“James Parker!” Lily, seeing his panicked expression and the knife in his hand, hurriedly hugged him with a sob in her voice. As for Emily Bolton, she also spoke cautiously at this moment: “It was an accidental discharge, it’s okay. James Cooper, it’s okay. Come on, give me the knife…”

An accident, it seemed, had come to a satisfactory end.

Section Ten: Pure Accident (Part Two)

“I think… we need to go…”

After tying up the wailing man with triangular eyes, Emily Bolton said this. As for James Parker, he ran out under the pretense of retrieving the other tent. Relying on memory, he found the pistol that had fallen under the other tent. Amid the raging downpour, the scarred man’s howls could be faintly heard from below.

Before setting up camp, James Parker had already noticed that there was a grassy slope right next to the tent. Now, with such heavy rain, the slope was slippery, and the water from the mountain below must have formed a small stream. Judging by the sound, the scarred man was already submerged in the water. The shot had broken his right hand, but not his legs—should he fire another shot?

Turning to glance at the faint light in the tent, he raised the gun, released the safety, but after a moment, put it down again. Forget it, there’s no need to make things more complicated…

Struggling through the rain with the dismantled tent, James Parker now had three backpacks on his back. Two were theirs, and the other belonged to the two bandits; besides money, it also contained plenty of biscuits, smoked meat, and the like. When he reached Lily, the man with triangular eyes, hands and feet bound, was wailing miserably, his face twisted in pain, scaring Lily so much that she only dared to hide behind Emily Bolton. James Parker immediately pulled out the pistol and shouted, “Stop screaming!”

Apparently, James Parker’s current appearance wasn’t intimidating enough, as the man kept screaming. Emily Bolton turned around: “You—you found that guy’s pistol?”

“Yeah.” James Parker’s hands trembled slightly. “I said stop screaming, didn’t you hear me?”

The man on the ground kept yelling. Emily Bolton carefully reached out her hand: “Come on, give me the gun… That’s not how you use it, the safety is still on…”

“Safety? Where?”

“Here…”

“Where? Here?”

“Ah, yes, you—be care—”

Bang—

After the gunshot, the world instantly fell silent.

All three instinctively shrank their necks. Smoke curled from the muzzle, and the bullet grazed the man’s neck and buried itself in the ground. The man who had been howling just now immediately froze, his mouth wide open, not daring to make a sound. After a long while, James Parker stammered, “Uh… accidental discharge…”

“Uh, haha, it’s fine, it’s fine… Come on, give me the gun, give me the gun…” Taking the gun, she quickly switched the safety on, and only then did Emily feel a bit safer. This kid is too strange—no matter what gun he holds, it always goes off.

Now that both guns were in her hands and everything seemed under control, Emily dismissed the idea of leaving. She tied up the man with triangular eyes even more securely, making sure he couldn’t break free, and then, together with James Parker, carefully went down with a flashlight to look for the seriously injured scarred man.

She held the pistol, while the man’s dagger was given to James Parker. Following the faint sound of wailing down the grassy slope, they found the water rushing by, now a small stream. As they got closer, the scarred man’s cries suddenly stopped. Beside her, James Parker abruptly turned off the flashlight: “Be careful, he still has a knife!”

In the pouring rain, the sound was hard to make out, water streaming down her face, even blurring her vision: “What? You—” Before she could finish, James Parker suddenly rushed out of the darkness and knocked her aside. In a flash, the tall man with the dagger brushed right past her. If not for James Parker’s shove, she probably would have been stabbed.

The flashlight fell to the ground, plunging the surroundings into darkness, and Emily’s body tumbled into the stream. In her panic, water flooded her mouth and nose. The stream wasn’t deep, but she couldn’t swim, and in her panic, it felt like she’d fallen into a bottomless abyss. She flailed desperately, only causing more water to pour in. In the darkness, everything was chaos.

She didn’t know how much time passed before someone pulled her out of the water and laid her on the grass nearby. The rain was still pouring down. Before she could catch her breath, two heavy punches landed on her abdomen, making her cough up several mouthfuls of water.

“Are you okay?” The flashlight turned on in front of her eyes, and James Parker’s face appeared. She struggled to sit up, and only then did she hear the scarred man’s groans coming from not far away. “Why did you hit me? What happened to him?”

“I was afraid you’d drown, so… If that didn’t work, I was going to use the artificial respiration our teacher taught us. He…” James Parker hesitated a little. Hearing “artificial respiration,” Emily couldn’t help but touch her lips, then saw James Parker wave his hand and say, “It wasn’t my fault, he ran into me himself. I… I slashed around a few times, then the dagger was gone, so I came back to get the pistol…”