Lucy sat at the dining table, looking like she hadn't slept well. She yawned sullenly and leaned against Bai Liu.
Jeff had been dozing off all morning. Dark circles hung heavily under his eyes, his skin had taken on a bluish-gray tint, and his eyes looked sunken.
And he didn't know if it was just Bai Liu's imagination, but Andre's pupils seemed slightly more contracted than yesterday. His whole demeanor carried an uneasy, nervous agitation, along with an unmistakable smell of fish.
Bai Liu took out a coin and swept it toward Andre.
[NPC Name: Andre (Spirit Value Decreased, Alienation)]
Andre seemed to have an enormous appetite. He shoveled down plate after plate from the hotel's breakfast buffet as if the food were being poured straight down his throat.
Because the hotel was close to the sea, most of the breakfast consisted of fried fish. The fish soup was oily and thin, and the fillets were golden and crispy, looking incredibly appetizing.
However, Bai Liu smelled a sharp, pungent stench—like rotting fish tails. It reminded him of the dead fish swarming with flies in the wet-market garbage dumps where fishmongers discarded their scraps. He started gagging the moment he got close to the glossy-looking fish dishes, let alone eating them.
But both Jeff and Lucy looked as though they found the food fragrant and appealing.
Bai Liu took out the coin and scanned again. As expected, the two of them also displayed [Alienation in Progress], which was likely related to the mermaid statue in the room.
Not to mention Andre, whose eating habits made Bai Liu deeply uncomfortable. Andre chewed heavily, the wet, dark fish tail slapping against the corner of his mouth as he ate. Often, before he even finished swallowing, he would spear the next piece with his fork and stuff it in.
Lucy cut into the fish steak with her knife and fork and looked at Bai Liu in mild surprise."Aren't you going to eat, baby? The fish steak here is really delicious. Even if I want to go on a diet, I can't help eating at least two pieces!"
"You've really found a nice beachfront hotel!" As she spoke, Lucy leaned over, clearly about to kiss him.
But Bai Liu was overwhelmed by the strong fishy smell on Lucy's breath. He subconsciously pushed her away, then thought better of it. Instead, he pulled the plate away from her face and put on a serious expression.
"Baby, you're in great shape right now. I can't allow you to lose your beauty over a fish," he said smoothly. "Let's eat some vegetarian dishes. The fish steak here is just so-so."
Lucy was delighted by the flattery and obediently switched to the vegetarian salad, though she still looked reluctant to part with the fish steak. In the end, she ate quite a lot of greens.
Bai Liu casually packed a large portion of salad for Jeff and Andre as well and urged them to eat it.
Jeff ate listlessly, as if his soul weren't quite present.
Andre, however, shot Bai Liu a crooked look and sneered, "It's not like our rich guy here is short on money, right? Before coming, he said he'd pay for our food and lodging—but now he won't even let us eat a fish steak?"
"Lucy, look at your stingy boyfriend!"
Lucy immediately cursed angrily, "Andre! If it weren't for Bai Liu, do you think you'd be able to come to a place like this and eat high-end fish steak? You wouldn't even be able to stay here! Look at how much you're eating—if Bai Liu didn't pay for you, you wouldn't be able to leave this hotel!"
"Lucy!" Andre growled, but Lucy tilted her head back and glared at him without backing down.
Andre couldn't do anything to the woman he liked, so he prepared to vent his anger on Bai Liu instead.
As Lucy screamed, she watched Andre's broad palm open and reach for Bai Liu's collar. Bai Liu wiped his mouth unhurriedly, looked up at Andre, and smiled. "If you still want me to pay your bill," he said lightly, "you'd better not touch me."
Andre's hand froze in midair. His nostrils flared violently, expanding and contracting like a bull's as he let out a furious breath.
He stared at Bai Liu with bloodshot eyes and threatened viciously, "If you can't do what we bet on tonight, I'll make sure everyone knows you're a scumbag who can't even get laid!"
Andre's eyes were red and unfocused, as though rage had rushed straight to his head. Even so, he couldn't actually act on it—he was still counting on Bai Liu to pay his bill.
At the same time, a piece of broccoli accidentally rolled off Jeff's plate while he was eating and landed on Andre's shoe.
Like a balloon inflated to its limit and suddenly punctured, Andre lashed out. Before Jeff could even apologize, Andre backhanded him across the back of the head, slamming Jeff's face into the plate and forcing him to spit out everything he had eaten that morning.
"You stained my shoes! You disgusting freak!"
Andre seemed entertained by the sight of Jeff vomiting. He snorted with grim satisfaction, as if venting some twisted sense of balance, and then kicked Jeff again.
After wiping the barely noticeable oil stain from his shoe onto Jeff's trousers, Andre sneered, "I don't bother with losers who can't fight back. Clean it up and get the hell out of my way."
Lucy rushed to help Jeff to his feet, shouting hysterically at Andre, "Stop it, Andre! You've gone way too far with Jeff!"
Bai Liu paid no attention to their argument. His gaze was fixed on Jeff's vomit—among it lay a golden fish fillet, chewed and spat out, its cross-section a sickly greenish-black, like dead fish flesh, crawling with what looked like wriggling carrion worms.
This kind of rotten fish was completely inedible for humans. Fishmongers in wet markets would only use such dead fish to feed larger fish.
Bai Liu remembered a fishmonger once telling him that the bigger the carnivorous fish, the more they liked eating carrion.
After breakfast, the driver arrived to pick them up.
[Main Quest: Visit the Siren Wax Museum — Reward: 50 Points][Main Quest: Participate in the Mermaid Fishing Conference — Reward: 50 Points]
The Siren Wax Museum and the Mermaid Fishing Conference—those sounded like two separate attractions.
Bai Liu pondered briefly and was about to ask the driver about them when Jeff suddenly rushed over and positioned himself between Bai Liu and the driver. Blood stains from Andre's beating marked his face, his teeth clenched tightly as his body trembled faintly.
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow. Jeff had been doing his best to avoid contact with the driver since yesterday.
That wasn't normal.
Bai Liu unconsciously began flipping the coin in his hand.
The coin rolled back and forth across the backs of his fingers—a habitual gesture he used when thinking. The sensation of money in his grasp, even just a single coin, always calmed him and made him feel happy.
With the information he had, Bai Liu reasoned that Jeff's target was likely Andre. It was normal for Andre to have contact with the driver. After all, if the driver was looking for an opportunity to make a move, Lucy was far easier to manipulate. There would be no need to deliberately isolate him.
There must be a reason for Jeff to isolate Bai Liu from the driver, and Bai Liu thought about it for a while; it should be money.
Judging from Jeff's daily routine—carefully dressing himself only to be violently beaten by Andre—he clearly didn't look like someone from a wealthy background.
Andre was a bully, but he was noticeably restrained around Bai Liu, who was rich. He never took real action against him. In contrast, Andre freely beat and berated Jeff, whose family circumstances were clearly worse than his own—perhaps even worse than Andre's. That difference in treatment was telling.
Moreover, the night before, Jeff had given the driver what appeared to be a large sum of money. Bai Liu had reason to suspect that Jeff had taken the money he had given for hiring a driver and a tour guide and used it instead to arrange retaliation against Andre. That would explain why Jeff had been so deliberate about keeping the driver away from him.
However, Jeff had already paid the driver last night. The transaction had gone smoothly, the driver had performed his role convincingly as both driver and tour guide, and he hadn't shown the slightest hint of suspicion.
Logically speaking, Jeff should have felt relieved. There should have been no need for him to go to such lengths to isolate Bai Liu from the driver—behavior that only risked drawing attention and arousing suspicion.
This kind of guilty, overly cautious behavior didn't look like something coming from a plan that hadn't yet been carried out.
Of course, it was also possible that Jeff was simply timid and overly cautious, refusing to let his guard down until everything was truly finished. After all, Jeff's side story was titled "Bloody Plot." Given a name that sounded so openly murderous, it was perfectly reasonable for Bai Liu to remain wary.
For now, Bai Liu didn't know when Jeff intended to make his move against Andre. But at present, his priority was still the main quest.
Bai Liu asked the driver, "Driver, are there any attractions in Siren Town?"
"Attractions?" The driver thought for a moment before replying, "Visitors who come here usually go night fishing and visit the museum."
Hearing that, Bai Liu thought to himself as expected and raised his eyebrows slightly. "Do the night fishing and the wax museum have any special features?"
"Of course they do—we're Siren Town, after all." The driver turned his head as he spoke.
It was the first time Bai Liu had seen the driver's face from the front. Even with Bai Liu's high tolerance for horror, he was still caught off guard.
Not out of fear—but out of sheer surprise.
The driver looked… strange.
The whites of the man's eyes were overwhelmingly large, leaving his pupils no bigger than fly specks. As he spoke, the tiny eyeballs jittered erratically within the whites, trembling as if they were about to slip free from his eye sockets, beyond his control.
The driver's skin was pale and dull, like poorly made wax.
He continued talking as he drove, biting into the fish steak sandwich in his hand.
The exposed cross-section of the bitten fish steak was a rotten greenish-black, as if it were made from moldy fish. Yet the driver ate it with obvious enjoyment. His teeth were stained the same sickly color, and he flashed Bai Liu a wide smile—its curve unnaturally stretched.