BXBX NOVEL Chapter 17: Siren Town
Bai Liu’s expression was casual. “They are fishing for merfolk.”
A long time passed before a giant net slowly floated under the surface of the sea. Inside the giant net were fragments of limbs and fish tails. There were also a dozen merfolk trapped in the net, all in a dead state. Their tails were rotten and sticking up.
These 12 merfolk were like dolls in a garbage dump. They were twisted into a certain posture in the net and their dead eyes were staring at the people on the ship. Their faces were hideous or frightened and their bodies were all bitten. It seemed like they had been killed by some fierce, deep-sea fish and thrown in the net.
Bai Liu looked at the faces of these merfolk using the light of the searchlights and breathed slowly. The faces of these merfolk looked exactly like the 12 tourists who went missing in the newspaper.
The sailors on the ship were whispering joyfully.
“They will be made into statues and sent to the museum…”
“However, there will only be four statues coming out of the museum tonight because there are only four tourists. What about the extra merfolk?”
“Put them in the warehouse below first. You can give it to us…”
The merfolk were soon sent to the rear and it was unknown where they went.
Bai Liu and the three other tourists could eat some fresh, common fish caught with the mermaids. These sea fish were soon prepared and delivered to them. These fish also seemed tainted with the smell of the merfolk and the smell was particularly strange after they were cooked. The three people besides Bai Liu were frantically sucking their fingers as they stared at the fish that were brought out.
The fish steak was pushed to the center and the wet fish head was chewed on by Lucy. Lucy ate quickly and even the hair on her cheeks was eaten. She plucked the oily hair out of her mouth and smiled at Bai Liu. “Bai Liu, why don’t you come eat? The fish tonight is really fresh.”
The small white eyes of the fish head in Lucy’s hand were staring at Bai Liu intently.
Andre was biting a fishtail, his teeth clicking sharply. He had become very similar to a fish. His eyes were almost invisible from the front and they were located on both sides of his face. His nose was completely flattened and too wide. Fishy liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.
Jeff was using a fork to cut the fatty belly of the fish. It seemed that he was barely maintaining his sanity but his actions were getting faster and faster as he mechanically stuffed the fish into his mouth.
A sailor stared at Bai Liu and placed the plate full of fish in front of Bai Liu with a strange smile. “If you don’t eat fresh fish then you will have come here for nothing, Mr Bai.”
Bai Liu was eager to refuse but the panel in front of him gave him instructions.
[Task reminder: If you don’t eat the fish presented by the sailor then the fishing activity will be regarded as a failure.]
Bai Liu was quiet for two seconds before eating a piece. This fish had a strange, sour smell but once it entered his mouth, it became normal fresh and sweet fish meat. Suddenly, all the fish meat in front of Bai Liu had a strange temptation. Bai Liu was someone who didn’t have a large appetite but he had the uncontrollable urge to eat all the fish on the table.
The sailor saw him eating and left in a satisfied manner.
Bai Liu tried his best to keep his mind sober. He avoided looking at the fish on the table as he got up and stood by the railing in the sea breeze. He lowered his head and sniffed the metallic smell of the coin against his chest.
The smell of the coin calmed Bai Liu. He could probably reason some things out.
After being salvaged, the Siren King fell into a deep sleep and lost a certain ability in this sea area. As a result, the people who died in this sea area would become merfolk. They were resurrected from the dead and returned to the world. This was actually a legend but the corpses of the 12 tourists just now verified the authenticity of this legend.
People who died here really could become merfolk.
The question was why so many dead people could transform into merfolk in such a remote area of the sea. Wasn’t it enough to fill the entire museum? Why were there so many dead people in this sea area?
Once Bai Liu saw the 12 tourist mermaids who had been salvaged, he finally understood why there were so many merfolk in this sea area. It was because this was an area of corpses. It was estimated that the bodies of the missing tourists were thrown into this area. Then they were salvaged by the tourists as merfolk and made into the statues.
It just wasn’t known who killed these tourists… Bai Liu had a vague guess. This was a town full of robbers. Many of the missing tourists in the town had lost their belongings. It could be seen from the robbery and disappearance cases that Siren Town wasn’t a place with simple customs.
This town had become rich not because of tourism. It was the stealing that was attached to tourism. Were there any lambs fatter than tourists from afar?
In such a vicious place, so many tourists died. Bai Liu guessed that these tourists were robbed, killed and their bodies thrown in this place. Of course, it couldn’t be ruled out that merfolk came ashore to hunt.
However, judging from the merfolk’s fear of strong light, it would probably be difficult to go ashore to hunt tourists during the day. At night during the popular tourist season, these merfolk were all caught for the tourists to watch. The probability of them killing wasn’t high.
Wait. Bai Liu fiercely connected a series of things. The merfolk fishing activity required someone to die in this sea area so that merfolk were caught. If there were no dead people then there would be no merfolk. For example, Bai Liu and the others caught the tourists who had disappeared last time.
The residents of this town might deliberately kill people and throw their bodies here for them to become merfolk. Then they made a gimmick out of the merfolk fishing. This created a tourism industry, attracting more tourists and making it easier to steal.
It was no wonder the museum keeper said there would be no merfolk fishing activity without tourists. It was because the merfolk caught were all dead tourists.
The mayor here loved his people like they were his children. In order to promote economic development, cover up the townspeople’s crimes and further expand this merfolk tourism industry, Bai Liu felt that the mayor was completely capable of making the merfolk. Then he would fish them up, turn them into statues and put them in the museum or let the residents dispose of them directly.
It was naturally impossible for the police to find any corpses. The corpses had been processed and turned into statues…
These merfolk statues were the corpses of previous tourists and inside were the ghosts of the tourists. The ghosts turned into monsters and out of revenge, they started to incubate the residents of the town. They turned these residents into their amulets.
In the process of alienation, the residents would become like fish while the merfolk statues transformed into humans. The two exchanged identities.
In this way, the amulets in the warehouse below were actually the townspeople of Siren Town while the sailors on the ship were the ghosts who died in the deep sea. They were no longer human but monsters.
There was still one thing missing from this inference. The merfolk statues had three forms: pupa, cocoon and butterfly.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes. According to the growth law, the merfolk statues were still lacking one state. It was the larval state, the most numerous and vulnerable larvae.
The larvae were… Bai Liu slowly covered his belly. The piece of fish that he had just eaten seemed to be squirming smoothly against the wall of his stomach. Bai Liu looked at his pale fingers and the faint lines of fish scales in his skin. He could feel both sides of his mandible beginning to itch and there was an illusion of gills growing.
Bai Liu slowly turned around. The three people who came with him were still eating frantically. They had almost lost their human forms, especially Andre. He was stuffing the fish intently into his mouth. His hair had turned into bone spurs that stood up like fins and the bridge of his nose was covered with dark green scales.
[Warning: Player Bai Liu has entered the alienation state. Your mental value is declining. Please pay attention to distinguish between the game reality and game illusion.]
Bai Liu thought about it. Sure enough, this was the last monster in the monster book, the last form of the merfolk statues: the larval state. Anyone who entered Siren Town or a resident who didn’t leave Siren Town would be alienated into this type of thing. It was a form that was weakest and most likely to be eaten, killed and robbed.
The current Bai Liu was now the weakest form of the merfolk statue, the larval form.
[Siren Town Monster Book has refreshed – Merfolk (4/4)]
[Monster Name: Merfolk (Larval State)]
[Weaknesses: ??? (Unexplored)]
[Attack Method: ??? (Unexplored)]
[All the pages in the Siren Town Monster Book have been unlocked. Please explore the missing parts of the monster book.]
Andre wiped the rotting flesh from his mouth and pushed away from the table. His mouth was filled with fine and sharp teeth that stretched down to his chin. He looked like a clown with bloody fish inside his mouth as he said, “Bai Liu, do you remember our bet?”
Bai Liu was attracted by the peculiar smell of Andre’s body and blinked slowly. “I remember. It is to spend the night on a boat, right?”
Andre sneered and his mouth stretched out to the side of his face. “Why don’t we spend the night in this sea full of merfolk?” He looked at Bai Liu, his long tongue stretching out to lick the remnant meat on the edge of his face. He stood tall in front of Bai Liu and smiled in a more malicious manner.
Voting Information Page
Proofreader: Purichan