Su Wei climbed upwards using both hands and feet. The rifle on his back struck the rocks with a dull metallic sound.
He steadied himself on the rocky platform, let out a long breath, and the white mist instantly blurred his goggles.
Take out the laser rangefinder.
The red dot landed on the red stone in the center of the valley entrance.
[Distance: 318.5 yards.]
The wind speed sensor indicates a crosswind of 8 mph.
Su Wei quickly set up the FX3.
The expensive lens refracted a dark green luster in the dim light.
Next, he took out two fist-sized military-grade infrared alarms.
He slid down the slope and quickly set up the alarm on the only path through the pile of rocks.
After making the arrangements, he returned to the rock chamber.
He took off his heavy parka and spread it on the frozen ground, then lay face down on it in a standard prone position.
The Browning rifle was steadily mounted.
The dust cover on the Zeiss Conquest V4 popped open, and Su Wei calmly turned the windage compensation knob.
[.300 Magnum, corrected.]
Through the scope, he could even see the ice crystal patterns on the red stone 300 meters away.
Su Wei lightly placed his index finger on the outside of the trigger guard.
"Now, it's a long wait."
"Judging from its droppings, it just left that area. And that pile of rocks is its usual route. If we rush forward now, the terrain ahead is already very difficult for us to traverse. If we encounter it, it's very likely we'll meet it head-on, and at a very close distance."
"Then we're in danger. So, we can wait now. This is within its foraging range. And my position is high, so I can see far. Once it appears, we'll spot it."
"Hunting, shooting is the final result. What we need most is patience. Especially after this special weather, the level of danger has increased dramatically. We must be even more responsible for our lives."
He spoke softly to the miniature microphone on the side.
A chill crept into my chest through the gaps.
Half an hour later, his toes began to lose sensation.
Su Wei didn't move; he simply contracted his muscles rhythmically to maintain his core body temperature.
To maintain his sugar levels, he pulled out a homemade energy bar.
The crumbs of nuts, with their wild, oily flavor, burst open in your mouth—a hunter's treat.
Time passed to 10 a. m.
Sunlight pierced through the clouds, shining obliquely into the valley entrance.
Sudden.
The receiver in Su Wei's pocket emitted an extremely faint but rhythmic vibration.
This is a level two warning from the sensor.
Something has been brought in.
Su Wei's breathing stopped instantly.
He raised his binoculars and locked his gaze firmly onto Lin Yuan.
"Click."
A withered branch snapped. In the deathly silence of the valley, the sound was like thunder.
The snow was violently pushed aside.
That huge, dark brown shadow slowly moved out of the shade of the trees.
Its size is even more imposing than what was captured by the drone.
When it stood fully atop the pile of rocks, the sheer ferocity of its apex predator seemed to freeze the air.
It is Missing Ear.
The mangled scar on his right ear looked grotesque and terrifying in the sunlight.
Its thick, dark brown fur was covered in mud. With each step it took, the muscles on its back undulated.
It kept twitching its nose, trying to sniff out a scent that didn't belong to this wilderness in the deathly still wind.
Su Wei held his breath, his fingertips touching the cold metal.
Chapter 160 The Listener's Fatal Blow
Su Wei's index finger's first joint pressed against the trigger.
In temperatures as low as -20 degrees Celsius, the chill of the stainless steel parts seeped through the thin gloves, sending a piercing sensation through the skin.
Three hundred and eighteen yards away, the brown bear with the Missing Ear stopped moving.
Its massive body stood atop the pile of rocks, the sunlight behind it outlining a grayish-white ring around its originally brown fur.
It lowered its head, its wet nostrils flapping rapidly in the air, trying to catch that strange information that didn't belong to the valley.
Su Wei shifted his gaze from the edge of the scope for a second to observe his side.
The red indicator light on the FX3 camera pulsed steadily.
In the image, the Missing Ear's two broken ears are twitching incessantly.
Instead of heading towards the center of the rubble as expected, it stopped three meters away from the infrared sensor.
The man with the Missing Ear suddenly turned his head, his scarred muzzle pointing towards the rock platform where Su Wei was.
In that instant, Su Wei stopped all movement.
He stood frozen in place, not daring to make the slightest movement.
He could hear his own heartbeat, heavy with tension.
[ Hunting Module LV2 Unlocked.]
In the field of vision, the golden ballistic guide line should have been a stable parabola.
But at this moment, due to the complex eddies in the valley, the beam of light flickered and broke wildly.
The golden line extended less than fifty meters from the muzzle of the gun before it began to sway violently.
Under these circumstances, his shot will be severely off target.
At a distance of 300 yards, a significant deviation means that the bullet could graz the brown bear's shoulder or hit its rump.
For a brown bear weighing nearly 500 kilograms and in a state of extreme hunger, a non-fatal wound would only completely unleash its ferocity.
Su Wei gently flicked the safety lever off the rifle with his right thumb.
"Click."
The faint sound of mechanical friction was masked by the wind, thanks to the thick layer of deodorizing oil.
The Missing Ear creature seemed to have caught a whiff of something, and its body, which had been downwind, began to slowly move sideways.
It planned to go around to the side of the pile of rocks.
There was a slope covered in snow all year round, and once it got there, the Su Wei ' firing angle would be completely blocked by the towering granite.
Su Wei recalled what Black had said in the dark pine forest at four in the morning.
"A rangefinder can help you calculate distances, but it can't sense the weight of the wind."
"You become a hunter when you stop believing what your eyes see and start listening to the sound of the wind going into your ears."
He readjusted his prone position.
My chest pressed against my coat, my ribs feeling the hardness of the earth.
He could even feel the sharp edges of the rocks below, stinging his skin, but the pain only made him more alert.
Su Wei took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He closed his eyes.
He left his right cheek exposed to the cold wind seeping in from the crack in the rock.
The wind rubbed against his skin irregularly, first causing a slight tingling sensation in his earlobe, followed by resistance against his cheek.
The wind is no longer vague, but a fluid.
Something derived from his actual perceptions.
It was cut along the edge of the rock platform, emitting a low-frequency whistling sound.
Three seconds.
Su Wei sensed that the lateral wind paused briefly near the bottom of the valley.
That's the vacuum period created by the intermittent flow of air pressure, which is also an opportunity.
Su Wei suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils contracting.
He completely ignored the erratic golden light bar in his field of vision.