Chapter 21.1

Hot medicinal water splashed onto the tiger’s body with a loud splash.

Mu Ling held a ladle in one hand, quickly rubbing the tiger’s fur with the other, ensuring its dry, dull coat was thoroughly soaked.

It was only now that Qilin seemed to understand Mu Ling’s intentions. It glanced at the basin, lifted a foreleg, and finally stepped in.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re cooperating,” Mu Ling sighed with relief. Qilin’s fur was so thick that if she had kept pouring water slowly, the medicine would have run out before the coat was fully wet.

When the tiger settled into the bath, the water level rose significantly. Mu Ling guided it to sit down and continued dousing it with the ladle.

Once the fur was entirely wet, she took out a pink bath sponge, squeezed some medicated soap onto it, and rubbed vigorously to create a thick foam. She carefully spread the bubbles across the tiger’s body.

The foam lifted away dirt as she washed meticulously. Soon, Qilin was covered in a mountain of bubbles, with even a large foam ball sitting atop its head—placed there deliberately by Mu Ling.

Despite being buried under layers of bubbles, Qilin remained still. It obediently sat there, raising its paw when Mu Ling asked, allowing her to scrub between its claws.

“Oh my goodness, it’s so adorable and well-behaved!”

“So, the notorious Ripper Tiger likes bubble baths—quick, someone document this!”

“Is it the bath it enjoys, or does it just like Director Mu?”

“Better jot that down too—’The Ripper Tiger likes the zoo director.'”

Regardless of the reason, seeing the once-fierce beast suddenly become so gentle melted the hearts of all the visitors.

While Qilin enjoyed its bubble bath, nearly dozing off from the scrubbing, deep in the jungle, an elegant and agile black panther stood atop a jagged rock. Its emerald-green beast eyes scanned the surroundings with cold intensity.

Its icy gaze darted through the tree shadows. Suddenly, it locked onto a specific direction. A second later, it leaped, its thick paws hitting the ground as it raced towards its target.

Dry branches crackled under its feet. Only after the black panther’s figure had completely vanished into the forest did more playful small animals dare to peek out from behind the trees in the quiet mountains.

Because they had to go into the mountains in the afternoon, Mu Ling kept the bathing process relatively short—about fifteen minutes. Then came the drying.

Mu Ling wrapped Qilin in a huge towel and was about to start rubbing when the great tiger suddenly moved and began shaking its fur vigorously.

Caught off guard, Mu Ling’s face was sprayed with water droplets and floating fur.

“Oh, ugh, ptui! Qilin, alright, Qilin,” Mu Ling had ingested a lot of Qilin’s fur and hurriedly pressed it down. Qilin, feeling comfortable after the bath, rarely showed a happy expression. It opened its mouth, sticking out a small section of its scarlet tongue, and rubbed its wet face against Mu Ling’s clothes.

“You sure know where to wipe yourself,” Mu Ling said disgruntledly, immediately wrapping its face with the towel and rubbing frantically.

When it was mostly done, she took out a large animal-grade hair dryer that had been prepared earlier and started blow-drying Qilin’s fur with a steady stream of warm air.

Animal-use hair dryers are silent to avoid startling the animals. Enjoying the comfortable warm air, Qilin curled up, simply sat on the ground, and rested its head forward, directly placing it in Mu Ling’s lap.

Mu Ling held the hair dryer with one hand and ruffled its fur with the other. In no time, the short fur showed signs of drying.

After the fur was dry and the medicine reapplied, the whole process was complete. Mu Ling checked the time: 1:30 PM.

Just right, about the same as her previously estimated finish time.

“Alright, stand up now.” Mu Ling put down the towel, patted Qilin’s head, forcibly pushing the little lazy tiger up, then pointed towards the crowd saying, “Look over there.”

The visitors who had been sitting on the stone platform, seeing Qilin look over, hurriedly stood up, frantically waving at Qilin, calling out its name.

Qilin glanced at the crowd, then turned back to look at Mu Ling, seeming confused.

Mu Ling chuckled, “Just letting you feel the audience’s cheers before leaving the stage. Alright, let’s go back.”

Mu Ling bowed to the visitors, then led Qilin back along the way they came.

Only after Qilin’s figure had completely disappeared did the visitors disappointedly ask each other, “Is there no more qilin after this?”

“I came specifically for Qilin.”

“We’re about to go up the mountain, aren’t there other animals in the mountains?”

“But I heard the animal sighting rate is very low. Someone said they rode the shuttle for a whole day and didn’t even see a rabbit.”

Wei Li, hearing the visitors starting to complain, quickly explained, “Everyone, don’t worry too much. The situation of not even seeing a rabbit won’t happen. These past few days, our director has been going up the mountain every day to take photos. Many animals recognize her. If she calls, the animals will come out.”

The visitors were intrigued. “Really? Just like that? She calls, and they show up?”

Wei Li thought for a moment, “Well, that’s what she said.”

The visitors: “..”

Actually, Wei Li also felt that the director might be exaggerating a bit. On the first day when the director went up the mountain, the animals didn’t come out at all, he witnessed this himself. But after the director went into the mountains alone to take photos these past few days, she came back saying she had already made friends with some small animals on the outskirts. She said now many small animals really like her because she brings food for them every time she goes into the mountains. Now even the palm civets are bringing her mice.

Wei Li initially didn’t believe it. How could wild animals accept strangers so easily? He fed them every day and didn’t see the animals getting close to him. However, thinking about how the director could even win over Qilin, out of blind admiration for the director, Wei Li just brainwashed himself to believe it.

Seeing that the visitors still looked unenthusiastic, Wei Li hurriedly said, “The shuttle buses are just ahead, everyone please walk this way.”

Today’s mountain trip was arranged with six shuttle buses. Xiang Bie drove one, Wei Li drove one, and the other four were driven by four tour bus drivers.

The four tour bus drivers were sent along with the tour buses. The buses were rented for the whole day, which meant the drivers had to stay at the zoo all day on standby. Since they were idle anyway, and Mu Ling saw that the drivers all had multi-terrain vehicle licenses and were experienced drivers, she simply hired them externally to help drive the shuttle buses.

Multi-terrain vehicle drivers are drivers who can drive any type of vehicle on any road, they’re all-round drivers. Mu Ling paid them the normal rate for externally hired drivers, 300 star coins per person. The drivers were quite willing, treating it as earning extra money on official business. After all, driving shuttle buses wasn’t difficult. Director Mu said the buses behind just needed to follow the bus in front.

When Mu Ling came over after changing clothes, she saw that the visitors had already boarded the buses. Each bus had twenty-five seats, six buses totaling 150 seats, more than enough for 100 people to sit comfortably without crowding.

Professor Zhou saw her come out and said, “Director Mu, we’re all here.”

Mu Ling smiled and said, “Alright, then let’s set off.”

Mu Ling got on Xiang Bie’s bus, indicating to Xiang Bie that they could go.

The order of the six buses going up the mountain was: Xiang Bie driving the first bus, Wei Li driving the last bus, with their two buses sandwiching the four buses driven by the tour bus drivers in the middle, providing support both front and back.

When the six buses had fully entered the main mountain road, Mu Ling took out a professional amplifying microphone. This microphone was also connected to the five shuttle buses behind, so what Mu Ling said in the front could be heard by the visitors in the buses behind.

“Hi, everyone.” Mu Ling first said with a smile as an opening, “I’m the coordinator for our tour today, and also the director of Bi Ke Zoo. My name is Mu Ling. If you have any questions during the tour, you can ask me. Friends in the buses behind, you can ask too, I can hear you all.”

As soon as she finished speaking, someone immediately asked, “Director Mu, will we be able to see other retired war beasts later?”

Mu Ling said, “The retired war beasts all live in the inner area, but currently our inner area is not open, so it’s hard to say. If any war beasts wander out, then we might see them.”

Mu Ling spoke very vaguely. Actually, she thought there was a 100% chance of not seeing any, after all, those war beasts would turn tail and disappear at the smell of humans 800 meters away. It would be a miracle to see them. However, the visitors had come a long way, so she couldn’t be so blunt as to say they wouldn’t see any. She just kept it vague, basically saying something without really saying anything.

As the visitors were about to ask more questions, Mu Ling quickly changed the subject and started introducing other things, “You might not know, but our Bi Ke Zoo is actually the largest forest wildlife park in the entire interstellar space in terms of area. We have nearly a thousand species of animals here.”

The current number of species was far smaller—likely under a hundred—but there was no need to mention that.

“The first stop we’re heading to now is the activity area of our golden furred rabbits. Golden rabbits belong to the rabbit family, mammal class. There are nineteen breeds of golden rabbits, including long-eared golden rabbits, winter golden rabbits, 98 golden rabbits, black and white heterogeneous golden rabbits, etc. The golden rabbits in our zoo are long-eared golden rabbits. The characteristics of this type of golden rabbit are…”

Mu Ling recited the complete introduction of long-eared golden rabbits according to the information she had memorized, then pointed to the right and said, “Actually, in this area, we can already see traces of where long-eared golden rabbits have lived. Wait, look to the left front, there are two long-eared golden rabbits there.”

As Mu Ling said this, the visitors immediately looked curiously towards the left front, and indeed saw two or three pale yellow long-eared rabbits moving their three-lobed mouths to eat grass between several clumps of grass.

“They’re quite cute.”

Someone opened their light brain to take photos.

Some also asked, “Are there only these few?”

Mu Ling said, “Of course not. Our park initially had twelve golden rabbits, but rabbits breed very quickly. Generally, they can give birth to a litter of baby rabbits every 30 days or so, with 4-10 in each litter. So now the number of golden rabbits is quite considerable. A rough estimate puts it at over sixty. A bit further ahead, there’s a relatively flat hillside, which is where the golden rabbits are usually most active.”

Earlier, Wei Li had told Mu Ling that the total number of animals in the zoo was 102, but this data was long outdated. The number of large animals probably hadn’t changed much, but some small animals really bred too quickly. Just the baby monkeys, baby rabbits, baby pigs, baby civets, and so on that Mu Ling had seen these past few days of going up the mountain added up to more than 102, not to mention other animals.

The buses continued up the mountain. After another twenty minutes, Mu Ling quietly said to Xiang Bie, “Slow down a bit here, I’m getting off.”

Xiang Bie turned his head to look at her.

Mu Ling said, “I’m going to lead the group of golden rabbits to that lawn, otherwise the visitors won’t see anything.”

Xiang Bie frowned slightly.

Mu Ling knew what he was thinking and said very helplessly, “I really have become familiar with the small animals on the outskirts, I’m not exaggerating. If I go call them, they’ll definitely come out. I brought a bag full of carrot cubes!”

She patted her waist bag, which was full of sugar-coated bullets. She had come prepared.

Xiang Bie was silent for a moment, then slowed down the shuttle bus. “Be careful.”

Mu Ling responded and lightly jumped off.

At the same time, deep in the lush mountains, a black giant crocodile resting near a stream suddenly opened its cold, damp eyes. Its cool gaze slowly looked towards a certain direction upstream. After a while, it moved its limbs and began to swim upstream.

After nearly ten more minutes, the six shuttle buses finally arrived at the flat hillside Mu Ling had mentioned.

As soon as the buses stopped, everyone was stunned. Even Xiang Bie, driving the bus, raised his eyebrows slightly at the scene on the hillside.