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Erik ran so fast, it was as if he vanished on the spot.
Recalling his final glance, Bo Li felt she must have succeeded in persuading him to cooperate.
With that heavy stone lifted from her chest, her appetite also improved. When she smelled the fishy scent of the meat pudding again, she no longer felt so nauseated.
Called “meat pudding,” it was in fact more like a steamed bun, soft and mushy. Cutting open the skin revealed diced rabbit meat and lamb kidney, thoroughly cooked, brushed inside and out with a layer of beef-fat sauce, heavy with grease and musk. If only there were some vinegar, soy sauce, and chopped chili peppers, it might even taste good.
Unfortunately, on the table sat only a lump of butter, gouged by who knew how many hands.
As the party neared its end, a man leaned toward Emily, wanting to lift her skirt and see whether she truly had two—
They left the word dangling on their tongues, rolling it with the tip, laughing obscenely.
Emily sat upright in her wheelchair, her face as pale and sealed as wax, silent throughout.
The manager, wine in hand, only when the scene grew too indecent, gave a perfunctory scolding.
Bo Li witnessed it all, unable to tell what she felt inside.
Since crossing over, she had always disguised herself as a boy, hair cut short, chest tightly bound with cloth; no one had ever looked at her with that objectifying gaze.
Yet here, many men at the party did look at women with such eyes—undeniably the eyes one cast upon mere objects.
Now, this body was young, undernourished, for the moment concealing the truth from others—
But after a while?
A girl’s body changed day by day; perhaps tomorrow it would already be different.
By then, how would the people around her look at her?
A chill ran through Bo Li, and she dared not pursue the thought further.
Even in modern times, few men truly respected women; how much less so men from more than a hundred years ago.
She had thought time was still long, that she could slowly plan how to leave this place.
Now she knew she could not.
A cold wind blew, and Bo Li suddenly shivered, the hairs on her body standing on end, as she remembered something crucial—menstruation.
She did not know how the original owner of this body had dealt with it; perhaps, from poor nutrition, it had never come.
But the human hormonal system was exceedingly complex. If, after her transmigration, this body’s hormone levels had shifted ever so slightly, what if it came all of a sudden?
The more Bo Li thought, the more frightened she grew, her heart beating wildly, pounding in her ears.
She had to leave this place.
There was no time to lose.
That night, Bo Li drifted in and out of sleep, waking sometimes from her own hammering heartbeat, sometimes from the howls of coyotes in the woods.
Awakened so many times, she even began to hallucinate, thinking she was still lying on her own bed at home, that with one turn she would touch her phone charging at the bedside.
But she reached for a long while, and found only a palmful of damp, rank earth.
There was no need for despair.
Closing her eyes, Bo Li told herself again and again: You are a strong person. You can leave this place.
Now, the only thing you need to do is sleep.
A person deprived of sleep cannot think, nor can they run away.
With that thought, she finally forced herself into slumber.
Perhaps because the party had gone on until dawn the night before, everyone woke late the following day.
When Bo Li rose, she felt a dull ache in her abdomen.
She froze, praying again and again: Please, let it not be menstruation. Please, let it not be.
But the result was the opposite of her prayers. It had truly come.
Bo Li’s face showed little expression.
She felt no shame—only gloom.
But since it had come, there was no way to stand on her head and force it back.
She made do with gauze from the first-aid kit, then dressed and stepped out of the tent.
Enduring the pain in her abdomen, she had meant to discuss escape with Erik. Yet the entire morning passed, and he did not appear.
He was always so elusive. She could only set the matter aside for now, waiting for him to think it through and show himself.
That evening, there were two circus performances, but they had nothing to do with her. She, the little boy John, and another group of half-grown children were not qualified to perform on stage.
Their task was to steal from the audience—anything and everything: wallets, binoculars, pocket watches, rings, thimbles, necklaces, coats, hats. Food too, if they could, but they must not be caught.
Thus, before every performance, Nanny would gather them together and have them warm each other’s hands.
During “hand-warming,” Erik still did not appear.
Bo Li could not help asking John: “Where is Erik?”
“He’s injured,” John replied absentmindedly. “The manager gave him a month’s leave.”
He curled his lip: “Even if he weren’t injured, he’d never stay with the likes of us… What takes us a month to learn, he picks up in one glance. Nanny even allows him to skip lessons!”
At the mention of Erik’s name, the other children all hissed with loathing.
No wonder Erik, the most talented in the circus, was isolated and rejected by those around him.
—Granting privileges to the top student does not inspire others to become one; it only drives them to band together and ostracize him.
Bo Li wanted to ask further, but John gave her clothing a sharp tug—Nanny had arrived.
She was a sharp-eyed middle-aged woman, hair at the temples gone white, the crown bound in a small round bun. She wore a gray long dress over panniers and a bustle that gave her waist a slightly exaggerated curve, and in her hand she carried a long cane of rattan.
Her accumulated authority was formidable. Wherever she passed, whistles, chatter, humming, even the sound of breathing, all fell away.
“Bring out your tools,” Nanny said evenly, sweeping her gaze around. “I will see whether your sleight of hand has improved.”
With that, she began checking their pickpocketing skills one by one.
At once, Bo Li’s heart turned cold.
Even without ever having stolen, she knew this was like a magician’s trick—requiring endless practice to deceive the eye. It was impossible to master in so short a time.
As expected, when it was her turn, her movements in reaching for the wallet were riddled with flaws.
Bo Li swallowed hard, just about to defend herself with a few words, when Nanny had already raised the rattan cane, her voice dark and cold: “Hold out your hand.”
“I’m sorry, Nanny—” Before she could even finish, her hand had been yanked out, and with a sharp crack, the cane struck heavily across her palm.
Almost instantly, a swollen red welt appeared.
It was supposed to be only five strokes, but because she talked back, another five were added.
During it all, the words she thought most were calm down—calm down, do not scream, do not curse back, do not grab the cane and strike in return, calm down—
After ten strokes, she was in so much pain she could not have cursed even if she wished. Her back was drenched with cold sweat, her palm swollen and red as though scalded by boiling water, faintly oozing blood.
Nanny put away the cane, tossed her a small jar of ointment, and punished her to stay inside the tent: no supper, no wandering about. “Do not come out tonight to disgrace yourself.”
Bo Li accepted the ointment, forced down her resentment, murmured thanks, and turned back toward her tent.
Once inside, she immediately dug through the pile of dirty clothes for the first-aid kit, swallowed an ibuprofen, and applied iodine to the wound.
She had no ointment for swelling, nor dared to use what Nanny had given her. All she could do was lie on the bed in a daze, counting time and waiting for the medicine to take effect.
…
She did not know how long had passed before she was roused by a rustling sound.
Someone was dragging something heavy into her tent.
The person seemed slightly lame, walking with a limp, one step light and the next heavy. What he dragged was restless, struggling constantly, making muffled “mmph, mmph” cries.
Erik?
Bo Li snapped wide awake.
She dared not sit up, fearing her judgment mistaken. Instead, she half-closed her eyes, peering through her lashes.
It was indeed Erik.
What he was dragging turned out to be Nanny.
Her mouth was gagged with a rag, her hands bound behind her with rope. She was not of a slight build, but a sturdy, strong middle-aged woman—otherwise she could never have kept so many circus children in line.
Yet Erik had her by the collar in one hand, hefting her effortlessly, dragging her into the tent.
Not only did he possess inhuman recovery, his strength was terrifyingly great.
It was all like a scene from a horror film—and he was its very protagonist.
The air reeked of sweat and urine. Terrified out of her wits, Nanny had broken into a cold sweat and lost control of her bladder.
Erik, however, seemed without sense of smell or hearing. He ignored the stench clinging to her body, ignored her muffled pleas, and threw her onto a chair, binding her tightly with rope.
From Bo Li’s angle, she could see only his rough movements, the chair creaking and swaying.
When all was done, he turned and walked toward her.
Bo Li’s mind was in turmoil. What was he doing? Avenging her, or venting the killing urge pent up within him?
The footsteps halted.
Erik stood before her, seeming to study her swollen, purpled palm.
Though still young, and thin to the point of looking frail, his frame was tall and broad, blocking out all the light from beyond the tent.
Breath resounded above her.
Heavy, muffled, reverberating within the white mask.
In horror films, there was always such a breath—slow and forceful, symbolizing the beastly nature within the killer, drawing ever nearer, tolling the death knell of the victim.
But he did not intend to kill her. He even wanted to protect her.
Why?
Listening to his breathing, Bo Li dared not move, stiff from head to toe as though carved from stone.
His gaze was even more palpable than his breath, slowly shifting across her palm, like a precise ruler measuring the length of the wound, assessing its depth.
Time slipped by, second after second.
Her heart pounded furiously, her whole body tingling under the weight of his stare.
After some tens of seconds, as though his appraisal were complete, he turned, seized Nanny by the collar, and dragged both her and the chair to the side of Bo Li’s bed.
Bo Li could not see clearly, only imagine from the sounds and smells—the breathing, the footsteps, the rustling of cloth, the muffled pleas, and the ever-thickening stench of sweat and urine.
Then came a thud, and the sharp tang of blood filled the air.
Startled, Bo Li could no longer feign sleep. She sat up with eyes wide open.
What met her eyes was even more horrific than she had imagined.
Erik stood before her, his back to her, pinning Nanny down as though she were livestock in a slaughterhouse. In his other hand, a dagger plunged mercilessly into her palm.
When he saw she was awake, he turned his head toward her. Behind the white mask, his eyes still bore a chilling trace of murderous cold.
Nanny, on the other hand, looked at her like a drowning person glimpsing salvation, struggling frantically against the chair in desperate appeal.
For a moment, the tent was filled with nothing but the creak and groan of chair joints.
Meanwhile, Erik withdrew the dagger, flicking the blood off with indifference, as though preparing to leave.
For some reason, he was certain she would save Nanny, not thank him for his act of “an eye for an eye.”
…And indeed, Bo Li did not wish to thank him.
This was not a reasonable act of revenge.
It might be satisfying today—but what of tomorrow?
Who would deal with the aftermath?
He had stabbed such a gaping wound into Nanny’s hand that tomorrow she would need a hundred lies to cover it up.
And yet, she had to admit, his act gave her a strange, burning sense of safety.
It was something she had not felt since she crossed over.
Since arriving in this world, she had been anxious, always forcing herself to stay calm, to strip away emotions she could not afford—fear, tension, anger.
Even when beaten with the cane, her first reaction had been to stay calm, not to strike back. No one would help her. In this world she was alone, and could not afford to let anger cloud her mind; she had to remain clear-headed at all times.
But that did not mean she had not felt anger then, or the desire for revenge.
Indeed, Erik’s act of vengeance was wholly improper, and had brought her no small amount of trouble.
Yet today, she had suppressed too many emotions, and there was no need to suppress them any longer.
As for tomorrow—let tomorrow bear its own weight.
With this thought, Bo Li ignored Nanny’s pleading expression, lifted the blanket, raised her head to Erik, and said with quiet sincerity:
“…I am tired. Will you sleep with me for a while?”