GHG: Chapter 7

Lucy sat at the dining table like she wasn’t fully awake. She leaned against Bai Liu and yawned. Jeff had been dozing off all morning. There were dark circles under his eyes, his skin was bluish-grey and his eyes were sunken. Bai Liu didn’t know if it was his illusion but he felt that Andre’s pupils had shrunk a bit compared to yesterday. Andre had a very uncomfortable, nervous and anxious aura and he exuded a fishy smell that was absent yesterday.

Bai Liu took out the coin and aimed it at Andre.

[NPC Name: Andre (mental value has declined, alienation)]

Andre seemed to have a big appetite. He was eating from a large plate filled with the hotel’s breakfast buffet food. It was as if he wanted to pour it directly down his throat.

This hotel was close to the sea so most of the breakfast was pan fried, boiled and fried fish. The fish soup was smooth while the fish steak was golden and crispy. It looked appetizing. However, Bai Liu smelled something pungent like rotten fishtails. It was the smell of dead fish surrounded by flies at the garbage dump where fishmongers threw fish at the market. The moment he approached these beautiful fish dishes, he felt like vomiting and couldn’t swallow it.

Yet neither Jeff nor Lucy showed that they smelled it. Bai Liu swept the coin over them. As expected, the two of them also showed ‘alienation’. It should be related to the merfolk statues in the room.

Speaking of Andre, the way that he ate made Bai Liu a bit uncomfortable. Andre was taking big mouthfuls and the slippery fishtails slapped his mouth as he chewed. Often before he finished eating, he would use a fork to grab the next piece and send it to his mouth.

Lucy cut the fish steak with a knife and fork and looked at Bai Liu with a bit of surprise. “Aren’t you going to eat it? Baby, the fish steaks here are really delicious! I might be on a diet but I can’t help eating two!”

“You’ve found a pretty good hotel!” Lucy was about to come over and kiss him. Bai Liu was choked by the strong fishy smell from Lucy’s mouth and instinctively pushed her away. He pulled a plate in front of Lucy and told her, “Baby, you are in good shape right now and I can’t allow you to lose your beauty for a fish. Eat some vegetarian dishes. The fish steaks here are just ordinary.”

Lucy was coaxed by him. She might be reluctant to give up the fish but she obediently ate a salad. In order to keep up the excuse, Bai Liu also passed some salads to Jeff and Andre for them to eat. Bai Liu gave it and Jeff ate it, but he was a bit ungrateful.

Meanwhile, Andre couldn’t look at Bai Liu in a pleasant manner and mocked, “Surely our rich man isn’t short of money, right? Before we came here, you spoke big words and said we could eat and live as we wanted. Now you can’t even bear a piece of fish steak. Lucy, look! This is your stingy boyfriend!”

Lucy immediately cursed angrily. “Andre! If it wasn’t for Bai Liu, do you think we could come to this hotel to eat this high-end fish steak? You can’t live like this! Look at how much you are eating. If Bai Liu didn’t pay for you then you wouldn’t be able to leave this hotel at all!”

“Lucy!” Andre roared but Lucy was unmoved. She just stared at Andre quietly. Andre couldn’t do anything to the woman he liked so he turned to direct all his anger at Bai Liu’s head.

Lucy screamed as Andre’s wide palm was about to grab Bai Liu’s collar. Bai Liu wiped his mouth unhurriedly, looked at Andre and smiled. “If you want me to pay for you then you better not touch me.”

Andre’s hand abruptly stopped in mid-air. His nostrils expanded and contracted like a bull as he breathed out violently. He stared at Bai Liu with red eyes and threatened fiercely, “If you don’t follow the contents of our bet tonight then I’ll see how good you look, short piece of trash who can’t even be with a woman!”

His eyes were bloodshot and he seemed filled with anger that shot to his head. However, he didn’t do anything to Bai Liu. After all, he was still relying on Bai Liu to pay for him. It just so happened that a piece of broccoli rolled from Jeff’s plate down onto Andre’s shoes.

Andre was like a balloon that had been inflated to its limit and was then pierced by this broccoli. His anger leaked out uncontrollably. Before Jeff could apologize, his palm hit the back of Jeff’s head and directly knocked him onto his plate. Jeff also vomited out everything he ate this morning.

“You soiled my shoes! You’re disgusting!” Andre seemed amused when he saw Jeff vomited. He found a certain mental balance and kicked Jeff. After wiping out the negligible oil stains on his shoes onto Jeff’s pants, Andre spoke again. “I don’t care about waste that can’t fight back. Wipe it clean and get out of here.”

Lucy helped up the dizzy Jeff and shouted hysterically at Andre, “You are too much Andre! You’ve gone too far with Jeff!”

Bai Liu ignored the arguing between the two people. His eyes were focused on Jeff’s vomit. The golden fish steak that had been chewed and vomited up by Jeff had turned blue-black like a dead fish. It was stained with something creeping up it like an insect.

People couldn’t eat this type of rotten dead fish. Fishmongers at the market would usually use this dead fish to feed large fish. Bai Liu remembered a fishmonger telling him that the larger the saprophytic fish, the more they liked to eat dead fish.

Bai Liu finished breakfast and the driver came to pick them up.

[Main task: Visit the Siren Museum and you will be rewarded with 50 points.]

[Main task: Participate in the merfolk fishing conference and you will be rewarded with 50 points.]

The Siren Museum and merfolk fishing conference. It sounded like two attractions.

Bai Liu pondered on it for a moment. He wanted to ask the driver what these two things were when Jeff suddenly rushed up to block the way between Bai Liu and the driver. He lowered his head and didn’t speak. His pale and thin cheeks were sunken and there were still blood stains around his mouth from Andre’s hit. He was gritting his teeth and trembling slightly.

Bai Liu raised his eyebrow. Jeff seemed to be trying to avoid Bai Liu having contact with the driver since yesterday. This wasn’t normal.

Bai Liu’s fingers instinctively turned the coin around. The coin flipped back and forth between his fingers. This was a common posture when Bai Liu was thinking about something. The feeling of money in his hands, even a coin, was enough to make him calm and happy.

Without any other information, Bai Liu guessed that Jeff’s target should be Andre. It was normal for Andre to have contact with the driver since the driver should be looking for a chance to act. Lucy was also a fool and there was no need to isolate her deliberately.

There must be a reason for Jeff to isolate Bai Liu from the driver. Bai Liu thought about it and realized it should be money. Jeff obviously had the daily routine of being beaten violently on campus by Andre and he wasn’t a rich character. Andre was a bully and afraid of hardships. He didn’t like the rich Bai Liu but he couldn’t take practical action against Bai Liu. Meanwhile, he always struck and scolded Jeff. From this perspective, Jeff’s family situation shouldn’t be comparable to Bai Liu or even Andre.

Last night, Jeff gave the driver what looked like a huge sum of money. Bai Liu suspected that Jeff took the money Bai Liu gave him to hire a driver to show them around and instead hired the driver to retaliate against Andre. He felt guilty and didn’t allow the driver to contact Bai Liu.

However, last night Jeff had already paid the driver a sum of money. It stood to reason that the transaction had almost been completed and the driver also completed the work of showing them around very well. There was nothing suspicious and generally speaking, Jeff should be relieved. There was no more need to deliberately isolate Bai Liu and the driver when it might arouse suspicion.

This type of guilty and cautious performance made it seem that things hadn’t been implemented yet.

Still, it was possible that Jeff was just cautious and timid. He didn’t want to let down his vigilance until things were done. Jeff’s side story was called ‘bloody plot’ after all. This type of plot obviously involved killing just based on the name so Bai Liu understood the caution.

It wasn’t known when Jeff would act against Andre but Bai Liu currently wanted to focus on the main plot line.

Bai Liu talked to the driver. “Driver, what attractions are there in Siren Town?”

“Attractions?” The driver thought about it. “The visitors who come here must see the night fishing and the museum.”

Bai Liu heard this answer and thought ‘sure enough’. Then he raised his eyebrow and asked, “Do the night fishing and museum have any special features?”

“Of course, this is Siren Town.” The driver turned around. It was the first time that Bai Liu had seen the driver’s appearance up close. Bai Liu couldn’t help sucking in a breath even if he was resistant to horror scenes.

It wasn’t because of fear. It was because of surprise. The driver’s appearance was too strange.

The whites of his eyes were so large that his pupils were only the size of a fly. His eyes shook uneasily everywhere as he spoke like he couldn’t control them. The driver’s skin was also pale to the point of being opaque.

The driver was biting the fish steak sandwich in his hand as he drove and spoke. The bitten cross-section of the fish steak was green-black like it was moldy. However, the driver ate it with relish. His teeth were stained a green black color and the smile he showed Bai Liu was so wide that it was abnormal.

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Proofreader: Purichan