"My younger sister—she's my younger sister," Lina said, stating the obvious.
Chen Xiao Qiu pointed at the thin man. "You heard the story he just told, right?"
Lina nodded.
"What really happened? What happened to you when you were alive? And after you died? Can you tell us everything?" Chen Xiao Qiu asked.
Lina's expression darkened. She nodded and began her story.
The beginning of what she said was the same as the beginning of the thin man's Doll Town story. On her birthday, she'd received a doll from her parents as a present. She'd been overjoyed and loved it dearly, treating it like her younger sister. There was one little secret: her sister was a doll that could move. At first, no one knew about it except Lina.
"When it was just the two of us in the room, my sister would play with me. She told me she was my younger sister and called me her big sister. Whenever someone came in, she'd turn back into a doll and stay perfectly still. It was our secret. We couldn't tell anyone else," Lina said.
It sounded like the doll had been a toy spirit at the time. Very likely, it had been much like the teddy bear—a toy spirit born from Lina and meant to protect her.
Before long, Lina started school, and she spent less time with the doll. One day, she woke in the middle of the night, got out of bed, and left her room to see what was going on.
This was where things began to differ from the thin man's story.
Lina hadn't seen the scene of a murder. Instead, the moment she opened her door, she saw the doll standing there. It told her everything was fine and sent her back to bed.