This was what Liam White saw—the largest mermaid sculpture in the room, and also the only one that wasn’t looking directly at him.

The mermaid sculpture was breathtakingly beautiful, its expression sorrowful, holding in its hands a smooth mirror as tall as a person. The mermaid’s elegant hands served as the stand supporting this full-length mirror.

It was also the only mermaid sculpture in the entire room that wasn’t looking at Liam White. It gazed sadly into the mirror, and Liam White’s reflection appeared within it. Its arms wrapped around the mirror, as if embracing the Liam White inside, which made Liam White feel a bit uncomfortable. The mermaid’s eyes fell upon the mirror’s surface, brows drawn together, the corners of its eyes drooping, its fish tail limp and splayed on the ground, as if mourning for the person in the mirror. The expression was lifelike and full of pity. As Liam White looked at the mirror, the [self] inside gave the Liam White outside the mirror a sinister, statue-like smile.

Unfazed, Liam White covered the mirror with a white cloth.

This level of horror scene was ineffective against Liam White. In the real world, he made horror games, often staying up alone until two or three in the morning, coming up with all sorts of terrifying images. He’d become almost numb to these typical horror scenes of someone in the mirror giving you a creepy smile—he felt nothing at all.

It seemed that what Jeffrey Howard had said before about those tourists who vanished silently in the hotel, their bodies never found, was probably because they’d been [hatched] by these mermaid sculptures.

Although Liam White still didn’t understand exactly what [hatching] was, it definitely wasn’t anything good.

To be cautious, Liam White covered all the mermaid sculptures with the hotel room’s bedsheets and white cloths, including that huge mirror, to block out those eerie, ever-present gazes. It might not help, but it was better than nothing. Most importantly, with so many mermaid sculptures staring at him, Liam White couldn’t sleep.

While covering the mirror, he touched the mermaid statue’s tail. The sensation wasn’t the smooth, cool feel of marble, but rather sticky and slippery, like a sea fish. Liam White even felt the scales on the statue’s tail gently open and close under his hand.

Liam White paused. After touching the statue, he sniffed his fingers and could smell a lingering fishy odor. But when he leaned in to sniff the mermaid statue itself, he only smelled the room’s incense—no fishy smell at all.

Maybe it was a scent brought in from the car...

...Or more likely, Liam White himself was emitting that fishy smell. Thinking about how the mermaid sculptures could [hatch] tourists, Liam White frowned, feeling uneasy.

What could the mermaid sculptures hatch? Most likely some disgusting fish-like creatures. The word “hatch” reminded Liam White of a movie called “Mermaid in the Sewer.” He’d watched it two or three times for research, and ever since, he’d lost all romantic fantasies about mermaids.

After driving for most of the night, Liam White was already exhausted. He quickly washed up and collapsed into bed, falling into a deep sleep. His stamina was depleted, and he desperately needed to rest and recover while it was relatively safe.

In the middle of the night, Liam White was awakened by a strange, heavy dragging sound.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw that the white cloths covering the mermaid statues had somehow slipped off, leaving only a bit still hanging on the sculptures. Some of the statues were now covered in such a way that only one eye was exposed, and their expressions seemed to have subtly changed—from divine compassion to resentment and malice. They stared motionlessly at Liam White, as if blaming him for covering them with the cloths.

Liam White also noticed that the statues seemed to have moved closer to him than before he went to sleep, like a group of people slowly gathering around a dining table, hands raised, closing in on his bedside.

Especially the mermaid statue holding the huge mirror. When Liam White groggily woke up, he saw that his feet were almost touching the mirror. The giant mirror, facing the bed, had been moved right up against it. As Liam White drew his feet back and sat up, he saw his own reflection in the mirror.

The [mirror Liam White] inside had skin as pale as stone, no black pupils in its eyes, and marble-like spiderweb patterns around them. It gave a stiff, crooked smile to the Liam White outside the mirror. But in the blink of an eye, as if Liam White had imagined it, the reflection returned to normal.

Liam White calmed himself, sat up, and, without changing his expression or heartbeat, firmly tied up the mermaid statues with the white cloths.

To prevent the statues from breaking free, Liam White also used hemp rope to tie them tightly in two loops. He wrapped the smaller mermaid statues in white cloth and locked them in the wardrobe, while he pushed the larger statues into the bathroom and locked the door, moving with the efficiency of a seasoned kidnapper.

These things seemed to have some movement restrictions. Before Liam White went to sleep, they hadn’t moved, and it looked like they needed to break free of the cloth and see Liam White before they could approach him. Some of the smaller mermaid statues, still covered by the cloth, scurried around inside but didn’t gather by the bed—instead, they scattered in all directions.

Having figured this out, Liam White immediately decided to maximize this restriction.