Leona waited cautiously for another ten minutes and finally saw that group of people all fall asleep.
They should be the guards of the circus. Their beards were sticky and black, their fingernails dirty, they wore shabby hats on their heads, and hung hunting knives and keys around their waists.
What made her stiff was the old-fashioned rifle beside them.
She could even see the grease used for maintenance on the barrel.
These realistic details made her feel creepy deep down in her heart.
Calm down.
Leona told herself not to pay attention to those details and keep moving forward. The mountaineering backpack was not far away.
But it was really too real.
There were leftover meals on the wooden table. She didn't know what they were eating, but a stinky smell rushed to her nose, smelling like raw meat that had started to rot.
There were several old newspapers on the ground, soaked with dark oil stains, and three greased bear traps were drying.
Leona was seeing a bear trap for the first time. It was so big and heavy, longer than her arm, and needed to be maintained with grease just like a gun.
If she hadn't really traveled through time, she wouldn't have known these details.
This discovery scared her again.
Leona took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate, move forward, and not look back.
Maybe because she was facing away from the group of guards, she always felt that if she turned around, she would see them waking up and staring at her squarely.
...The darkness and the unknown easily stimulate the imagination.
Leona tried hard to suppress her wild thoughts and walked to the mountaineering backpack. She found the hidden buckle and gently pressed it—
With a light "click", the buckle opened.
She couldn't help but look back. Those people were still sleeping and hadn't woken up.
Although they were sleeping soundly, she had a strong sense of being watched.
It seemed that in the darkness, there was still someone staring at her, with cold and invasive eyes.
Leona's hair stood on end and she was extremely uneasy, but there was no turning back at this point. She could only grit her head and open the mountaineering backpack to find the first aid kit.
She didn't take anything else - there was no place to put it if she took it, which would instead increase unnecessary risks.
Leona bit the first aid kit with her teeth, quickly closed the mountaineering backpack and put it back in its original place, and hurried towards Eric's tent.
One step, two steps.
The distance is getting smaller and smaller.
I can get in soon!
However, that cold feeling of being watched did not disappear, but gradually approached.
That person seemed to be following her, limping but calm and orderly.
Leona's heart began to pound, and a layer of sticky cold sweat seeped out of her palms. She almost couldn't hold the first aid kit steadily.
However, just as she was about to crawl into the tent, a hand suddenly reached out, grabbed her wrist, and pressed her down forcefully.
With a dull sound, Leona's back hit the ground solidly.
She gritted her teeth to endure the severe pain and raised her head. The first thing she saw was a white mask with two eye holes dug out, emitting empty and indifferent gazes.
—"Only he will wear a mask here."
The person who followed her was Eric!
Leona took a deep breath and wanted to struggle to get up, but he pressed her wrist forcefully and pushed her back.
He looked at her wordlessly, his thumb pressing on the artery on the side of her neck, suddenly increasing the force, then suddenly relaxing, as if considering whether to strangle her.
Without time to think about why he was seriously injured and still able to follow her, and even suppress her with one hand, Leona blurted out: "——I'm here to save you!"
No response.
The air was dead silent.
He stared at her without blinking.
Leona originally wanted to carefully observe his eyes, but that white mask was too strange, with two indifferent and dull eye holes.
As time went by, she even felt a strange sense of strangeness, as if the person in front of her was not human, but another completely unknown species.
She swallowed and tried to maintain a sincere tone: "I really want to save you... I didn't expect Mike to be so excessive..."
She thought that this remark would make him respond, but unexpectedly, he turned his head and pulled out a dagger—sharp, a dagger with an edge!
Leona's brain went blank.
For a few seconds, her back of her head was completely cold, blood roared in her ears, and her throat was stiff and speechless.
She had been an actor in Los Angeles for a while—comedy actors, horror movie actors, musical actors. As long as there was money to earn, even if she went to the morgue of the detective drama to play a corpse, she was willing to do it.
She had seen such scenes before.
But the knives on the film set are all fake.
The bodies dissected in the morgue will not fight back.
At this moment, she was like being petrified, completely not knowing what to do.
As the blade approached inch by inch, the sweat on her arms bristled one by one, her back was soaked with cold sweat, and even her teeth were trembling.
Will he kill her?
Or rather, how will he kill her, stab her throat directly?
The blade got closer and closer.
Her whole body was stiff, and even her cheeks closest to the knife were somewhat numb.
Just then, Eric's thumb suddenly moved up, pressed on her lower jaw, and then forcibly pried open her mouth.
—He really wants to stab through her throat!
Terrified to the extreme, she even lost the strength to scream, and could only watch him pry open her upper and lower jaws with her eyes wide open, and use the blade... tapping her teeth?
He didn't intend to kill her.
Then what is he doing?
At this moment, he tapped her teeth with the knife again, his eyes still indifferent and empty, but Leona read a different meaning in it.
He signaled to her to continue speaking.
Leona immediately collapsed on the ground, soft from head to toe, and even her fingers couldn't be lifted.
She gasped for breath, with a choked voice after surviving: "...I, I'm very sorry for treating you like that before. You can learn so many things, and I can't compare with you at all... The nanny always praises you while beating me. I just don't want to be beaten... I'm sorry, I didn't know that Mike would treat you like that... I'm really sorry..."
Perhaps due to survival instincts, she delivered her lines so sincerely for the first time that she even believed herself: "I'm sorry... I really want to help you. There are medicines from my hometown in it. If you don't believe it, I can apply it to myself first."
No response.
Eric remained silent.
Half a moment later, he put away the dagger, dragged her up.
Only then did Leona have time to look around the tent.
Eric's bed was a little more advanced than hers—at least it was a real bed, not a sleeping bag, but there was no pillow or quilt, only two thin blankets.
There was an iron bucket at the head of the bed, filled with murky bloody water. It seems that he has simply treated his wound.
He seemed to like making masks. The only furnishing in the tent was a wooden rack, with various masks on it, marked with the production date in red ink, but all of them were creepy.
For some psychological reason, he painted delicate facial features on a white mask, but it became even more terrifying.
Leona was about to look at other masks when two dull sounds suddenly came from behind her, scaring her—Eric tapped the bed head with the handle of the knife, signaling her to turn around.
Leona really wanted to ask: Can't you speak?
On second thought, she dismissed the idea. He had spoken to the manager before, and Mike and the others had said that he could ventriloquize and sing.
Obviously, he just didn't want to talk to her.
Seeing her turn around, Eric put the dagger back in his boots, took off his shirt, revealing his bloody back.
He was skinny and scary, but what was even scarier was the wound on his back—the skin peeled off like being scorched, exposing bright red wet flesh, with dust, gravel, and grass leaves sticking to it.
...He was so seriously injured that he couldn't possibly survive.
But not only did he survive, but he also tripped over with one leg and knocked her down with one hand.
How is that possible?
Forget it, she traveled through time, what does it matter.
Leona took a deep breath and found ibuprofen in the first aid kit—both for him and for herself, her back still hurt faintly.
She fumbled out a capsule and handed it to him, then took one in front of him: "This can relieve pain."
Eric stared at her for a moment, took the capsule from her hand, and swallowed it.
Leona originally wanted to tell him that she had electrolyte water that could be swallowed, but he gulped it down.
She had no choice but to swallow this sentence, took out iodophor cotton swabs, first wiped the scratches on her arms, and then asked, "Is it okay?"
He slowly nodded his head.
Leona took out a gauze pad from the first aid kit and began to clean his wound.
Fortunately, she had watched a lot of first aid videos to kill time when she packed her backpack before, otherwise she really wouldn't have known how to deal with this wound.
Just, some places have already agglomerated into clumps of reddish-brown rotten flesh, she must first remove those rotten flesh before applying medicine and bandaging.
To her surprise, Eric didn't make a sound from beginning to end, like a quiet corpse.
She couldn't help asking: "...aren't you in pain?"
No response.
She had no choice but to shut her mouth and continue to treat the wound.
She didn't know if the ibuprofen had any effect on him. Anyway, it worked on her—when he pressed her to the ground, she was in so much pain that she almost shed tears, and now she finally didn't hurt anymore.
Leona sped up the cleaning of the wound.
She regretted a little that she didn't buy injectable chitosan. It is said that it can stop bleeding in three seconds—Eric's wounds were so big that she felt dizzy. She didn't know if the hemostatic powder could stop bleeding.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she poured the hemostatic powder, the blood stopped.
His recovery ability is astonishing—although his leg is broken, except for a slight limp, it seems that it has not affected him at all.
His physical fitness is so strong that he is still human?
However, Eric didn't show any surprise.
He took the packaging bag of the hemostatic powder and seemed more interested in the ingredient list on it.
Leona regretted even more—why did she buy imported hemostatic powder? The packaging bag was all in English, and he could understand it.
What if he hands the packaging bag to the manager and asks the villagers to burn her to death?
"...Don't worry," she said bravely, "This is for stopping bleeding, there are no side effects... After the wound scabs, it will fall off by itself."
He was still silent, but returned the packaging bag to her.
Leona breathed a sigh of relief.
She looked at the first aid kit, there was still a bottle of electrolyte water and energy bars inside.
She wanted to keep the energy bar for herself—as the lowest level in the circus, she couldn't eat every day, she had to store some rations.
Electrolyte water can be given to him.
He lost so much blood and should be able to replenish it.
Leona had her own considerations: Even if she and Eric couldn't become friends in the end, at least he could be a target and distract Mike for her.
If he doesn't survive the night, Mike will definitely look for the next bullying target... If he discovers that she is the thief who stole the gold pocket watch, she is estimated to be close to death.
"...If you are thirsty," she handed over the electrolyte water, "you can drink this, it's good for your body."
But Eric didn't take it.
Leona then noticed that there were two cans on his bed, with dull brown labels, making the electrolyte water in her hand look like a bright poisonous mushroom.
"... " Leona had to drink a sip herself first, "It's not poisonous, really." She squatted down, trying her best to mobilize her facial features, showing a sincere and friendly expression, "I just want to say that from today on, you can try to trust me... I will Find a way to tell everyone that the gold pocket watch wasn't stolen by you..."
Her voice got smaller and smaller.
Eric turned his head and looked at her with the two eye holes on the mask without emotion.
For a few seconds, Leona regretted why she said so much and made so many promises.
He had been silent all the time, and she should have kept silent.
The more you say, the more mistakes you make. She knew nothing about him, and didn't even know what he looked like. What if he suddenly lost control and threw her in front of Mike and let her admit her mistake to Mike?
He was like a wild beast that had not been tamed and unpredictable—they had been in the same room for nearly three hours, and he didn't even say a monosyllable to her.
She actually thought she could gain his trust and make friends with him?
She was really too reckless.
Leona controlled her fear, took a step back, and wanted to leave.
The next moment, Eric leaned forward slightly, drew out the dagger like lightning, and stabbed it fiercely beside her face.
Only a few centimeters away from her cheek.
Leona suddenly felt very fortunate that she was an actress—emotionally stable, with strong facial control ability, and good at dealing with emergencies.
...Of course, her bladder control ability is also remarkable.
Like the previous times, he still didn't say a word, but she had no difficulty reading his meaning.
He didn't believe her.
And hopes that she will shut up and then leave.