The stuffed cat opened its enormous mouth — blocking Shen Mo’s path.

Shen Mo made an instant adjustment, swinging his sword to slash at the cat’s eyes.

*Thud, thud, thud.*

The massive plastic buttons fell to the ground, bounced twice, rolled to the roadside, and came to rest.

The left eye socket was bare now, with only a stub of black thread remaining.

Mary screamed in fury: “You horrible people! I’ll kill every last one of you! Kill you all!!!”

The stuffed cat let out a mournful yowl, and its body reared up almost fully vertical — then it came crashing down toward Shen Mo.

“Brother!” Shen Fei’s eyes went red. He grabbed his axe and charged out.

Bai Youwei had assumed Shen Fei was rushing to his own death, but to her surprise his skills were genuinely impressive. Under Shen Mo and Yan Qingwen’s cover, he landed several solid hits on the stuffed cat.

Yet no matter how many of its limbs were chopped, its belly cut open, its eyes removed — the stuffed cat was still a stuffed cat. Its assault didn’t slow in the slightest. The relentless, savage lunging made everyone’s defense increasingly difficult to sustain.

Luo Bin was injured, collapsed by the wall.

Shen Mo, Yan Qingwen, Lu Ang, Yu Yaqing, and Shen Fei — the five of them gradually shifted from going on the offensive to holding a defensive line.

If not for having passed through the maze, they would likely have already collapsed from sheer exhaustion long before now.

As for Tan Xiao and Jiang Hao — there had been no sign of either of them.

Bai Youwei was deeply worried.

She was worried about both the scene unfolding before her and about Tan Xiao — he was like a piece of paper, every thought and feeling written openly across his face. If Jiang Hao was deliberately setting a trap for him, he would likely have no way out.

Her mind felt as though it were being split into several pieces — fretting over one thing, anxious about another.

Bai Youwei bit down hard on her lip, overwhelmed with urgency.

There were a full six hours in the night, and they hadn’t even gotten through the first hour yet. They couldn’t keep tangling with Mary and the cat like this.

Should she send the rabbit out now? …No — that wouldn’t work!

The rabbit was suited for ambush attacks, but not sustained combat. If it released lightning too frequently, its charge would run out quickly.

The most urgent task was getting everyone to fall back.

…But retreat to where?

No matter where they hid, Mary and the cat would find them. What was the point of retreating at all?

The others were fighting and retreating, moving out of Bai Youwei’s field of vision. She saw the button eyes the stuffed cat had left on the ground.

Button eyes…

Eyes?

Bai Youwei’s thoughts suddenly snagged. She had the faint sense she had overlooked something — and when she thought more carefully, wasn’t this situation oddly familiar?

Back in the Doll House, the Nail-Teeth Monster seemed to have possessed some kind of X-ray vision — the moment it entered, it made a beeline straight for the storage room where she was hiding.

And now — the same thing again.

What did the Doll House and the hide-and-seek game have in common?

She looked around urgently.

Something in common…

What was it?

Were both full of childlike whimsy?

And why were they full of childlike whimsy?

Because…

Because…

…Dolls?

Bai Youwei froze.

Her thoughts broke through. She snapped back to full, crystalline alertness, and looked around again —

Indeed… there were so many, so very many dolls here.

Whether in the gift shop just before, or in the candy shop after — there had been an innumerable number of decorative dolls everywhere. Fluffy ones, rubber ones, ceramic ones, wooden ones, clay ones, fabric ones, wool felt ones…

Every variety of doll imaginable.

Mary was seeing them through those dolls’ eyes.

“It’s the dolls!” Bai Youwei’s chest surged with certainty. She charged out of the treehouse, hurled the rabbit toward Mary, and shouted at the top of her voice: “Scatter!!!”

Everyone fighting with the stuffed cat leapt back at once. Shen Fei was a step too slow and was pulled clear by Shen Mo.

He hadn’t yet figured out what was happening when the enormous cat in front of him crashed to the ground with a thunderous boom, lightning coiling across its body like serpents.

Bai Youwei shouted from the treehouse doorway: “The dolls everywhere in this place are all watchers! Find somewhere without any dolls and hide! Don’t let the dolls see you!!!”

—