But the massive mother bear he anticipated, which could rush out from the darkness at any moment, never appeared.
And that little fellow, after struggling with the stone slab for ages, seemed to have exhausted its strength as well.
It lay powerless beside the snow pit, its body curled into a ball, instinctively digging a shallow snow hole to bury itself, leaving only a small tuft of white fur exposed.
"It's digging a snow cave, which is an instinctive behavior for bears to resist cold winds when they have nowhere to hide," Lin Yu'an explained softly to the camera, his expression grave, his attention unwavering.
He didn't sleep, just stayed in the shelter and observed throughout the entire night.
All his senses were heightened to the extreme, like a bowstring drawn taut, ready at any moment to respond to potential deadly threats.
Until the sky began to brighten, after hours of observing and waiting, the mother bear he imagined never appeared.
