Xu Huo paused washing the dishes and pointed at the window, "I just saw a shadowy figure walk by, but I haven’t heard any knock on the door for a while."

Seeing his gesture, the woman’s expression changed, and she hurriedly lowered her voice, "Don’t speak!"

The other two people in the room also grew tense, hurriedly rushed into the room, picked up the two children, and covered their ears.

Under the confused faces of Xu Huo and the Girl in the painting, the door was knocked:

"Knock, knock, knock."

The rhythmic knocking sounded twice in succession. Xu Huo patted the woman’s sleeve and pointed at the door, using his eyes to ask her if she wanted to open it.

The woman kept her mouth tightly shut and looked at him sharply, then shook her head with determination.

Xu Huo stood honestly in place. The knocking sounded again, and then everything fell into endless silence.

Once everyone relaxed, he asked, "Who was knocking just now? Is there something... bad living around here?"

He deliberately spoke vaguely, but the old person understood his meaning, "It’s not other people. There are no bad people here, even if there were, bad people wouldn’t dare come out at night."

Xu Huo sat down by the table, showing a posture of willing to hear more.

Over there, the Girl in the painting shared two fruity candies with the children, and they pulled her down to sit, urging the old person to tell a story.

The old person finished their tea, chewed up and swallowed all the tea leaves from the cup, and only then began to tell this story passed down through generations.

"The Hidden Friend."

Similar to what’s mentioned in the game background introduction, shadowy figures began to appear in the mist here a few generations ago. At first, everyone thought they were seeing things, after all, with the dense fog and plentiful trees, it wasn’t unusual to see something strange and weird.

But gradually, as more and more people saw the figures, some people suddenly disappeared, one today and another tomorrow. At first, no one suspected the figures, thinking they got lost in the forest or were eaten by wild animals——before the forest’s abnormal evolution, the population living here was considerable, the woods were not as dense and broad, nor were there so few large predators.

Until later, someone saw with their own eyes another person being called away by "themselves."

The incident happened like this: two people went into the grove to hunt one after another. They knew each other, and the one behind caught up with the one in front, wanting to propose walking together. Unexpectedly, before he could speak, the one in front suddenly raised their hand, waved further away, responded with a name, and shouted for the one in back to wait and go together.

The distance between them was only about ten meters. Although the person behind was not sure if no one was really there in front, he was certain that person was not himself.

Under normal circumstances, the person behind just thought the one in front had mistaken their identity due to blurred vision, or someone they knew was joking. So, he quickened his pace to catch up and wanted to call out to the person in front, but going forward he encountered a thick fog. Before long, the person in front disappeared, and despite calling out, there was no response, so he gave up.

The next day and the day after, the person in front never came back. The person who was behind went back to ask friends who knew them both about their paths that day, making sure it wasn’t a joke. So, he shared his experience.

By then, many had seen figures greeting them or calling their names in the forest, numbers so numerous it couldn’t be simply dismissed as illusions. So, they formulated a counter-strategy.

People who saw figures were usually alone, so entering the grove meant needing a companion. Upon meeting others, before seeing their faces clearly, they should not respond. This kept them safe for a time, but soon they weren’t satisfied with just protecting themselves and wanted to understand what exactly happened to those who disappeared.

Thus, some people began venturing alone into the mountains with equipment. None managed to truly capture the "figures," but some went missing with all their equipment.

The matter gradually spread, and authoritative agencies came to inspect and search, concluding that chaotic magnetic fields caused visual and auditory hallucinations, but as for the figures, they weren’t seen at all.

After a few instances, experts jokingly named the shadowy figure "The Hidden Friend."

Back then, this was still a relatively large town. Despite the legend, most people didn’t live in the grove and simply avoided it, so there was no thought of relocating, until a plant mutation occurred, flooding the woods with a huge number of mutant plants in a short span, engulfing the town and two nearby large cities.

At the time, all the original residents of these cities perished, not a single body was found.

Perhaps due to this tragic catastrophe, many of the residents who had been away began experiencing hallucinations, seeing shadowy figures in the mist calling them, as the mist originating from this mutated forest indeed began spreading to the surrounding areas.

This could have ultimately ended with some being sent to mental hospitals, but soon other regions also underwent mutation, human settlements kept shrinking, and new rules were set in the safety zones, abandoning some incapable of self-protection——not directly expelling them, but under the guise of sending them outside to investigate.

Some of these abandoned people survived in undeveloped areas, building cities there.

However, with so many mutant plants repeatedly destroying and rebuilding, those living here could only make do with local resources. They lacked resources and talents, having few players in later generations, so they lived strugglingly.

"Being able to live in this forest is a great blessing for us," the old person said, "at least here there are no mutant beasts, and the Hidden Friend... we don’t need any friends like that."

Based on the experience of those living nearby, their method to cope was enough for their protection. However, the old person mentioned in their narrative that sometimes the way the "Hidden Friend" sought friends would change. It used to be in the mountains and forests, but at some point, it began appearing outside houses, sometimes even mimicking outsiders, like Xu Huo’s group who knocked earlier. The "Hidden Friend" might mimic his knocks now.

The earlier knocking was just a setup created by Xu Huo, but there really was someone knocking, most likely players doing an instance.

Yet, the "Hidden Friend" has appeared for so long, and no one mentioned it in the instance materials near Beautiful Tomorrow Station, it’s simply categorized as a curiosity.

Could it be that none of the players entering the instance made it out alive?

"It’s getting late, you should rest early. I’ve prepared a room for the two children," the story ended and the two children contently fell asleep in their parents’ arms. The old person, somewhat weary, still reminded, "If someone calls from outside at night, don’t answer."