Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness

The harsh sun hung high in the sky, casting yellow-orange rays that stretched for thousands of miles.

In addition to color, the light also brought scorching high temperatures, with temperatures exceeding forty-five degrees Celsius making the air twist and squirm like a serpent.

The intense, fierce light left almost no corner untouched on the vast land, save for a deep, cracked canyon where the rock walls cast long shadows.

Shrouded in shadows, Bi Fang huddled with Alpha, seeking cover to conceal their forms, even their breathing was greatly suppressed.

The canyon was not straight and simple. The fissure had many extensions on both sides, like leaf veins expanding towards the flanks. Hiding in the shadows of one such tributary, if lucky, one could cover their presence.

The live streaming room was under a heavy atmosphere, with a variety of barrage comments that would almost drown out the entire screen if not turned off. But at that moment, Bi Fang had neither the time nor the leisure to check them.

Dozens of meters away from his location lay a large gazelle, over half a meter long, now lying on the ground with blood gushing beneath it, flowing along the ground towards the Blackwater River.

The scent of blood spread rapidly, soon attracting the nearby crocodiles.

The crocodiles lurked beneath the water's surface, looking like segments of driftwood, swiftly approaching the riverbank.

Its yellow-brown fur interspersed with white, the boundary between the two not marked by black wide stripes, and its rump having distinctive white circular patches.

Most importantly, atop this gazelle's head grew a pair of slender, pointed horns covered in extremely dense annular ridges, thin and long like two sharp spears.

All characteristics considered, this was a Fine-Horned Gazelle.

Bi Fang squinted with a touch of regret.

Even before it had hit the ground, his excellent dynamic vision allowed him to recognize the species of this animal.

An endangered species on the "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species."

The Fine-Horned Gazelle was listed as endangered in the last century, with total numbers estimated to be no more than a few hundred, well below the threshold of 2,500 mature individuals, and still declining.

The primary threat is uncontrolled poaching.

Although the increase in human activities and desertification also contribute to the degradation of natural habitats, these impacts are negligible compared to poaching.

Poaching activities on the African continent can be said to have a "long-standing history."

Since the 19th century, many of the large European hunting teams that went to Africa were guilty of poaching, although some were judged and found guilty by African kings who had not granted them permission to hunt on their lands.

By 1900, European colonial powers had enacted hunting bans across Africa, prohibiting most Africans from hunting.

Subsequently, most forms of African hunting, including hunting for food, were also deemed poaching by colonial authorities.

Therefore, commercial poaching is a problem of modern times, posing a significant and growing threat to animal populations.

And it worsened with time.

In the 1950s and 1960s, after World War II, with European nations too weakened to concern themselves with their overseas colonies, waves of national independence surged around the world. Many African countries achieved independence from colonial rule during this period.

After independence, most African countries retained the prohibition on hunting set by European colonizers. However, poaching for food or "bushmeat" continued, and commercial poaching for profit remained all too common.

The presence of such activities was partly due to the inefficiency of the new governments, but also because many administrators deliberately turned a blind eye, knowing well that violations were occurring, as many of them depended on "bushmeat" for precious protein themselves.

In Africa, "bushmeat" was almost the only source of meat for the poor.

Living off the land or the sea.

Too impoverished to mine, they could only rely on primitive animal resources.

Undeniably, those who hunted for food posed a threat to the local animal populations, but compared with those who hunted for international trade, the level of threat was incomparable.

In the 1970s and 1980s, poaching in Africa reached an unprecedented and rampant scale, causing a serious crisis.

Elephants and rhinoceroses, in particular, faced the risk of extinction.

These two animals did not fall under the category of "bushmeat," nor did anyone consume their meat; they were hunted solely because of the international market's fervent demand for ivory, rhino horn, and their products.

The same was true for gazelles with their beautifully long horns.

Nearly every gazelle had a pair of elegant, magnificent long horns.

This made them particularly favored by "poachers."

Cheap but sturdy motorcycles and ATVs allowed poachers to enter nearly all areas within the species' range.

After the 1980s, poaching activities subsided, but in the 2010s, following the "Arab Spring" and the subsequent decrease in control and economic hardships, poaching once again became widespread across Africa.

Hunters often posted hunting pictures on social media websites, with gazelles boasting a beautiful set of horns frequently among them.

At this moment, the Fine-Horned Gazelle twitched its hind legs, its belly torn open with a gaping hole, skin and flesh burst apart.

Such injuries could only have been caused by human firearms; normal animal hunting could never inflict such puncture wounds.

Combining the current environment, gunshot, desert, and wound, Bi Fang wouldn't even need to doubt; he could be certain that the poachers were to blame.

The hunters used homemade shotguns, hiding in ambush in the desert. If the first shot missed, they fired a second, and finally hit their mark. Unfortunately, it was not a lethal shot, and the Fine-Horned Gazelle, in its struggle, fled in panic, eventually coming to the edge of a canyon and leaping down.

The whole scenario swiftly pieced itself together in Bi Fang's mind.

Bi Fang compared the gunshot he had just heard with the knowledge in his memory and, not finding a fitting match, guessed it might have been a homemade shotgun.

The power of a homemade shotgun was limited; the gazelle might have been saved based on just the bullet wound had it not jumped.

But what had happened had happened, and from the height of several dozen meters, even the jumping prowess of gazelles could not grant any chance of survival upon a hard landing.

"Have we come across poaching again?"

"It seems like it."

"Damn poachers again, so pitiful."

Even if Bi Fang hadn't said a word, the viewers in the live stream weren't fools; they figured out what had probably happened and were abuzz with discussion.

"It's been smashed to bits; even its butt is wrecked."

"Why does Master Fang always encounter such things?"

"If you traversed the entire Sahara Desert, maybe you'd encounter it too."

"The more you travel, the more you see. Maybe you wouldn't come across it on a simple survival mission, but the chances on a crossing mission seem high, especially in Africa."

"You don't know about it in our country, but if you go abroad, you'll realize, damn, there are a ton of poachers. The year before last, I was in Kenya, Africa, riding a cable car, and some bastard was openly shooting from their SUV; no one in the car dared move."

"Really? That brazen?"

Facing an unexpected windfall from the sky, crocodiles burst out of the river as if injected with adrenaline, leaping enthusiastically towards the gazelle. Within a matter of seconds, they reached the gazelle, dismembering the still-twitching Fine-Horned Gazelle.

Chunks of flesh and blood splattered, skin and flesh separated, and more blood flow into the river, attracting crocodiles from tens of meters away.

It wasn't long before the riverbank was crammed with crocodiles, even four or five piled atop one another, forming a veritable mountain of crocodiles. Those that arrived later fought and snapped at the earlier ones, vying for food.

West African Crocodiles, which lived on fish, seldom had the opportunity to feast on land creatures.

Bi Fang looked up.

In the pale yellow sky, a large bird, too far to make out its form, circled overhead.

Nobody came down.

The Fine-Horned Gazelle had fallen on the same side as Bi Fang, so it was likely that the others would appear above on this side as well.

Sure enough, Bi Fang soon heard the sound of a motorcycle, and the audience was no exception.

"Someone's coming!"

"It's a motorbike, they've come on a motorbike!"

"Be careful, be careful, be careful!!"

Bi Fang pressed himself against the rock face, trying to breathe as quietly as possible to better hear his surroundings.

The motorcycle noise grew closer and stopped directly overhead.

Then a noisy argument broke out.

With the cliff exceeding twenty-five meters in height, even with Bi Fang pressed close, he couldn't make out what they were arguing about. He knew they were arguing in Arabic and could only catch a word or two.

"Two people, no, more than that, three, yes, there are three voices."

Bi Fang closed his eyes, whispering information to the audience in a low voice.

"They're arguing fiercely. It's too far to hear clearly, but it sounds like cursing... perhaps they're cursing about losing their prey."

Bi Fang looked at the Fine-Horned Gazelle's body covered by the West African Crocodile and pondered.

The gazelle's most valuable aspect was naturally its pair of slender, pointed horns, highly aesthetic and collectible, also excellent for carving. But, the hide and meat were also valuable, now all benefiting the crocodile, turned into its stomach's meal.

It was fortunate if a pair of intact horns could be retrieved.

West African Crocodiles were small and not much of a threat, but it wasn't easy to retrieve the pair of horns from them.

Moreover...

Bi Fang looked at the cliff, over twenty, nearly thirty meters high.

Not everyone was an all-rounder like himself, skilled in rock climbing, swimming, and hunting. It wouldn't be easy for them to come down from there.

Since they made homemade guns, they were amateurs.

The poachers' scolding wasn't hard to understand, basically about why they chased the Fine-Horned Gazelle to the cliff, ending with its meat spoiled, losing out on the benefits.

They argued for minutes as the gazelle's body was already dismembered. When the group of crocodiles dispersed, not even one horn was to be seen, presumably taken by one of the crocodiles into the river.

Seeing this, the poachers who had just calmed down broke out into another long argument, lasting about five or six minutes, with no sign of stopping, growing more heated.

Then, Bi Fang's peripheral vision caught a dark shadow falling from the top of the canyon.

Accompanied by a scream.

Everything abruptly ceased.

!!!

Bi Fang's heart pounded fiercely, his eye twitching uncontrollably. He pressed the drone's lens hard, swiveling it in another direction.

However, the audience had still caught a glimpse of the scene, and after a moment of silence, the live chat exploded!

Murder, this was blatant murder!

Not just poaching, but now there was internal conflict!

Such a bloody, violent scene almost caused every viewer's thoughts to freeze.

If the thrill came from hunting animals, seeing a crime scene triggered nothing but endless panic.

This feeling was like a cold venomous snake creeping up your spine, chilling to the bone.

Were it not for Bi Fang's identity and proof, there's no way his live stream could have continued.

An unprecedented surge of comments flooded the chat.

"Holy shit!"

"Did I see that wrong!!!"

"They pushed someone down!"

"This is a crime, a crime!!!"

Nearly all comments came with an abundance of exclamation points, as though only this could express the audience's excitement.

And it got even worse.

The crocodile that had just slipped into the river erupted again, the water rippling with waves, the carnivores once more attracted by the thick scent of blood.

The body of one gazelle was too small, not nearly enough for these predators to share.

The viewers couldn't see this scene, but the sound of splashing water left them deeply unsettled.

Bi Fang's breathing nearly stopped; his ear pressed against the wall heard nothing as if the people above had vanished, frozen in eerie silence.

When the noise started again, it seemed to be a question from the tone.

Clearly, even the poachers could not believe what had just happened.

But the response to the question wasn't conversation or swearing, but a gunshot and another dark shadow fell, crashing heavily onto the crocodile below.

Bi Fang was stunned.

Alpha beside him grew restless, trying to leave, but was firmly held by Bi Fang.

What... what on earth was going on?

The accident could still be explained, but now? What was this?

Bi Fang couldn't fathom what had happened above; his mind was in chaos.

What should he do now?

With the continuous falling of two shadows, the West African Crocodiles slipped into a frenzy.

The sound of the motorcycle started again; the last person was leaving!

Bi Fang quickly returned to the moment, assessing the messy scene and reacting swiftly.

A small drone flew up to the cliff-top, and the next moment, the audience saw the fleeing poacher.

Without hesitation, the drone hurried forward and managed to capture the poacher's face just before the motorbike vanished from sight.

Caught!

The chaotic scene quickly resolved.

A small drone flew up to the cliff-top, and the next moment, the audience saw the fleeing poacher.

Without hesitation, the drone hurried forward, and managed to capture the poacher's face before the motorbike completely vanished from view.