How to Stop the Male Lead from Going Mad 3

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Bo Li cautiously waited another ten minutes before finally seeing that group of men all fall asleep.

They should be circus guards—beards clotted with grime, fingernails filthy, ragged hats pressed down over their heads, hunting knives and keys dangling from their waists.

What made her stiffen the most was the old-style rifle propped up beside them.

She could even see the sheen of maintenance oil glistening on its barrel.

Such vivid, realistic detail made her shudder from the depths of her heart.

Calm.

Bo Li told herself, do not focus on those details. Keep walking forward. The mountaineering pack was not far away.

But—it was far too real.

On the wooden table lay leftover dishes; she could not tell what they had eaten, only that a putrid stench surged up, like rotting raw meat.

On the floor, a few old newspapers had been spread out, soaked through with dark grease stains, and on them lay three hunting traps, glistening with oil.

It was the first time Bo Li realized that hunting traps were so large, so heavy—longer than her arm—and, like guns, required oiling and upkeep.

If she had not truly crossed over, she would never have known such details.

This realization once again sent a shiver through her.

Bo Li drew in a deep breath, forcing herself to concentrate. Keep walking. Do not turn back.

Perhaps because her back was to the guards, she kept feeling that if she so much as turned her head, she would see them already awake, staring fixedly at her.

…Darkness and the unknown so easily stirred the imagination.

Bo Li fought to suppress her wandering thoughts, walked up to the mountaineering pack, found the hidden clasp, and gently pressed it—

With a soft “click,” the clasp opened.

She could not help but glance back. The men were still sleeping, not awakened.

Yet though they slumbered soundly, she felt a piercing sensation of being watched.

As though, within the darkness, there was still someone staring at her—gaze cold, and filled with aggression.

Her hair stood on end under that stare. Uneasy to the extreme, but having come this far, there was no retreat. She could only grit her teeth, open the pack, and find the first aid kit.

She did not take anything else—there was nowhere to put it, and it would only increase needless risk.

Clamping the first aid kit between her teeth, Bo Li quickly closed the pack, set it back in place, and strode swiftly toward Erik’s tent.

One step, two steps.

The distance shrank rapidly.

She was almost there!

Yet that icy sensation of being watched did not fade—it drew ever closer.

That person seemed to be following her, steps limping yet steady and deliberate.

Bo Li’s heart thudded madly, her palms seeping with clammy sweat, nearly making her lose hold of the first aid kit in her hands.

Yet, just as she bent down to slip into the tent, a hand suddenly reached out, seized her wrist, and forcefully slammed her to the ground.

With a dull thud, Bo Li’s back crashed hard against the earth.

She bit back the sharp pain and raised her head. The first thing she saw was a white mask, its surface carved with two eye holes, from which empty, indifferent eyes stared coldly out.

—“Only he would wear a mask here.”

The one who had been following her was Erik!

Bo Li drew in a sharp breath, trying to struggle up, but he held her wrist fast and pressed her down with strength.

Wordlessly, he looked at her. His thumb pressed against the artery at the side of her neck—suddenly applying crushing pressure, then abruptly loosening—as though weighing whether or not to strangle her to death.

There was no time to think how he, gravely wounded as he was, could still have tracked her, even suppressing her with one hand. In panic, she blurted, “—I came to save you!”

No response.

The air was frighteningly still.

He stared at her without blinking.

Bo Li wanted to study his gaze more closely, but the white mask was too uncanny, its eye holes empty and lifeless. Staring too long created a bizarre, alienating sensation, as though the person before her was not human at all, but some entirely unknown species.

She swallowed hard, straining to keep her tone earnest. “I truly want to save you… I did not expect Mike and the others to go so far…”

She thought those words would provoke some reaction, yet instead he tilted his head slightly, and drew out a knife—sharp, double-edged, gleaming!

Bo Li’s mind went blank.

For several seconds, the back of her skull felt icy, blood roaring in her ears, her throat locked so tightly she could not utter a sound.

She had once worked as an actress in Los Angeles—comedy actress, horror film actress, musical actress. As long as there was money to be made, even playing a corpse in the morgue of a detective drama was worth her while.

She had seen such scenes before.

But on film sets, the knives were always fake.

And in morgues, the dissected corpses never fought back.

Now, she felt as if petrified, wholly unable to act.

As the blade inched closer, the fine hairs on her arms rose one by one, her back soaked through with cold sweat, even her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Would he kill her?

Or rather, how would he kill her—would he drive the knife straight through her throat?

The blade drew nearer and nearer.

Her whole body was rigid; the cheek closest to the knife was even going numb.

At that moment, Erik’s thumb suddenly slid upward, pressing against her jaw, and with brutal force pried her mouth open.

—He truly meant to stab the knife through her throat!

Terror reached its peak; she no longer even had the strength to scream. She could only stare wide-eyed as he forced open her jaws, and with the knife’s edge… tapped against her teeth?

He did not intend to kill her.

Then what was he doing?

At that moment, he tapped the knife once more against her teeth. His gaze remained cold and empty, yet Bo Li understood a different meaning.

He was signaling her—to continue speaking.

Bo Li collapsed limply onto the ground, her entire body melting like a puddle of mud, even her fingers too weak to lift.

Gasping for breath, with a choking sob of one who had narrowly escaped death, she stammered:

“…I—I am sorry for how I treated you before. You are capable of so much, I could never compare to you… Nanny was always praising you while beating me, I only wanted to avoid being beaten… Forgive me, I did not know Mike would treat you like that… I truly am sorry…”

Perhaps driven by instinct to survive, for the first time she delivered her lines with such sincerity that even she herself believed them:

“I am sorry… I truly do wish to help you. Inside this is medicine from my hometown. If you do not trust me, I can use it on myself first.”

No response.

Erik remained utterly silent.

After a long pause, he put away the knife and yanked her to her feet.

Only then did Bo Li have the chance to take in the tent’s interior.

Erik’s bed was somewhat better than hers—at least it was an actual bed, not a sleeping bag—but it had no pillow and no quilt, only two thin woolen blankets.

At the bedside stood an iron bucket, filled with murky, bloodstained water. It seemed he had already made some rough attempt to treat his wounds.

He appeared to take a liking to making masks. The tent’s sole furnishing was a wooden rack, upon which rested masks of every kind, marked with dates in red ink, yet each one without exception was chilling to behold.

For reasons unknown, there was one white mask upon which he had sketched detailed features. But that only made it all the more terrifying.

Just as Bo Li was about to look at the other masks, two dull knocks suddenly sounded behind her, startling her—Erik had tapped the bedside with the hilt of his knife, signaling her to turn back.

Bo Li longed to ask: Can you not speak?

But on second thought, she dismissed the idea. She had heard him speak with the manager before, and Mike’s group had said he was capable of ventriloquism and of singing.

Clearly, he simply did not wish to speak with her.

When she turned back, Erik slid the knife into his boot, then stripped off his shirt, revealing his back—mangled and bloody.

He was frighteningly thin, but what was worse was the wound upon his back—skin charred and peeled away almost entirely, exposing raw, crimson flesh, matted with dirt, stones, and blades of grass.

…With injuries so severe, it should have been impossible for him to survive.

Yet not only had he lived, he had also tracked her, and with a crippled leg and a single hand, subdued her completely.

How could that be?

Enough. She had already crossed worlds—what was the point in asking more?

Bo Li drew in a deep breath and rummaged in the first aid kit for ibuprofen—meant for him, but also for herself, for her back still throbbed faintly.

She broke out a capsule and handed it to him, then swallowed one herself before his eyes. “This will ease the pain.”

Erik stared at her for a moment, then accepted the capsule from her hand and swallowed it.

Bo Li had meant to tell him she had electrolyte water to wash it down with, but his Adam’s apple moved once, and he swallowed it dry.

She swallowed the words she had meant to say, took out a cotton swab soaked in iodine, wiped the scrape on her own arm first, then lifted her head to ask softly, “Is it all right?”

He inclined his head slowly in response.

Bo Li retrieved tweezers, scissors, and hemostatic powder from the first aid kit and began tending to his wounds.

Fortunately, when she had been packing the mountaineering bag earlier, she had passed the time by watching many first aid videos—otherwise, she would truly have had no idea how to handle such injuries.

Yet some parts had already congealed into clumps of dark red, rotten flesh; she had to cut away that decayed tissue before applying medicine and bandages.

What startled her most was that Erik did not utter a single sound from beginning to end—quiet as a corpse.

Unable to resist, she asked: “…Do you not feel pain?”

No reply.

She shut her mouth and continued treating the wounds.

She did not know whether the ibuprofen was effective for him, but at least it was working on her—when he had slammed her to the ground, the pain had nearly brought her to tears; now, at last, it had ebbed.

Bo Li quickened her pace in cleaning the wounds.

She regretted not having bought injectable chitosan¹Chitosan is a natural substance made by processing chitin, which is the tough, fibrous material found in the shells of shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and other crustaceans, as well as in the cell walls of fungi. When treated with an alkaline substance (like sodium hydroxide), chitin becomes chitosan. Used in wound dressings because it helps stop bleeding (hemostatic) and may support faster healing.—she had heard it could stop bleeding within three seconds. Erik’s wounds were so large they made her head spin; she was not sure ordinary hemostatic powder would suffice.

Yet, the moment she sprinkled it on, the bleeding ceased.

His powers of recovery were terrifying—his leg was clearly broken, yet aside from a faint limp, it seemed to affect him little.

With such resilience, could he truly still be human?

Erik, however, showed no trace of surprise.

He picked up the empty packet of hemostatic powder, seemingly more intrigued by the list of ingredients printed on it.

Bo Li’s regret deepened—why had she not bought the East Asian brand of hemostatic powder? The packaging here was all in English, and he could read it.

If he handed the packet to the manager, and they joined with the villagers to burn her alive, what then?

“…Don’t worry,” she explained with forced composure, “it’s just for stopping bleeding, no side effects… Once the wound scabs over, it will fall off on its own.”

He remained silent, but returned the packet to her.

Bo Li let out a breath of relief.

She glanced back into the first aid kit: there was still a bottle of electrolyte water and an energy bar.

The energy bar she wanted to keep for herself—as the lowest of the low in the circus, she could not count on having food every day, and she needed some reserve supplies.

But the electrolyte water—that she could give him.

He had lost so much blood, it should help replenish him.

Bo Li had her own calculations: even if, in the end, she and Erik could not become allies, at the very least he could serve as a shield, dragging Mike down with him.

If Erik failed to survive the night, Mike would surely seek out his next target of torment… and if, in the process, he discovered that she was the thief who had stolen the golden pocket watch, she would not have long to live.

“…If you are thirsty,” she held out the electrolyte water toward him, “you may drink this—it will be good for your body.”

But Erik did not take it.

Only then did Bo Li notice that on the table by his bed lay two cans, their labels a dull, faded brown, which made the electrolyte water in her hand look like some garishly bright poisonous mushroom.

“…” Bo Li had no choice but to take a sip herself. “It isn’t poisoned, truly.” She crouched halfway down, straining every feature of her face into an expression of sincerity and goodwill. “I only wanted to say, starting today, you can try to trust me… I will find a way to tell everyone that it wasn’t you who stole the golden pocket watch…”

Her voice grew fainter and fainter.

Erik turned his head, regarding her through the two hollow eyeholes of the mask, gaze devoid of emotion.

For several seconds, Bo Li regretted deeply why she had said so much, why she had made so many promises.

He had remained silent all along—she should have done the same.

The more one said, the more mistakes one made. She knew nothing about him, not even what he looked like. If he suddenly lost control, dragged her before Mike, and forced her to confess, what then?

He was like a wild beast, untamed and unpredictable. They had been in the same space nearly three hours, and he had not spoken even a single syllable to her.

And yet she thought she could gain his trust, that she could befriend him?

She had been far too reckless.

Bo Li forced down her rising fear, took a step back, and prepared to leave.

In the next instant, Erik leaned forward slightly, drew his knife with lightning speed, and drove it hard into the ground at her side.

The distance from her cheek—only a few centimeters.

Suddenly, Bo Li felt profoundly grateful that she was an actress—steady in emotion, skilled in controlling her expression, adept at facing sudden crises.

…And, of course, her control over her bladder was not to be underestimated.

Just like before, he said not a single word. Yet she understood him perfectly.

He did not believe her.

And he wanted her to shut her mouth—and leave.

• 1
  Chitosan is a natural substance made by processing chitin, which is the tough, fibrous material found in the shells of shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and other crustaceans, as well as in the cell walls of fungi. When treated with an alkaline substance (like sodium hydroxide), chitin becomes chitosan. Used in wound dressings because it helps stop bleeding (hemostatic) and may support faster healing.