Chapter 10 Purely an Accident (Part Two)

"I think... we need to go..."

Once she had Triangular Eyes' hands and feet bound up—him wailing the whole time—Zhang Yahan said this. As for Jiaming, he ran out on the excuse of fetching the other tent, and following his memory he groped his way to the pistol that had dropped under it. Out in the furious rainstorm, Scarface's wails drifted faintly up from below.

Before they had even pitched camp, Jiaming had already scouted the spot: right beside the tent was a grassy slope, and with rain this heavy the slope would be slick as grease, while the runoff below must already have gathered into a stream. From the sound of it, Scarface was already drowned in the water. But that one shot had broken his right hand, not his legs. So do I fire another or not?

Turning to look back at the faint glow in the tent, he raised the gun and flicked off the safety. A moment later he lowered it again. Forget it—no need to stir up more trouble.

With the taken-down tent held over his head, Jiaming struggled along. There were already three packs on his back: two were their own, and the third had belonged to the two robbers—besides money, it held plenty of biscuits, cured meat and the like. When he reached Lingjing's side, Triangular Eyes, hands and feet bound, was wailing piteously, his face a frightful mask, and Lingjing had been scared into hiding behind Zhang Yahan. Jiaming pulled out the pistol on the spot and shouted, "Stop that yelling!"

Jiaming's current look apparently wasn't intimidating enough, because Triangular Eyes just kept screaming. Zhang Yahan turned her head. "You—you found that man's pistol?"

"Yeah." Jiaming's hands were trembling slightly. "I said stop yelling. Didn't you hear me?"

The man on the ground wouldn't stop, and Zhang Yahan very carefully reached out a hand. "Here, give me the gun... that's not how you use it. The safety's still on..."

"Safety? Where?"

"Here..."

"Where? Here...?"

"Ah, yes, you little—"

Bang—

After the gunshot, the world went quiet all at once.

All three of them instinctively ducked their heads. Smoke curled from the muzzle; the bullet had grazed Triangular Eyes' neck and buried itself in the ground. The man who had been howling a moment before went stiff as a board, mouth gaping, not daring to make the slightest sound. A long while passed before Jiaming stammered out: "Uh... that was an accidental discharge..."

"Uh, heh heh, it's fine, it's fine... here, give me the gun, give me the gun..." Once she had it in her hands she hurriedly clicked the safety on, and only then did Yahan feel a little safer. This kid is just too creepy. Any gun in his hands goes off by itself.

With both guns in her hands now, everything felt settled, and Yahan dropped the idea of getting out of here. She tied Triangular Eyes up even tighter, and only after making sure he could not possibly work free did she and Jiaming take the flashlight and cautiously go down to search for the seriously wounded Scarface.

She carried the pistol; Triangular Eyes' dagger had gone to Jiaming. Following the faint groans down the grassy slope—where the runoff came rushing down, already a stream—they closed in. And then Scarface's groans cut off abruptly. Beside her, Jiaming snapped off the flashlight. "Careful. He's still got the knife in his hand!"

In the rainstorm the voice was hard to make out. Rain streamed freely over her face, blurring even her sight. "What? You—" She never finished. Jiaming suddenly came bursting out of the darkness and slammed her to one side, and in the same motion the tall man with the dagger swept right past her. If not for that shove, she would have been stabbed.

The flashlight hit the ground, and darkness closed back in. Yahan's body went into the stream, and in her panic great mouthfuls of water poured in through her mouth and nose. The stream was not really deep, but she had never learned to swim, and panicked as she was, for the moment it was like plunging into a bottomless abyss. She thrashed her arms and legs desperately, which only let more water in. In the dark, everything was noise and chaos.

She had no idea how long it was before someone hauled her straight out of the water and laid her flat on her back on the grass. The rain was still coming down like mad, and before she could catch her breath, two heavy punches landed in her belly and she spat up several mouthfuls of water.

"You all right?" The flashlight clicked on in front of her eyes, and Jiaming's face appeared before her. She struggled up, and only then did her ears sort out the groaning coming from not far away. "You—why did you hit me? What happened to him?"

"I was afraid you'd drown, so... If that hadn't worked, I was going to have to use the mouth-to-mouth the teacher taught us. He—" Jiaming hesitated a little. At the words mouth-to-mouth, Yahan's hand went to her lips of its own accord; then Jiaming waved his hand and said, "It wasn't me, all right? He ran into it himself. I... I just hacked at him a few times at random and the dagger disappeared, so I figured I'd come back for the pistol..."

Yahan's heart jumped—when she fell into the water, the flashlight and the pistol had both gone flying. She hurried off with Jiaming to search, and fortunately the pistol turned up quickly. She flicked off the safety, and only then dared to approach the groaning with him.

In the flashlight beam, Scarface was lying on his side beneath a big tree. His right hand carried the gunshot wound, his left arm was slashed open deep enough to show bone, there was another wound on his calf, and Jiaming's dagger was buried in his backside all the way to the hilt.

Hacked at him a few times at random... Yahan threw a startled, doubting look at Jiaming, who looked just as dumbstruck, then looked back at Scarface—bleeding all over the ground, a picture of utter misery. This kid is beyond exaggerated. Could he be the reincarnation of the legendary God of Destruction? We really did get lucky.

With wounds that heavy, he clearly had no strength left to resist. The two of them dragged him up the grassy slope, and only after tying him up did they take some bandages from the pack and roughly stop his bleeding, so he wouldn't die on them.

The tent that had been taken down was put back up, and the barely breathing Scarface was laid inside it. As for Triangular Eyes, less badly hurt, he was simply tied to a tree and left to the rain. By the time they finished, Jiaming and Yahan were soaked through.

It was still only the middle of the night; Jiaming stripped off his shirt and trousers, and after a moment's hesitation Yahan switched off the flashlight and took off her top and trousers too, hanging them in the tent. The three of them huddled together, and a moment later were sound asleep.

When she woke in the morning, the rain was still falling. Yahan followed the light and saw that the tent flap had been opened a little; the boy named Jiaming was already dressed, sitting there eating while he watched the rain. She looked down at herself—just a bra, a pair of panties, and her hiking boots—and her face went red at once. When the boy woke up just now, he must have seen everything... She hurriedly pulled on her half-wet clothes, and only then did she feel a shred of calm.

After a few biscuits, Yahan took the pistol and went to check on the two robbers. Triangular Eyes sat drooping in the rain, utterly spent; after a whole night of this, he'd be half dead even if he lived. But she didn't dare put both robbers inside the tent—if a knot she tied could be undone by a child, then she could not be at all sure her knots were tight enough.

As for Scarface in the tent, he was wounded from head to toe; even untied, he probably couldn't run. But looking at those wounds, a doubt suddenly stirred in her mind. Is all of this... too much of a coincidence...?

When the two children had been tied up, she had seen it with her own eyes: their hands and feet were bound so tight that there was no way she could have broken free no matter how she tried. So why could that boy?

When I failed to steal the dagger, he was the one who got to that gun first...

When Scarface was alerted, the boy's gun went off by accident and hit Scarface's right hand dead-on...

When Triangular Eyes lunged at me, he slipped in the strangest way, and the dagger went straight into his thigh...

When Scarface tried that last sneak attack, he shoved me aside, and when I fell into the water, I seemed to hear... nothing but the rain, and that man's screaming. Was I imagining it? But those three knife wounds were far too much of a coincidence...

If all of this is that boy's doing... how could it be? He's just a child...

Squatting before the trembling, groaning Scarface, Yahan's face shifted between alarm and doubt. After a long while she shook her head helplessly. I'm probably reading too much into it.

Back at the tent, watching the two children sit on a rock whispering to each other, she brooded for a while, and at last some of her displeasure came out. "Gu Jiaming, why did you tell them about my family yesterday? Do you have any idea—any idea..."

"Uh." Jiaming blanked for a moment, then said, "I—I didn't know... I just said it without thinking... I'm sorry..." Lingjing chimed in too. "That's right, Jiaming didn't mean it. Sister Yahan, don't be mad at him."

Yahan nodded. She had been about to say, "I nearly got violated because of that one sentence." But before the words left her mouth she stopped short. Hadn't she been let go precisely because of that one sentence? This boy—could he have foreseen it from the start...?

A moment later she shook her head after all—and saw the boy go stiff, lift his head and look up. Shortly after, odd sounds came threading through the rain. Yahan rushed out of the tent and looked up: a helicopter was cutting through the curtain of rain, and someone on board seemed to be waving to her.