Elsa the lion was born only two or three days ago, and his mother died. I took it out of the crevices in the rock, stroked it, and fed it with milk powder and a drink made with cod liver oil and glucose. Soon, its small eyes covered with blue film opened, and the watery eyes rolled around. Five months later, it has grown up and is very strong. It never leaves me, and sleeps with me at night. In the middle of the night, it often licked my face with its rough tongue, licking me to wake up.
Summer is here, Elsa especially loves to take a bath in the river. It takes only a few hours to wash, and when she has enough, she goes to rest in the dense reeds. It saw me squatting by the river, deliberately splashing waves, and gently threw me to the ground with its front paws, and was very happy to joke with me.
One evening, a rhino came. The rhino has a bad temper, no matter what it is, even a locomotive, it dares to hit it. The rhino leaped at me. I didn’t bring a gun, and there was no place to hide around, so I thought it would be over. I shouted, Elsa ran from a distance and bravely wrestled with the rhino. The rhino couldn’t beat it, so turned around and ran away, and Elsa drove it far, far away in one breath.
When Elsa started changing her teeth, she opened her mouth to show me like a child. I gently shake its deciduous teeth. It closed its eyes and didn’t move. Sometimes I leaned on Elsa to read a book or draw a picture. It sucked my thumb, and soon fell asleep quietly.
We went to Lake Ludor, a distance of 370 kilometers, mostly by foot. Along the way, Elsa hopped around like a puppy, chasing the hare for a while, and stalking the antelope that we slapped to death. We used a few donkeys to carry luggage. At first, Elsa could still get along with them, but one day in the middle of the night, Elsa suddenly broke into the herd of donkeys. The donkey was frightened and ran away, one of them was scratched by Elsa. Only then did I remember that beasts are prone to beastly at night. I have a whip to teach it a real lesson. Elsa bowed her head and squatted down on the ground without a word, as if begging me for forgiveness. Seeing its pitiful appearance, my anger was thrown out of the clouds. I stroked its head, comforted it, and told it not to do this next time. It seemed to understand what I was saying, sucking its thumb coquettishly, rubbing its head against my knee, and humming softly in its nose.
Elsa was almost two years old. I wanted to send it to the zoo, and then I thought that I should send it back to nature to choose a good environment for it and let it live on its own. It is not easy for an animal raised by humans to return to nature because it carries a human scent. However, this is also a scientific experiment, and I am determined to train it to return to nature and let it live a happy life there.
I first taught it how to catch food by itself. I threw the half-dead antelope in front of it and let it kill and cut it open. Slowly, it would catch some food by itself. After a few days, I quietly put it into the resource-rich area of the lion’s life, and quietly left it. Several times, it came back hungry. I received it happily and sadly, just as my married daughter came back home in misfortune. A few days later, I sent it back to nature. After it left, I missed it very much, especially on a snowstorm night. I thought about it all night, not knowing how it was.
Once, it came back with a high fever. I never leave it, it always uses two paws to gently hold my neck to sleep. I gave it blood tests, took medicine, and slept with it. I myself have forgotten that I am a man and Elsa is a lion. It gradually recovered its health, but I couldn’t bear to let it go. Thinking about it again, it always has to go back to the beast, and I was determined to leave it.
Elsa and I have lived together for three years. When I finally parted, I felt great pain. I hugged its neck and kissed it; it seemed to be aware of something, and rubbed me with its smooth body. After that, it reluctantly lay down in the forest and walked, turning back to see me again and again, until we couldn’t see each other.
In this way, I sent Elsa back to nature.
