After Bo Li left, Erik read for a while longer, when he suddenly heard voices conversing from the corridor.
It was Tricky and Boyd’s voices.
They were standing at the stairwell talking, thinking that no one else would hear them.
Unfortunately, Erik’s hearing was different from ordinary people’s—he possessed an astonishing talent in distinguishing pitch.
Within the complex weave of a symphony, he could pick out which musician, in which movement, which page, which phrase had erred, and could even hear the pressure of each note beneath the pianist’s fingertips.
Tricky and Boyd’s low whispers, to him, were like loud shouts in utter silence.
“Are you sure she’ll come?” Boyd’s voice, low and anxious.
“Of course,” Tricky replied, “how could she possibly be willing to stay by that freak’s side?”
“What does he actually look like?”
“In truth, not entirely ugly. At least half his face is tolerable,” Tricky answered. “But when you see the other half, I fear you will not think so any longer.”
“What if she ignores my letters? What if she throws away those three letters, what then?”
Boyd pressed his voice even lower. “You don’t understand how wary that girl is—I’ve courted her for so many days, walking with her daily, watching plays, listening to music… If it had been another girl, I would have succeeded long ago! But her—she won’t even let me touch her hand!”
“That’s because you’re stupid,” Tricky said impatiently. “You cling too tightly to your gentlemanly airs. Had you been ruthless from the start and simply forced her, there would not be so many problems now.”
Boyd fell into silence.
“To act, or not to act?” Tricky pressed step by step. “Afterward, the girl and her purse will be yours, and Erik will be mine—”
“Think carefully. That purse belongs to Dawes, and that man is even fiercer than I. He is no different from a desperado—he has killed many deformed folk for money… You’ve seen how fat his purse is.”
A few seconds passed. Boyd finally made up his mind, clenching his teeth: “Fine.”
“Lure her to the suite in the garden,” Tricky said. “Remember, I am not like Dawes, not such a desperado. If it can be done softly, then do not use knife or gun.”
“What I fear is—”
“There is nothing to fear,” Tricky said calmly. “Though you have lost a finger, you are still a handsome young man. Women like handsome men.”
Boyd hesitated. “You’ve never dealt with that girl… she seems uninterested in my looks…”
“Heavens!” Tricky said bitterly, “where has your confidence gone? Unless she is blind, she could never choose Erik!”
At those words, Boyd finally ceased wavering and gave his assent.
He stopped a hotel waiter, slipped him some coins, and told him to deliver three letters on his behalf—
the first at lunch, the other two at dinner.
The waiter promised repeatedly, guaranteeing the task would be done.
Having made their arrangements, Tricky and Boyd departed.
The corridor returned to quiet, leaving only the sound of a cleaner’s cart rolling over the carpet.
Erik gazed at the book in his hands, his eyes unreadable.
It was a book he had casually taken from the guestroom bookshelf, only because she had said she could “keep you company.”
From the moment of his birth, no one had ever spoken to him in such a way. Out of curiosity, he stayed.
It was a mediocre and tedious novel. The male and female protagonists met, fell in love, and were drawn to each other like magnets, tasting each other’s lips and tongues, drinking one another’s saliva.
Yet halfway through the book, they suddenly began to question their love. Do you only love my face? Do you only love my fortune?
He calmly closed the book and returned it to the shelf.
Unlike other men, he never conjured fantasies from explicit words, nor did he indulge in self-release.
His way of treating desire was cold and cruel: he gazed upon his own untimely impulses with the detached, icy eyes of an observer, until they wholly dissipated.
Likewise, he felt no stirrings toward the love described in the book.
He would never fall in love with anyone, nor would anyone ever fall in love with him.
From the moment he was born, he was destined to be loathed, expelled, and hunted.
He had never regarded himself as human, and thus never bore affection for humankind, nor took upon himself any obligations.
The next moment, the words from the book suddenly emerged before his eyes, like murky, indistinct shadows—
Do you only love my face?
Do you only love my fortune?
Did he have fortune?
Yes. He was a master of political assassination, able to take lives without a trace.
After leaving Persia, Sultan Hamid II once wrote to him, hoping he would go to Constantinople to design secret doors, hidden chambers, and safes for the service of the Ottoman Empire.
The rich were all adept at making money, while he excelled in flaying the fat from their flesh, slicing it cleanly from their bodies.
Fame and wealth were things that, to him, could be obtained at will—
an inexhaustible, never-ending supply.
What he truly lacked was—
Do you only love my face?
Erik tilted his head, took that book from the shelf, and hurled it into the guestroom fireplace. The flames crackled, swiftly devouring the pale, fragile pages.
Yet those words—the lines spoken by the male and female protagonists—slipped free of the paper, standing before him.
Amidst the fire’s glow, those words, those sentences, slowly turned a deep crimson, as though soaked in blood, shocking to behold.
Do you only love my face?
Do you only love my fortune?
Now, they had become questions directed at him.
When the book had burned entirely to ashes, Erik left Bo Li’s room.
—
Bo Li had been waiting for Erik to appear, so she could personally hand him the three letters.
This was the perfect chance to win favor, and she would not let it slip by.
Yet, for reasons unknown, Erik seemed to have vanished once again, disappearing without a trace.
Her heart began pounding wildly. Could it be that he was going to vanish for several days once more?
Saturday was almost upon them.
Her original plan had been to hand the letters to Erik, and then speak a whole basketful of ill words against Tricky and Boyd.
After that, she would attend that so-called séance, and once Tricky and Boyd revealed their true faces, she would incite Erik to strike against them.
Most important of all, in Tricky’s lair, who knew how many deformed folk lay hidden, waiting to be turned into specimens.
If she could save them, it would not only express that she herself did not judge people by appearance, but also spare her the money of hiring deformed actors.
It was simply one scheme serving three ends.
The only problem was—the “arrow” had disappeared.
Bo Li felt somewhat frustrated.
In the end, one should not pin their hopes upon another.
Erik was far too elusive. It was better for her to make her own preparations.
Bo Li changed into men’s clothing, preparing to buy a revolver.
She had thought she would need to present identification to buy a gun, but who knew, the gun-shop owner wanted nothing but money, nothing else.
He brought out a row of pistols and placed them before her:
“These are all good stock with proper origins. You can check the serial numbers underneath. If you pay in full at once, no credit, I can even add rifling to the barrel for you, so that your aim is sure.”
“Of course, if you don’t have enough money,” the shopkeeper pointed to a glass case beside her, “there are also guns others pawned, as good as new.”
Bo Li did not know much about firearms, only that a small caliber had less recoil and was less likely to veer off target.
She bought a Colt revolver, and, imitating a veteran’s manner, examined it—half-cocked the hammer, spun the cylinder, then with a click, pushed the hammer back into place.
Though she had never fired a real gun, in the course of acting she had been taught a little firearm knowledge.
Besides, many games had revolvers in them, and to her this weapon was still somewhat familiar—not so completely foreign.
But guns were not so easy to master, especially pistols. Beyond fifty meters, unless one were a sharpshooter, it was hard to hit the center of a man.
Rifles and sniper rifles were even more troublesome, requiring the shooter to calculate for wind resistance, gravity, and the curve of the trajectory.
Bo Li somewhat regretted not having taken a shooting course when she was in Los Angeles.
Still, a gun was better than no gun.
If Boyd threatened her life, she would draw the gun and press it directly against him—at such close range, she could not possibly miss.
Day after day passed, yet Erik never appeared.
Bo Li tried many ways—calling his name, knocking on the walls, leaving notes on the desk in the guestroom—hoping that once he saw them, he would show himself.
Yet he seemed to have evaporated into thin air.
There was no reply at all.
Before, when he disappeared, she could at least feel a certain sense of being watched.
As though he had not truly left, but had retreated into the darkness, observing her every movement from the shadows.
But now, even that sense of being watched had vanished.
Bo Li’s heart sank completely.
The greatest threat to her life had disappeared—shouldn’t she be glad?
Why was it that she could not feel the least bit of happiness?
Was it because she was about to face another danger?
That was the only explanation.
If not, then it meant she had gone mad—had developed some bizarre dependence on the sensation of having a knife pressed against her.
In the eyes of most people, Bo Li was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable girl. Her greatest advantage was that she had won the genetic lottery: her looks were a perfect fusion of her parents’ strengths, rendering her exceedingly beautiful.
Aside from that, she was someone a little “dull”—disliking socializing, uninterested in outdoor activities, preferring instead to bury herself in books, games, and scripts.
She liked the details in books more than the details of reality; liked the landscapes in games more than those of the real world; liked the plots in scripts more than real-life events.
She had always thought that, in this lifetime, she would only ever experience such feelings within novels, games, and scripts.
Until Erik appeared.
His mind was detached from reality; his past was detached from reality.
His very existence was unbound from reality.
—He was, after all, a fictional character from the pages of a book.
The dangerous heartbeat he brought her was likewise detached from reality.
Never before had Bo Li realized so strongly how much she needed Erik.
No matter in what sense—
she needed him.
—
Saturday arrived, and Erik still had not appeared.
Bo Li in truth did not want to attend the gathering alone—yet if she did not go, Boyd and Tricky might well resort to force.
These past days, they had been loitering near the hotel, seemingly watching her movements, observing when the light in her room went on and off, when she went out, where she went, what she did.