How to Stop the Villain from Going Crazy

Synopsis

[Good News] : She transmigrated into the universally known The Phantom of the Opera.
[Bad News] : She entered the horror version!
Upon waking, Bo Li found herself in the nineteenth century.
Heavy smog, rampant tuberculosis, deplorable sanitation, and horse dung littering the streets—such was the nineteenth century she had stepped into.
Worse still, she had become a performer in a circus—
a female disguised as a male performer.
This was an era where a woman cutting her hair short or wearing trousers would be harshly judged. No one suspected her true gender, taking her instead as a boy whose features were overly delicate.
However, as time passed, her height grew, her feminine traits became more apparent… With so many eyes in the circus, her disguise was bound to be exposed sooner or later.
Before leaving, she pulled along with her a youth who had long suffered ab*se, intending to start anew with him and establish another circus.
—
What Bo Li did not know was that this youth was cold and strange, like a suspicious mad dog, always ready to kill her.
In his eyes, Bo Li was cowardly, greedy, and lazy.
Such a person would abandon him sooner or later, seeking another path.
Even if she truly intended to partner with him, once she saw his appearance, she too would abandon him.
—Since that was so, why not kill her first?
That way he need not see her flustered and frightened expression.
Yet, she proved neither cowardly nor lazy, but rather clever and calm. She neither despised his appearance nor detested his eccentric temperament.
They became an unusually well-matched pair of partners.
Alas, dreams must eventually end.
One afternoon, as he stood behind a door, he overheard her saying to a young and handsome man:
“…If you keep saying that, I will be angry. I am single now.”
“Erik? He is my younger brother.” She gave a surprised laugh at the other’s words. “With such a great difference in age between us, how could we possibly be husband and wife?”
—
From that day on, Bo Li began to suffer vivid hallucinations. She constantly felt someone secretly watching her, breathing close, as though standing right behind her.
The hallucinations worsened day by day.
Later, even when her back was pressed against a wall, she felt as if someone within the wall was watching her.
That gaze grew more blatant with each passing day, more scorching with each passing day—
as though it might pierce through the wall at any moment, to appear at her side.

🎭 System Interface: The “Horror-Romance” Protocol

How to Stop the Villain from Going Crazy is a unique Chinese web novel that blends the gothic atmosphere of The Phantom of the Opera with modern transmigration tropes. Unlike standard “fix-it” fics, this story leans heavily into the horror genre, presenting the Male Lead (ML), Erik, as a visceral, murderous, and deeply traumatized “mad dog” rather than a misunderstood prince. The Female Lead (FL), Bo Li, survives not through “saintly kindness,” but through a mix of emotional intelligence, survival instincts, and a slightly warped aesthetic preference for the macabre.

📂 System Interface: The Status Window (Bo Li & Erik)