The system assigned Bai Liu his first task, but his attention wasn't on it. Instead, his eyes were drawn to the words: [Avoid being hatched], and he sank into deep thought.
…Hatching?
Could that bunch of wax figures actually hatch something?
He made a mental note, and as he turned around, he froze. Across the bed stood a wax figure of a mermaid—its height matching his own.
It was the largest mermaid wax figure Bai Liu had seen in the house.
The figure was exquisite, holding a full-length polished mirror, its frame seemingly carved from wax as well. The mermaid's graceful hands supported the mirror, as if presenting it.
Unlike the others in the room, this mermaid wasn't looking at Bai Liu.
Instead, she gazed into the mirror with a serene smile—and Bai Liu's reflection stared back at him. The figure's arms were wrapped around the mirror in such a way that it felt as though she was holding him inside it. A shiver of unease crawled up his spine.
The mermaid's eyes followed the reflection, her brows slightly furrowed, the corners of her eyes lowered, and her fish tail splayed helplessly on the ground. Her expression was disturbingly cheerful, as if welcoming the person in the mirror.
The reflection smiled at him—eerily wax-like—and Bai Liu instinctively covered the mirror with a white cloth.
But for someone like Bai Liu, a horror game designer accustomed to staying up until two or three in the morning alone, creating all manner of grotesque and terrifying scenes, this "man-in-the-mirror" routine was almost mundane. He felt… nothing.
Still, a thought crept into his mind. The tourists who had vanished from this hotel, whose bodies were never found, might have been [hatched] by these mermaid wax figures, as Jeff had mentioned earlier.
Although Bai Liu didn't fully understand what [incubation] entailed, it was clearly not good.
Playing it safe, he draped white sheets over all the mermaid figures in the room, including the enormous mirror, to block their unnerving presence. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was better than nothing.
Most importantly, with so many pairs of fishy wax eyes staring at him, sleep was impossible.
As he tried to distance himself from the mirror, his hand brushed the mermaid's fish tail. It didn't feel smooth and cold like pewter; it was slimy and wet, just like a real fish. Under his fingers, the scales even seemed to shift, gently opening and closing.
He paused, sniffing his fingers in surprise at the strong fishy smell. But when he leaned closer to the wax figure itself, there was nothing—only the smoky scent of the hotel room.
Perhaps the smell had lingered from the car…
…Or perhaps it was coming from himself.
The thought of a mermaid wax figure capable of [hatching] tourists made Bai Liu frown. What could possibly hatch from a wax mermaid?
Most likely… something ugly. Something slimy.
The word hatching reminded him of a film called The Mermaid in the Sewer, which he'd watched two or three times as research material. Ever since, he hadn't entertained any charming notions of mermaids.
Exhausted from a long night of driving, Bai Liu simply cleaned up and collapsed onto the bed. His stamina was gone, and he desperately needed rest—sleep in relative safety to restore his strength.
In the middle of the night, Bai Liu was awakened by a dull, dragging, unnatural sound.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that the white cloths that had previously covered the mermaid wax figures had somehow slipped off, leaving only fragments clinging to them.
Some figures were still partially covered, with only one eye visible. Their expressions seemed to have shifted slightly—from an air of divine compassion to one of resignation and resentment—as if silently blaming Bai Liu for restraining them.
He noticed something else: the wax figures seemed closer together than before, gathering around his bed like people slowly circling a table for a meal, hands raised.
Especially the mermaid holding the huge dressing mirror. Bai Liu blinked in disbelief: his feet were nearly on the mirror, which had moved to fit snugly against the bed.
As he sat up on cramped legs, his reflection appeared in the mirror.
In it, Bai Liu's skin was pale as stone, his eyes emptied of black, surrounded by a cobweb-like pattern in the marble of his face. A stiff, unnatural smile twisted the corners of his mouth toward him—then, in an instant, the image returned to normal, as if it had been a hallucination.
Quietly, he rose and, expression unchanged, began tying up the mermaid wax figures with white cloths.
To make sure they couldn't break free, he bound them tightly with twine twice over. The smaller figures, he wrapped them in a white cloth and shoved them into the wardrobe, locking it, while the larger ones he pushed into the bathroom and locked behind him, moving with the precision of a practiced kidnapper.
Even then, the wax figures' movements were restricted. They could only act once Bai Liu was asleep—and even then, only after freeing themselves from the cloth and seeing him first.
The smaller mermaid figures that hadn't fully freed themselves simply scurried in their cloths, scattering rather than approaching the bed.
Once Bai Liu understood this pattern, he took the opportunity to push the limits as far as possible.
Just as he finished and clapped his hands together to get ready for bed, he heard a door open and close, followed by the soft, creeping footsteps of someone next door.
Bai Liu had just lain down. The four rooms he'd booked were adjacent: Andre and Jeff in the rooms to his left and right.
The sounds came from the left—Jeff's room. Bai Liu got up, pressing his face against the door to peer through the peephole into the corridor.
Jeff was there, standing in the hall. After glancing around to ensure it was clear, he slipped quietly down the hotel stairs.
Bai Liu frowned. "Jeff… what are you doing up in the middle of the night?"
He was about to open the door and follow when the handle of Jeff's room—the one that had been closed—began turning again, slowly. Someone else was about to go out.
Hotel rooms were single occupancy.
Lucy couldn't have been in Jeff's room at this hour. Andre and Jeff weren't on speaking terms, and Bai Liu was in his own room.
Who—or what—was coming out of Jeff's room?
Bai Liu's heart skipped a beat. He recoiled slightly from the peephole, realization hitting him like a jolt: It wasn't a person coming out of Jeff's room.
Jeff's door handle clicked and slowly turned from the inside. Bai Liu immediately recognized the dull, dragging sound he had heard earlier in a half-asleep haze—like something being pulled along the floor on its knees.
But this time, he knew exactly what was making it.
A human-sized mermaid wax figure emerged from Jeff's room. Its face was frozen, expressionless, its eyes empty and deadly white. Its fish tail scraped and dragged along the corridor, leaving a greasy trail of wax on the hotel's old red carpet. Its rigid, lifeless body moved forward like a zombie, bouncing with mechanical precision.
…This thing can actually move out of the room by itself and open the door…
When it reached the staircase, it seemed to sense something. Its head twisted unnaturally 180 degrees, snapping to look straight behind it. The candle-like wax on its face slowly melted away, revealing a nearly fleshy, unsettling glow.
Then, without any expression, it shifted direction and began moving toward Bai Liu's room.
Bai Liu pressed himself against his door, backing away, heart pounding. He made sure it was locked and held his breath, unsure what the wax figure wanted.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the peephole glow white—and continue turning.
The mermaid wax figure was looking through the cat's eye, trying to see who was inside. Its white eyes rolled, scanning, searching.
Bai Liu inched sideways, barely breathing, and reached out his foot to hook the white cloth on the floor, ready to cover himself.
On the small TV screens, the scene played out for the other players in real time. They held their breaths, some biting their nails nervously.
"Fuck… that's scary! My mental value would've dropped if I were in-game…"
"Stay calm! Hold on! This place has a super high mortality rate for newcomers!"
"The monsters in Siren Town are vicious. New players can't keep their cool long enough to figure out their weaknesses…"
The other screens showed the mermaid wax figure almost at Bai Liu's door. Some players were panicking, pressing their controls frantically. Outside one player's door, the mermaid wax figure was banging against it.
A new player crouched by the trembling door, wooden stick clutched tightly, ready to strike. He whimpered and cried as the wax figure slammed against the wood. The door shook twice more, then the figure seemed to retreat.
The player wiped his tears, exhaling weakly in relief. He propped himself up on his hands and knees, exhausted.
But he didn't notice the peephole. The cat's eye remained pure white, staring silently at him. A stone-cold gaze that never blinked.
The mermaid wax figure hadn't left at all—it had only pretended to.
Seeing the player stand up, a strange, stiff smile spread across its face, as if it had finally found its prey.
The door slammed twice more, breaking open easily. Players who hadn't reacted screamed as they were crushed beneath it.
The mermaid wax figure entered the room, trailing its fish tail, its face twisted in a bizarre combination of innocence and grotesque delight. Its hands reached out slowly toward the player pinned under the door.
The moment it touched him, the player seemed to be wrapped in something all over his body. His eyes rolled back, limbs curling in slow, unnatural motions. His legs twitched and flailed across the floor like a fish scalded in boiling water, and his skin stiffened and turned pale in an instant.
The wax on the mermaid's body melted as if it had met hot water, flowing over the player and encasing him.
Grey-black marbled lines appeared around his eyes—the same pattern Bai Liu had seen in his own mirror. The eyeballs vanished, leaving only the whites covered in lines, while the corners of his mouth stiffened and curled upward.
He was now a wax figure—a new mermaid in the room.
[Player Yi Zhong's Spiritual Value: 0. Completely alienated by the monster mermaid wax figure. Game pass failed.]
[Player Liu Xiaohong Spiritual Value: 0. Failed to pass the game by Mermaid Wax Figure.]
[Player Zou Mingri: …Game pass failed.]
The small TVs of the failed players went dark with a sharp "zippy" sound. The people gathered around them let out nervous sighs.
"Eh… I knew it. Passing this game is still almost impossible. 'Siren Town' is brutal…"
It was only the first night, and the monster had only glanced at them once—but nearly a fifth of the [Newcomers' Area] TV wall was now black.
Bai Liu's TV screen is the only one remaining—the ones above, below, and to the sides—flicker and go dark, leaving him alone in a sea of black screens, staring calmly out the door.