Bai Liu could hear the crisp clang of marble against the door, and this time the handle moved twice.
Although the door was locked, the handle sounded as if it might snap, the fragile metallic squeal of a gragra under the vigorous twisting of the wax figure of a mermaid outside.
The thing seemed intent on getting in. Its dead white eyes scanned Bai Liu's room, as if noticing the emptiness, then it appeared to retreat. The handle stopped moving. Silence filled the room—and the space beyond the door.
But Bai Liu held his breath. He remembered the dull sliding sound the creature made when it moved—and something was wrong; it hadn't made that sound this time.
The mermaid wax figure hadn't left at all. It was still there, silently guarding the door.
It's tricking me… luring me out, Bai Liu thought, squinting. His eyes caught the cat, which had reverted to the dull color of the carpet, its gaze suddenly white and bulging again.
It's really still here.
The creature paused, seemingly undeterred, before twisting the door handle violently. The metal bent into a jagged protrusion, rattling as if it might slide right off.
The mermaid wax figure outside is coming in.
Some of the kind-hearted viewers in front of the TV screen had already closed their eyes in disgust.
"It's rare to see a seeded player… eh, shame."
"The main thing is that this copy of Siren Town is disgusting. It's not even a novice-level difficulty—this is murder for newbies."
Bai Liu's mind raced, his breathing slowing.
The game made one thing clear: ghostly monsters like this had weaknesses. The player could exploit them to escape. Right now, the key to breaking the game was to find whatever limited this thing's movement.
He closed his eyes, replaying the entire evening in his mind.
As long as it's a game, there's a solution. Games without solutions are the worst.
Bai Liu had been designing horror games for years. He was certain there must be a clue—some weakness embedded in the mermaid wax figures.
What exactly is it…?
Calmly, he reviewed each encounter with the mermaid figure.
The first was at the fountain outside the hotel. Jeff had exclaimed that he saw the wax figure move. It spun silently behind the car, never looking at them—its gaze fixed on the water.
The second was in the hotel lobby, where countless mermaid wax figures stared directly at them, frozen in place.
The third was in the hotel room. The huge mermaid figure stared into the mirror, while the others stared at Bai Liu. They moved only after he fell asleep. The mirror mermaid moved fastest—but when Bai Liu awoke, none of them had moved.
Clearly, staying awake did not restrict the wax figures entirely; the one outside the door was ready to break in.
There had to be some condition—a limit, something that could restrain the mermaid wax figure.
It wasn't in the room. It wasn't in the hotel. It had to be something Bai Liu himself had brought. Otherwise, the wax figure wouldn't have moved freely into Jeff's room before.
What is it?
Mirror… water… sleep… look straight ahead.
He knew.
Bai Liu jerked to his feet, yanked the door open, and stared directly at the wax mermaid.
The wax figure outside the door was close enough that Bai Liu could see it from his perspective—the lifeless mermaid's face almost pressed against the tip of his nose, its palm still gripping the doorknob. Its pure, beadless white eyes peered through the cat's eye into the lower right corner—that's where Bai Liu was hiding.
No wonder it had to come in. It must have seen him hiding there.
Its movement stopped, its fish tail brushing against Bai Liu's toe. At the last moment of stepping into the room, it froze, standing motionless in front of the door.
Bai Liu exhaled silently. He had been right. The weakness that kept this thing immobile was the direct gaze of the human eye.
The crowd watching on the small TV went silent in shock.
"Holy shit!!! How did he think of that?! He just pulled the door open without hesitation!"
"The average new player wouldn't even think of it. And even if they did, they wouldn't dare pull the door open to look directly through the cat's eye. That close, the wax figure's movement would still only be partially restricted—it could break through the door."
"Wow… I got goosebumps when he locked eyes with the mermaid wax figure!"
"What's his name? This new guy is insane…"
Gradually, more viewers gathered around Bai Liu's small TV.
[168 people watching Player Bai Liu's mini-TV; Player Bai Liu achieved the Novice 100 Achievement][102 people liked Bai Liu's TV, 143 favorited it, 3 people charged it; 3 points awarded to Bai Liu]
Bai Liu's expression on the screen remained calm and collected, as if he had done nothing remarkable.
Deducing the weakness—that direct human sight restricts the movement of mermaid wax figures—was simple enough.
The wax figures only moved after Bai Liu fell asleep, and stopped immediately when he woke. The only difference before and after sleep was that he had opened his eyes. That meant human sight could limit the wax figures' movements.
But there was a catch. Looking at them through a reflective or mirror-like surface only partially weakened them. To stop them completely, one had to look directly at the figure.
Two other wax figures had shown this same behavior: the fountain mermaid outside the hotel, and the mirror mermaid in the room.
The fountain mermaid looked into the water. When someone observed it indirectly through the water, its movement was slowed but not stopped—it could still turn or move slowly, which explained the mermaid at the door turning cautiously.
The mirror mermaid in the room moved fastest. Looking through a mirror offered only limited restriction, which is why it could move more freely than the others.
The mermaid just now had been looking at Bai Liu through the cat's eye. It could still move, while Bai Liu, if he looked directly at the wax figure through the cat's eye, could partially restrain it—but the restriction would not be enough to prevent it from breaking in. If the wax figure got in, the player would lose the [Human Eye Direct] condition, leaving them vulnerable.
Yet very few new players would have the courage to pull the door open and look straight at the mermaid wax figure.
Most panicked, even if they deduced the [Human Eye Direct] condition, they wouldn't dare test it. Only Bai Liu, motivated by risk and reward rather than fear, could remain calm enough to act, even without 100% certainty.
[Siren Town Monster Book – Mermaid Wax Panel Refresh]
[Monster Name: Mermaid Wax Figure (Chrysalis Status), Amulet Wax Figure (Cocoon Status)][Vulnerability: Direct human vision (1/3)][Mode of attack: Hatching]
The mermaid wax figure stood with her eyes downcast, her head tilted slightly to the right. The corners of her lips curved faintly upward in a subtle smile. Her fish tail was graceful, her flawless white body poised in a posture of indescribable, hidden beauty—almost divine.
Once frozen in place, the spine-chilling sense of invasion vanished from her body. What remained was a wax figure of striking aesthetic value, standing silently before a stranger's door at midnight by the sea.
[Player Bai Liu gains 3 points from viewer charges and unlocks the Game Merchandise Shop]
[Points insufficient to purchase items. Please keep up the good work!]
Someone watching must have rewarded him. Bai Liu vaguely understood that much. The charge unlocked the merchandise shop, though every item inside was displayed in black and white, marked [Unavailable for Purchase].
After a brief scan, Bai Liu realized the shop sold everything from daily necessities to weapons. There were also all kinds of bizarre items—[Intact Heart], [Love-at-First-Sight Magic Potion]—objects that sounded utterly unbelievable, and correspondingly carried terrifyingly high prices.
Only then did Bai Liu truly understand the phrase he'd seen upon entering the game: [Points can buy everything you want].
He closed the shop and returned his gaze to the motionless mermaid wax figure standing in front of him.
It was true that the thing wasn't moving now, but Bai Liu couldn't stay awake all night staring it down. And after this encounter, he had a renewed respect for its destructive power.
His eyes drifted to the stainless steel door handle, which was nearly torn off.
Judging by the behavior of the wax figures in his room earlier, although this creature possessed terrifying strength, it seemed to rely solely on vision to locate its target. Or rather, it was only sensitive to visual information. Once Bai Liu covered himself with the white cloth, the wax figures lost track of him completely—even within the same room.
In other words, the mermaid wax figure appeared to lack senses such as hearing and smell.
If it could hear or smell, then in a room full of wax figures, it would have easily located Bai Liu by listening to his breathing and twisted his head off like a doorknob—there would have been no need to rip away the white cloth to find him.
…What a pain in the arse. And there were so many of them—what a burden to deal with.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes slightly, an unsettling thought creeping into his mind.
Now that there was a wax figure standing helplessly in front of him, completely at his mercy… could he experiment on it? Test its weaknesses? Roast it over a fire? Smash it apart with a stick?
[Tip: If a player directly attacks a monster and fails to kill it, the monster's hatred will remain locked onto the player for a long time. The monster will continue to pursue the player, significantly reducing the player's survival rate.]
Bai Liu stroked his chin thoughtfully and smiled. A small, harmless pear-shaped dimple appeared on the right side of his face.
"Attacking it directly will make it hold a grudge and come after me, huh…" Bai Liu muttered to himself. "Then I can't really be blamed if something happens to it on its own."
He repeated the same trick, wrapping the mermaid wax figure tightly in a bedsheet and tying the opening underneath with rope. Then, without the slightest kindness, he placed the bundled wax figure at the entrance of the hotel staircase.
When the mermaid wax figure could not be seen, it wandered aimlessly. Bai Liu chose this spot deliberately—so that once it started moving, it would inevitably tumble down the stairs.
He had no intention of smashing these wax figures directly while their hatred value was in play. If he could kill it cleanly, that would be one thing—but if he failed, he would only be asking for trouble.
After all, Bai Liu had only one pair of eyes. If he were surrounded by wax figures from all directions, even the maximum human field of vision—about 188 degrees—wouldn't save him. He didn't have eyes in the back of his head. In that situation, death would be guaranteed.
Bai Liu preferred cost-effective solutions. The game said that exploiting weaknesses to escape monsters was enough—but he wanted to know whether these wax figures could be destroyed entirely.
Or whether they possessed some other fatal weakness.
He wouldn't risk cracking or striking the mermaid wax figure himself. The danger was too great. Who knew what might crawl out of that chrysalis or cocoon once it shattered?
But if the mermaid wax figure fell down the stairs because of its own poor eyesight… that had nothing to do with him.
This was just a small test.
After retreating into the room, the wax figure soon began to move. Bai Liu frowned slightly. He was still "looking" at it—but it was wrapped in white cloth. The wax figure didn't know it was being watched, so it moved on its own.
This confirmed something important: [Direct human vision] was only an objective condition. The mermaid wax figure had to subjectively feel that it was being watched in order to stop moving.
That also explained what had happened earlier. With so many wax figures in the room, Bai Liu couldn't look at all of them at once—yet before he could even turn his head after waking up, they had already stopped moving on their own.
The moment a wax figure felt it was being stared at directly, it froze.
For creatures to possess this level of self-awareness, they were undoubtedly living beings—or at least something close, with a rudimentary level of intelligence. Not very high intelligence, admittedly.
The mermaid wax figure at the stairway struggled a few times. Then, after scraping against the edge of a step, it tumbled down with a series of cracking noises, wrapped in white cloth, landing heavily in a cloud of dust.
Bai Liu stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. He brushed the dust from his hands and clicked his tongue in mild regret as he examined the mermaid wax figure below.
It was completely intact—only slightly curled up. Not even a crack marred the marble surface.
…So it really can't be broken.… Physical attacks are ineffective.
Bai Liu didn't realize that his villainous behavior was being broadcast on the small TV, leaving a crowd of players staring in disbelief.
"Is this guy really a newcomer? He wrapped the mermaid in a bedsheet and shoved it down the stairs… Was he a kidnapper before entering the game? Or a terrorist?"
"I was just scared for him a second ago. Now I'm starting to feel sorry for the mermaid knocking on his door… it fell tail-first, that's brutal."
"...Does this guy even think of himself as a player?!"
"Everyone else is trying to survive the monsters—this guy just doesn't want the monsters to survive."