“If it’s not something ordinary players can handle, then who could?”

The dollhouse — a game designed specifically for labyrinth players.

This thought surfaced in all three minds at nearly the same moment.

“A game that doesn’t match the current player base’s strength, an overseer who arrived fashionably late, a game that still needs calibration because it’s being run for the first time…” Yan Qingwen said, thinking it through. “If I’m not mistaken, this game was never meant to appear at this stage. It was specially designed for us — by the gray-robed freak.”

Everyone in the room understood exactly what Yan Qingwen meant by those words.

Su Man gritted her teeth. “I’m going to kill it. Kill it!!!”

“Attacking an overseer gets you killed in return,” Bai Youwei said, frowning. “The rabbit-headed one could shoot lightning, the gray-robed freak could summon hurricanes, and that ball seems able to control its own gravitational force — none of them are easy opponents.”

“And don’t forget — every overseer has hundreds of copies of themselves,” Shen Mo said, looking at them. “Even if you kill one, countless others are still alive.”

Su Man bit her lip and wept with fury.

Powerless. Hopeless. Brimming with rage.

Just thinking about how much control the game held over them, those feelings clung to them like shadows — no matter what they did, they couldn’t shake free.

“Let’s talk about the game,” Yan Qingwen said. “The bear rampaged when it came in just now — does that mean our approach was wrong and the bear’s children aren’t those stuffed bears?”

Every face was grim.

“If they’re not the stuffed bears, what are the bear’s children?” Yan Qingwen looked at Bai Youwei. “And another thing — why didn’t the bear attack you? A wild animal in a berserk state, after being provoked, shouldn’t have shifted its target that easily.”

This puzzled Bai Youwei too.

What was different between her and everyone else? The only things that stood out were her two non-functional legs, and…

She furrowed her brow and looked down at her own outfit — a vintage, old-fashioned Lolita dress.

Yan Qingwen had noticed the same thing.

“Could it be because of the clothing…”

Bai Youwei glanced toward the crystal ball in the distance.

That thing had a habit of gloating over misfortune. Yet right now, watching everyone suffer such a bad outcome, it was conspicuously silent — which was very unusual.

“Hey, overseer~” Bai Youwei called out.

The crystal ball shifted, and its clear, child-like voice rang out: “Mm-hmm~ I’m here. I’ll be by your side to guide you throughout — just wind my mechanism whenever you need~”

“I’ve already memorized that nursery rhyme — I don’t need to wind you,” Bai Youwei said with a frown. “But I want to know — those clothes in the wardrobe upstairs. What’s their purpose?”

“…The clothes?” The crystal ball hmmed and hummed vaguely for a moment. “Clothes are for wearing, of course.”

“That wasn’t in the game rules,” Bai Youwei replied.

“Oh, that’s because… because…” The crystal ball swayed back and forth. “Because… you can wear them or not, there’s no hard requirement, so it just wasn’t mentioned.”

Bai Youwei gave a cold smile. “You’re sure there’s no requirement either way? Then why did the mother bear immediately attack everyone who wasn’t wearing the doll-style dress the moment she walked in?”

The crystal ball continued to sway, its explanation growing muddier: “Maybe because… it didn’t recognize you all…”

Bai Youwei’s smile turned icier: “It didn’t recognize them because those not wearing the dollhouse-style clothing couldn’t truly be called masters of the dollhouse — isn’t that right?”

The ball sulked and said, “If you already know, why are you asking me?”

“If I don’t ask you, am I supposed to wait for you to tell me on your own?” Bai Youwei said scornfully. “By the time you got around to telling me on your own, I’d probably already be dead. You overseers are truly disgusting — on one hand you make grand speeches about fairness and impartiality, and on the other you quietly lure players into your game and deceive them. And that’s not enough — you deliberately hide the rules! Why doesn’t the game just eliminate all of you deadbeats first?!”