That night, Lily was so upset that she couldn't even eat dinner. James Parker didn't come over, and Mr. and Mrs. Hannah Bennett also found it strange. When they asked Lily about it, of course she couldn't say that James Parker wanted to marry her and she refused him or anything like that. The next morning, when she ran to the grassy slope, James Parker was still nowhere to be seen, and Lily sat there and cried her heart out. The elderly grandpa and grandma nearby comforted her for a long time, feeling sorry for her. If the shops hadn't been closed, there probably would have been a pile of candy brought over to the little girl right away.

That day happened to be Saturday. Lily went home with her eyes red from crying, and the The Bennetts couple were both full of doubt and concern. Unfortunately, James Parker couldn't see this, or he might have felt a bit guilty. On the third morning, as she ran past the Huang residence, little Lily finally couldn't hold back and ran in to knock on James Parker's window. A moment later, James Parker got dressed and jumped out, and the two of them ran to the little grassy slope as usual. Lily said softly, "You can't say things like that anymore." James Parker nodded and said, "I'm sorry." And just like that, the two of them made up.

In fact, this brief cold war made James Parker realize a few things. Originally, Lily was just a kind of shield for him—like how someone might marry a beautiful wife to prove their normal sexual orientation if people suspected otherwise. Lily was just like that. Since she liked to stick around him, he was happy to let her be his shield, hiding behind this little girl in everything, letting her actions make him seem more like a child. After all, if he were alone, he would either just daydream all day or do things that didn't seem very childlike.

However, in these past two days without this little girl around, he actually felt a bit empty inside. When she came to him with that aggrieved look, trying to make up, he actually felt a bit warm inside. Could it be that his body had become smaller, and his mind had shrunk as well? Or had he become some kind of pervert with a thing for little girls? These thoughts just flashed through his mind. In any case, he knew that, without realizing it, he had already started to see this girl as someone very important.

As for Miss Lane, besides coming to the The Bennetts martial arts school to study every weekend, she often skipped class to come play with the two of them. Occasionally, she would show up with a bruised and battered face from fighting, and James Parker and Lily would accompany her back to the martial arts school to get some medicine for bruises. After a few times, James Parker started keeping gauze, medicinal wine, ointment, and the like in his backpack, practically turning it into a first-aid kit. Whenever Miss Lane got hurt, she would come straight to him for treatment, without having to go back to the martial arts school and listen to Mr. Bennett's lectures about "practicing martial arts to strengthen the body and cultivate the mind."

In the autumn of 1993, James Parker and Lily moved up to fifth grade, while Sarah Lane had to repeat a year due to poor performance and grades. The three of them were now in the same grade, and Miss Lane wanted to transfer to their school, but her father didn't agree, so she had to give up in the end.

To help their good friend avoid repeating a grade again, the three of them often studied together under Lily's encouragement. By the summer of 1994, when they graduated from fifth grade, Miss Lane's exam results were actually quite good. Her father hadn't expected much from her, but after the exams, her grades shocked all her younger brothers, and he, as the eldest, felt quite proud. Overjoyed, he agreed to his daughter's request to let her attend Xinghui Middle School, which was a bit farther away. This was a well-regarded school in Jianghai City, with both middle and high school, but it wasn't within the territory of the Shazhu Gang. Still, after his daughter's persistent pestering, he finally agreed, since James Parker and Lily were also planning to attend that school.

To celebrate the fact that the three of them would be at the same school, as soon as she got her father's permission, Miss Lane suggested that the three of them go camping and exploring in the mountains during the summer vacation. In reality, of course, it wouldn't just be three kids going off on their own. A travel company in Jianghai City happened to be running a wilderness survival summer camp, which was quite expensive. Back when Miss Lane's grades were poor, Mr. Lane had boasted that he would give her a certain amount of money if she scored a certain number of points. At the time, he said it out of frustration, and the reward was ridiculously high for a child. This time, in his happiness, he had to shell out a lot of money. With the money, Miss Lane paid for all three of them, and James Parker and Lily naturally agreed.

Once everything was settled, the three of them spent the next few days shopping for outdoor gear all over Jianghai City. That afternoon, when James Parker returned to the Huang family's big villa, he happened to encounter a supernatural event.

Section Six Emily Bolton

To call it a supernatural event was, of course, a bit of an exaggeration. But seeing Henry Harris and the other kids staying inside during summer vacation to do test papers instead of going out to play was almost supernatural in itself.

In the Huang family, there were about seven or eight kids around James Parker's age. Some relatives had also sent their children to the big city for the summer, so there were more than a dozen kids in total. At that moment, most of them were gathered around the long dining table in the dining room, working on what looked like test papers. Three adults were supervising them, one of whom was James Parker's third uncle, David Harris. The other two, a man and a woman in their twenties, were also present. The man was David Harris's son, William Harris, a classic example of a spoiled rich kid in the Huang family. He was rarely home, usually flaunting the family's reputation outside, hanging out with other young masters of his kind.