The system issued Bai Liu his first task, but his attention lingered not on the mission itself, but on the words:
[Avoid Being Hatched]
...Hatched?
A faint crease appeared between Bai Liu’s brows.
Could those wax figures actually hatch something?
He silently filed the thought away. Turning around, he found a life-sized mermaid wax figure standing directly opposite his bed.
It was the largest mermaid wax figure in the room.
Beautiful and exquisitely crafted, it held a full-length mirror in its hands. The frame seemed fused seamlessly into the wax itself, the mermaid’s elegant arms supporting the mirror as though presenting it to someone.
It was also the only mermaid wax figure in the room not looking at Bai Liu.
Instead, it gazed into the mirror with a smile.
Bai Liu’s reflection appeared within the glass. The wax figure’s arms curved around the mirror’s surface as if embracing the Bai Liu inside it, and the sight stirred a faint discomfort in him.
The mermaid’s expression was vivid and lifelike. Its brows were gently drawn together, eyes lowered, tail spread limply across the floor. It looked almost joyful, as though welcoming the person inside the mirror.
Bai Liu looked into the reflection.
The “him” inside the mirror smiled back with a waxen, eerie grin.
Without changing expression, Bai Liu threw a white cloth over the mirror.
This level of horror imagery did nothing to him.
In the real world, Bai Liu worked as a horror game designer. Staying up until three in the morning conceptualizing grotesque scenes was practically routine. The old “mirror reflection smiling on its own” trick had long since stopped affecting him.
Still, Jeff’s earlier comments echoed in his mind.
The tourists who vanished from the hotel without a trace—whose bodies were never found—had most likely been “hatched” by these mermaid wax figures.
Although Bai Liu still didn’t understand what “hatching” actually meant, he was certain it wasn’t anything good.
To be safe, he used the hotel’s spare sheets and white cloths to cover every mermaid wax figure in the room, including the large mirror, blocking out those strange, ever-present gazes. Whether it would help or not was another matter, but it was better than doing nothing.
More importantly, there was no way he could sleep with all those wax figures staring at him.
While covering the mirror, his hand brushed against the mermaid’s tail.
The texture beneath his fingers was not the smooth hardness of wax, but something damp and slimy, like the skin of a freshly caught fish.
He even felt the scales twitch slightly beneath his touch.
Bai Liu paused.
He lifted his fingers to his nose and caught a heavy fishy smell clinging to them. Yet when he leaned closer to sniff the wax figure itself, there was no odor beyond the faint incense lingering in the hotel room.
Maybe the smell came from the car...
Or perhaps—
Bai Liu frowned slightly.
The smell was coming from him.
Remembering that the mermaid wax figures could “hatch” tourists, he suddenly had a very bad feeling.
What exactly could a mermaid wax figure hatch?
Most likely something grotesque and fish-like.
The word “hatch” reminded Bai Liu of the film Mermaid in a Manhole. He had watched it several times while doing research, and ever since then, any romantic notions he once had about mermaids had completely vanished.
After traveling for most of the night, exhaustion quickly overtook him.
He washed up briefly, then collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.
His stamina stat had already dropped to zero. While things were still relatively safe, sleep was the fastest way to recover.
Sometime deep into the night, Bai Liu was awakened by a dull, dragging sound.
The moment he opened his eyes, he realized all the white cloths covering the mermaid wax figures had slipped off somehow, with only scraps still hanging from them.
Some of the figures remained partially covered, exposing only a single eye.
Their expressions also seemed subtly different now.
The earlier sense of divine compassion had vanished, replaced by resentment and malice. They stared motionlessly at Bai Liu, as though blaming him for covering them.
Worse still, they had moved.
Before sleeping, the figures had stood scattered throughout the room. Now they had gathered closer around the bed, hands raised slightly, like guests assembling around a dinner table.
The mermaid wax figure holding the mirror had moved closest of all.
The mirror itself had been dragged right up against the bed. The instant Bai Liu sat up, he saw his feet nearly touching the glass.
As he drew his legs back, his reflection appeared within the mirror once more.
The “Bai Liu” inside had skin pale as stone, eyes stripped of black pupils, and marble-like cracks spreading around them.
It smiled stiffly at him.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the reflection returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
Bai Liu stared silently for a moment.
Then he climbed out of bed and, expression unchanged and heartbeat perfectly steady, began wrapping the mermaid wax figures tightly back up in white cloth.
To keep them from escaping again, he secured them with hemp rope, binding them twice over.
The smaller wax figures were bundled up and stuffed into the wardrobe before he locked it shut. The larger ones were shoved into the bathroom and locked inside.
His movements were efficient and practiced—like a professional kidnapper disposing of evidence.
These things clearly operated under certain restrictions.
Before he fell asleep, they couldn’t move at all. Even afterward, they seemed unable to approach him unless they first freed themselves from the cloth coverings and looked directly at him.
Several smaller wax figures whose coverings hadn’t fully slipped off continued wriggling uselessly beneath the cloth instead of approaching the bed.
Once Bai Liu understood the rule, he immediately reinforced the restraints as much as possible.
Just as he finished and prepared to return to sleep, he heard the sound of a door opening somewhere nearby, followed by cautious footsteps creeping through the corridor.
Bai Liu froze halfway through lying down.
The four hotel rooms he booked were next to one another. Andre occupied one side, Jeff the other.
The sound came from Jeff’s room.
Bai Liu quietly climbed out of bed and looked through the peephole.
Jeff stood in the corridor glancing nervously left and right. After confirming no one was there, he slipped toward the hotel staircase.
Bai Liu frowned.
What was Jeff doing wandering around in the middle of the night?
Just as he reached for the doorknob to follow him, the handle to Jeff’s room suddenly turned again.
Someone else was coming ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) out.
But each room only housed a single guest.
Jeff should have been alone.
Lucy would never visit Jeff in the middle of the night, and Andre clearly disliked him. Bai Liu himself hadn’t left his room.
Then who—
Bai Liu’s pupils contracted slightly.
He abruptly stepped back from the peephole.
The thing leaving Jeff’s room wasn’t human.
The door creaked open.
That same dull dragging sound echoed through the corridor again—the sound Bai Liu had heard half-asleep earlier.
This time, he finally understood it.
A life-sized mermaid wax figure crawled out of Jeff’s room.
Its expressionless face remained frozen stiff, eyes completely white without pupils, making it appear deathly lifeless. Only the tail moved, dragging itself inch by inch across the carpeted hallway.
Its pale tail smeared oily wax across the dark red carpet as it advanced soundlessly toward the staircase.
The rigid, unnatural movement reminded Bai Liu of a jiangshi.
...So this thing can leave the room on its own.
And open doors.
Just as the wax figure reached the stairs, it suddenly stopped.
As though sensing something, its head twisted backward with a stiff crack—rotating a full one hundred and eighty degrees.
The wax coating its face slowly softened and melted, revealing something beneath that looked disturbingly similar to flesh.
Then it turned.
And began moving directly toward Bai Liu’s room.
After confirming the door was double-locked, Bai Liu silently stepped back, pressing himself against the wall beside the entrance and holding his breath.
He wanted to see what this thing intended to do.
Soon, from the corner of his eye, he noticed the peephole turning white.
Something inside it was spinning.
The creature had pressed its eye against the peephole to search the room.
That rotating white shape was its eyeball.
The mermaid wax figure could actually see through the one-way peephole.
The pale eye continued turning slowly.
Bai Liu exhaled carefully and shifted sideways without making a sound, hooking one of the white cloths from the floor with his foot, preparing to cover himself if necessary.
