The carriage stopped in front of the villa.
Bo Li jumped down, handed the reins to the coachman, straightened her disheveled skirt, and walked toward the villa.
Inside the hall, the lights were dim, with no trace of anyone having been there.
Bo Li took off her shoes, set them gently on the carpet, and went barefoot toward the staircase.
The stairs were dark, and the corridor was filled with shifting shadows.
An inexplicable feeling overcame her, as though she were surrounded by a gaze—Erik seemed to be lurking within those shadows, everywhere at once, watching her calmly and indifferently.
She did not see Erik’s figure, yet she could smell his presence.
The dangerous, dry fragrance of cypress, mingled with the strong surge of hormones, made her heartbeat quicken.
It was as if he were silently closing in on her.
Bo Li’s heart thudded heavily. She deliberately stood still, waiting for him to approach.
But the moment she stopped, that feeling of being watched also vanished.
Bo Li: “…”
She could only turn the doorknob and step inside.
The bedroom was shrouded in darkness, no different from when she had left.
Erik seemed not to have touched any of her belongings.
Bo Li walked to the desk. Just as she was about to pull open the drawer to check inside, she suddenly felt that familiar aura closing in.
She froze, turned her head, and met a pair of golden eyes head-on.
Erik was standing right behind her.
She could not tell what was on his mind. His eyes blazed like burning golden flames, sending a strange shiver coursing through her body.
Before Bo Li could even speak, he stepped forward and seized her hand.
Her heart skipped a beat.
He lowered his head, as if to inhale the scent of her palm.
Bo Li’s heartbeat quickened even more. She intended to pull her hand away, to test his reaction.
But perhaps because she had been too hot and cold with him recently, the moment she tried to withdraw, he twisted his grip on her wrist, roughly yanking her forward.
The sudden, forceful movement made her scalp tingle faintly.
Just like their very first meeting, Bo Li could not predict his next move at all.
Erik pried open her fingers one by one, carefully inhaling their scent, from fingertips to between the fingers, leaving even her wrist unchecked.
For a few seconds, Bo Li thought he would lower his head to kiss them—not just her fingers.
Yet after a brief pause, the first words he spoke were: “Why aren’t you moving.”
Bo Li blinked her lashes. “…Because I don’t know what you intend to do.”
“Is that so.” He looked at her, then suddenly drew a dagger, pressing the cold blade against her finger. “I thought you knew what I wanted to do.”
The chill of the blade instantly raised goosebumps across her skin.
But it was not out of fear.
When he had wanted to kill her, her reaction had not been like this, nor had his tone been so.
Now, whether in his gaze or his movements, there was a strange, violent intensity—not as though he wanted to kill her, but as though he were swept by a peculiar kind of fury.
And this was what she wished to see.
These past days, sometimes she ignored him, chatting merrily with others; sometimes she looked as though she could only see him, as if he were the one she trusted most. It was all to stir his desire to probe deeper—to force him further.
Although the result was somewhat unexpected—she had not thought he would press the blade to her finger—considering that he was not a normal person, she let it pass.
Bo Li: “Then are you going to kill me?”
“What do you think.”
His gaze bore down on her so heavily it nearly sent a shiver up her spine. Unsteady on her feet, she stumbled into the knife in his hand.
The next moment, Erik’s knee lifted, propping up her slackened body.
“Stand straight.” He commanded coldly.
If she did not know his temperament, Bo Li might almost have thought he had seen through her peculiar kink, and was using such aggressive words and actions to lure her.
“What exactly do you want?” Bo Li averted her gaze, brows drawn, forcing an impatient expression. “I came back to change clothes for the celebration banquet. If you’re not going to kill me, then let me leave.”
Erik fixed his eyes on her, as though to fill her mouth with his gaze so that she could not speak.
Again.
She had been like this often of late—hot and cold.
Just a moment before, she had been smiling at him, light brown pupils bright and clear, as if he were the only one she could see.
But the next moment, upon hearing Rivers’ voice, she would cast him aside and go off to discuss cases with Rivers.
This sent a terrible spasm through his chest, an unbearable discomfort.
Yet this was only the beginning.
Until now, he had always restrained his own curiosity. Whatever Bo Li did, he would not probe too deeply into the reasons behind it.
Bo Li’s design of the haunted house—in both form and business model—was strikingly novel.
Her understanding of law also far surpassed that of ordinary people—most, when encountering robbery or theft, would not even think to report it, yet she had already learned how to exploit loopholes.
She had even found a lawyer to work for her without pay.
In truth, she had never hidden her exceptional abilities.
Claremont was a cowardly, shortsighted, weak-willed person.
If he had not been framed for stealing a gold pocket watch, Erik might never have even noticed that there was such a person as Claremont.
He had not even cast any psychological suggestion upon Claremont—just glanced at her twice, and she had turned deathly pale, trembling all over.
Yet after only a single night, Claremont seemed to have become an entirely different person—her expression composed and steady, even attempting to save him.
When he trailed her, tapping her teeth with the blade, she merely broke into a cold sweat, no longer terrified out of her wits as before.
She even wished to win him over, to form another circus together.
For some reason, he had not refused.
All along the way, though he knew full well she was filled with suspicious points, he had never thought to pursue them deeply—for no matter her origins or intentions, she could pose no threat to him.
Her life and death rested entirely in his will.
If she truly bore ill intent, he could simply kill her outright.
Who would have thought that later, he would find himself unable to do so.
What he had not expected even more was that he would inevitably grow curious about her—her words, her actions, her thoughts, her true identity.
She was a most unrestrained person, yet that unconstraint was not acquired, but seemed innate, as though she had been born so.
Her laughter, her gaze, the way she walked, her manner of speech—all bore no resemblance to those around her, as though a soul ill-suited to this world had slipped into this body.
The legal system in America was far from sound. Even now, many outlaws roamed free, and bandits who robbed travelers on country roads were everywhere.
Ordinary folk, when slandered, could only swallow the injustice.
Yet in her eyes there always gleamed a spark of fascination, as if she had once lived in a society ruled by law, where appealing to it was already instinct.
But at times, she also seemed woefully ignorant—not knowing how to approach horses, not knowing how to use a gun, not knowing how to make fire.
The strangest thing of all was that she knew what a camera was, and what a photograph was.
Yet the moment the flash powder ignited, with its fierce hiss of combustion, she had suddenly widened her eyes, pupils dilating, startled.
After two seconds, as though recalling something, she swiftly regained her composure.
At that moment, watching her from the darkness, he thought she looked exactly like—
a person from another world.
In that world, there were cameras that did not require flash powder.
Thus she had been startled only by the hiss of its burning.
And then there was that day, when he was in her room.
She had been idly playing with a small box in her hand, sometimes raising it, sometimes lowering it. By chance she pressed something, and suddenly an image surfaced upon the box—vivid in color, lifelike.
It was a camera that required neither flash powder, nor developing and drying.
Why would such a thing exist?
She seemed to carry upon her many curious objects, and never concealed them from him, as though certain that even if they fell into his hands, he would not be able to use them.
Only yesterday, he had intercepted a letter she sent to New York.
The address was the Westinghouse Electric Company. The recipient—Nikola Tesla.
The Westinghouse Electric Company was well known, for it was in the midst of a lawsuit against the world’s most famous inventor—Edison.
But who was Nikola Tesla?
He placed the letter back in its envelope and sent it on to the original address.
After considerable effort, he finally discovered Tesla’s identity.
This man was not American, once a member of Edison’s laboratory, later entering into cooperation with Westinghouse.
Because he was a foreigner, with a heavy Serbian accent, even though he had lectured before hundreds of electrical engineers, he remained little known.
When one spoke of the “generator,” what came to mind first was still Edison.
Why would Bo Li commission a generator from Tesla?
Light bulbs ran on direct current. Even if she had alternating current, she could not illuminate the villa.
What did she want an alternating current generator for?
It was only then that he realized restraining his curiosity had not been the right choice.
Had he probed into her every move from the very beginning, he would not now feel as though curiosity were driving him to madness.
Who was she?
Where had she come from?
Why had she saved him?
And why had she wished to form a circus?
She seemed to know him all too well.
Though she feared him, she would look at him with a strange gaze—as though he were not a living man, but words in a book, or a painting on a wall.
Even from the very first, when she kissed his mask, it had not been out of sympathy, but because she clearly knew it was a way to subdue him.
Erik calmly deduced everything concerning Bo Li.
He did not know what conclusion he might reach, only that he was sinking deeper and deeper into the mire.
Curiosity was not a good sign.
He told himself.
Even if you learned the answer, what then?
She would not like you.
Yet he wanted to know why.
His curiosity, suppressed for too long, had begun to fester like a wound, inflaming and ulcerating.
That inflamed, burning itch compelled him to seek an answer.
At last, he found the answer in a notebook.
He was proficient in more than ten languages—during his time in the Mazandaran Palace, owing to its unique geography, he had soaked in many tongues, learning Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, and even dabbling in Greek.
Yet the language in the notebook was only faintly familiar to him—he did not actually understand it.
—He had seen such characters somewhere before.
He recalled—yes, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, someone had once pasted such writing on a wall.
Many Chinese laborers who had crossed the ocean lived there.
Did Bo Li know the Chinese?
He went to the French Quarter, found a recruitment notice pasted on a wall, tore it down, and compared it carefully.
Whether in the forms of the characters or the strokes, they were strikingly similar.
It meant they were the same language.
But unlike other tongues, this language was of an exceedingly high threshold, unsuited to self-study.
He had never before studied something for ten days or more and still failed to even enter the threshold.
All Erik could do was copy down the writing, find a few Chinese who knew English, and ask them to translate.
Yet, as it turned out, those Chinese seemed not to know this script either.
Only a few young men remarked that the characters looked somewhat like caoshu [cursive script], yet the strokes resembled xingkai [semi-cursive script], and that they could attempt a translation, though they could not guarantee accuracy.
Thus, Erik obtained a clumsy, half-baked translation.
Even so, he was able to roughly grasp the context.
Especially that one line—
“No matter what he looks like, do not fear his appearance, and do not reveal shock or disgust, otherwise something extremely terrifying will happen.”
Extremely terrifying?
He gave a cold, swift laugh.
If she knew what he had been thinking these days, she would never have written such a sentence.
For something far more terrifying awaited her.
Erik closed his eyes, no longer able to distinguish whether the violent turmoil within him was anger or something else.
He only knew that if he did not release it, he would go mad.
On the night he learned the truth, he had tried to release it.
All through the night, he sat at the piano—composing, playing, composing.
Yet his fingers seemed to possess their own will, every note, every phrase, every measure he wrote becoming twisted, filled with a certain savage and dreadful desire.
When he played, it grew even stranger—each keystroke releasing sounds that trembled with fury.
It was not like music, but like a convulsion of the nerves.
The playing became a struggle.
He tried to wrest back his own rhythm—for playing required precision, and as a performer, he had to control the strength, speed, and manner of every touch upon the keys.
At times, even the shape of the hand in playing, or the angle at which the keys were struck, would cause subtle changes in the sound.
For him in the past, controlling music had been as easy as controlling his own breath.
But that night, all was out of control.
Whether in composing or in playing, only one thought turned over and over in his mind—
—to let her see his face, and command her to kiss it.
Bo Li, seeing him silent for so long, was just about to stoke the fire when she saw him looking at her, gaze dangerous, more aggressive than at any time before.
“I saw the things you wrote,” he said suddenly.
Bo Li, having long forgotten what she had written, was stunned. “What things?”
Erik gave a faint smile. “—‘If he wants to kill you, the best way to resolve the crisis is through a kiss, an embrace, or any physical contact.’”
Bo Li’s heart skipped a beat.
She remembered.
But she had written it in simplified characters—how had he understood it?
As though perceiving her thoughts, he said calmly, “There are Chinese in New Orleans.”
Bo Li felt a flicker of annoyance—she had nearly forgotten that now, the westward expansion had not yet ended; it was the time of the Gold Rush. Many Chinese had crossed the ocean to seek gold in America.
The Chinese farmed, mined, built railroads… yet the American government had never acknowledged their contribution. It was only more than a century later that the White House formally condemned the Chinese Exclusion Act.
She drifted into thought. Now that the haunted house had just opened and was severely short of staff, perhaps she could hire some Chinese women to help.
Erik, however, misread her distraction. Coldly he said, “What are you thinking? Are you wondering if my danger and vigilance are incalculable, that I might do something extremely extreme—and where you would have to kiss me in order to resolve the crisis?”
Bo Li: “…”
Though she knew he was very angry, those words struck her as rather funny.
“That was something I wrote long ago,” she explained patiently. “At that time, I didn’t yet understand you…”
“Is that so.” He asked, “Then how do you explain this sentence—‘You must learn to speak indirectly, to sympathize more with those who have encountered experiences similar to his.’”
Bo Li: “…”
She could scarcely recall what she had written, yet he had memorized it all.
After a moment’s thought, she said calmly, “I admit it—that was truly what I thought at the time. Back then, you might have killed me at any moment. I had to find a way to survive.”
He said nothing, but his breathing grew unsteady.
Bo Li considered, then continued, “You cannot blame someone for wanting to live. But believe it or not… since you no longer wished to kill me, every time I kissed you, it was sincere. You’ve given me many unique experiences—things I’ve long yearned for, but which no one else but you could give.”
She felt that, having spoken to this point, he should understand.
A few seconds later, Erik slowly released her, bit by bit.
Bo Li thought at last he was about to speak with her properly.
Yet his tone remained cold: “Sincere?”
Bo Li nodded. “Sincere.”
“Even though I am extremely dangerous?”
Bo Li felt her voice could not be more earnest. “Precisely because you are extremely dangerous, I want to draw near to you.”
She did not know how Erik understood these words.
The next instant, his fingers slid into her hair, seizing the back of her head and forcing her to lift her face.
It was a movement akin to yanking her hair—
but softer, more lingering.
Perhaps because his emotions were at their most violent now, the aura on him grew ever stronger, mixed with the biting scent of cypress, mercilessly assailing her.
Bo Li’s mind swam faintly, her throat almost feeling the reverberation of her heartbeat.
His coldness, his roughness, his danger—each fit perfectly into her kink.
Even when he drew a dagger and pressed the blade against her finger, it had thrilled her.
Now, his anger at the words she had casually written only brought her an indescribable surge of exhilaration.
This was not normal.
But it was uncontrollable.
Erik’s shadow loomed heavily over her.
The instant their gazes locked, his eyes were icy and sharp, like fangs that might bite into her neck.
Afraid?
Of course she was afraid.
But that fear was more like an injection of stimulant, sending her adrenaline surging, bringing an intense rush of sensation.
Bo Li unconsciously held her breath.
He stared at her, bent down slightly, and tore the white mask from his face.
Bo Li had imagined countless scenarios of him removing his mask, but not once had she pictured him doing it of his own accord.
At that moment, the violent stimulation surged straight to the crown of her head, making her scalp tighten, her breath halt.
After a brief silence, he suddenly tightened his grip, as though reminding her to look at him. “Do you remember what you wrote?”
“…I remember.”
He paused, and in the tone of a command said—
“Then kiss me.”
~~~
AHHHHHHH my heart just stopped beating!!