This time, Xu Huo didn't wait for the nursery rhyme to finish before heading to the door. But the moment he neared the entryway, his vision went black. When he opened his eyes a second later, he was sitting on the sofa again.
He picked up the Doll and gave it a quick inspection. Finding no control mechanism, he simply twisted its head off.
There were no mechanical connections inside the Doll. It was as if its head and body had always been separate. Its neck and jaw were perfectly smooth, and once thrown aside, they rolled away in different directions.
Xu Huo didn't actually need to destroy anything in the hallucination. He tossed the Doll aside, then headed upstairs to investigate.
But when he reached the staircase, he found he couldn't go up, as if the map hadn't been unlocked yet. He tried stepping onto the stairs several times, but after a few steps, they would flip downward, bringing him back to the living room.
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" The doorbell rang again.
Xu Huo stood by the stairs without moving. But after the doorbell fell silent for a few seconds, he still found himself back on the sofa.
After trying three times, he had gathered a few clues.
First, whether he touched or damaged the Doll made no difference. When the time came, it would sing on its own, and once it finished, the doorbell would ring.
Second, it didn't matter whether he approached the door, whether he went from the sofa or the kitchen, or whether he stayed away from it altogether. He would die either way.
Third, he couldn't go upstairs.
There were pitifully few clues to find inside the house. The one most likely to point him in the right direction was the nursery rhyme the Doll