My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 386: Didn’t Escape
Chen Ling mounted his horse and galloped all the way to the farmland near the riverbank.

These farmlands were formerly sandy beaches with sandy soil, suitable for growing peanuts, sweet potatoes, and watermelons.

This year, Chen Yongsheng planted the watermelons here. He also gave Chen Ling some watermelon seedlings before.

When he rode over, he saw several villagers and a group of men and women from out of town standing at the edge of the melon field, holding sticks and stones, shouting and confronting two strange-looking creatures.

This creature was covered in gray-black scales, had a ferocious face, short limbs, but an extremely long tail.

As expected, they were two crocodiles, also known locally as "earth dragons."

"There were indeed two."

"I knew it! Both caves showed signs of freshness; there couldn't have been only one."

Chen Ling, leading his little blue horse, glanced around and chuckled, "Two earth dragons, and that huge strange fish, there must be quite a few treasures in this reservoir."

A series of loud gong and drum sounds rang out.

However, several villagers from the village were carrying large iron basins and buckets. They were banging on them to drive them away and scare them away, while they were throwing steel wire ropes at the heads and tails of the two earthen dragons in an attempt to bind them.

At this moment, upon hearing the sound of horses' hooves and seeing that it was Chen Ling, they were immediately overjoyed: "Fu Gui, come and lend a hand! This earth dragon is very fierce. Without your help, we can't subdue it."

As he was speaking, the two earthen dragons let out fierce "cough, cough" sounds and opened their blood-red mouths to fight back.

The two earth dragons were quite large, one measuring 1.78 meters and the other over 2 meters. They were even more frightening and intimidating than snakes.

The group of men and women from out of town were so frightened that they retreated repeatedly, including two actresses who lived on Chen Ling's farm.

"Hey, you son of a bitch, you dare to bite people? I'll beat you to death."

Chen Dajiang swung the stick at him.

However, the earth dragon was covered in armor, so the blow not only didn't hurt it, but instead provoked an even fiercer resistance.

The smaller earth dragon opened its mouth and bit a stick, snapping it in two in a few bites.

The giant earthen dragon, which was over two meters long, straightened its four legs and, as if running wildly, quickly took steps to attack the crowd.

"Wow, that's fierce!"

Seeing this, Chen Ling quickly stepped forward and kicked the two guys several times, his face full of surprise and doubt. He said, "Is this really the earth dragon that Fourth Grandfather mentioned? Why is it so irritable? It even tried to bite people."

As far as he knew, the Yangtze alligator was timid and afraid of people, and would not attack people unless provoked.

And just how cowardly are they?

Other crocodiles also have soft parts.

The Yangtze alligator is covered in armor all over its body, even its eyelids are covered with bony armor.

They were truly armed to the teeth.

They were so afraid of losing their lives that they went to extremes.

These statements are certainly not wrong.

But he didn't specifically study this; wild Yangtze alligators are even rarer than giant pandas, and they are not easy to spot.

How can he take what he learned from the internet in his later years as the whole truth?

In reality, the Yangtze alligator is not as gentle and harmless as the internet rumors suggest.

Once these creatures enter their mating and egg-guarding periods, they become irritable and easily angered in order to compete for mates and protect the growth of their offspring. They will launch a fierce counterattack at the slightest disturbance.

They will fight to the death against the invaders.

Its attack power is also extremely fierce.

As for the series of cowardly actions of the Yangtze alligator that have been circulating on the internet in later generations, it was a series of publicity efforts made to make the Yangtze alligator cute and adorable, so as to make it more popular and lay a broad public foundation for the release of the Yangtze alligator into the wild.

Chen Ling had no idea what was behind all this, and thought that these two earth dragons were different in some way, or had undergone some kind of mutation.

"That's right. It's eaten so many of our ducks. This earth dragon is no good. If it weren't for the turtle king keeping it in check, it would have become a monster in a few more years."

Chen Dajiang said angrily, "The earth dragon has a huge appetite, especially since it appeared earlier when the weather turned cold and the earth dragon needed to eat a lot. His ducks suffered a real loss." "Fugui, get ready. Let's subdue these two guys first, then drag them to the village and discuss how to deal with them."

By this time, many villagers and outsiders had been attracted to the scene. After all, it wasn't just Wang Zhenzhen and her group who would go back to call for help after seeing this; more and more people gathered in no time.

“Okay, Brother Dajiang, give me a wire rope snare. You guys go ahead and bang on the pot to make some noise, and I’ll go tie it up.”

Having witnessed the ferocity of the earth dragon, Chen Ling dared not be careless again. He asked Chen Jiang for a steel wire rope snare, and after they banged on the iron basin and bucket to attract the earth dragon's attention, he leaped onto the two-meter-long earth dragon and quickly tied it up securely.

"Well done, Chen Fugui is indeed capable of catching leopards. Look at his skills, he's really impressive."

The villagers' eyes lit up when they saw this, and they spontaneously clapped and cheered.

After all, everyone says that Chen Ling captured a leopard, but few people have actually witnessed it. Many people may boast about it, but they may not really believe it. However, just based on his heroic figure in subduing the earth dragon today, we know that the rumors are true.

The outsiders were also very excited when they heard this. They had heard the story of Chen Ling capturing the leopard before, but they thought it was probably true.

This was because in just a few short seconds, Chen Ling had also managed to tie up the small, about 1.78-meter-tall earth dragon tightly.

After subduing the two earthen dragons, Chen Ling patted the mud off his hands and smiled at the crowd: "Alright, let's carry them away first."

"Okay, let's take them to the brigade first. We'll have a meeting later to discuss how to deal with them. After all, they are two earth dragons."

Wang Laishun, who arrived with the others, said.

Everyone has no objection. After all, the earth dragon is a rare creature, not some small fish or shrimp. If it were an ignorant person who saw it for the first time, they would probably demonize it.

In other words, Chenwangzhuang produced a giant turtle that outshone all other demons and monsters. After witnessing the enormous size of those turtles, any other water monster seemed inferior.

Chen Jiang and his men set up two earthen slats and carried it to the brigade.

Chen Ling led the little blue horse slowly behind, while also asking the outsiders how they had discovered the two earthen dragons.

After understanding the situation, Chen Ling didn't know whether to say that these tourists had too much thirst for knowledge and curiosity, or that they were too idle.

It turned out that these people were extremely interested after hearing the story of the earth dragon. After all, with its blue face, fangs, and gaping maw, they thought it was some kind of magical creature.

Even after the crowd dispersed in the morning, they didn't leave. They continued to wander around the reservoir, tapping and knocking with sticks in their hands, searching for something.

Surprisingly, this "carpet search" done out of boredom actually led them to find it.

When they found the two earthen dragons, they were lying in the melon field on this side of the riverbank, basking in the sun.

“Brother Chen, look, they crawled over from the reservoir, and there are two sets of footprints.”

“We found our way here by following these footprints. When we first discovered them, they were sitting motionless in the sun. We tried to touch them with a stick, but they didn’t react.”

"Later, as soon as we relaxed and approached them, they seemed to suddenly come to their senses and became ferocious, turning around and attacking us."

These are two actresses talking, and after they finished speaking, they vividly recreated the look of being terrified at the time.

"I see. Most of these wild creatures are ferocious at heart. If you don't understand them, it's best not to touch them rashly in the future."

"Yeah, we get it."

The two actresses nodded like chicks pecking at rice.

Chen Ling noticed something different about the melon patch. Perhaps the two earth dragons weren't there to sunbathe, but rather they had discovered their old lair by the reservoir had been dug up and had moved away.

Putting aside their attack power, the Chinese alligator's ability to dig burrows and build nests is undeniable; it makes it one of the top construction masters among crocodiles.

"We're already planning to move, so what difference does it make where we move to? Staying in the reservoir and the old river bend is disrupting people's lives too much. How about we move them to the mountain lake first?"

Nobody wants earth dragons; if he wanted to take one, it would only take a word.

Of course, he wasn't interested in keeping these things at home, and he was too lazy to put in the effort to raise them. He just wanted to provide them with a suitable environment for breeding and reproduction.

After all, the wild population of this creature is much rarer than that of the giant panda.

According to his original intention, when encountering endangered species, he would do his best to help if he had the ability.

Having made up his mind, Chen Ling mounted his horse again, bid farewell to the men, and headed towards the main force.

(End of this chapter)