Leona wasn't worried at all. Without the business card, she wouldn't be able to find Tricky.
This wasn't modern times, and people were indifferent to each other. If Tricky really wanted to hold a banquet, she just needed to go into the city and ask around. Then some nosy person would disclose all about him.
For breakfast, there were rabbits Eric had hunted.
Right in front of her, he skinned the rabbit - making an incision in the rabbit's belly with a dagger, then gripping that notch tightly with both hands and forcefully tearing it apart, peeling off the fur directly.
Leona was extremely shocked and even wanted to ask him to catch another rabbit so that she could skin it too.
Unfortunately, she didn't dare.
After breakfast, Eric doused the fire with water, then kicked some soil over the embers and finally stamped on the loose soil with his boots.
After a series of actions, there was hardly any trace of the fire.
It had to be admitted that recruiting Eric was the smartest decision she had made since crossing over.
He seemed to have extremely rich wilderness survival experience. His movements were calm and rapid. First, he packed up the tent and stacked it with the wool blanket, then tied it to the rear cantle of the saddle, and finally placed the backpack horizontally behind the saddle and fastened it tightly with a thick strap.
In modern times, horses were a luxury among luxuries.
Many people who had ridden a horse did so in the company of a riding instructor.
Ordinary people simply didn't know how to approach a horse safely or adjust the saddle without startling the horse.
Although being with Eric was full of danger, she had to admit that if it weren't for him, she probably would have died under the manager's gun - or under Caesar's hooves.
Leona hadn't forgotten that when Caesar went mad, he had bitten off a keeper's ear.
Eric had helped her a great deal.
She couldn't help but say to Eric, "...Thank you."
When traveling, it was always good to say thank you more often.
Eric acted as if he hadn't heard and mounted his horse, gripping the reins.
Just as Leona was about to say, "I can get on by myself," he leaned forward and, as he had done last time, grabbed her under the ribs and lifted her onto the horse.
Leona could only swallow her words.
She still remembered the contents of the business card - Tricky lived in a hotel in New Orleans. She just didn't know how far it was from here to New Orleans.
They rode along in silence.
Leona stared at the scenery along the road, and her mind was noisier than ever.
Actually, at first she didn't want to form a circus at all. The reason she said that was entirely to win over Eric.
Later, saying that she would create tailor-made scripts for deformed actors to let the audience know that they were also living beings was also to win him over.
He had been silent all along, with inscrutable thoughts and unpredictable behavior.
She could only use people with similar experiences to hers to break through his defenses.
Only in this way could she increase her chances of surviving under him.
She didn't expect Tricky to come looking for them.
In this way, she had the resources and money to start the circus.
If she didn't form a circus, she was afraid it would arouse his suspicion, and she would have to grit her teeth and fulfill what she had promised.
There was nothing interesting in the swamp. It was full of tall and gloomy cypress trees, with thick moss growing on the branches and green lichens hanging down, swaying in the wind.
Leona watched and watched until she accidentally fell asleep. When she woke up, it was already dark.
The surroundings were no longer swamp cypresses. There were several simple farmhouses, and pens with pigs, cows, and sheep.
The road was a slippery muddy path, and every few steps there was a pile of horse manure.
As they approached the city, the fog became thicker and turned a dirty yellowish-brown.
There were gas street lamps on the road, but because the fog was too thick, the light seemed to be absorbed by the fog and didn't shine through at all.
Leona couldn't help frowning and covering her nose with her arm, feeling that the air here was even more pungent and unpleasant than the streets in modern times.
Eric seemed to have been to New Orleans before. Even with such thick and heavy fog, he easily found the location of the hotel.
At this moment, he leaned forward as if he wanted to throw the reins onto the hitching post.
Leona quickly stopped him - afraid that he couldn't see her movement, she almost hugged his waist: "Wait, do you know where there's a clothing store?"
Eric paused for a moment before picking up the reins again, lightly cracking the whip on the horseback and heading in another direction.
Leona breathed a sigh of relief.
After fermenting overnight, his body odor had become quite strange, a mixture of sweat, blood, and the rotting leaves of the swamp.
If he didn't change his clothes, he would probably attract everyone's attention as soon as he entered the hotel.
Thinking of that scene, Leona shuddered.
Eric didn't like appearing in front of people, and he liked being looked at even less.
If that really happened, he would probably go on a killing spree.
The clothing store was about to close. After much persuasion, Leona finally convinced the owner to let them in.
For some reason, the owner took Eric's mask in stride and took a soft ruler from around his neck and began to measure their sizes.
"Six feet two inches..." The owner hesitated about Eric's height, "You're lucky. Usually, we don't have clothes this big in the store. A customer named Tricky ordered a lot of clothes for his 'freaks', including this size. We usually make a few extra when making clothes, so there are some left over that will fit you."
Leona immediately thanked him.
The owner seemed to think of Eric as her agent and started chatting with her: "Are you here for that spectacle exhibition? Quite a few people have come to the city recently, all for that exhibition..."
"No, no," Leona said, "We're brothers. He's my younger brother who just came back from hunting in the swamp."
Saying this, she handed Eric the shirt and pants and told him to go to the changing room next door to change.
The owner measured her height and was very puzzled: "You two brothers, one is ridiculously tall and the other is incredibly short... What, did he steal your milk in the womb?"
Leona almost choked on her own saliva.
Fortunately, Eric was in the changing room and didn't hear this sentence.
Mother, female, intimate contact.
All of these were his untouchable taboos.
He wouldn't allow anyone to joke about these things.
Leona suddenly thought, if she took care of him like a mother... would she be able to live longer under him?
She had to reverse the "predator-prey" relationship.
This might be a good breakthrough.
Thinking this way, she turned her head and asked the owner, "Do you have skirts? In my size..."
Finally, Leona bought several printed skirts, several shirts and pants, a wide-brimmed hat, a felt woman's hat, and a black cloak.
Eric had no objections to the clothes she picked out. Only when paying, he bought himself a pair of black leather gloves.
Black leather gloves.
As he slowly put on the black leather gloves and tightened them with his extremely long fingers until the thin and tough leather was fully stretched over his knuckles -
Her mind inexplicably replayed that scene from the movie and she felt a certain cold and cruel hunter's aura.
Probably due to fear, her legs felt a bit weak.
Leona asked him to wear the black cloak and the black wide-brimmed hat, and then they returned to the hotel.
At the hotel entrance, there were several gentlemen smoking. When they saw them dismount, they glanced at them indifferently and continued to chat idly.
• Going shopping was the right choice.
Leona couldn't even imagine how disdainfully those gentlemen would look at them if they hadn't gone shopping.
Being exposed to such gazes, what terrible things would Eric do?
Another close call.
If this were a game, achievements should have been unlocked by now.
Leona wiped the cold sweat off her forehead, found the hotel bellboy, and booked a room - she originally wanted to book two rooms, but considering Eric's dangerousness, she thought it was better for them to stay together.
The hotel had a private bathroom. The previous guest had just finished bathing, and the water was still hot. The bellboy said that if she didn't mind using used water, the cost of bathing could be reduced.
Leona politely declined and asked him to boil two tubs of clean hot water.
Their room was on the third floor.
At the stairwell, there was a child handing out business cards.
He looked no older than twelve or thirteen, wearing an adult suit with his hair slicked back:
"Gentlemen, next week, there will be an unprecedented spectacle exhibition here - this is the business card of the curator, Tricky · Terry!"
Leona took it and looked. This one was simpler than the one Tricky had given them before. There was no address, and the edges of the card were printed with elaborate patterns. Below the big name was a line of beautiful small print:
• "Spectacle Curator".
Leona put away the business card, thanked the child, and walked upstairs.
After the attendant led them to their room, he told them that the bathroom was next door and that the water was still boiling. When the water was ready, someone would come to notify them.
Leona thanked him again.
After closing the door, she suddenly realized that she didn't know if Eric was willing to take a bath.
Wild animals didn't like taking baths.
...Wouldn't he resist taking a bath?
Leona turned to look at him, but before she could speak - the next moment, everything went dark before her eyes, and she was pinned to the ground.
The floor was covered with a thick wool carpet, but even so, she still almost screamed in pain.
"...You," she gasped in pain, "...what's wrong again?"
Eric loomed over her, silent, with a gaze as tangible as if it were pressing on her throat.
She seemed to be in great pain and fear, and sweat seeped out of her neck, slippery and burning, as if the touch of moist charcoal, causing his palms to sting.
But even in the midst of her extreme fear, she was willing to let him touch her.
He disliked this feeling.
It made him feel... at a loss.
She seemed to be very keen on touching him and letting him touch her.
No one had ever treated him like this before.
Including his mother.
In the past, the most he had touched were corpses.
In the palace of Mazandaran, he was responsible for performing executions for the king - torturing prisoners in the torture chamber or killing with ropes in the arena.
He had touched all kinds of corpses.
Warm, cold, stiff, bloody, with unseeing eyes.
When they were alive, they rejected his touch. After death, they were like docile livestock, allowing him to drag and pull them.
He was a calm and rational person who never fantasized about touching the living.
But these days, it seemed that he had touched too much.
She had been hugging him, kissing his mask, and sleeping in his arms, as if he were a harmless large plush toy.
Now, she was going even further by buying him new clothes, bringing him to a luxurious guest room, and preparing to let him take a bath -
What was she treating him as?
A pet?
He had never felt so uncomfortable. His blood vessels throbbed wildly in his temples, and a kind of self-protective instinct urged him to strangle her immediately.
Otherwise, something very bad would happen.
Leona didn't know what was going on.
It seemed that Eric was really considering whether to kill her.
She was completely at a loss, thinking that this was just the sudden madness of a horror movie protagonist.
She breathed with difficulty, carefully propped herself up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his mask.
To her shock, kissing his mask didn't work anymore.
He looked down at her from above, with no ripples in the gaze behind his eye sockets, seemingly indifferent.
"..."
She couldn't help cursing in her heart. Could this also develop immunity?
Fear was like a cold lead block pressing on her chest. Perhaps because she was overly nervous, she even heard sharp white noise.
At this moment, she noticed his neck, the pale, sweat-drenched skin with a slightly bulging vein, like a raging, trembling snake -
Without thinking, Leona kissed it.
That was the first time she had kissed his exposed skin.
He was like stung by a poisonous insect and suddenly released her.
Leona collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.
She closed her eyes, sweating profusely, her heart pounding violently in her chest, almost causing pain in her throat.
She chose correctly again. She was really a genius.
It was just that she seemed to have developed some kind of strange conditioned reflex. Whenever she faced a threat, she wanted to kiss him.
The only thing to be glad about was that he also seemed to have developed a similar conditioned reflex - being kissed by her, he would give up killing her.
Leona couldn't tell which of these two conditioned reflexes was more pathological.
Nor could she tell who was controlling whom between them, or who was taming whom.