Seeing that Bai Liu was about to be bitten, the audience grew so anxious that they sounded like a group of grumpy old men.
"Wake up! Get up and fight the monsters!"
"Why are you sleeping?! Can't you sleep after you get out? You're only missing an hour of rest! Didn't your mother teach you not to quit in the middle of a game?"
"I've watched game videos for years, and I've never seen someone just lie down and wait to die like this!"
Amid the uproar, Bai Liu on the small TV suddenly seemed to wake up. He slowly opened his eyes.
He looked out at the sea. Waves rolled in the darkness. Half of the fish-like figures had already surfaced, their mouths wide open as they swam toward his boat. Bai Liu could see that below the water, their legs had merged into eel-like tails. Underwater, they looked like serpents—twisting and writhing as they rapidly approached him.
Andre's boat, not far away, was covered in blood, scattered chunks of flesh, and white bones.
The lower half of Andre's body had already begun to fuse into a fish-like form. Torn strips of his clothing hung over the side of the boat, drifting alone on the sea. It was proof of how ferocious these mermaids were.
Yet in this critical moment, Bai Liu simply dipped his quilt into the seawater twice and pulled it up to cover the entire boat. He crouched beneath it, shivering, as if hiding from the world. This turtle-like behavior triggered another wave of furious cursing from the viewers.
Moreover, he moved extremely slowly and stiffly, as though his body were freezing solid.
Marble-like veins began appearing on his once-pale fingers. He had entered the same state Lucy had before. His body temperature dropped sharply, and he felt himself gradually turning to stone. His mind and movements were sluggish, and he couldn't stop trembling.
Bai Liu's baffling act of covering the boat with his quilt sparked a flood of complaints.
"What the hell is he doing? Does he know he's going to die, so he's holding his own funeral in advance?"
"No, I think he's already heavily alienated. It's impressive he can still move at all. His panel attributes are too low. Once alienated, he's practically a frozen corpse."
"God Mu praised him earlier for being amazing. Now I think it was sarcasm…"
Bai Liu, of course, knew nothing of these discussions.
He looked at the barrels of alcohol in his item panel and muttered, "Pour a barrel of high-concentration alcohol into the sea around my boat—and onto the quilts in the boat."
[System notification: Alcohol has been poured.]
Bai Liu pulled out a box of matches from his pocket. Huddled inside the soaked quilt, his hands trembled several times before he finally managed to strike one.
His expression remained calm.
After lighting the match, he casually lifted a corner of the quilt and tossed the flame into the seawater where the alcohol had been poured.
The fire ignited instantly.
Wrapped in the wet quilt, Bai Liu looked down at the mermaids approaching through the rising heat, a calm and faintly triumphant smile on his lips. It was as if he had been waiting for them to draw closer.
A fierce blaze roared to life on the dark, icy sea. The mermaids swarmed greedily around the boat.
Bai Liu sat in the center of the flames, the fire reflected in his eyes.
The heavy quilt he wore was burning—but only the alcohol on its surface ignited. The thick seawater soaking it prevented the flames from consuming it entirely. From a distance, it looked as if Bai Liu were wrapped in a suit of fire armor, standing unscathed amid the inferno.
Seawater dripped from his soaked hair, black strands clinging to his pale face. Droplets slid from his eyelashes. His expression was calm as he gazed down at the mermaids circling him.
He did not look like a sacrifice waiting to be devoured.
He looked like a ruthless fisherman who had lured the fish here to slaughter them.
The flames and alcohol shimmered in his eyes. Compared to the grotesque monsters beneath the ship, Bai Liu seemed more like a true sea demon rising from the depths. His alienated features carried a strange, mesmerizing allure.
The desperate mermaids rushed into the fire.
The air filled with the sound of flesh sizzling.
Burned mermaids screamed and writhed as they floated on the surface. Soon, the cooked bodies released an oddly rich aroma. The approaching mermaids began devouring their own roasted kind. The harsh crack of bones and the wet tearing of flesh echoed around the boat.
The thick stench of blood and fish flooded Bai Liu's senses, transforming into a strangely tempting scent that made him lick his lips.
Surrounded by mermaids tearing at one another, Bai Liu remained seated in silence. The pallor and gloom caused by his alienation gradually faded under the heat of alcohol and fire. His complexion grew warm and flushed.
He glanced at Andre's now-empty boat and smiled.
It was a satisfied smile—like someone who had just received a long-awaited reward.
It mirrored the contented expressions of the mermaids gnawing at each other.
It was deeply unsettling.
Bai Liu whispered softly, "Good night, Andre."
[Side Task "True Love Ship" — Player Bai Liu has won the bet against Andre. Reward: 100 points.]
[Side Task — "Jeff's Bloody Conspiracy": 90% completion.]
[Main Task: Participate in the Mermaid Fishing Conference — Completed. Reward: 50 points.]
[Siren Town Monster Book updated — Mermaid (4/4).]
[Monster Name: Mermaid (Larval State)]
[Weaknesses: Fire, light. Physically fragile, similar to humans.]
[Attack Mode: Biting and scratching. Does not trigger alienation. Low intelligence. Unable to use tools.]
[Mermaid (Larval State) entry collected. Please continue your efforts.]
A long list of reward and achievement panels popped up, almost slapping the dazed audience members in front of the small TV awake. After a long pause, the viewer who had mocked Bai Liu for "lying down" finally exploded with a curse.
"Fuck!"
It was like a snap of the fingers—everyone who had been stunned by the scene suddenly came back to their senses.
"I take back what I said about God Mu being sarcastic."
"I think covering the boat with the quilt wasn't for his own funeral—it was to send those mermaids to theirs. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I apologize to the newcomer."
"Lying down? What nonsense! He actually won by 'lying down.' That's an insane move."
"The newcomer's face is seriously distracting. The fire is blazing everywhere, but I'm staring at him instead of the mermaid under the boat."
"?! Not this again!"
"Am I the only one focused on how he pulled this off with alcohol? I'm so curious! A barrel of alcohol only costs 9 points, while a Water Bubble costs 70. He saved a huge amount of points!"
[2,300 new viewers liked Bai Liu's small TV]
[2,670 new viewers saved Bai Liu's small TV]
[499 new viewers charged Bai Liu's small TV]
[Player Bai Liu obtained 499 points.]
[Player Bai Liu has received over 2,000 likes in one minute. His popularity is rising rapidly!]
[Congratulations to player Bai Liu for earning a promotion slot and entering the recommended section of the single-player division. Viewer count increasing rapidly…]
Bai Liu sat on the boat with a bored expression, watching the mermaid devour one another. After they finished, he poured another barrel of alcohol and lit it again.
The cooked mermaid was far more enticing than Bai Liu himself, so the others didn't bother attacking him. A ring of fire surrounded his boat. From a distance, it looked as though Bai Liu was calmly feeding fish—burning mermaid to lure more mermaid in.
He roughly calculated that four or five barrels of alcohol would be enough to last until dawn. That was only 45 points—a fraction of the 140 points required to buy two Water Bubbles. He still had five barrels of alcohol left.
The reason he had bought alcohol in the first place was that he had heard from the curator of the Siren Museum that mermaids could be cooked—roasted, in particular—and that people found them delicious.
If they could be roasted, then high-temperature fire attacks would naturally be effective. Fire didn't work against the stone statues, but these mermaid in their fragile larval state weren't statues. Since they could be cooked and eaten, fire should be effective against them.
Moreover, cooked mermaids were extremely attractive to other mermaids. This was evident from Andre's preference for fish steak. He hadn't eaten nearly as much raw fish that night as he had devoured fish steak that morning.
There were also two popular items in Siren Town: the Fire Torch and the Water Bubble. Bai Liu hadn't purchased either, but their core function was obvious from their names—to repel and isolate the mermaid.
Bai Liu combined these concepts with the mermaid's fear of fire. By using high-concentration alcohol and a soaked quilt, he created a "fire bubble" on the surface of the sea. Buying a few more barrels of alcohol extended the duration. It both isolated and repelled the mermaid, while costing far fewer points.
It was a far more cost-effective solution.