Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

They won't make any uncouth movements, so they won't crouch down to observe you or try to crawl under the table. You can safely observe them here, but be careful not to let them see you; even just seeing your toes is enough for them to make an assessment of you.

[Once they make a malicious comment about you, she will become hostile. However, in this room, she won't attack you while being watched by the dolls. Instead, she will wait until you leave the room before attacking. So, if you absolutely have to stay in this room a little longer, it's not impossible. But in that case, you must make sure you are not seen by them. Otherwise, if you accumulate more malicious comments, you're completely finished.]

Also, the door to this room is broken and cannot be opened. We have tried many times, but we have been unable to fix it, so do not try to leave the room through the door; it will not work.

These pioneers left behind quite a bit of information, but it seems I've already been discovered. What should I do next?

Xiao Hua looked at the several pairs of leather shoes facing her and suddenly felt troubled.

I can't be seen. If I go out, I'll be seen, and if I'm seen, I'll get bad comments, and then that monster will attack me. Hmm, the key is that I can't be seen. In that case... in that case... well, if I can't be seen, is it possible to make them invisible?

Sensing something amiss, the girl stood up with shining eyes and carefully began rummaging through the piles of clutter around her.

Fortunately, the girl did not see any peepholes, and no dolls were secretly spying on her.

And as she searched, she actually found what she was looking for: a long-handled umbrella with a curved hook at the bottom, and several thick, opaque towels that were big enough to completely cover Xiaohua's head.

Now it's time to see if this method will work.

Feeling somewhat nervous, Xiao Hua took a deep breath and approached the table that served as a passageway with the miscellaneous items she had found.

Chapter 18: The Girl's Moving Time and the Revealed Rules of the Doll

[Sizzle... sizzle...]

The phone, emitting a faint red glow, occasionally emitted a piercing electrical noise.

The sound from Jianzi's side had temporarily stopped, and Xiaohua wondered if something had gone wrong. She was very worried about this, but she was already in a dangerous situation and had no way of knowing what was going on with Jianzi, so she could only focus on the present.

Hopefully there won't be any problems.

Xiao Hua, who had already squatted down, felt uneasy. She gripped the tip of the umbrella tightly, took a deep breath, and then extended the umbrella out from under the table.

There seems to be some kind of noise.

The moment the girl held the umbrella upside down and peered it out from under the table, she clearly heard sounds coming from inside the room—rustling sounds, like many people discussing or talking about something, but it was very unclear. She could only hear a few vague noises, as if the speakers were far away, or as if someone was deliberately putting on a show for someone else, speaking face-to-face but not letting her hear what they were saying.

However, I did not feel any chill spreading through my body.

There was no reaction to the red light, so it's fine; there shouldn't be any problem.

"call……"

The girl narrowed her eyes and focused her gaze on the legs of the nearest doll, which was facing the table.

The other party was extremely close, practically standing right in front of the table. Xiaohua was initially a little puzzled by this, because she remembered that the dolls weren't standing this close before she found the umbrella and towel.

Perhaps they moved when I wasn't paying attention? Since these things continuously observe living people and make negative judgments, it's only natural that they possess the ability to act independently. As for why they didn't move when I was watching them before? Maybe it's some kind of setting that prevents them from moving when they're being watched?

Because she was a little nervous, Xiaohua's mind wandered somewhat. But she knew that now was not the time to dwell on these details, so she quickly focused her attention and hooked the curved handle of the umbrella around the leg of a doll.

Bang!

The next moment, the girl suddenly pulled backward with all her might, and the doll fell backward to the ground, hitting the ground with the back of its head.

The faint sounds suddenly became clearer, and many people began to speak, to make judgments, and to say all sorts of things, but not a single word could be clearly identified.

Xiao Hua simply hooked the fallen doll's leg with her umbrella, while grabbing a thick towel with her other hand and extending it in front of the table as a barrier. Then, she slowly dragged the doll under the table, leading it from the area filled with dolls into the pile of junk that served as its hiding place.

Xiaohua hadn't considered what would happen if her ideas were wrong or if there were problems with her actions. She didn't have the time or energy to think about those things; she was completely focused on the present moment.

The legs have already entered, followed by the waist, and then the chest.

Judging from the doll's appearance, it seems to be a housewife, slightly plump, with long hair and fairly fashionable clothes. However, for some reason, just seeing this outfit gave Xiaohua the feeling that "the other party is an aggressive woman".

You can already see the other person's neck through the gap peeking out from under the towel.

Xiaohua knew this was the crucial moment, so without hesitation, she grabbed a towel and pounced on it, pressing it directly against the doll's face to completely block its view.

The doll didn't move at all, seemingly just an inanimate object, lying on the ground and letting Xiao Hua manipulate it.

The girl wasted no time. After confirming that the view was blocked, she first tried to pull the thing's head off. When she found that she couldn't pull it off, she grabbed the doll's hand and pressed it against the doll's face. Then she used a thick towel as a rope to wrap the thing's head around several times and tied it tightly. Then she dragged the thing into the storage room and stuffed it into the hole connecting the toy room and the doll room.

It's not stuck.

It seems I need to be a bit "fatter".

Xiao Hua was stunned when she realized she had easily stuffed the middle-aged woman doll into another room. For a moment, she didn't know whether she should be proud or distressed.

"Hmm, will it work?"

Crouching down, Xiaohua carefully observed the doll that had been placed in the toy room, somewhat unsure of what changes it would undergo next.

The main reason for this attempt was to conduct multifaceted verification. Firstly, the blindfolded child doll had never triggered any of the supernatural rules for itself, maintaining a relatively neutral attitude. Therefore, it was necessary to confirm whether covering the eyes of other dolls would bring about similar changes. Secondly, each room in the record sheet had corresponding strict rules. Were these rules truly only effective in their respective rooms, or would they retain their effect even in other rooms? Xiaohua also wanted to know the answer to this question. If the abilities of the supernatural entities could be sealed in this way, the dangers she needed to worry about would be greatly reduced.

"Hmm, there's no sign of it moving."

Xiao Hua lay on the ground for a long time, but the doll remained motionless, which made the girl feel somewhat frustrated. However, she did not lose heart. Instead, she immediately changed her approach. First, she would deliberately look away and then turn back, or she would simply hide to the side and not approach the hole again, returning to observe it after a few seconds.

The test quickly yielded positive results. After a few attempts to leave and return to observe, Xiaohua discovered that the doll was no longer there and had disappeared. Moving closer and peering into the toy room through the opening, Xiaohua successfully located the doll and found it standing against the wall, its body twisted in an abnormal way, looking as if it were about to break apart.

Will the object disintegrate or break apart after leaving its original room? If so, does this mean that the rules in each room are indeed strictly defined, so taking the corresponding elements to other places will not continue to work?

Ah, speaking of which, the rules for the food room also mention not taking food out of the room, but there's no such rule for the toy room. Why is that? Is it because children tend to take toys to all sorts of places, so this rule was specifically assigned? Or were the pioneers who left records all adults, and none of them tried to take toys out of the room? The latter seems more plausible, since entering the toy room is inherently dangerous, so it's unlikely anyone would attempt to take anything from there.

Xiaohua analyzed it very seriously for a while, and then she came to the conclusion... she came to no conclusion at all.

While the power of the mental fragments granted the girl a level of calmness far exceeding her normal state and did indeed enhance her thinking abilities, Yurikawa Hana herself was not particularly adept at reasoning and deduction. Therefore, even though Hana did obtain some clues and could conceive of certain possible directions, she had no way of piecing together these fragmented clues to arrive at a rigorous or even sloppy conclusion.

"Ugh, this is so troublesome. Never mind, I'll just finish this first!"

After thinking for a while without reaching a conclusion, the girl muttered to herself and returned to the passage under the table in the pile of clutter. She hooked the leg of a doll with her umbrella again, pulled it to the ground, dragged it into the pile of clutter, covered its face, dragged it to the hole, and stuffed it into the toy room.

After repeating this operation several times, she became skilled at it. Xiaohua didn't know how the puppets worked. Every time she knocked down and pulled away the puppet near the table, the remaining puppets would continue to gather around, ensuring that Xiaohua could always grab the puppets within the length of the umbrella, so that she wouldn't have to risk sticking her body out from under the table because of the distance.

"That makes 15 now. Whew, we're almost out of towels. But there are so many towels here! Where did those survivors get so many towels?"

After working for quite a while, the girl sat down to rest amidst the pile of clutter, panting, and muttered a few words casually.

There is only one doll left outside.

From the perspective of looking out from under the table, at least, only that last doll remained. As for whether there were other dolls hidden elsewhere, Xiaohua had no idea. She couldn't fathom such a complicated matter; dealing with all those dolls was already quite a challenge for her.

"Phew...phew...this should solve the problem, right?"

After packing up the last doll and throwing it into the toy room, Xiao Hua, feeling extremely tired, sat down and rested for a while before getting up again and looking out from the passageway under the table.

There was no trace of any dolls this time, so it seems there shouldn't be any problems.

Furthermore, the whispering voices disappeared; it seems that without the puppets, there would be no sound.

"Yosh, it's about to start."

The girl cheered herself on, then climbed out from under the table, stood up, and officially entered the [Doll Room] marked on the map.

I feel cold again.

As soon as Xiao Hua stood up, he immediately felt a shiver run through his body. He was stung by the sudden chill and almost sneezed.

She looked around and found that the room seemed to be a living room, decorated in a rather luxurious style, with a large sofa, a large carpet, and a huge crystal chandelier. Various paintings and sculptures were also placed around the room. In short, it looked extremely luxurious, so luxurious that it was like a nouveau riche trying too hard to be extravagant, to the point that it would make visitors feel uncomfortable.

The sound appeared again.

As the girl looked around, the hushed whispers suddenly broke out again.

Are there still dolls hidden in the room?

Thinking this, Xiaohua felt like she was facing a formidable enemy, but then she realized that the sounds that seemed like many people talking in hushed tones were actually coming from the same place.

And that's how it was from the very beginning.

Although she didn't feel this way at the time, and even thought the sounds were coming from all directions, Xiaohua suddenly realized now that the sounds were actually coming from the same direction.

The sound was not made by a doll.

At first, I thought it was the voice of dolls because their presence was misleading. In reality, they weren't the key element; they weren't even ghosts, at most some kind of derivative creation. They didn't actually play any role in the rules of ghost stories. They were just standing in the room, merely unusual moving pieces of furniture.

Xiao Hua looked toward the source of the sound.

So, in the end, she wasn't all that great. She supposedly married a good husband, but in the end, she just became a housewife like us.

Those words that were previously difficult to hear became clear at this moment.

[Her child seems to have poor grades, right? Haha, looks like he didn't inherit his mother's intelligence at all.]

She has absolutely no manners and doesn't even know how to greet adults. I don't think she's taught her child properly. She used to look down on us.

[You thought you were some kind of celestial princess, but your true colors were revealed when your dad's company went bankrupt. Haha, now you're pretty much like us. Let's see how proud you can be now.]

It's like the relatives and friends around you gossiping and talking incessantly, showing disdain, cursing, and laughing at you.

But in reality, these voices all originated from one person.

The sound came from the woman sitting silently in the chair with her back to Xiaohua, wearing a dirty, oil-stained apron.

"From beginning to end, it wasn't those puppets speaking, but you yourself saying it?"

Xiao Hua opened her mouth in a daze. Only then did she realize that the words that seemed to be spoken by the dolls were actually simulated by this strange creature itself. It was treating itself as those dolls, as its relatives and friends, and despising and cursing itself, using itself to make conclusions on behalf of others, and forcibly imposing these conclusions on the living people who had been given the identity of "children" and had mistakenly entered this place.

"Those pioneers thought that the problem arose because they behaved rudely in front of the dolls, but actually it's useless no matter what they do, because the conclusion has already been forcibly given. So, is it true that as long as you enter this room, you will definitely be attacked?"

The girl, finally understanding what was happening, took a step back, feeling her mind becoming somewhat confused.

The strange creature, which had its back to her, began to breathe heavily and tilted its head back, turning its neck in a way that looked like it would break, to look in Xiao Hua's direction.

At that moment, the girl could only feel intense terror from the gaze of this strange creature.

She knew that by revealing the true rules of this room, she had been marked by the monster and was now in a state of constant threat of attack.

However, in this room, it doesn't seem to attack living people.

Because the records mention that this thing only attacks living people in places where there are no dolls.

Ah, but the dolls in this room seem to have already been...

[Sizzle...sizzle...]

The signs of decay spread rapidly across the ground.

The distorted shadow was closing in incredibly fast.

The unprepared girl could only take another step back, raising her phone in terror, hoping that the blood-red light would protect her life.