lay in her arms.

When it looked up and noticed Feng Jingye watching, it lifted its head and huffed at him again.

Being disliked by animals wasn’t anything new for Feng Jingye. He asked, “Not going down to take a look?”

Lin Qianyu thought for a moment, then shook her head and said, “They’re sunbathing.”

Great auks were social animals, often gathering in groups of hundreds or even thousands to hunt small fish and shrimp.

There weren’t hundreds down there right now, but… upon counting carefully, there were over thirty.

Not including the chicks.

Lin Qianyu didn’t want to disturb them. Yu Lingyu had already stepped out, but silently retracted her foot when she heard that.

The guests were all full of curiosity about the great auks—watching from the mountain was still too far away.

To see an animal that had been declared extinct right in front of you—who wouldn’t want to get closer? Even just to snap a few photos before they returned to the sea.

Besides, the great auk chicks were incredibly cute—fluffy and round. Though they resembled penguins, great auks belonged to the auk family, and on closer inspection, the differences were significant.

No need to check the apps—by now the trending topics must be flooded with news about the great auk, just like with the thylacine incident last time.

But since neither Lin Qianyu nor Feng Jingye made a move, the others had to suppress their curiosity for now and just held up the livestream gear to record from afar.

Lin Qianyu lowered her head, chin resting on the little snow leopard’s head. Great auks rarely came ashore outside of breeding season, and scenes of them sunbathing like this were even rarer.

Now, as they lay there sprawled out, it gave off a feeling of quiet serenity.

Lin Qianyu rubbed the snow leopard’s belly, turned the livestream camera around, and even her voice softened unconsciously as she pointed at one of the great auks. “That one on the side has such a round belly.”

It must’ve just eaten—its vestigial wings on either side were spread out, like a roly-poly that had been tipped over and couldn’t get back up.

Author's note: Only one chapter today. The next one will be updated on schedule after 00:00.

It’s almost the end—just a few animals left. The extras will begin in November, updating from the 9th until the finale. I’ve taken note of all the animals you mentioned last time: little sea lions, baby penguins, San Joaquin kit fox, otters, peacocks, Saka softshell turtles, gyrfalcons, and dinosaurs. Besides the animals that have already appeared, these are the rest. If anyone left a comment and your animal isn’t on this list, it’s likely I missed it due to a system issue—feel free to tell me again what you'd like to see~ I’ll make sure to note them all.

[Information about great auks and penguins sourced from online]

Good night, sleep early, love you all.