Chapter 5 The Flavor of a Time Management Master

A little later, Sister Dai from the center brought up the two little cubs, along with specialized cub formula and feeding tools.

"The two cubs are quite restless without their mother around," she said. "The Director suggested you try to place the little cubs beside the Leopard Mother. When it's feeding time, you take them out and feed them separately."

From the surveillance, they could see that the Leopard Mother's condition was stable; after the two Leopard Cubs were fed and watered, they didn't sleep but kept making noise, worried that too much of it would affect the children's health, Director Liao decided to have Sister Dai bring them back to Chen Ying.

"You take care of them first, I'll arrange my work tomorrow and come up to help you."

"There's no need, Sister Dai, I can manage on my own," said Chen Ying. "I just might need someone from the center to come over and help clean the animal shed."

"That's easy to handle. I'll come up during my lunch break and help you out."

Sister Dai currently had no injured animals to tend to and was relatively free, which is why Director Liao thought of asking her to take care of the two little leopards.

Unexpectedly, the little leopards had quite a temper. Considering other factors, they felt it would be better to reunite the mother and her offspring.

After sending Sister Dai off, Chen Ying gave the little leopards a check-up. Touching their plump little bellies, he confirmed they were well fed before he picked up the kitten basket made by Sister Dai and took them to find their mother.

The Leopard Mother was now more alert, and although she didn't have complete freedom of movement due to her restraints, she didn't experience the stress reaction they were worried about.

As Chen Ying entered, the Leopard Mother sniffed and let out a soft roar.

On hearing their mother's voice, the two cubs, who had been dozing, instantly perked up. They crawled to the edge of the bamboo basket and started calling out to their mother with little "awoo, awoo" cries.

Chen Ying hurried over to place the two cubs in front of her before the Leopard Mother could struggle. The Leopard Mother's injury was severe from her waist to her hind legs, but her front half was better off, with only a few scratch marks that didn't need bandaging after being treated.

The two cubs, smelling their mother, snuggled up to her with little whimpers.

Chen Ying pulled each one out with one hand, then rubbed the Leopard Mother's head, forbidding her from letting the cubs nurse.

"Your body has not healed, you can't nurse them yet, understand? I will feed them for you, and we can talk about nursing once you're better in a few days."

He checked and found that the Leopard Mother's milk supply wasn't particularly plentiful, which might be why she, despite being weak after giving birth, had still fought with other predators for food.

Leopard cubs start trying meat at eight to ten weeks and are weaned at around four months.

His examination with Sister Dai yielded the same results; these two leopard cubs were about half a month old, and their main diet was still milk.

The Leopard Mother licked her two cubs for a good while, then nuzzled Chen Ying's arm with her head.

"Ow ow."

"No need to thank me. Taking good care of your injuries is the best thanks you can give me."

After tidying up the food and water bowls and changing the Leopard Mother's sanitary pad, Chen Ying dragged the camp bed out and set it up in a corner of the observation room.

He needed to check on them every two hours during the night.

Besides the Leopard Mother, he also needed to keep an eye on the Lynx.

When Brother Liu brought up supplies in the evening, he offered to stay at the Rescue Station to help.

Since Chen Ying had to take care of three patients and couldn't go up the mountain to check on the bird situation, Brother Liu's offer to help relieved a significant concern for both of them.

At five in the morning, after Chen Ying's fourth round of inspections, he went straight to the kitchen.

Besides breakfast for three, he also had to prepare lunch rations for Yin Li and Brother Liu.

He couldn't neglect the nutrition meals for the three patients either.

By the time he finished these tasks, it was nearly seven o'clock.

Yin Li had helped clean the animal shed, and Brother Liu had fetched some fresh Bamboo from outside. After letting it dry a bit, it was ready to be tidied up and fed to Meng Yan.

Chen Ying's homemade dry food was the local's favorite glutinous rice ball.

The rice, mixed with glutinous rice, was steamed until cooked, then cooled down and combined with pre-fried diced cured meat and diced vegetables, with a small amount of pepper salt sprinkled in and mixed well. It was shaped into rice balls the size of a baby's fist, wrapped in lettuce leaves, and placed in the lunchbox.

Additionally, a few packs of instant soup base, along with some seasoned and minced pickled vegetables and homemade green pepper sauce packed in seasoning boxes, made for a sumptuous lunch.

The soup base needed to be prepared with boiling water, and since the temperature was quite low, especially two degrees lower in the mountain, Yin Li and Brother Liu each carried an army-grade insulated kettle, the two-liter kind.

After breakfast, Yin Li and Brother Liu quickly set off with their packs.

Chen Ying didn't have time to clean up the kitchen and first delivered the breakfast to the three patients.

Meng Yan still held its status as a foodie above all else, content as long as there was food, drink, and play, with no intention of fussing over its injured leg.

The lynx female was different today, more irritable, eating faster than usual and even making huffing sounds.

After the usual check-up of her injury, Chen Ying was about to leave when the lynx female caught the hem of his trousers.

"Woah, woah."

Lynx female: Why are you running off, can't you stay and eat with me? Or is it because that leopard mother is prettier than me?

Chen Ying, realizing what the lynx was saying, was taken aback. He hesitated and then squatted down to make eye contact with the lynx female.

"Of course, you are beautiful. You and Leopard Mother are not the same species, why compare yourself to her? Besides, I need to monitor her injury and feed her two little cubs. That's my job. Do you understand?"

The lynx female's intelligent eyes stared at Chen Ying for a long time before finally releasing his leg.

"Woah, woah." Then go, but be quick.

Chen Ying stiffly left the lynx female's animal shed and stood at the door with his hands on his hips for a while before shaking his head with a mix of laughter and tears and hurried off to feed the Leopard Mother and her two little cubs.

Leopard Mother was much calmer compared to the lynx female, giving him a glance before continuing to clean her little cubs' bottoms.

Chen Ying checked the wound and loosened the restraining band.

Now she didn't need to be restrained; moving around a bit more would help the Leopard Mother recover.

Feeling the band that had limited her was gone, Leopard Mother shook her head and tentatively stood up.

The animal diaper he had put on her made her a bit uncomfortable; she looked back at it, wanting to break free.

"Don't, keep it on. You can't move around at will for the next couple of days; I'll change it regularly to make sure it doesn't smell."

Holding the Leopard Mother's body, Chen Ying placed the food bowl in front of her.

"Here, eat up. I've prepared the freshest meat for you, guaranteed to be tender."

After speaking, he prepared to feed the two little cubs with milk.

The system, stingy as it was, provided only one bottle, which he filled and gave to the bigger-headed one.

The other was held by him to be fed with the animal feeding bottle provided by the center.

Leopard Mother saw her cubs start to eat, snorted, and buried her head to show off.

After finishing a bowl of rabbit meat, Leopard Mother lay on her side to clean her mouth, let out a big yawn, the hidden medication began to take effect slowly, and she felt sleepy.

The two little cubs had also finished their milk and entered a state of instant sleep.

Chen Ying put them in a cat basket and placed it next to the Leopard Mother, making sure the mother and her two cubs were sound asleep before he quietly left the observation room.

Next, he was going to soothe the lynx female.

He was just a simple veterinarian, yet somehow he found himself with the faint whiff of a time management guru.