How to Stop the Villain from Going Crazy
Translator: Fuyu
Chapter 61 - His tongue and thoughts betrayed his will (1)
Bo Li was worried that Erik would disappear for a while again. If that happened, she would have to put her haunted house plans on hold.
Unexpectedly, when she woke up the next morning, a new set of clothing appeared on her bed again.
Bo Li: "..." She changed into the new clothing with mixed feelings. She felt that he would make a lot of money if he ever decided to open a clothing store.
After breakfast, Flora told her that a middle-aged woman had seen the job advertisement in the newspaper and was here to apply for a job.
As soon as Bo Li heard it was a middle-aged woman, she thought of Mrs. Merlin. She felt wary. She had suffered a loss once and wouldn't make the same mistake again.
The applicant was a black woman that went by the name of Mrs. Freeman. Mrs. Freeman was tall, sturdy, deft, and straightforward. She had previously worked at a sanatorium as an orderly where she took care of female patients that were suffering from neurasthenia.
When Mrs. Freeman heard that she might have to take care of three deformed people, she didn't even raise her eyebrows. "I can take care of them."
Bo Li thought it over and deliberately asked, "I'm not looking for an orderly from a hospital, but a family member that I can trust. Can I trust you?"
If an employer was eager to play the emotional card by saying the employees were like family members, then there was only one possibility. The employer didn't want to pay wages on time.
If Mrs. Freeman was a liar or thief, she would immediately accept the title of family member in order to quickly get access to the house.
However, if Mrs. Freeman was an upstanding person, then her first reaction must be that the prospective employer wasn't reliable.
Mrs. Freeman frowned. "Miss Clermont, don't look down on my skin color. My heart and mind is bright. Many people look down on free blacks. Being treated as a family member is impossible. I don't ask that you treat me like a family member. Please just treat me like a factory worker and pay me on time."
Bo Li apologized for her rudeness, and then she took out the contract she had prepared in advance.
"I'll pay you on time, of course. This is a contract. It covers your job description, working hours, and monthly salary. If I ever fail to pay you, you can take this contract to an arbiter to file a complaint. Of course, if you slack off, I can also use this agreement to hold you accountable."
"I understand," Mrs. Freeman said, "I can read. I'm not an educated person without vision that thinks written words are for tricking people."
After reading the contract, Mrs. Freeman neatly wrote her name and stamped it with her thumb. "I know that signing this contract is also beneficial for me."
Bo Li was very satisfied with Mrs. Freeman and let her choose her room in the house.
Mrs. Freeman chose a servant's room on the first floor. Her reason was that it was close to the kitchen, which would make it convenient for her work.
The first interview went so smoothly that Bo Li almost thought she could hire the rest of the staff in a day.
Unexpectedly, the following applicants were either slippery characters that looked like hoodlums or they had worked for rich families previously and looked down on deformed people.
A straightforward, honest, and reasonable woman like Mrs. Freeman was a minority among the minority.
Two days passed before Bo Li reluctantly settled on a coachman.
Anyhow, she hadn't seen Cesar in a long time. Erik had probably taken away that bad-tempered white Arabian horse.
Cesar only listened to Erik's orders, so Bo Li didn't miss that horse.
Erik was the one that she missed.
He hadn't appeared in front of her since that day.
And yet, she would see a new outfit every morning when she woke up.
He was still stalking her, spying on her, and choosing what she wore every day, but he wouldn't let her see him.
What put her at ease was that he would read and leave brief comments in red ink on her notes for the haunted house and the script she wrote for Marbella. He was like a teacher marking his student's homework.
His mind was terribly sharp, and his thoughts were calm and clear. His reaction time was very quick, and he could quickly comprehend new things by analogy.
There were times when he could guess her intentions and give her insightful comments before she even finished writing her thoughts.
Bo Li greatly enjoyed working with him.
He was so smart, to the point that she felt as if she hadn't transmigrated and was talking to someone from modern times. No, there were modern people that lacked his vision.
He had traveled to too many places, seen too many landscapes, learned too many things, and was practically omniscient. He was simply the most complicated person in the world.
Bo Li wanted to talk to him face-to-face. However, no matter how she pleaded, even threatened and promised, he refused to appear.
She didn't expect that things would turn out like this.
It wasn't that long ago when he treated terrorizing her as a game, a game to obtain physical touch.
And now, she wanted to play that game, but he put away his dagger and no longer went along with his desire to terrorize her.
Should she feel happy or sad?
Bo Li shook her head, pushed these messy thoughts away, and focused on writing her article.
Before the show started, she had one more thing to do - marketing.
In modern society, how would you go about turning a person into a commodity? Create a persona.
It was just like how contestants in early television talent shows would talk about their miserable life experiences on the stage in order to win votes.
Later on, this way of winning votes disappeared, but the method of establishing a persona to attract fans became a permanent fixture.
In modern times, netizens had grown tired of the various personas of celebrities and influencers and even developed a rebellious mentality towards these crafted personas.
Fortunately, this was the 19th century, and people hadn't seen this kind of marketing method yet.
Bo Li planned on writing the experiences of the deformed performers into short stories and publishing it in the local newspaper. After that, she would hire a few newsboys to sell the newspapers in high traffic areas such as pubs, theaters, restaurants, gardens, and public squares.
And then, she would hire two people to dress up as wealthy gentlemen, start an argument over the matter in the public, and escalate to a gunfight to attract the attention of nearby people.
Of course, they wouldn't really fight to the death. It was just a gimmick to make people curious about the article in the newspaper.
Bo Li had never started a business. She didn't know if this method was feasible. It was just an experiment.
Translator Ramblings: If you read a lot of Chinese webnovels, you might think we're going into a business story arc, but that's not where the author is going. The haunted house is simply a vehicle for Bo Li to get closer to Erik. The author never pushes the narrative that Bo Li is good at business or money sense.