King of the Wilderness

He lowered his voice, speaking to the camera, and began to dissect the crime, his voice filled with barely contained rage.

"Their target is clear, their division of labor extremely professional. This is definitely a group of seasoned professionals, not some spontaneous mountain folks."

The camera zoomed in as he began to analyze each of the gruesome wounds.

He pointed to the hollow abdomen, "The incisions are precise and skillful, a complete wild bear gallbladder is worth a fortune on the black market, that was their primary target."

Moving the camera to the severed limbs, "All four bear paws, along with the lower halves of the forearms and lower legs, were chopped off."

"The cuts are at the joints, very clean. This indicates they carried professional machetes and portable bone saws."

"Then, there’s the more hidden, but connoisseurs know the goodies." His voice grew colder.

"Look at its head, the nose and lips are missing, in some wild game cultures, it’s a dish."

"Also, its kneecap, the so-called bear kneecap, was violently smashed and taken."

He slowly swept over the entire corpse, making the final judgment, "They only took the small, high-value, easy-to-carry parts."

"They totally ignored the several hundred pounds of bear meat and the extremely labor-intensive whole bear pelt."

"They were like a group of efficient butchers, dismantling all the money-fetching parts from this bear in the shortest time possible."

"Then they casually discarded the remaining parts here, leaving them to rot."

"This was a purely black market transaction-oriented, precisely targeted component-style poaching."

His gaze finally fell upon the dead hunting dog, his eyes filled with sorrow and disdain.

"And this hunting dog’s corpse tells us more. A real hunter treats a dog as a partner, a family member."

"To them, this dog and that bear were just tools. It may very well have been collateral damage from standing in the wrong place during the bear hunt."

"To these people, an injured dog is just a burden. So they unhesitatingly discarded it here, leaving it to rot."

"These people have no bottom line, no humanity, they are ruthless criminals who stop at nothing for profit!"

Lin Yu’an suppressed his anger and continued his examination, noticing the bear’s corpse had begun to emit a stench of decay, but judging by the blood not yet fully coagulating to dark black.

Its time of death cannot be more than twenty-four hours ago, likely just yesterday afternoon, or even early this morning!

This means the perpetrators may not have gone far!

Lin Yu’an did not immediately approach the corpse but, like an experienced battlefield scout, began a wide perimeter reconnaissance centered around the body, seeking more clues.

Soon, on a patch of muddy ground downwind from the corpse, he discovered some traces—a few deep bootprints in the mud belonging to human hiking boots.

And a shotgun shell casing partially buried in the mud, with just a sliver of brass edge showing!

Confirming the area was secure, he quickly moved to the footprints and, using a stick, carefully pried the casing from the mud.

He held the mud-stained shell casing up to the camera, "Homemade 12-gauge shotgun shell casing, hand-filled with powder."

He then turned the camera lens back onto the bear’s fatal wounds.

"The wounds are concentrated around the bear’s chest cavity and neck, in large circular scatter patterns. The edges still embedded with several deep black metal particles, these are large steel balls, not lead shot."

He combined the two clues in his mind, reconstructing the gruesome ambush scene.

"This wasn’t an encounter; it was a premeditated high-risk hunt."

"They daringly got within twenty meters of the bear, then used this rudimentary but powerful shotgun to simultaneously or sequentially fire at its vital parts."

"The shooter was ruthless, and steady-handed. They knew very well that only at this distance, using this ammunition, attacking these areas, could they ensure a kill with one shot."

"Even if they might accidentally injure a hunting dog, they didn’t care. These are not ordinary poachers; they are desperados who make a living by slaughter!"

He stood up and his gaze swept over the devastated slaughter scene, a tumultuous mixture of overwhelming rage and extreme rationality surging within him.

The anger was for the ruthless trampling on life, while the fear stemmed from the most composed judgment.

"I haven’t walked into a hunting ground of a wild beast, but a crime scene of a lawless professional poaching gang, who might be right near me!"

"In the wild, the most dangerous entity is never the wild beast. The actions of a beast follow the natural law, leaving traces."

"In contrast to these desperados," he glanced at the disassembled bear, "they adhere to no law but greed."

He knew that personal survival challenges had become irrelevant at this moment, facing a more significant decision!

Without any hesitation, he immediately retreated to the rock crevice where he was hiding his pack. The location was higher, with a clearer view and easier to defend.

He took out his most important protective talisman, a palm-sized Beidou emergency communication device.

He leaned against the cold rock, struggling to calm his rapid breathing due to anger and tension, then pressed the power button.