Super Zoo

This tracking went on for the better part of the night.

All the way, Suming didn't dare to get too close, lest the other party discover him, so he had Er Gouzi, the smallest of them, tail them, while he himself, together with Haidong Qing and Huiya, followed from over a hundred meters behind;

He also gave instructions to the two Diamond Parrots, telling them not to shiver anymore to avoid irritating Mr. Qian in a temper, in case he really snapped at them, which would be tragic.

Even Suming himself couldn't stand the parrots' foul mouths at times, feeling like strangling the nuisances, let alone the thieves.

The poaching team was clearly well-trained, carrying various types of equipment and moving at a fast pace along the stream deep into the mountains, until they stopped in front of a large pool around ten o'clock the next morning.

Suming lay in the woods on the opposite side of the river, and with the dawn light improving visibility, he could see that the poaching team consisted of six men, all Huaxia men; the one leading them wore glasses and looked refined, while the remaining had a fierce appearance, clearly not the good sort.

The burly man carrying a large cage for the parrots was now shirtless, bathing in the stream and revealing his developed muscles, while the others, under the direction of the man in glasses, set up a small encampment and started cooking.

The cages with the golden monkeys and Diamond Parrots were placed in the center of the camp, with two poachers holding rifles on guard.

"Damn it, this is practically a small army of hunters!" Suming cursed to himself.

Only after daylight did Suming see clearly the equipment of the other side: six men, with just semi-automatic rifles numbering four, all shiny new Type 56s, probably also some handguns among other firearms, and each person had a military dagger strapped to their leg.

Apart from weapons, the other outdoor gear was also very complete, all high-end goods, completely different from the imitations Suming had bought from the military supply store.

When Suming's father was alive, he had more than once dealt with poachers, sometimes even engaging in direct gunfire, and the most frustrating aspect was the disparity in equipment between the parties.

Bigger poaching gangs were often covertly supported by international criminal organizations, outfitted better than professional national teams, and were not afraid of encountering wildlife protection officers in the wild. As representatives of justice, wildlife protectors, forest rangers, and forest police could at most be equipped with a few Type 54 pistols; once they clashed, they were simply outgunned and even directly silenced by the poachers.

Suming had been planning to call in bees and wasps to join the battle the night before; no matter how fierce the firepower, they're helpless against a swarm of bees.

But before he could call for the bees, his eyelids involuntarily twitched: one of the poachers actually had a small flamethrower strapped to his back!

What kind of joke was this? Were they here to poach or to go to war?

The poachers before him had such formidable firepower, they could easily massacre a police station in a surprise attack. It seemed that they were determined to succeed this time and even prepared to clash with the local police.

Suming quickly ran through all the protected animals in Qinling in his mind, wondering what they could possibly be after to invest such a great sum; it didn't seem like any were worth one and a half million US Dollars.

Even a giant panda or a Yangtze River dolphin wouldn't be worth that much, except maybe dinosaur eggs.

The muscular man bathed in the water while Mr. Qian held a rifle on the bank and laughed oddly, "Da Xiong, be careful not to let something in the water bite off your eggs!"

What's in the water? Suming peeked out, a bit curious.

Not far from the poaching camp, there was a cliff several tens of meters high with a waterfall flowing down, creating a pool below where the water spilled into a creek.

However, the creek wasn't more than a meter deep and was crystal clear, not appearing particularly dangerous.

"Go to hell!" Da Xiong viciously flipped the bird towards the shore and then pulled out a round instrument from his leather pants pocket. He collected some creek water in the device as if he was testing it.

Da Xiong watched the instrument for a while and then waved to the man with glasses on shore, shouting, "He, the water quality matches the sample, it must be here."

"Good, come on up. We'll get to work after eating!" the man with glasses said.

Da Xiong climbed ashore, and the poaching team circled up to eat around the camp. Suming, however, looked around curiously. For now, the only place that might contain valuable wildlife was the pool formed by the waterfall's impact.

The pool wasn't large, less than a hundred square meters—about the size of a three-bedroom apartment. From a distance, it looked like deep emerald green, suggesting great depth.

In horror films, such pools often harbored giant pythons or aquatic monsters, but Suming knew very well large animals required extensive living spaces. Given its small surface area, even if the pool was deep, it was improbable for any large water monster to reside there.

Could it be a Chinese alligator? Or a Chinese sturgeon?…

Suming thought of several rare animals that might live in the pool. Although these were uncommon, they weren't worth two million US dollars. You could buy a bunch of them for two hundred thousand dollars on the black market, hardly necessitating such effort.

Moreover, according to the black market's rules, these people should be considered 'mercenaries' or 'hired poachers.' A buyer paying one and a half million US dollars was mainly for their hard work, and the catch's value must surpass this amount.

Besides a dinosaur egg, Suming couldn't think of any animal in the world worth that much money.

Since it didn't make sense, Suming simply stopped trying to figure it out. He instructed Haidong Qing to search nearby for some helpful animals while he lay low under the fallen leaves in the forest, discreetly observing the poaching team, knowing they'd eventually provide an answer themselves.

The waterfall poured down into the pool, causing splashes to leap and the sound of the babbling water, drowning out the poachers' voices from across the river. Everything remained peaceful for over fifteen minutes until the poachers finally finished their meal.

Three poachers, including Mr. Qian, stood up to stretch and then donned simple diving suits, armed themselves with military knives, and stepped into the water along the edge of the pool.

The slope of the pool was steep. After just two steps, the three were already half-submerged, and with a plunge, they darted towards the center of the pool.

A few bubbles gurgled up from the surface of the pool, and then the three were out of sight.

The other three poachers, guns ready, waited on the shore.

About four or five minutes later, a string of bubbles suddenly erupted from the middle of the pool. A large swirl of waves followed as if something was about to burst forth from underwater!