Chapter 9: Siren Town

Silence fell on the car, and everyone's faces turned strange.

Lucy gave a couple of awkward harrumphs, and Andre gave a laugh; these two clearly didn't believe the driver.

The driver laughed out loud, "Just kidding, how could we eat mermaids? It's just a sea fish that we specialize in here."

The driver pulled up to a building calmly and steadily, "The wax museum is here, get out."

After everyone had gotten out of the car, the driver added, "You guys take the tour and just call me when it's nighttime and I'll pick you up to watch the mermaid fishing event."

He finished and drove off.

Bai Liu got out of the car and looked around at his surroundings, in front of him was a building so tall that he needed to tilt his head back and parallel to the ground in order to see the top of it, with a few English fancy letters on the top, which was the English name of [Siren Wax Museum].

[System Alert: Scene Unlocked - Siren Wax Museum]

The whole wax museum is painted in the dark color of the sea, supported at the top by several thick granite columns, Bai Liu can see many silhouetted wax figures of mermaids displayed inside when he stands at the entrance.

The inside of the Siren Wax Museum looked new, but the exterior walls still looked a little worn, the kind of red brick barricades stacked on top of each other.

There are also a lot of old newspapers posted on the wall, which were blown by the wind and smeared on Bai Liu's face.

Bai Liu removes the old newspaper from his face and is greeted by a bolded line of notice.

Police Notice: Twelve people are missing in Siren Town this month, please report to the police if you have seen the missing persons listed in the following missing photos. Please pay attention to the safety of tourists when traveling to Siren Town, do not play with large fish, and be careful of falling into the water.

Below the notice were twelve black and white photographs of people wearing the pleasant smiles of those who had just traveled to the town of Siren, but the smiles of the people on the newspaper through the yellowed and aged newspaper fell in Bai Liu's eyes, and there was something indescribably strange.

Bai Liu looked at the whole newspaper carefully, and then he was ready to put it away in his bag. After folding it twice, Bai Liu suddenly felt that the folding feel was not right, it was a bit too hard.

For a newspaper, even if it has been dried and crisped by the sea breeze, it should not have such a hard texture ...... as if it is not just a piece of paper.

Bai Liu looking across a cross-section of the newspaper.

The cross-section does look thick, but there is no sign of multiple sheets, mainly because the newspaper has been blown so solidly that even if there were multiple sheets they could not be easily seen.

Bai Liu put the newspaper away in his arms and decided to find some warm water to scald it when he went into the wax museum to see if there were multiple layers of this newspaper and if it could be separated.

[Trigger side quest - Find the hot tub in the wax museum and separate the newspapers that are stuck together, bonus points 10]

The keeper of the Siren Wax Museum is an old man with cataracts, his eyes are cloudy and cataracted, but miraculously he doesn't seem to have any major problems seeing people.

Bai Liu As soon as they walked in, the old man quickly inclined his head to look over. The guardian's eyes were blank, but his aging face wore a polite smile, and the way he darted over to the side made Lucy let out a small gasp of surprise.

The keeper of the museum looked a bit peculiar and sighing, "It's been a long time since anyone came here ...... Since last month when people kept having accidents, no tourists have come to the Siren Wax Museum, and it's been a long time since a new mermaid wax figure has entered the museum."

Bai Liu heard this and asked, "Why hasn't a new mermaid wax figure come into the museum in a long time? Does it have anything to do with the lack of visitors?"

"Of course we do." The keeper's tone began to get excited, he even waved his somewhat stiff old arms and legs, "Without tourists coming, we rarely do large time-consuming and laborious events like mermaid fishing events, and without mermaids to fish up, there's no way for us to do ......"

His words stopped abruptly, and he didn't say a word when he was asked the question any more later.

"Is the Siren Wax Museum always having a steady stream of mermaid wax figures coming in?" Bai Liu immediately changed the question, "The capacity of this wax museum is limited, right? If new wax figures keep coming in, it won't be able to put many wax figures in."

"No!" The keeper's mouth chewed on an odd grin as his white-muddy orbs swiveled in his eyes and aimed at Bai Liu, his tone enigmatic, "As many new wax figures come to this wax museum, as many old ones leave it."

"The Siren Wax Museum can never be filled."

Bai Liu raised his eyebrows subtly and continued, "So where do all these mermaid wax figures go after they leave the wax museum? Will these wax figures be thrown back into the sea?"

The keeper of the pavilion stopped his mouth; he seemed to feel that he had said something he shouldn't have.

Bai Liu, however, keenly continued, "What happens when the tourists come?"

"Nothing will happen." The Keeper whispered to himself, "You'll have a nice vacation in Serenity and get out of here."

When asked again, this museum keeper refused to speak again no matter what.

Bai Liu gave up on the condescension after asking where the hot water in the pavilion was, and he took his ticket and led the group behind him into the Siren Wax Museum.

Once inside, Bai Liu saw a gold-painted wax figure of an imposing middle-aged man standing at the entrance. It was a wax figure of a man in a suit and hat, very different from the wax figures of mermaids Bai Liu had seen, without a fish tail, with a golden body, and an official smile on his face, waving to the tourists coming in.

The wax museum was dimly lit, and the light falling from the top cast ill-defined shadows on the face of this wax figure, making even the polite smiles on its face grotesque.

There's some blurb about the wax figure carved into the black stone platform, and Bai Liu leans over to read it - it's a wax figure of the mayor of the town of Siren, inaugurated when the Siren Wax Museum cut the ribbon to open.

The stone platform also used some very exaggerated tone to highly praise the mayor's contribution to the town of Siren, what after salvaging the mermaid skeleton vigorously develop the tourism industry, what support for the construction of a very ornamental Siren wax museum, so that the entire backward seaside town of Siren has become thriving.

It was also carved on the stone platform - [Mayor Harris has an unconditional and deep love for each and every villager in the town of Serenity as he does for his own children].

Bai Liu was looking at it seriously when Jeff, who had been silent all the way, suddenly approached Bai Liu and asked in a small voice, "Do you believe in human mermaids? Do you think what this says about Siren Town is true?"

Certainly won't believe all of it.

This kind of specially built hunt to promote tourism to the wax museum inside the display of things, although it looks very serious, but can be a third of the real is almost, most of the local fabricated false information, used to hype into a gimmick to attract tourists.

But it's a horror game.

Bai Liu : "I think it's true."

Andre grunted heavily with his chest in his arms, as if mocking the convinced Jeff and Bai Liu, but didn't say anything and followed Jeff into the wax museum.

Bai Liu and Lucy were supposed to go together, but Bai Liu wanted to go to the hot water room to separate the wet newspapers, so he let Lucy go shopping alone first.

After expressing her regret, Lucy said she would wait for Bai Liu in the exhibition hall, and went on her own. Bai Liu, on the other hand, went in the direction of the hot-water room that the guard said he would be waiting for in the gallery.