Bo Li bought some baking soda, poured it into a bucket of water, and stirred it into a paste, then had someone apply it to the bloodstained parts of the carriage.
As it turned out, watching too many American dramas did have its benefits.
After a single night, the bloodstains were easily washed away.
Bo Li had thought Erik would not be interested in such trifles, but to her surprise, he stood there through the entire process, watching as she stirred the baking soda, sprinkled vinegar on the carriage, and directed the cleaner to scrub it spotless.
The cleaner, under his gaze, broke out in a sweat as if drenched in broth, not daring to breathe too heavily.
Bo Li too found it strange.
Why had he recently taken such interest in her every move?
She still preferred it when he seemed utterly indifferent to her.
After all, if he suddenly took it into his head to interrogate her—asking why she knew these things, where she came from—she would have no idea how to answer.
His memory was terrifyingly sharp, his insight beyond that of ordinary men—Bo Li still remembered how he had reconstructed the arrangement of the disturbed threads on the door crack.
If she had not happened to take a picture in advance, she truly might have been deceived by him.
Now, the reason she could tell him small lies was not because her skill at lying was so clever, but because he did not care—he showed no interest, asked no questions.
But if he were to ask directly, she certainly could not lie.
Once a lie was pierced, his trust would be lost.
And to lose his trust was to lose her life.
Bo Li was already sweating, afraid that life might once again increase its pressure upon her.
Fortunately, he only looked on, giving no comment, showing no intention of questioning.
Bo Li could not help but breathe a little easier.
Very soon, she managed to push the matter from her mind.
After the carriage was washed, it was time to work on getting closer to Mrs. Merlin.
Mrs. Merlin seemed to be a stern-faced but warm-hearted middle-aged woman—broad of frame, features severe, never smiling, yet each time Bo Li visited, she would serve her a plate of pastries, stare coldly as she finished them, then dismiss her.
After several days, Bo Li learned that her husband had been dead for over ten years, and she had no children. She seemed to regard Mrs. Hilly as her own child.
She seemed to harbor a deep affection for Mrs. Hilly, and each time she mentioned her, she would fall into a long silence.
“I don’t want to speak of her,” said Mrs. Merlin. “If you have come to inquire about the mistress, you may as well leave now. I have nothing to say.”
Bo Li said, “You know well that I did not come here for Mrs. Hilly.”
Mrs. Merlin fell silent again for a while, then suddenly laughed, a laugh that sounded faintly strange: “You truly are not in the business of making specimens of deformities?”
The atmosphere grew peculiar.
Bo Li rubbed her arm, realizing at some point she had broken out in goosebumps.
She lifted her eyes and looked around—three o’clock in the afternoon, the sun blazing overhead. Even if there were ghosts in this world, they would not appear at such a time.
“How about this,” she thought for a moment, then spoke earnestly, “blindfold me, and take me to see them just once. If they are unwilling to leave with me, I promise never to come here again.”
Mrs. Merlin pondered for a moment, and seemed to think that rather than being harassed by her endlessly, it would be better to settle the matter once and for all.
“Very well,” Mrs. Merlin nodded, her tone turning sticky and cloying. “I hope you are a girl who keeps her word.”
Bo Li’s eyes were blindfolded.
Before coming, she had brought a gun, but Mrs. Merlin had searched her and taken it away—as she had the very first time Bo Li came to this villa.
In truth, Bo Li still had a small knife hidden in the pocket of her petticoat.
Now that Mrs. Merlin had suddenly become so strange, she could not help secretly slipping her hand into her skirt to clutch that knife tightly.
Perhaps it was only her imagination.
If Mrs. Merlin had truly meant her harm, she should have acted days ago, not waited until today.
Then came the sound of rustling—Mrs. Merlin seemed to drag aside the carpet of the sitting room, unbolt the cellar door, and unlock the entrance with a brass key.
Bo Li felt a wave of strangeness.
Mrs. Merlin kept those deformed people hidden in the cellar?
At this moment, Mrs. Merlin stretched out a hand to help her forward: “Come now, this way, down the stairs.”
Her palm was strong and firm, her voice growing ever more sticky, and the breath she exhaled carried a foul odor that struck Bo Li’s face: “Careful now, if you fall and hurt yourself, I will not be taking you to the hospital.”
Bo Li suddenly stopped in her tracks, reaching up to tug at the cloth over her face: “…Forget it, next time.”
“Next time?” Mrs. Merlin gave a laugh, then seized her wrist and wrenched it backward with force. “There will be no next time, my dear.”
Bo Li had completely underestimated Mrs. Merlin’s strength. No matter how she struggled and twisted, Mrs. Merlin held her fast, the muscles on her arm swelling, and with a single motion shoved her into the cellar!
Bo Li felt the world spin before her eyes; she plunged headlong into a heap of hay. The stench of sweat rushed up to her, and the pain left her unable to rise.
“I never deal in sound-bodied people—that would send me straight to hell.” Mrs. Merlin’s voice sounded from the cellar entrance. “But you kept asking me, always hoping for that little wench’s affairs—That young lady betrayed me too deeply. I treated her as my own daughter, yet what did she do? Took gold and silver jewelry, ran off with some street woman, and abandoned me in this house alone.”
“You and she are both monsters,” Mrs. Merlin said. “One who does not love men, but only women. And you—you actually take an interest in the deformed, dreaming to make them great stars—”
Her voice turned slick and slimy again, and this time Bo Li finally understood—it was scorn and contempt.
“Blame yourself for being a freak, for angering me.” With that, Mrs. Merlin shut the entrance, slid the bolt in place, and locked the cellar.
It took quite some time before Bo Li, dizzy and reeling, managed to crawl up from the haystack.
Fortunately, in order to gain Mrs. Merlin’s favor, she had worn skirts these days—the kind with many layers of petticoats. Otherwise, even with hay to cushion her, from such a fall her legs, if not broken, would at least have been swollen for some time.
Bo Li truly had not expected that even after witnessing with her own eyes the ghastly death of “the Tricky and Boyd pair,” Mrs. Merlin would still make a move against her.
Even while professing that she “never dealt in sound-bodied people”… Did she really inspire such hatred?
Forget it. Thinking it over, it was natural enough. If Mrs. Merlin were truly a good person, how could she have been so calm upon seeing a corpse?
As for herself, she no longer reacted much to corpses. First, because she had seen too many of late—the circus guards, the manager, all had died in such horrific ways that she no longer had the strength to be surprised.
Second, because in modern society, everything existed—horror games, horror films, horror novels…all kinds of grotesque and ghastly images had long since numbed her nerves.
It was normal for her not to react, but Mrs. Merlin was not normal at all—as the personal maid of a noble lady, she appeared far too composed.
Bo Li drew in a pained breath.
How had she failed to notice this before?
More than ten minutes passed before she finally regained her strength and looked around.
The cellar was not large, scarcely more than ten square meters, with a rushlight lamp burning upon a pillar.
The air was dank and fetid; the walls filthy, crawling with tiny black specks.
At first Bo Li thought they were insects, but upon closer inspection she realized they were dried blood—congealed into a dark brown, like cheap paint hardened into crust, flaking into powder as it crumbled away.
…This was no nightmare.
Bo Li had never seen so much blood, nor could she dream with such vivid detail.
There was no time for regret. Gathering her strength, Bo Li immediately began examining the furnishings around her. At the very back stood a cabinet desk, with shelves above and a desk below.
In one of the drawers, she found a notebook and opened it:
—Bay. Wei (SOLD)
—Theo. Whit
—Emily Brown
—Ollie Thorn (SOLD)
—Harriet Fielding
—Edmund Bu (SOLD)
—Fr. S
…
The handwriting was neat but childish; it must have been written by Mrs. Merlin herself.
Her knowledge of characters was limited—when she encountered surnames she could not write, she would either use one or two letters instead, or simply leave them out altogether.
And there, among them, Bo Li saw Emily’s name.
“SOLD” meant sold. Those names were most likely the deformed ones already traded away.
…Mrs. Merlin was in league with Tricky.
Bo Li pressed hard at her brow.
She had been too quick to let her guard down, subconsciously believing that Tricky and Boyd were already dead, and that even if Mrs. Merlin bore her ill will, she would not dare to act against her.
Who could have imagined that Mrs. Merlin’s “hatred” toward Mrs. Hilly far outweighed any fear of death?
Bo Li had merely inquired a little into Mrs. Hilly’s past, and Mrs. Merlin had flown into a rage, shoving her into the cellar without hesitation.
No amount of regret would help now—the urgent matter was to save herself.
Bo Li drew out the small knife hidden in her petticoat, resolving that the next time Mrs. Merlin opened the door, she would plunge it into her throat.
Because she had once suffered in the swamp for not being able to tell the time, she now carried a pocket watch with her.
Bo Li forced a bitter smile—at least she was not entirely without progress, was she not?
She took out her pocket watch and glanced at the time—it was half past three in the afternoon.
She had no idea when Mrs. Merlin would next open the door.
With that thought, she took off her coat, spread it on the ground, and decided to sleep for a while.
At eight o’clock in the evening, Bo Li was jolted awake by the sound of the bolt being drawn.
Mrs. Merlin opened the wooden door to the cellar and, as though tossing out garbage, flung down a boy.
“Here, the freak you wanted,” Mrs. Merlin said. “I found him for you. This brat looks exactly like that Elephant Man in London. If you’ve got some perversion, you’d better get started with him now. Otherwise, once he becomes famous—” she let out a strange laugh, “—you won’t even be qualified to lick his boots!”
Bo Li: “…I have no such perversion.”
“Is that so?” Mrs. Merlin gave a laugh. “I thought you kept asking after these freaks because you wanted to raise one for fun. Turns out you really are kind-hearted—” She threw back her head and burst into loud, mocking laughter, that strange yin-yang laughter. “Heavens, I’ve encountered a great philanthropist!”
“So, Thorn, what do you think?” Mrs. Merlin asked the boy. “This girl’s come to bother me hundreds of times, to the point I’m sick to death of her. At first I thought she was one of us, so I held back, not wanting to fight my own kind. Who’d have thought she’s truly kind-hearted! Thorn, tell me—do you want to become a great star?”
Bo Li looked toward Thorn.
Thorn trembled violently, shrinking into the haystack. His head was covered with a burlap sack, two holes cut out for the eyes—it was somewhat like Erik.
Bo Li’s heart gave a sudden jolt; an unbidden pang of pity welled up.
…This was too strange.
Even when she had witnessed Erik being dragged by a horse, she had not felt pity—only calmly thought about how to use his survival for her own.
Even when she saw the wounds on his back, she had been more shocked than sympathetic, unable to understand how he could be so gravely injured yet still take her down single-handedly.
But now, in this moment, as she looked at Thorn, who resembled Erik, she actually felt something close to sorrow.
Why?
Had her feelings toward Erik changed?
Bo Li’s thoughts were in turmoil, and she said nothing.
Thorn continued sobbing in fear, making no sound of speech.
After Mrs. Merlin left, Bo Li crouched halfway down, leaned closer to Thorn, and asked softly: “Are you all right?”
Hearing her voice, Thorn flinched as though startled, retreating several steps and clutching the burlap sack tightly over his head.
Erik would not retreat.
He would draw his dagger in a flash, press the blade against her throat, and with cold, deadly eyes warn her not to approach.
And yet, in a sense, their reactions were… the same.
“I will not hurt you,” Bo Li said, her expression complicated. “If I can take you away, would you be willing to leave with me?”
Thorn said nothing, only panted in terror, clutching the burlap sack as if afraid she might reach forward and tear it away.
Erik would never press down his mask.
But he rarely spoke to her face to face. He always appeared behind her, like a shadow, like a ghost.
If she tried to turn her head to look at him, he would seize her jaw with a harsh grip, forbidding her to look back.
Most of the time he wore a black mask, a black shirt, a black vest, and a black overcoat, rarely exposing any skin apart from his neck, as if he wished to vanish completely into the darkness.
That he was so secretive about his body—was it perhaps because, like Thorn, he had once been powerless to protect the mask upon his face?
The feeling of distress grew heavier.
Bo Li felt an acid sting rise in her stomach; this time it was not out of pity, but because of… empathy.
“I am not the same as Mrs. Merlin,” her voice was dry. “I truly wish to give you all work, to let you be real actors—using stories, performance, and the charm of your characters to move the audience, not merely relying on an unusual appearance.”
She had spoken such words many times before, each time half true and half false.
Yet in this moment, it felt as though she were baring her heart.
Why?
Bo Li asked herself.
Was it because, in truth, she was no different from Erik and Thorn?
She too feared having her mask torn away, revealing the side of herself that did not belong in this world?
“Believe me, will you?” She softened her tone, carefully leaning closer to Thorn. “I swear I will not take off this sack, nor mock your appearance.”
From the small ventilating window of the cellar, the dusk light slanted in, tinged purple and red.
Thorn, weeping and trembling, nearly fainted, yet seeing that she did not beat him, scold him, tear away his burlap sack, or press upon the swellings of his face like the others, he at last loosened his hold bit by bit, and through tear-dimmed eyes looked toward her.
Bo Li reached out a hand to him, her voice gentle: “Believe me, Thorn, we will escape.”
For a long time, Thorn, trembling, clasped her hand and gave a nod.
Bo Li was inexplicably reminded of that night when she escaped the circus—
At that time, she had felt as though wading through a swamp, every step heavy, isolated and without support.
And Erik?
He had seemed to feel nothing at all, following her every step, always keeping his calm pace, like a predator stalking his prey with steady patience.
And yet, like Thorn, he had believed her.
Believed that they would escape.
Bo Li felt her heart grow strange, as though wrapped in a towel soaked with warm water, slowly twisted tighter and tighter.
The sensation was both sour and painful, sending a tingling numbness across her scalp.
She was sympathizing with her predator.
(TN: There was probably an issue with Chinese readers and the FL’s actions so the author had to explain. I was actually quite surprised because I didn’t think there was a problem. The FL’s reasons for her actions was always stated well in the previous chapters.)
(Please see the author’s notes)
Please do not question the heroine prematurely—the next chapter contains a reversal.
On the controversy regarding the heroine’s actions in this chapter:
- Why must she establish a circus?
The foreshadowing is in Chapter 5, where Bo Li tries to win Erik over, saying:
“Work with me… let us leave this place, and form a circus of our own. You have so much talent, everything you could want… why stay here and be bullied?”
In Chapter 14:
“At the very beginning, she never truly wished to form a circus. What she said then was entirely to win Erik over.
Later, when she spoke of tailoring scripts for deformed performers, so that audiences would know they too are living, breathing people—this was also to win him over.
…
She could only use people whose experiences resembled his, to breach the defenses of his heart.
Only in this way could she increase her chances of survival under his hand.”
In Chapter 20:
“She could only seek out a disfigured, deformed performer, to subtly convey the message: ‘I do not mind your appearance.’”
Later, when Erik repeatedly took her to performances, he was also sending a signal—that this circus must indeed be established. Otherwise, she would be reduced to a “liar” and “betrayer,” and die at Erik’s hand.
- Why does the heroine always wait for the hero to save her?
From an omniscient perspective, it is true that the heroine was saved twice by the hero. But for Bo Li herself, this was not “being saved.”
Erik’s actions are unpredictable. He is not a rescuer, but one who could kill Bo Li at any moment.
The fact that he cut off Boyd’s finger does not mean he “saved” Bo Li—because he could just as easily cut off Bo Li’s finger.
That he killed Tricky and Boyd does not mean he “saved” Bo Li—rather, it was an extremely dangerous test of trust.
As in the original work, Erik is the true mastermind behind it all. With a single wrong choice, the heroine could be destroyed by him.
Thus, I firmly disagree with the notion that “the heroine was saved by the hero.”
From the heroine’s perspective, her greatest threat in the early stages is the hero himself.
Only from the reader’s perspective, knowing they will eventually fall in love, does her fear become a kind of “romantic thrill,” and the hero’s violence a kind of “rescue.”
But for Bo Li, every time Erik acted, she walked the edge between life and death.
- Why did the heroine trust Mrs. Merlin so easily?
Because Mrs. Merlin’s logic is also deeply flawed. She had aided Tricky and Boyd in trafficking the deformed, and had personally witnessed Erik kill them and deliver them to the local police.
Under such circumstances, she had no reason whatsoever to act against Bo Li.
Therefore, at this point, it is not the heroine who should be questioned, but Mrs. Merlin’s logic. [This is irony—here lies foreshadowing, and later chapters will reveal it.]
I dislike explaining my characters’ logic, because I am an author who writes their motives in meticulous detail. For many of their actions, foreshadowing can already be found earlier in the text.
It is only that, to my surprise, though I have written this so clearly, controversy still arises—even escalating to personal attacks on the heroine, accusing her of inexplicably wanting to form a circus to recruit deformed performers. Thus I had no choice but to take the “lesser measure” of offering an explanation.