# Chapter 2691: Group Operation
Climbing the doll wall during the day would be discovered by the surrounding doll people and made into an attack target, so they could only wait until nightfall. During the carnival performances, many doll people would be attracted away, creating gaps near the doll wall. However, this situation didn't occur every day. Most of the time, the number of dolls and doll people would decrease, but it couldn't rule out the sudden appearance of living props in the vicinity. Still, the overall situation was much better than during the day.
Although doll people and dolls didn't have the same outstanding attack capabilities as living props, their sheer numbers combined with superior physical abilities made dealing with them much more troublesome than handling a single living prop.
To prepare for the nighttime situation, Xu Huo and the others had to find tools that naturally existed in the Circus City to use as shields—things like portable equipment, small toys that could serve as camouflage, and best of all, some magic props.
"There are more than one or two living props in the Circus City who perform magic tricks. They're less active during the day than at night, most of them resting. I previously discovered a place where a magic clown stores his props. I'll take you there to steal them now." Yan Jiayu led the way while explaining the tools she had already scoped out.
"Floating Firework Bombs and Ghost Face Smoke are must-steal tools. When the firework bombs flash, no one can see anything. Ghost Face Smoke lasts for five minutes and can even fool some living props. It's really fun!"
"Don't be so excited," Chirping Bird reminded her. "We're preparing to escape, not to attend a celebration."
"Got it!" Yan Jiayu agreed readily.
Soon they arrived at the location—a haunted house. From the outside, this haunted house only had two doors and three rooms, not even as big as a public restroom. Its surface appearance was also very ordinary, with only a "Haunted House" sign hanging on the front door.
"It gets much bigger at night." Yan Jiayu hopped to the back door. "We'll enter from here. Make sure you don't touch any of the hanging decorations on the walls. Anything hanging on the wall will trigger an alarm if touched. I don't know if the magic clown will come out during the day, so it's safer to be careful."
She was already accustomed to moving around in her bulky kangaroo costume, so even when passing through not-so-spacious corridors, she didn't bump into any items on the walls.
The haunted house was very small, making the interior furnishings appear quite crowded. Many things were stacked together, looking more like a storage room.
With no extra space to maneuver, only Xu Huo and Painting Woman followed inside.
As soon as the three entered, the haunted house door automatically closed. Zhu Bu and the others had picked up two decorative items to prop the door open, but the smoothly closing door directly sliced the decorations in half without any resistance, which made the remaining people give up any ideas of wedging themselves in.
Once the door closed, the haunted house fell into complete darkness. With their vision obstructed, they could only rely on their senses to judge the surrounding objects.
Yan Jiayu crouched in front of a pile of equipment, rummaging through it while saying, "Take whatever's useful first, we'll figure it out once we're out..."
Before she could finish speaking, she felt someone approaching from behind. Instinctively, she dodged to the side, and a wide blade resembling a guillotine knife flew past her shoulder, embedding itself with a clatter into the pile of miscellaneous items ahead.
Yan Jiayu rolled to the side in her dodging posture, but with several whooshing sounds, multiple wide blades came at her, making the already narrow corridor even more cramped.
Fortunately, she was agile enough. After safely dodging, she immediately crawled along the ground and swiftly dashed into the adjacent room.
Once inside the room, she stopped moving. After waiting two seconds to confirm the blades weren't following, she stood up. But just as she was about to search the area, someone moved toward her from ahead.
From the figure and footsteps, it should be Xu Huo. Just as she prepared to approach, a hand suddenly landed on her shoulder.
Yan Jiayu reacted extremely quickly. She bent forward, kicked backward, then used the momentum to launch herself forward like a drill... but she didn't get far. Midway, she was caught back by a net.
Xu Huo, who had just taken her kick, manipulated his Materialized Object to pull her toward the corner and casually tossed out a glow stick.
The glow stick lit upon hitting the ground, instantly illuminating both sides of the corridor. This allowed the two of them to clearly see the shadow that flickered and disappeared the moment the light appeared.
"What was that thing?" Yan Jiayu finally turned to look at the person beside her. "That's amazing. I clearly felt you were in front of me. There was no one behind me."
"Maybe it's a magic trick illusion," Xu Huo said, releasing his Materialized Object from her. "What just flew away was just a piece of clothing."
Strangely, in his perception, that piece of clothing presented a state very similar to Painting Woman.
"Where's Li Chun?" Yan Jiayu asked.
"She disappeared as soon as we entered," Xu Huo replied.
Originally, the three of them had entered one after another and should have been very close. But as they walked, the haunted house launched its attack. While evading, they each entered different rooms. In that momentary distraction, they got separated.
However, since the instance venue hadn't been activated, the haunted house's space hadn't expanded. Meeting up shouldn't be difficult. They just hadn't expected props to be mixed in here.
"Tap tap tap." Before the glow stick's light went out, footsteps sounded from the corner ahead, accompanied by a glowing light approaching.
Through the door curtain, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu weren't sure what was coming toward them, but in the next second, several glow sticks flew over first, illuminating the entire corridor.
Painting Woman, wearing her raccoon suit, carried a lantern as she stepped over the threshold. She immediately spotted Xu Huo and the others and happily waved at them.
"It seems that with light, the props in the haunted house won't move around randomly," Yan Jiayu said.
"Where did you get that lantern?" Xu Huo looked at the old-fashioned hand lantern in Painting Woman's hand.
"I found it in the haunted house," Painting Woman said. "I kicked it a few times, and it rolled back to me. When I picked it up, it lit up."
"Didn't you see anything else?" Yan Jiayu asked curiously.
"No," Painting Woman replied. She had her own value judgment regarding props and instruments, so she didn't care for anything here. She had originally planned to just grab any bag to carry things out when she suddenly heard something rolling not far away. Walking over, she saw the lantern rolling.
She casually kicked the lantern away, but unexpectedly, within two seconds, it rolled back. Annoyed, she gave it another kick, and it rolled back again.
After doing this three times, she picked up the lantern.
Once the lantern lit up, all the strange noises in the haunted house stopped completely. With one hand carrying the lantern and the other dragging a bag, she didn't touch anything on the walls but took all the tools and instruments piled on the floor.
"Big haul!"
Yan Jiayu rummaged through the bag. "There are Firework Bombs and Ghost Face Smoke. Let's take them out first and see."
She cheerfully grabbed the other side of the bag and, together with Painting Woman, dragged the things out, asking as they walked, "Is there a friend of yours here too, giving you all this stuff for free?"