Chapter 8: Siren Town
Previously when Bai Liu got in the car, he had smelled a strong fishy smell from the front. He always thought it was Andre because this man ate a lot of rotten fish steaks in the morning. He hadn’t expected it to be from the driver. The fishy smell in the car yesterday was probably also from the driver. It was just that compared to today, it wasn’t concentrated at all. The fishy smell from the driver today was much stronger.
Bai Liu covered his nose and glanced sideways at the driver. This driver… should be a monster too.
[Warning! Player identification error! The NPC is not a monster! He can’t enter the Monster Book! It is just alienation!]
[The player’s identification is incorrect and the NPC’s trust in the player has dropped sharply. He might be more aggressive toward the player~]
The driver slowly bit the sandwich in his hand. His shaking eyes looked at Bai Liu for a while before he spoke in a bad tone. “…Do you think the smell on me is disgusting?”
Bai Liu thought ‘yes’ in his heart but on the surface, he hurriedly denied it. “No.”
“You look at me like I’m a monster. Damn arrogant rich man.” The driver spoke gloomily. Then he turned to eat, no longer answering Bai Liu’s questions.
This was a bit tricky. In this way, Bai Liu’s difficulty obtaining information increased a lot. It was impossible for him to forcefully ask the driver since the panel already indicated that the driver would behave aggressively toward Bai Liu.
Bai Liu shifted his gaze and coaxed Lucy to ask the driver. The driver snorted but answered Lucy’s question.
“The sights of Siren Town are naturally related to the merfolk.” The driver’s smile gave people goose bumps. His eyes shook and it was hard to tell who he was looking at or who he was talking to. “The fish we catch aren’t ordinary fish. It is a special merfolk fishing activity that is only held at night. In addition, our museum isn’t an ordinary museum. We make wax sculptures of merfolk and display them in the museum. The bones of the first merfolk we caught are also placed in the museum.”
“Merfolk fishing activity?” Bai Liu asked. “You really catch merfolk?”
The driver ignored Bai Liu. Then Lucy asked again and the driver answered.
The driver gave a meaningful smile. “Yes, the merfolk that were caught later might be inferior and incomplete compared to the first very beautiful one but they are indeed merfolk.”
Andre suddenly snorted with contempt. “It is just a gimmick. Do you really believe this?”
Jeff opened his mouth to speak but shut it again. It was probably because he was beaten by Andre just this morning and didn’t dare refute it. However, Lucy was different. She stared at Andre with dissatisfaction and exclaimed loudly, “I believe it! Bai Liu, what about you?” She turned angrily to Bai Liu.
“Seeing is believing.” Bai Liu replied lightly. “We’ll know when we watch the fishing activity at night.”
Andre couldn’t hate Lucy but he couldn’t wait to ridicule Bai Liu. “I hope some people don’t flee while crying when watching the fishing activity at night.” A wicked smile flashed across his face as his eyes flicked over to Bai Liu. “If you fall into the water, you might be treated as a merman by these fishermen- merfolk are caught and made into sculptures. We absolutely won’t save you but we will come to the museum to see your sculpture. Oh poor Bai Liu.”
Andre shrugged pretentiously and smiled unkindly. He seemed to be imagining Bai Liu falling into the water and being made into a sculpture.
Bai Liu suddenly remembered that he and Andre still had an unfulfilled bet tonight. He had drawn the specific contents of the bet from Lucy this morning.
Andre and Bai Liu were to rent two canoes to drift on the Siren Sea at night. Whoever couldn’t stand it and returned early would be a coward and didn’t deserve Lucy. Lucy herself didn’t want to have this bet but the role played by Bai Liu insisted on going.
In a horror game centred around merfolk, the sea at night was undoubtedly a very scary place. Bai Liu would never let himself go to such a place with a person who was obviously hostile to him when he was still unclear about the specific situation. He had no doubt that Andre would overturn his ship if they encountered each other, letting him die in the sea.
Bai Liu couldn’t stand water.
To some extent, things like merfolk, sirens or sea monsters were far less terrifying to Bai Liu than the sea. As long as he fell into the sea, he couldn’t do anything. The deep and gloomy water would choke him in a few minutes, taking away his oxygen and finally killing him in the dark and cold water. Bai Liu was disgusted with this helpless death that gave him no right to struggle.
Bai Liu wouldn’t approach the sea unless necessary. His expression betrayed his rejection of this so-called gambling activity and Andre laughed. “Look look, this is our young master. You aren’t better than me in any aspects except for money. You don’t even dare go into the sea.”
Bai Liu nodded cheerfully and spoke sincerely, “I have nothing but money.” Still, having money was enough to make him feel satisfied. He was very happy even with virtual coins.
Andre, “……”
Why did this person look like he was complimented?
Andre sneered. “Then you mean to give up Lucy?”
Bai Liu wanted to confront Andre and say he didn’t want to go on this death activity. Then the coin on his chest shook and a task notification appeared.
[The side task ‘True Love Ship’ has been triggered. Please complete the betting contract before leaving Siren Town. Win against Andre in the bet and you will be rewarded with 100 points.]
Bai Liu, “……”
So many points were given as a reward! The desire for money defeated the fear of water. Bai Liu calmly replied, “No, I will go. I must beat you.”
Lucy was moved and hugged Bai Liu. “Oh, Baby. Once you come back, we must live together and have a pleasant evening.” There was an explicit hint in her words and her hand ran upward along the gap in Bai Liu’s legs as she gave Bai Liu a wink.
Bai Liu silently removed Lucy’s hand as something occurred to him.
…Wait, True Love Ship. Did this mean what he thought it meant? After he finished riding the waves on the ship at sea, he would have to come back and ride the waves with Lucy on the bed…
European and American style horror games would indeed frequently have this type of plot. It was to let the male lead be with the female lead before the final horrible ending, which was regarded as a type of giving benefits. However, as a game designer, Bai Liu felt that this type of benefit wasn’t tempting. The final reward he gave was usually a lot of money. This might be one of the reasons why he devoted himself to games.
Now he wanted to decline this type of benefit. Not only did he risk falling into the sea, he also had to bear the risk of being taken advantage of by Lucy after returning. This type of double loss made Bai Liu feel depressed. Nevertheless, Bai Liu didn’t dare break away from the character framework and say, ‘Lucy, I will break up with you. I will never succeed with you in my life.’ This was likely to reduce the character’s trust in him.
There was the lesson from the past. The driver’s trust in him had dropped. Obviously, there was a lot of hidden information with these characters. If he did something that broke character or was wrong, Bai Liu was likely to be rejected by these characters and miss out on some key information.
Still, did he really have to open the True Love Ship with Lucy?
Bai Liu fell into deep thought. Forget it, he would think about it when the time came. In any case, he didn’t succeed the first time and it was normal to not succeed the second time. Even if he did go up, he could pretend to be unsuccessful. Bai Liu gladly accepted the impotent setting. Then he looked at Lucy like she was a sister (not) and felt this woman was a lot more pleasing to the eye.
The driver turned his head. “You should go and see the museum during the day. The merfolk fishing will take place at night.”
The group agreed and the driver drove past a beach. Bai Liu saw a lot of sun-dried debris on the beach. The driver said that this was where the merfolk were caught and the debris was all fragments of the caught merfolk. Some were too broken and were discarded on the beach. Others weren’t so broken and were turned into sculptures and wax statues to be placed in the museum.
Bai Liu did see many huge fishtail bones and skulls on the beach. These things were scattered all over as well as a few nets drying. Some fishermen came out to clean up these bones and nets and looked up at Bai Liu and the others. Bai Liu hadn’t noticed the looks of these townspeople the night before but now that he saw them during the day…
These townspeople looked very strange. They had a strange similarity to the driver but they were more inhuman than the driver.
The whites of their eyes were white to the point of being abnormal while their pupils were the size of a soybean and moved aimlessly. The distance between the eyes was very wide as if they were growing beside the ears. They were like catfish in Bai Liu’s impression.
There were grey-black marble patterns around their eyes. It permeated from their eyes to their necks. They walked in the sun very slowly and their feet rubbed against the beach like they were itchy. If Bai Liu was right, there seemed to be some green scales on the back of their feet that didn’t fall off. They smiled dumbly as they passed by Bai Liu’s car like a child smelling food.
Lucy was also frightened by the looks of these fishermen and muttered in a low voice, “They look so strange.”
These fishermen looked much stranger than the driver. Compared to humans, these fishermen were more like… strange, deep-sea fish. The driver swallowed the last of the fish sandwich and showed black teeth as he smiled. “Is it? We all look like this here. Perhaps it is because we eat fish like this and that isn’t very healthy.”
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes. He thought these townspeople were quite like monsters but he stopped his thoughts halfway through.
He had misidentified the driver. The townspeople and driver were obviously inhuman but the driver couldn’t enter the Monster Book. The townspeople were similar to the driver so it was likely they also wouldn’t meet the monster setting of the game. It would be serious if he raised the hatred value of so many townspeople.
Still, Bai Liu wasn’t stupid enough to think that these strange-looking townspeople weren’t monsters. There were two possibilities of why they were not monsters.
The first one: they really weren’t monsters.
The second one: they didn’t meet a certain standard determined by the Monster Book.
This Siren Town had a peculiar setting, which was ‘incubation’ and ‘alienation’. The mermaid sculptures could incubate while Andrei was in a state of alienation. Bai Liu felt that these townspeople seemed to be in a state of transformation.
Bai Liu didn’t know the result of these two states. He guessed they might become monsters but he needed to verify it.
Bai Liu’s eyes moved slowly to Andre who was sitting in front of him. He could’ve saved Andre last night. However, for him, Andre was an NPC that was somewhat aggressive toward him and the value of Andre’s death was greater than his survival.
Meanwhile, Andre watched the driver licking his fingers with relish and his appetite swelled uncontrollably. He swallowed his saliva and scratched his itchy cheek impatiently. Then he glanced at Bai Liu sitting behind him through the rearview mirror with a bitter expression.
Bai Liu was so rich. Why couldn’t Andre eat a few fish steaks? He was so hungry that when he saw what was in the driver’s hands, he couldn’t help wanting to grab it. It was just that the driver ate too quickly. Before Andre could move, the driver had finished eating and rubbed his stomach with an intoxicated expression.
Seeing the driver lick away the minced fish at the corner of his mouth in a delicious manner, Andre once again recalled the moist, smooth and alluring taste of the fish steak. His saliva kept secreting and his Adam’s apple moved involuntarily. He never had such a delicious fish steak. No, it wasn’t just the fish steak. All the fish here were cooked so well that he couldn’t stop eating them.
The driver sighed with contentment. “It is delicious. Only the fish in Siren Town is so delicious.”
Lucy also praised it. “Yes, I have never eaten such delicious fish. It is so fresh.”
“No, it isn’t fresh. The secret of the delicious fish in Siren Town is that it is never fresh. This fish isn’t delicious when it is fresh. It needs to be marinated and receive special treatment to taste good.” The smile on the driver’s face became strange. “You are eating a very special fish, a fish that isn’t found anywhere else. It is a fish unique to Siren Town.”
Lucy asked curiously. “What fish?”
The driver replied, “Merfolk.”
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