After returning to her tent, Leona couldn't fall asleep for a long time.
Eric was definitely no ordinary person.
Ordinary people wouldn't have such a terrifying recovery ability.
What's even more terrifying is that he clearly could speak but remained silent, like a silent madman.
Leona couldn't help but suspect that it was something she had done before crossing over that brought her here.
But it seemed that she hadn't done anything. She just threw her backpack into the trunk, lay in the back seat, randomly opened a movie, and waited for her friend to come while watching it casually.
That movie was a bit old. The rhythm was a bit slow, and she fell asleep after watching for a while. When she woke up, half of it had already been played.
She saw the male protagonist wearing a black overcoat and a black top hat, with his face blurred under the brim of the hat, slowly putting on black leather gloves behind a well-dressed lady.
Just when Leona thought it was a nineteenth-century romance film, the male protagonist suddenly strangled the lady from behind without hesitation and choked her to death.
When people found her, she had already been thrown into the boiler of the banquet, her head boiled soft and rotten, and the lace skirt fluttering in the meat soup, like the grease solidified on the surface of the soup.
Leona: "..."
She stopped the hand that was ordering takeout.
It was at this moment that she finally noticed the name of this movie - "The Phantom of the Opera".
Leona: "? ? ?"
She searched online and learned that this was a horror version of "The Phantom of the Opera", filmed in the 1970s. The director added a lot of scenes with splashing blood.
In the original work, the male protagonist fell in love with a ballerina at the Paris Opera House. While teaching her singing skills, he also threatened the theater manager and made her replace the popular female soprano to perform on stage.
Of course, the female soprano refused. So, during her performance, the male protagonist somehow made her emit a croaking sound like a frog in front of the audience, losing face completely.
In this movie, the male protagonist directly strangled the female soprano with a lasso and threw her into the boiler.
In the original work, although the male protagonist kidnapped the heroine and locked her in the underground maze, forcing her to be with him, he gave up this extreme idea after she kissed him and was willing to let her be with the male supporting role.
In this movie, the male protagonist was more like a soulless monster. When he exposed his true face, it was not as simple as taking off his mask; instead, he tore off his face forcibly.
Until the end, he was not tamed by the heroine and was always ready to die with her.
Of course, the heroine didn't kiss him either but burned him to death in the underground maze.
But just like most European and American horror movies, this one wasn't scary at all.
Leona watched for a while and then opened the takeaway app.
To be fair, this movie was only of medium-high quality. European and American horror movies are always like this, with no psychological oppression, only surging blood and explicit scenes.
But all this is based on the fact that she lives in a normal world.
...If she crossed over to the horror version of "The Phantom of the Opera", it would be much scarier than an East Asian horror movie.
After all, in East Asian horror movies, as long as you don't violate taboos related to ghosts and gods, you can generally live in peace.
But in the world of European and American horror movies, there are too many reasons for death.
Having an uncommunicative younger brother at home; your mother having an affair; going camping in the wild; having a picnic in the park; attending a party with your boyfriend and giving him a kiss.
All of these could become reasons to be chased by a pervert.
The more Leona thought about it, the more creepy it became.
She never said that European and American horror movies weren't scary.
What kind of peaceful life had she lived before that she thought being chased by a pervert wasn't scary!
It took Leona a long time to barely suppress her panicked heartbeat.
Even if Eric wore a mask, could sing, do ventriloquism, and perform magic tricks, he wasn't necessarily the Phantom of the Opera, let alone the Phantom of the Opera in the horror movie.
Besides, what if she crossed over to the original work?
...There didn't seem to be much difference.
The male protagonist in the original work was also a madman. If the heroine didn't stay with him, he would blow up the Paris Opera House.
The male protagonist in the musical seemed a bit more normal, but actually, he wasn't quite normal either. He hypnotized the heroine, kidnapped her, and almost hanged her fiancé.
The only difference was that he didn't plan to blow up the opera house, but he might do it if pushed too hard.
Leona could only comfort herself that her name was Leona Clemon, this place wasn't the Paris Opera House but a circus, and it had nothing to do with "The Phantom of the Opera".
In a worst-case scenario, even if Eric was really the Phantom of the Opera, he wouldn't blow up Paris for her.
Thinking of this, she closed her eyes peacefully.
Early in the morning the next day, Leona woke up - this body seemed to have a stable biological clock. She sat up sleepily, took out the gold pocket watch and glanced at it. It was only five-thirty.
She was about to lie down and continue sleeping when she suddenly sat up straight and stuffed the gold pocket watch back into her corset.
The first aid kit was still outside. She wandered around the tent for a long time and couldn't find a suitable place to hide it. Finally, she had to bury it in the pile of dirty clothes.
But this was obviously not a long-term solution.
She had to find a better place without a sour smell.
At this time, the people outside also woke up, and countless noisy sounds surged in - crowing, chirping, footsteps, chopping wood, coughing, heavy spitting, and the sound of water being poured into the boiler.
Leona took a deep breath, put on her coat, and walked out.
It was foggy outside, and everything was shrouded in golden morning fog. The air was filled with the sour smell of tobacco and sweat, as well as the greasy smell of overnight meals, and there were half-dried spit spots everywhere on the ground.
Before long, Leona felt that her clothes were getting dirty from the air.
She secretly made up her mind that no matter whether she could go back or not, she would leave this place - to a clean place.
Suddenly, cheers and whistles came from ahead. No wonder she had walked for so long without seeing anyone; they were all crowded in front, applauding.
The manager stood in the crowd, chatting loudly with a tall and thin man. Behind them sat a plain-looking woman.
Her complexion was as white as wax, and she was wearing a blue dress made of satin fabric, with a lace bow tied at the neckline. It was as if she had accidentally put on a doll's clothes. The hem of the dress was tucked under her knees, revealing - four legs.
Each leg was wearing striped socks and red leather shoes, looking a bit creepy.
The manager ignored the woman's pale complexion and patted her wheelchair affectionately: "Thank God that Amy found her real brother - remember what I said? We are all gathered here because we were abandoned by our families."
"Mike's mother gave me five thousand francs and entrusted him to me - we all know very well what that means. His mother doesn't want him anymore." The manager said, "Amy was picked up by me at the train station. Leona's mother is a madwoman who almost stabbed his eyes with a pen."
He smiled: "Even Eric, such a rare genius, was abandoned by his biological parents."
"But I promised that if one day you find your relatives - or someone willing to take you in, you can leave at any time. I won't force anyone to stay."
Saying this, he turned his head and looked at Amy: "Right, Amy?"
Amy didn't speak, her face like it was sealed with wax.
The manager seemed to get an affirmative answer and happily announced that there would be a party tonight to celebrate Amy finding her relatives and promised to invite a band to play dance music for everyone.
Everyone cheered excitedly, clapping and stomping their feet.
Leona originally wanted to take this opportunity to carefully observe the people in the circus. Yesterday, the little boy squeezed in front of her and called out to her:
"Leona, the manager asked you and me to go to the warehouse to move things!"
Leona had no choice but to reluctantly withdraw her gaze, turn around, and walk side by side with him.
On the way to the warehouse, the little boy whispered mysteriously:
"Do you believe it? That guy is definitely not Amy's brother. She must have hired someone to pretend to be her relative."
Thinking of Amy's pale complexion, Leona said: "...Why does she need to hire someone to be her brother?"
"You're stupid!" The little boy said, "Of course, because she is a'monster', she doesn't need to do anything, just stand there and can count money - there was even a monster in London who met the Princess of Wales!"
Leona agreed a few times, but in her heart, she felt that this matter was definitely not so simple on the surface.
The circus manager was a profit-driven and ruthless pervert. How could he let go of a money-making asset so easily, just because she found her relatives?
Just yesterday, he was still encouraging two children to kill each other.
Wait a minute.
She almost forgot that Eric was young, at most sixteen or seventeen years old.
...She was actually scared stiff by a boy covered in wounds.
But thinking of him gradually approaching her, the cold eyes behind the white mask, and the knife blade hanging above her cheek, as if it could stab through her throat at any moment, she still couldn't help shivering.
He was completely a beast without human nature.
If possible, she really didn't want to deal with him again.
The "warehouse" mentioned by the little boy was actually just a covered wagon, filled with a pungent moldy smell. Cobwebs had already formed between the wooden boxes.
There was a thick layer of dust on the shelves, and a row of wide-mouth bottles were placed on it, soaking in animal livers of various sizes.
Moving things was a physical job, and neither Leona nor the little boy spoke. For a moment, only the creaking sound of the wagon boards remained.
There was only one box left when the little boy excused himself to pee and disappeared somewhere.
It was almost noon, and Leona had no choice but to open the box and take out the contents one by one.
It seemed to be some curio exhibits, such as the skeleton of a mermaid, the hand bone of a giant, a cursed portrait, a teddy bear possessed by an evil spirit... At the end, she even saw a fetal specimen.
It was an embryo less than the size of a palm, smooth and sticky all over, like wrapped in a layer of gelatinous film, and you could already see the gap in its facial features, as if it would open its eyes at any moment.
Leona didn't want to look closely at this thing and was about to close the box and carry it out together when she suddenly found a label on the bottle:
"The child unexpectedly born to 'Four-Legged Woman' Amy. Thanks to her allowing us to make it into a specimen, we show the world how wonderful God's craftsmanship is! Even monsters can give birth to life."
Leona felt a chill all over her body.
Considering what the little boy said about the popularity of "monsters", it was hard not to think darkly - Amy was pregnant and didn't want to stay in the circus anymore, so the manager used some means to make her miscarry and then turned her fetus into a specimen for people to watch.
This explained why Amy's complexion was so pale and why she remained silent all the time -
Most importantly, the manager valued profits so much that he wouldn't let go of Amy's fetus.
Would he really let Amy leave?
Or rather, would he let any member leave the circus?
The specimen bottle was well sealed, but Leona felt as if the solution inside had seeped through the bottle and penetrated into her blood vessels, crawling in her ears.
After a dozen seconds, she realized that it was the feeling of fear to the extreme.
Calm down, calm down.
She forced herself to suppress all panicked emotions and regarded all this as a horror survival game.
Winning condition: Escape from the circus.
Known character information: Manager, Mike, Amy, Little Boy, Eric.
The manager is a profit-driven, ruthless pervert; Mike is the manager's nephew; The little boy seems old, but actually has a simple mind.
Amy's experience is sympathetic. Not only was her unborn child made into a specimen, but she herself is suspected of being sold by the manager - that tall and thin man is definitely not her brother.
But Amy is disabled and cannot possibly help her escape from the circus.
After all, her choices were left with only Eric.
This circus was extremely creepy, and it was impossible for her to escape from here alone.
She had to win over Eric.