Unknowingly, Bo Li had already come to understand Erik very well.
If she were to press forward at this moment, he would surely vanish as swiftly as before.
The best method was to retreat in order to advance.
Just then, she happened to feel a little hungry as well—she had deliberately declined the celebration banquet to hurry back and see what he was doing.
Fortunately, the outcome did not disappoint her.
He removed his mask, and even took the initiative to kiss her.
Thus, instead of answering his question, Bo Li said, “I’m hungry, can you cook?”
Erik looked at her for a while, then put on his white mask, turned, and walked out of the bedroom.
If he meant to leave, he should have simply disappeared.
Could it be that he was going to… cook for her?
Bo Li blinked her lashes and immediately followed after him.
Sure enough, after Erik descended the stairs, he went straight into the kitchen, tugged off the black leather gloves from his hands, rolled up his sleeves, and lifted his eyes to ask her, “What would you like to eat?”
He seldom revealed his fingers before her; even just now, while kissing, he had still worn his gloves.
Now, pulling them off, he exposed long, slender, well-defined fingers, his skin pale to the point of severity, as though lacking some vital blood, exuding a sense of ascetic restraint.
Yet the veins on the back of his hand stood out distinctly, a few cords faintly raised, like bluish reliefs winding their way up toward his arm.
Bo Li could not help but gaze for a while.
He had grown so quickly. In such a short time, not only had his stature shot up, but the muscles of his arms had thickened as well.
Under her gaze, Erik’s hairs rose one by one.
Earlier, in that moment when he had lost his reason and torn off the mask, he had felt almost nothing.
Only now did he recall that his face had been seen completely, without the slightest detail overlooked.
Never before had he felt so naked.
His face was bare, his hands were bare.
From head to toe, every inch of him was shrouded beneath her gaze.
Seeing him break out in a flush, as if stricken with an allergic rash, from the roots of his ears down to his arms, Bo Li finally shifted her eyes away: “You don’t know my taste?”
In truth, they had never once shared a meal at the same table.
Erik, however, said nothing, and turned to seek out ingredients.
Madam Freeman had neatly stacked the vegetables on the ground, while the pork, beef, and mutton were stored in the ice cellar.
Bo Li had never once entered the kitchen and did not know where the ice cellar was, but Erik moved as though in his own home, effortlessly locating it.
Bo Li very much wanted to ask: Just how many times have you been to my house?
But when she saw the blood-red flush at the roots of his ears, she swallowed her words, afraid of frightening him away.
He seemed to know her tastes very well—aware that she could accept sweets, yet could not abide cream being added into stewed beef.
Still, she was not entirely against cream; if it were simmered into a thick sauce and poured over tender lobster meat, she loved it dearly.
Her greatest love, however, was chili.
Madam Freeman once said she had never seen a young girl who loved chili so much.
Erik clearly knew this as well. Apart from that single dish of creamy lobster, the rest of the dishes had, more or less, all been touched with Mexican chili sauce.
Standing at the side, Bo Li watched him. The way he wielded the knife to cut meat was excessively calm; the slices came out evenly thick and thin, looking very much like the composure of a high-IQ psychopath in a horror film, deftly handling a corpse.
…Oh. He might indeed be one.
Bo Li watched for over ten minutes, until Erik, unable to endure it any longer, drove her out with a cold face.
In truth, she had little hope for this meal.
Erik was certainly an all-around genius, but that did not necessarily mean he possessed a gift for cooking.
Besides, taste was a profoundly subjective matter, and between her and Erik lay a gap of over a hundred years.
Bo Li did not set the bar high for him—as long as it was better than the school cafeteria’s fare, she would be satisfied.
Who would have thought that the moment she took a bite of lobster, her eyes widened.
It matched her tastes completely.
…Whether the texture of the meat, the balance of the seasoning, or the interplay of salty and sweet, everything aligned one hundred percent with her preferences.
Bo Li looked at him in astonishment.
How had he managed this?
Measurements of dress size could be gauged with the eye—but could taste be measured by sight as well?
Erik had already, out of habit, withdrawn into the shadows.
Arms folded, his gaze met hers for an instant before sliding away.
His expression did not change much, yet Bo Li’s heart gave a sudden jolt.
How long had he been watching her in the dark?
So long… that even her palate was laid bare to him?
Bo Li stared at the delicacies before her, and all at once found it difficult to swallow.
Like most modern people, her attitude toward love could not be called frivolous, yet neither did it carry the weight of solemnity.
Her feelings toward Erik were the same.
Whether it was his looks, his temperament, or his every word and gesture, all suited her taste.
Sharing the same room with him even stirred in her a subtle sense of heart-throbbing unrest.
Under such circumstances, the thought of wanting to fall in love with him was nothing more than the most natural thing.
The problem was, she had never once thought about the future, nor about what Erik’s attitude toward love might be.
Yet just now, in that fleeting glance—perhaps even he himself was unaware—when his eyes met hers, the emotion within them had grown so intense it was frightening.
People often said, “One’s nature is hard to change,” which showed how difficult it was to alter entrenched ways of thinking.
Bo Li, drawn by the surge of his hormones, completely forgot that with his nature, once he loved someone, he would never let go.
In modern society, no one used the phrase “faithful unto death” to describe love anymore.
Under the crushing weight of survival pressures, people had even begun to joke: you may deceive feelings, but never deceive money.
Erik, however, was clearly not such a man.
He seemed like one who would be faithful unto death in love.
Bo Li’s heart pounded violently; she nearly failed to hold her fork steady.
She did not know her exact feelings—everything seemed to have broken loose, beyond control.
When he had treated her as prey, pursuing, blocking, and threatening her with a knife, she had indeed felt fear, yet at the same time an exhilarating sense of unreality.
But when she realized he might love her forever, her heart suddenly plummeted like falling from a high tower, seized by a nameless unease as if she had gone too far in her game.
Was it fear?
Not exactly.
It was more like… a guilty conscience.
Bo Li finished the dinner.
Even with her heart full of unease, she still managed to consume nearly half the dishes.
…There was no helping it; the food was simply too delicious.
When Erik saw she had finished, he stepped forward to clear everything away, carrying it into the kitchen to wash the dishes.
Even the way he washed dishes was pleasing to the eye, yet Bo Li had no mood left to appreciate it.
Her guilt weighed too heavily, and she seized upon an excuse to slip away.
Bo Li had originally planned to deliberately neglect Erik in the coming days, to force him into advancing toward her.
She had even worried a little that she might not act the neglect convincingly. Yet after realizing he might love her for a lifetime, there was no need to pretend at all.
Every time she saw him, her gaze would instinctively dodge.
In truth, there was nothing wrong with love that was faithful unto death.
What mattered was that Bo Li did not wish to spend her entire life in the nineteenth century.
—She wanted to go back.
If she returned, and Erik remained here in the nineteenth century, what would become of him?
Bo Li grew tense at the thought.
His mind was so sharp, his gaze never left her, and now she had even aroused his curiosity. Add to that the notebook… could it be that he had already guessed she was not a person of this era?
If he were to discover that she came from more than a hundred years in the future, and that she might return there, would he perhaps do something extreme?
Bo Li loathed her own restless and unhealthy kink.
At such a tense moment, to think that Erik might overreact—and for her very first response to be a sense of thrill and excitement—she was truly beyond saving.
Sooner or later, she would perish because of this kink.
After tossing and turning for a week, Bo Li suddenly saw things in a different light—what was to come could be left for the future. Whether she could return was still unknown.
Whether Erik would fall in love with her was also unknown.
Nothing had yet been decided, and for her to think so far ahead was indeed worrying herself over shadows.
So, Bo Li bundled up these thoughts and cast them aside, continuing to treat Erik with alternating warmth and coldness, advancing and retreating.
Just as she was considering when to reel him in, a great piece of news suddenly broke out in the city.
A man named “Graves” had imitated her business model and opened a new haunted house, naming it “House of Strange Scenes.”
Graves had clearly come prepared; his funds far surpassed hers. From the start, he rented a grand villa on the outskirts of the city, hired a renowned playwright to write the script, and engaged actors who were minor celebrities in the local theater. At once, it stirred considerable commotion.
He even declared in the newspaper that whatever rewards Bo Li offered, the “House of Strange Scenes” would double them.
That meant, if one of Bo Li’s actors touched an audience member once, the spectator would receive ten dollars in compensation; at the “House of Strange Scenes,” it would be twenty dollars.
If an audience member cleared Bo Li’s haunted house within eight minutes, they would be awarded five hundred dollars; at the “House of Strange Scenes,” they would be awarded one thousand dollars.
Five hundred dollars was already a fortune.
One thousand dollars was nothing short of astronomical.
At these words, even the factories were thrown into a stir—for laborers who toiled twelve hours a day, their daily wages were less than fifty cents.
Gaunt and sallow, drenched in sweat, little more than skin and bones, every swing of the hammer made their bones creak audibly.
One thousand dollars was equivalent to working a thousand days without sleep or rest.
The poor sweated in the factories, while the rich, in order to while away their leisure, actually competed to have themselves frightened.
This world was far too unjust.
The ladies and young misses of high society also discussed it in great numbers.
Bo Li was now too dazzling in the limelight—as a woman, she had neither the refinement of a lady nor the fortune of an upper-class woman, yet was able to thrive so splendidly; this indeed violated the traditions and dogmas of the South.
Many among them were exceedingly curious about Bo Li’s performances, yet for the sake of their social standing, they could not bring themselves to spend money on her.
If the performance of the “House of Strange Scenes” could surpass Bo Li’s, to blunt her sharp edge, it would be nothing but beneficial for the high society of New Orleans.
At the same time, Graves manipulated public opinion through the newspaper.
In his article, he claimed that Bo Li’s performance style had originated in India.
As early as half a year ago, he had wanted to launch the “House of Strange Scenes” in New Orleans, but lacking investment, it had been delayed until now.
He had even learned of Bo Li’s lawsuit with those three gentlemen, and worded his remarks with great caution: “I do not know where Miss Claremont first learned of such a performance method—regardless of how she came to know it, I would never rashly pass judgment on a lady’s character.”
“In any case, please believe that the performances of the House of Strange Scenes are the most orthodox and professional.”
The implication was clear—Bo Li had plagiarized his business idea.
At this news, Bo Li’s circus had no choice but to close its doors and suspend operations.
Bo Li herself had not wished to close, but because of Graves’ remarks, many came merely to jeer and insult her. Whenever someone attempted to buy a ticket and enter her performance, the crowd would burst into long, derisive boos.
Under such circumstances, opening only invited ridicule and brought no profit; it was better to close altogether.
It was Marbelle’s first time encountering such a man, and she was furious: “That man is a scoundrel, a swine, a disgrace to the white race! And those spectators are fools—can they not see that this is nothing but Graves’ one-sided slander?”
“If this performance method truly originated from India,” Theodore said, “then why has no one mentioned it before?”
Even Emily, rarely angered, lost her composure: “These people previously called Miss Claremont’s performance a ‘venomous woman’s way of making money’… Yet when Graves does the very same thing, they declare it an unprecedented and ingenious production that breaks through all traditional forms. This is truly too unfair!”
Bo Li, however, remained calm, even turning to comfort them: “It doesn’t matter. I am confident I can bring them to ruin.”
Graves was far too sure of himself. Believing that with ample funds, grand settings, exquisite props, and skill in manipulating public opinion, he could trample her beneath his feet.
Seeing her haunted house thriving with such vigor on the strength of its gimmicks, he had unhesitatingly plagiarized it.
Unfortunately for him, he could plagiarize anything but that one rule—“Clear the course within eight minutes, and you will receive one thousand dollars.”
The reason she dared make such a promise was not because her performance mode was novel, but because she had Erik.
During business hours, there were indeed bold ones who nearly cleared the course within eight minutes—and even those of ordinary courage, after playing a dozen times and memorizing the route, might possibly succeed within eight minutes.
At such moments, she would always have Erik take the stage.
Erik was a master of magic and hypnosis. Every mechanism in the tavern, every hidden passageway, every trapdoor was under his absolute command.
At times, he need not even give a mental suggestion; he could make a spectator “fall fast asleep” in an instant, enjoying the quality of rest fit for an infant.
Graves, however, naïvely believed that so long as it was a haunted house, it would be enough to frighten the spectators out of their wits.
Bo Li resolved that the moment Graves’ House of Strange Scenes opened, she would take Erik along and earn herself several thousand dollars at his expense.