Chapter 155: The Puppet on the First Floor

Chapter 155: Chapter 155: The Puppet on the First FloorThe girl in the white dress first smiled, then said, "You believe in fairy tales, too? How can people never age. If you want to hear authentic stories of Fairy Tale City, you have to find the elderly, but the elderly of Fairy Tale City either died of illness or moved to other cities. The rest are all staying at home, growing old, and don’t like to go out."

"The owner of Building Blocks MoMo Shop and the proprietor of Long-Nosed Nut Pie are originally from Fairy Tale City, but if you go looking for them, they might not be in."

"I’m just talking," Xu Huo bought two umbrellas and handed one to her, "Let’s have dinner together."

The girl in the white dress smiled shyly.

After having dinner together, the two parted ways. The girl in the white dress, holding the umbrella, left the noisy main street and entered a complex warren of alleyways. However, she was barely in when a man and a woman stopped her, the woman pressing a dagger to her neck, "What did that man ask you just now?"

The girl in the white dress had a look of panic and took out the guide fee Xu Huo paid her, "All my money is here..."

"Who wants your money!" The man barked lowly, but the woman snatched the money first and glared at the man, "Don’t say no to free money, it’s ours anyway!"

The man grabbed the girl in the white dress by the shoulders, threatening, "Tell the truth when I ask you something, and I guarantee I won’t hurt you."

The girl in the white dress swallowed nervously, "The person just now is just a tourist, he was asking where to find the elderly of Brick Tale Town."

"Speak up! Where!"

"Building Blocks MoMo Shop and Delicious Sausage Shop..." the girl in the white dress murmured softly.

"Besides these two places, where else can you find elderly people?" the man asked again.

"No more, no more... Most of the elderly of Fairy Tale City have died of illness..." the girl in the white dress hurriedly said.

Only then did the man let her go, and, after exchanging a look with the woman, they left in a hurry.

After they had gone, the girl in the white dress picked up the umbrella that had fallen to the ground and wiped the stains off her dress hem, continuing forward.

She hadn’t walked for a few minutes when suddenly a hand reached out from a corner and clutched her throat asking, "What did those two people ask you?"

The girl in the white dress breathed with difficulty, stuttering, "They wanted... to know... where the guest I was guiding was heading?"

"The place."

"Bear’s Paw Restaurant... and Delicious Sausage Shop... there’s nothing else..."

Only when she was nearly suffocating did the hand suddenly loosen. The girl in the white dress knelt on the ground, coughing incessantly. At that moment, a tall, sturdy man jumped down from above and handed her a handkerchief.

The girl in the white dress looked up at him fearfully, "Do you also want to know where that guest is heading?"

The tall man handed her a stack of money.

The girl in the white dress hesitated before reaching out to take it, "He’s looking for the elderly of Fairy Tale City, I told him about Delicious Sausage Shop and Building Blocks MoMo Shop."

The man nodded and walked away.

It took a while for the girl in the white dress to stand up again, put the money in her bag, picked up her umbrella, twirled it above her head, then rested it on her right shoulder, and walked out of the alley with a spring in her step, heading towards the accommodation area.

In a sweet shop several streets away, Xu Huo listened to Wang Qiao and Gao Baimei, a stranger, along with Shen Tai’s group interrogate the girl in the white dress. Then, looking at the monitors of the anti-theft device he had purchased from the mall, he saw the dot move continuously deeper into the residential area until it finally stopped at the location of Bear’s Paw Restaurant.

He tapped on the screen with his finger, turned off the security device, settled the bill, and left the sweet shop, heading straight for Bear’s Paw Restaurant.

By this time, dusk had fallen, and Fairy Tale City had closed its gates, with visitors beginning to look for places to stay.

Although gourmets tirelessly warned outsiders about the horrors of Bear’s Paw Restaurant, there were still quite a few tourists staying there.

Following a waiter, Xu Huo registered his stay, and in a storage box in the fifth-floor corridor, he saw the umbrella he had given to the girl in the white dress.

With a barely detectable smile, he opened the door to the room he had booked.

No sooner had he checked in, than Tao Chengxin, carrying a backpack, entered Bear’s Paw Restaurant in the last few minutes before closing.

The sky darkened quickly, and Fairy Tale City gradually became desolate and quiet.

During the late night when no waiters were moving around in the restaurant, there came a creaking noise from the fifth-floor corridor. The sound passed by Xu Huo’s door and headed downstairs.

Before long, the aroma of food wafted up.

"Who’s having a midnight snack at this late hour?" A guest who hadn’t fallen asleep muttered as they left their room and headed downstairs.

A short while later, Xu Huo also emerged, glanced at the room across the hallway, and made his way toward the stairs.

Just as he left, the door opposite opened, and Tao Chengxin cautiously followed.

The first and second floors of Bear’s Paw Restaurant were dining areas, and there were no lights left on at night in these two levels. However, Xu Huo had evolved night-vision capabilities; he could see the situation inside the restaurant clearly.

Besides the guest who had passed by his door earlier, there were six other people sitting in the restaurant, each occupying a table. Their expressions were somewhat vacant, yet their hands hovered above the tables, as if tracing something in the air.

He watched at the entrance for a few seconds before turning and continuing down the stairs to the first-floor restaurant.

Similarly engulfed in darkness, the first-floor restaurant had a short figure rigidly cleaning a stain on the floor, moving without bumping into any objects or making a sound.

Seeming to feel the gaze behind it, the figure suddenly turned around. Xu Huo ducked to the side of the door first, then grabbed the string of a guitar hanging from the ceiling of the first floor. At the same time, a cleaver flew out from inside the doorway, embedding halfway into the wall. A shadow then burst forth, leaping onto the handle of the cleaver, squatting there with its head swiveling a full 180 degrees!

It was a wooden puppet.

Its limbs were made of wood, and the joints were connected with some white, flexible material that allowed silent and unhindered movement. Its eyes and mouth were made from two beads and two wooden sticks; it wore a hat on its head. Although a bit stiff, it did not bump its hands or feet when mimicking human actions.

The wooden puppet had no ears and the eyes made of glass beads seemed incapable of sight. After its head rotated 360 degrees without finding its target, it jumped down from the wall, taking the cleaver with it.

Just as it was awkwardly wielding the cleaver about to return to the first-floor restaurant, the sound of a service bell rang out from the second floor. The puppet’s head twisted backward, the two wooden sticks of its mouth angled down in a furious expression, and it charged upside down in the direction of the second floor!

Soon after, the sound of chopping and screams emanated from the floor above. But just as quickly as the carnage had begun, within a mere ten seconds, the sounds of destruction abruptly ceased—with the abrupt fall of chairs and tables arriving to a sudden stop.

Xu Huo lay still in his hiding spot when suddenly, he seemed to sense something and looked up, meeting the gaze of a wooden head that had silently appeared around the bend of the stairs on the second floor.

The wooden puppet hung off the railing, its head resting sideways on its shoulder, the two glass bead eyes directly "staring" at him.