Ten people — everyone except the mobility-impaired Bai Youwei — began searching the house.
This house was packed with countless dolls, so searching wasn’t too difficult. They quickly turned up a large pile of toy bears in every color, material, and style imaginable.
Big ones, small ones, chubby ones, skinny ones, ones wearing trousers, ones wearing hats — all kinds were there.
“Look at this one — it matches the bear outside!”
Zhu Shu pulled one out from the pile. It was a small brown plush bear, with a bow tie sewn at its collar — identical to the one the bear outside was wearing: a red base with black polka dots.
“The spring bear awoke and lost two children… There should be one more like this,” Yan Qingwen said, furrowing his brow. “Everyone, keep looking — is there another plush bear with a red and black polka-dot bow tie?”
Everyone was busy searching.
Drawers, wardrobes, wall cabinets, storage boxes, under the beds, behind doors, up in the attic — even the fireplace chimney was not overlooked.
They found all manner of bears — but not a single plush bear with a red polka-dot bow tie.
“Yan Qingwen, this is every bear we could find.”
“Could we have been thinking about it wrong? Maybe it doesn’t have to have a bow tie?”
“But the bears without bow ties number over forty — that’s too broad a range to narrow it down.”
“What about the ones with bow ties? We’ve got blue, black, pink…”
“Still over ten of those…”
“We’ve searched everywhere there was to search. What do we do now?”
Everyone debated in a jumble, checking and rechecking the toy bears they’d found.
Bai Youwei, with nothing to do, wheeled herself over to the window and watched the bear outside.
It was still there.
It crouched by the door, motionless — its massive, powerful body like a mountain of flesh.
If a beast like this went berserk, let alone the people inside, this entire house would likely suffer serious damage. Fortunately, it wasn’t coming in for now, giving them ample time to prepare.
Just as the inspector had said: without the permission of the Doll House’s owner, no one could enter.
The owner of the Doll House…
Bai Youwei fell into thought, finding that particular detail rather interesting.
Meanwhile, Shen Mo came back downstairs empty-handed, having found nothing.
He walked over and took a drink of water, then looked out the window. “8 hours per season — spring, summer, and autumn together make 24 hours. A full day. But we can’t keep searching nonstop for an entire day. There’s no food here, and the longer time drags on, the worse it is for us.”
“It’s only just started. Take it slowly.” Bai Youwei gazed at the bear, unconcerned.
She was sitting in her wheelchair, unable to move freely, which meant she was bound to be no help during the search.
“Yan Qingwen! Look at this!” Li Li suddenly let out a shout from upstairs.
The people below all looked over. Li Li came charging downstairs clutching a pirate ship model, with Tan Xiao and Cheng Weicai right behind him.
The model was roughly the length of an adult’s forearm. Inside the model were skull figures the size of a pinky fingernail, along with wooden-carved food and jewels — all painted with delicate detail, looking remarkably authentic.
“This must be the treasure, right?” Li Li set the ship model down on the dining room table, panting. “When the summer guest arrives, this thing will come in handy.”
Yan Qingwen looked at the model and gave a slight nod. “Who found it?”
“I…” Li Li’s expression was a little awkward. He glanced sideways. “…And Tan Xiao.”
Tan Xiao, for his part, hadn’t thought much about it and just said directly: “We were searching the attic for bears, and we found this absolutely enormous whale plush! When I picked it up to play with, it felt incredibly heavy. Stuffed animals shouldn’t be that heavy — so we split open its belly! And wow, inside, apart from the stuffing, there was this whole ship! Strange, isn’t it?”