Chapter 3: Siren Town

Bai Liu followed Jeff's line of sight and saw that the wax figure of a mermaid was still looking into the water with its eyebrows downcast and not moving.

Startled by Jeff's shout, Andre punched Jeff viciously, "The wax figure didn't move! It didn't move at all! If you keep acting like that, I'm going to rip your vocal cords out of you and throw them to the ground and stomp on them!"

Jeff covered his punched head, gave Andre a somewhat frightened look, curled himself into a ball, and whispered to himself, "She moved, she really moved ......"

Lucy, who was also a little bit furious by Jeff, forced a smile, "Jeff, how can you be so sure that it's not your eyes that are blurry, but that this mermaid wax figure has moved a little bit? This mermaid wax figure doesn't have eyes, how do you know she is looking at you?"

It was a cream-colored wax figure of a mermaid, made of cold wax with a strange translucent quality and some half-melted droplets on its face.

The wax statue had carved eyes but not black eyes; its entire eyes were pure white, as if it were some dead, soulless being standing in front of the hotel.

"Haven't you guys noticed?" Jeff The voice is getting lower and a little shaky, "No matter where we drive, our car is being looked straight at by this wax figure, and her eyes are definitely moving ......"

"That ...... I thought what ......" Lucy breathed a visible sigh of relief and finally let out a comfortable laugh, "It's just the same as that Monra Lisa's Smile", right? No matter what angle you look at it, you think the person in it is looking at you."

"No, this situation where the person on the portrait is looking at himself no matter what the angle is can only be produced in a two dimensional plane, three dimensions can't be produced, that is to say, it's impossible for this to happen with a wax figure." Bai Liu calmly refuted Lucy, "Jeff is right, the eyes of this wax figure do keep staring at us and moving."

It was the same with the townspeople, who started staring at them as soon as they came in, as if they were looking at prey that had entered their hunting area.

This thing is supposed to be a monster of some kind.

Just as this thought of his fell, the coin on Bai Liu's chest suddenly vibrated, popping up a brand new panel, the game panel turned into the shape of a thick and ancient medieval book, slowly flipping open in front of Bai Liu.

[Congratulations to the player who found the first game monster and unlocked the Monster Book - The Town of Cylon Special (1/4)]

A photograph appeared on the page, the pale face of a mermaid wax figure immersed in deep seawater, only half of her face showing, her eyes without carved orbs gazing wordlessly at Bai Liu, seeming to crawl out of the picture.

[Monster Name: Mermaid Wax Figure (Chrysalis State)]

[Attack Value: ???? (Unknown unlocked, unlocked after battle)]

[Attack method: ? (Unexplored)]

[Weakness: ? (unexplored)]

All those question marks were ink and stains that looked like they had been wet-moistened, and it was impossible to read the exact words, with explanations floating behind them in fluorescent script.

There is a line of explanatory text below the weakness:

[Note: Exploring and completing the information of the monster's book page can obtain the corresponding points and special rewards, and collecting all the monster's book pages of a game copy can take away the most precious thing of a certain monster in that game copy].

There are four pages in the Monster Book of Siren's Town, and the back page, Bai Liu, won't turn, showing unlocked monsters from other copies of the game.

It's kind of like fighting a monster and then getting a reward, the higher the danger level of the monster, the better [something] you can get in the end.

But looking at this quest condition, and even the combat, this is totally encouraging the player to die and provoke monsters ......

Fighting with only as much scum as a high school girl s book bag Bai Liu deeply stroked his chin.

Lucy clutched Bai Liu's hand in some panic, "...... Is she really moving?!"

"How can that be?!" Andre also seemed to be infected by Bai Liu's vibrant speech, a momentary look of fear appeared on his face, but it was quickly suppressed as he turned to Bai Liu and taunted, "Bai Liu, you coward! If you're greedy and afraid of death and make up these reasons to run away, just run! When you get back, you'll automatically give up Lucy and get down on your knees and lick the piss off my shoes!"

This should be the content of the bet between Bai Liu and this Andre.

The driver looked strangely mobile for a moment, but finally as if it were normal, he teased, "It's too late in the day, you guys are looking at it wrong, right? There's no such thing as a moving wax figure! If there were, our town would have already protected it and used it as a tourist attraction! That would make a lot of money! Our city produces wax, mermaid wax figures are just a specialty of our town, they are everywhere, nothing special."

"Arrived! You guys get off the bus! Get a good night's rest tonight and get up in the morning for a good tour!" The driver opened the door and escorted them out of the car.

Bai Liu glanced back at the wax figure of the mermaid in the fountain, which, from a distance, was still facing them, its head meekly lowered, gazing into the water, as if it were not watching them.

But Bai Liu clearly remembers that when their car first drove in, the front of the mermaid wax figure was not facing the door of the hotel, but the entrance.

Two wax figures of mermaids were also placed at the entrance of the hotel to the left and right, with scepters in their hands and strange twisted smiles at the corners of their mouths, as if they were pretending to be waiters to welcome them, but with a look as if they had been forced to stand there.

When they walked into the hotel, they found wax figures of mermaids of all sizes placed everywhere inside, even behind the cashier's desk there was an equal-sized wax figure of a mermaid with money in its hand, as if it were cashiering.

It was like the driver said, mermaid wax figures seemed to be a specialty of the town of Siren, everywhere, but it was a little too much, from the mermaid wax figures decorating the floor lamps to the mermaid-carved pencil holders on hand at the reception desk, it wasn't just everywhere, it was inextricably intertwined.

These mermaid wax figures have one thing in common - Bai Liu found that no matter where he went in the house, these mermaid wax figures placed in different locations would give him the feeling of looking directly at them.

And none of these mermaid wax figures have eyes, which by definition makes it hard for a wax figure without pupils to give the impression that it's gazing at you, but Bai Liu just has that feeling.

Such a large number of densely placed marble wax figures of mermaids staring at you is really uncomfortable, even Andre, who has been roaring and ridiculing Bai Liu as a coward, had goosebumps when he came in and couldn't help rubbing his arms, and Jeff was even shivering and hiding behind Andre, who didn't seem to be afraid of being hit by Andre.

Lucy little birdy ...... big birdy holding Bai Liu s arm, a delicate like a rose face flooded with miserable white color, seems to be also scared by this weird hotel decoration.

And Bai Liu calmly communicated with the front desk, "Hello, my last name is Bai, I have booked a room before."

The receptionist was a young man with a complexion as white as marble, wearing a floor-length kilt underneath, and walking with a lurch that seemed to make him somewhat immobile. When this young man stood still, one could not even tell whether he was a wax figure or a real person.

Bai Liu and his group leaned over, and when the man suddenly moved, it even startled Lucy, who thought it was a wax statue moving, covering her face and exclaiming, "Oh, my God! You're as white as a wax statue!"

"Sorry." The receptionist looked at them apologetically, "I have albinism, sorry for scaring you guys! Mr. White is it? You booked four rooms a week ago for a week's stay, the fees have been paid, the room cards are here, have a nice parade."

Bai Liu received the room card, and he was actually relieved to hear that the reservation was for four rooms.

He didn't really want to share a room with Lucy.

Lucy seemed to understand this as well, and the woman who had just been in shock quickly recovered with an [Oh! Baby! You are so shy! She looked at Bai Liu with a flirtatious look, but was ignored by Bai Liu with an unchanged expression.

"I have to ask, what's with all the people fish waxing in this hotel of yours?"

The receptionist replied in a calm tone, "Sir, the mermaids gave us everything, the town of Serenity had nothing, since the salvage of the mermaids' corpses, more and more tourists came here, we gained money and had everything, so we are grateful to the mermaids. Here, there are many mermaid wax figures in every house, which is like a talisman for us."

Bai Liu pointed to the mermaid wax figure behind the receptionist, "The types of your mermaid wax figures, they are also abundant, all kinds of them, the one behind you, it looks exactly like you, and the material it is made of seems to be not quite the same as the other wax figures either."

It wasn't that Lucy couldn't tell the man from the wax figure, it was that the wax figure of a mermaid behind the receptionist looked exactly like the receptionist, even with an expression that was more vivid than the real thing, which was a bit hideous, to put it mildly.

This mermaid wax figure's eyes stared straight at the receptionist standing in front of it, and no matter where the receptionist went, it didn't look away, as if it was going to run out of the wax figure with teeth and claws and tear the receptionist, who looked exactly like itself, apart and eat it, which was unnerving to watch.

The other mermaid wax figures looked a little melted, but the material of this one did look a little more translucent, new, and not as thick and dusty as the other mermaid wax figures.

"Yes sir." The receptionist raised her eyes to look directly at Bai Liu, "This mermaid wax figure behind me is my amulet, we will pinch the mermaid wax figure to look like us, and when disaster strikes, these mermaid wax amulets will be mistaken by the Devil for us, and melt away in place of us to endure the disaster."

Bai Liu finds it interesting that this [amulet wax figure] is clearly different from other fish wax figures.

[Players Gain New Perceptions - The Monster Book of Siren Town Mermaid Wax Figure Panel Refresh]

[Monster Name: Mermaid Wax Figure (Chrysalis state), Amulet Wax Figure (Cocoon state)]

Chrysalis and cocoon? This monster named [Mermaid Wax Figure] has two different states?

Bai Liu slowly contemplated that the chrysalis is the state of the adult insect before it breaks out of its shell, breaking into a butterfly, and the cocoon is the state of the adult insect after it has successfully hatched, which can also be said to be the shell left behind.

Protecting your own shell, this point is consistent with what this front office says about a shell that resists attacks ......

It is estimated that this mermaid wax figure also has two states, [Worm] and [Butterfly], and Bai Liu intuited that the aggressiveness of these two states should be stronger than [Chrysalis] and [Cocoon].

At the moment, it seems that the mermaid wax figures in the [Chrysalis] and [Cocoon] states have no intention of actively attacking people, but it's possible that the [Attacks] are of the kind that Bai Liu can't realize, such as mental pollution or something like that.

He felt that a hall full of wax figures of mermaids staring at players all the time would be kinda mentally polluting.

Bai Liu distributed the room cards. Lucy wanted to sleep in the same room with him, but was dismissed by Bai Liu on the grounds that "I haven't proved my bravery for you yet, I don't deserve to have you". He was dismissed by Bai Liu on the grounds that

Lucy went back with a big smile on her face, and before she left, she was very hot and ready to kiss Bai Liu goodbye, but was stopped by an angry Andre.

Thank you Andre! I hope Andre doesn't have an accident tonight!

Bai Liu wishes from the bottom of his heart that Andre could have lived a little longer.

This girl is passionate and generous and likes him a lot, belonging to the type that Bai Liu is not good at dealing with.

Bai Liu swiped open his room with his room card, and as soon as he opened it he paused to enter.

Bai Liu played this npc has money, booked a better room, the room is beautifully detailed furnishings, but the room from the table lamp modeling to the wax figure on the bedside table, actually all mermaids, too, in the dim light flooded with a kind of oily texture.

As soon as Bai Liu brushes open the door, the eyes of these white mermaid wax figures seem to move imperceptibly, and they all look at Bai Liu.

The panel popped up:

【Activate main quest: Player Bai Liu spends tonight safely inside the house, survives until tomorrow, and is not hatched--Reward for quest completion: 20 points】.