Chapter 6: The small town of Siren

Bai Liu was oblivious to these discussions and his attention was soon drawn to something else when he saw Jeff.

Jeff was furtively hiding under the stairs, talking to someone, and after the conversation he walked back.

Jeff was sneaking out most of the night before, and now he's actually back.

Bai Liu had a good view from the stairs and saw that Jeff was followed by a man of the same height and dress as the driver who had driven them here today.

The two men seemed to be discussing something in whispers, and Jeff handed the driver a bunch of fancy things and gave him a few more instructions.

If Bai Liu is correct, the coins Jeff gave to the driver should be of this world.

[You have triggered the hidden storyline of Jeff's Bloody Plot]

[Explore the whole storyline, 50 points awarded, current storyline completion rate is 15%]

Bai Liu's eyes narrowed slightly as his hand reached into his collar and pulled out the perforated dollar coin and pointed it at the driver as the panel popped up with the character's information.

[npc: Driver

Your driver, the one who drove your party to Siren Town, was hired by Jeff, who allegedly knows Siren Town well and has a history of arson and robbery.

Sure enough, this is also a character npc with status.

Bai Liu and the driver had never come into contact with each other before, and the driver was sitting in the front seat while Bai Liu was in the last row, so he could not see the driver's face.

The driver did not get out of the car, so Bai Liu never got a frontal view of the driver, and therefore never got to identify the driver's character.

He hadn't thought anything of it before, but now that Bai Liu has looked back he realizes that it seems Jeff has been intentionally blocking Bai Liu from the driver, whether by choosing to sit between Bai Liu and the driver, or by the shriek he makes when he's about to get out of the car ......

What conspiracy do these two have to hide from themselves?

Based on what is known about the conspiracy, Bai Liu speculates that Jeff paid the driver, who had a criminal history, to do something for him. This is unknown at this time, but Bai Liu thinks it is likely to be revenge against Andre.

On entering the town the driver had already said that many people in this town had not had an economic source for a long time and that they should be careful.

Previously Bai Liu had thought this was a reminder, but now it seems to be more of a smug and arrogant admonition from the driver, and a sort of zoning out of the hunt.

He was sending a warning to Jeff - away from his cooperation and protection, Jeff could easily be harmed by the other townspeople in this town.

The driver, of course, was a citizen of the small town of Siren and was short of money, and certainly could have done something to rob Jeff's carload of people for lack of money.

The driver had probably done a lot of taking money from people, he didn't look like a good guy and was obviously crazy about the money, he was insinuating threats when they entered Siren Town.

There's no telling what this driver might do if he doesn't get the money in time.

Bai Liu went back to his room before Jeff saw him and helped Jeff close the door to the room that had been left open.

Jeff hesitates for a moment as he passes Andre's room and lowers himself. Bai Liu looked through the cat's eye and saw what Jeff had put down - a large piece of fish.

It wasn't long before Bai Liu saw a pile of gloomy white wax figures of mermaids gathered in front of Andre's room.

A series of dull, cackling wax movements resounded in the corridor again.

To be on the safe side, Bai Liu had covered the cat's eye of his room with a white cloth to keep the mermaid from prying eyes, and had used a cupboard against the door in the hope that if the mermaid broke in it would make some noise and wake him up.

His stamina had been emptied. Once this was done, Bai Liu lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

A dreamless night.

----

The next day, Bai Liu woke up to find the wardrobe door and the door to her room closed, but the bathroom door was about to open.

Bai Liu opened the bathroom to find that the wax figures of the mermaids he had covered and tied up had broken free of their white cloths and were moving towards the bathroom door in various contorted and bizarre positions. Some of the wax figures had reached the door handle and were only a step away from turning away.

The poses of these wax figures of mermaids remind Bai Liu of the time when he played 123 Wooden Men and suddenly turned around to see the people behind him unable to control their expressions and gestures.

The way these eerie cold white wax figures chase and surge behind the door in order to get out is inexplicably oozing.

The oppressiveness of these human-like marble wax figures stacked like this is heightened by the high density of their eyes gazing into a small space Bai Liu, which can be uncomfortable, or as uncomfortable as any normal person would feel when being looked at by so many pairs of dead eyes.

Bai Liu closes the bathroom door and he no longer cares about the wax figures, nor does he tie them up anymore.

Because there is no point anymore.

These things are breaking free faster and faster, and if we can't find any more weaknesses to control this thing, constant masking and binding is a cost effective way to do it, and maybe work out the ability of these wax figures to get out of bondage quickly.

The moment Bai Liu opened the door to his room, a new message popped up in the panel.

[Player Bai Liu completed the main quest - Stay in the house overnight without being alienated, awarded 20 points]

[Current balance: 23 points, can buy props, does the player buy?]

Bai Liu opened the shop, he was now so poor that he could count on one hand what he could purchase. Bai Liu bought a 15 point strong searchlight torch and had 8 points left - he pondered slightly.

...... I don't know if there are any of those 3D holographic projection instruments.

[Yes, one for 4 points, on sale for 3 for 8 points, will the player buy 3?

Bai Liu nodded without thinking: [Yes!

As a social animal who is short of money, two of the words he can't afford to hear in his life are [discount] and [sale].

It was only natural that he bought and played with the 3D projector he had gotten.

The quality of these discounted projectors is not bad at all. Bai Liu recorded his own portrait and the projection was amazing, with no bad quality at all, realistic colours and vivid characters, almost like real people when you look at them in the dark.

Bai Liu is very happy with his purchase.

But his viewers are not happy, and it's a tradition in this game that once a newcomer gets their likes, attention and airplay, they demand a certain amount from that newcomer.

A group of people gathered around the small TV pointing and sighing.

"This newcomer isn't trying to use the projector as a human-eye hokey-pokey mermaid wax figure, is he? It's written in the monster book that you need to see straight through the human eye. The projector will only fool the mermaid wax figure for a while, it won't last long."

"I can't believe I bought a discounted projector, it looks fancy, but it's useless! Otherwise it wouldn't be a stagnant item that no one would buy for a point a piece! What was this newbie thinking!"

"...... Yes, this projector was on sale when I came in and now, after all these years, it's still on sale ......"

"Fuck, 23 points, clearly the highest number of points in the newbie area so far, and it's all gone to waste, without buying a single useful item! Are you out of your mind?!"

Suddenly, a player shouted in surprise in front of a small screen, "Come here! There's a newbie over here who's bought the Flaming Torch! This thing kills mermaids, he's stable!"

The crowd suddenly left Bai Liu's small TV screen and gathered around the novice who had supposedly bought the right prop, many nodding approvingly.

"Yeah, that's the regular level-breaking prop, that's a good newbie idea."

"The Flaming Torch can be used three times, and with a good grasp, he should be the only newcomer in the group to get through."

......

Bai Liu's small TV is once again only a handful of people in front of it.

[34 people are watching Bai Liu's mini-TV and 167 people have left]

[50 people unliked Bai Liu's TV, 44 people unliked Bai Liu's TV, 17 people stepped on Bai Liu's TV and no one charged Bai Liu's TV].

......

After testing his props, Bai Liu left the room and went to Jeff's room to wake him up.

Jeff had obviously slept badly last night, his face was a little pale and there were two large dark circles under his round-rimmed glasses.

The number of wax figures of mermaids in Jeff's room - as Bai Liu has visually estimated - is about the same as in his own room.

Unlike the wax figures in Bai Liu's room, which he had locked up, the wax figures were quietly in place, and I don't know if it was Bai Liu's fault, but he thought the wax figures in Jeff's room looked a little more realistic than the ones in his room, and their faces had become slightly similar to Jeff's... ...

The mermaid wax figure has a translucent flush under its white waxy case, its eyes seem to move in their sockets at any moment, and its expression is pleasant and natural, as if it were a fish that has absorbed enough water to stretch out the scales on its tail.

The room also began to have a faintly fishy smell.

Bai Liu went to Lucy's and Andre's rooms to observe them. He carefully compared them and found that the wax figures of mermaids in these rooms were indeed closer to human skin colour than those in his own room, both in terms of touch and shade, and that they were beginning to resemble the features of the people living in the rooms.