# Chapter 152: Night in Fairy Tale City
At three in the morning game time, a series of urgent knocks sounded without warning at the door.
Xu Huo lay still on the bed, opening his eyes to look toward the door.
"Knock knock knock! Knock knock knock... Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!"
The urgent knocking gradually turned into pounding, the sound continuously rising in volume.
Xu Huo simply sat up, listening to the noise at the door without responding or making any move to open it.
The knocking continued for a while longer before abruptly stopping, followed by the sound of footsteps retreating into the distance.
A few seconds later, another set of footsteps with a different rhythm passed by the door.
After about a minute of silence, another set of footsteps returned from the direction they had departed, slamming against the door: "Help! Save me! Someone's trying to kill me! Please open the door..."
"He's coming soon, if he finds me I'm dead!"
"Please, open the door quickly, if you don't I'll lose my life!"
"I have a lot of valuable things, I can give you anything if you just open the door!"
"Open up! Open up!"
The pounding and shouting grew louder and louder. Xu Huo pressed the service button by the bedside, but when it connected, the voice speaking wasn't a server—it was the woman outside the door.
"Please save me, otherwise I'll die here..."
Xu Huo directly hung up the communication, but immediately afterward, the sound outside the door disappeared, replaced by knocking at the window.
He got up and walked to the window, casually pulling open the curtain, took out a lighter to light a cigarette, and said to the woman hanging outside the window with disheveled hair and a blood-covered face: "It's late at night, go back to sleep."
The woman's face twisted for an instant, then she lunged toward the person inside the window!
Unexpectedly, at that moment Xu Huo suddenly reached out and pulled open the glass window. The barrier between them instantly disappeared. The woman almost couldn't stop her momentum and ended up face-to-face with him. She reflexively grabbed both sides of the window frame, but immediately realized she had shown weakness. As she turned her head, her chin dropped and she extended a long tongue.
Xu Huo watched her performance expressionlessly, "The window wasn't even closed. Isn't it tiring hanging out there? How about you come in and we chat?"
The woman's expression froze. Seeing him reach toward her, she retreated from the window instead, floating lightly upward and disappearing.
At that moment, a faint scream came from not far from the Eternal Star Club. Xu Huo glanced in that direction before going back to sleep.
The next morning, just as dawn broke, the tourist city regained yesterday's liveliness. The tourists who had disappeared during the night suddenly all reappeared, and the aroma of food filled the city.
When Xu Huo went to the second floor for breakfast, he saw yesterday's server and asked: "Doesn't anyone work the night shift here?"
The server smiled and said: "Our working hours are from six in the morning to nine at night."
Xu Huo nodded. Naturally, hotels in the game couldn't compare to hotels in reality.
After breakfast, he planned to go check out the True Love Square.
As he walked through the lobby, he heard a server coming down from upstairs say to the front desk: "That guest just now also broke a crystal glass worth fifteen thousand White Notes. It was missed during the first registration."
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow slightly, but heard a woman carrying a backpack mutter as she passed him: "This shameless Eternal Star probably made its fortune by ripping off guests..."
She even looked up and glared at him, "What are you looking at! Never seen a woman before?"
Xu Huo glanced at her and turned away.
He headed toward True Love Square, but didn't rush. Instead, he walked at a leisurely pace, stopping occasionally, and when the mood struck, he'd join a group of locals for a chat before moving on.
By the time he reached True Love Square, it was already mealtime, but many people were still gathered there. Most were couples, all listening to guides or locals telling the love story carved on the three stone tablets at the square's center.
Xu Huo stood at the periphery and read through the stone tablets. The plot was similar to what he had heard yesterday, but it included specific times, and the ages and life stories of the male and female protagonists were also recorded. The female protagonist was particularly famous for cultivating new varieties of flowers.
After looking at the tablets for a while, he caught a gaze in the crowd. Turning to look back, he saw a girl in a white dress smiling at him from across the crowd.
She wore a "Tour Guide" badge on her shoulder and waved at him, "Sir, come over here. We're starting from the beginning again."
Xu Huo walked over smoothly and listened to the love story once more.
Some tourists and couples who had finished listening were both tearful and regretful.
"Perhaps this is the best ending for them," the girl in white said with a smile. "Separation by life and death is the most painful thing in the world. Maybe in another world, they can be happy together?"
The tourists nodded in agreement, wiped the tears from the corners of their eyes, and surged toward the small shop selling fried algae clams. A female tourist said while eating an algae clam: "Eating these is the best for hydration."
The girl in white stared at them for a few seconds before turning back to Xu Huo and saying: "Algae clams are the most popular delicacy right now. Sir, won't you try some?"
Xu Huo shook his head and handed her a bottle of water, "Moisten your throat."
"Thank you." The girl in white took it and said: "I noticed you standing here for a long time. Are you thinking about your loved one?"
"I don't have a loved one," Xu Huo said.
"Oh, did she leave you?" The girl in white said comfortingly: "Don't be sad. You'll definitely find a beloved girl again."
Xu Huo smiled and turned his head toward the stone tablets, "Besides these tablets, do they have no graves?"
The girl in white followed his gaze to the tablets and suddenly pursed her lips in a smile: "Sir must be joking. This is Fairy Tale City. Fairy Tale City has no tombstones. What if they scare the children?"
Xu Huo was about to speak again when someone called the girl in white from a distance. She apologetically handed him a business card, "I still have work. If you need a guide or tour guide, you can contact me."
"Alright." Xu Huo casually put the card into his pocket, watched her figure disappear into the crowd, then turned and left True Love Square, hailing a car toward the tourist city entrance.
At that moment, at the tourist city entrance, the female player and the big man who had come on the same vehicle yesterday, along with the couple of male and female players, had all returned. The young man who had been kidnapped also came back. When the five met face to face, they could all see the exhaustion in each other's eyes.
They found a rest area by the roadside. The young man, whose face was covered in scars, spoke first: "Did you find any clues?"
This opened the conversation. The couple spoke first. The woman touched the scratch marks on her face and said: "Don't even talk about finding clues. Yesterday we didn't even dare stay in a hotel, and then we ran into a pack of stray cats and dogs on the street..."
"You were injured this badly by stray cats and dogs?" the young man interrupted in shock.
"You think they're ordinary cats and dogs?" the woman said angrily. "The cats and dogs here are fiercer than tigers and leopards. They all eat people!"