Chapter 732: Implicit Story Connections
The moment it stuck, the doll went berserk like a malfunctioning robot, its limbs and head twisting wildly, its jaw clacking open and shut with a "crack-crack-crack" sound. The key thing was that even while thrashing about, it didn't let up on its murderous intent, the metal skewers in its hand stabbing relentlessly toward Xu Huo's face!
Xu Huo didn't hold back either. He grabbed its head and twisted it off, then tore off its limbs and tossed them to the ground.
By then, Xie Ling had already controlled quite a few dolls to target the moving ones and tackle them, but that didn't turn the tide, because more and more dolls were starting to stir, scrambling over each other to lunge at them.
Xu Huo moved quickly between the display cases, dismantling seven or eight dolls in a row without finding what he was looking for. Just as he was hesitating whether to retreat from the venue first, a dull thumping sound came from the side wall. He immediately dodged away, and the moment his feet shifted, several metal skewers pierced through the wall and struck the spot where he'd just been standing!
In the next few seconds, a row of dotted holes was punched densely across the wall. Two mannequins joined forces to break through, straightened their heads that were hanging crookedly on their necks, and charged at Xu Huo—the metal skewers in their hands had transformed into the long steel needles from the Acupuncture Mountain Therapy Hall, each one capable of piercing through two display cases!
Not just the display cases, but even the running dolls were inevitably skewered together, either by the head or the body. But these dolls didn't lose their ability to move because of it. Instead, they ran around in strings through the display cases, and when they got stuck in the aisles, they forcibly tore their bodies off the long steel needles, a sight both ridiculous and horrifying.
"Yu Huo!" Xie Ling screamed.
Xu Huo's expression remained unchanged.
Ever since leaving the Wax Museum, his first target had actually been the Doll Clothing Store.
The progress on solving the Wax Museum was one-sixth, so the clues the wax figures gave should also correspond to one of the venues that needed solving.
There were no fewer than twenty venues in the Sun Museum City. The picture of the twin dolls seemed to be characters from Xie Ling's story, but in reality, it matched the Doll Clothing Store venue. So this was likely a puzzle venue as well, except there were no bodies here. Apart from the moving dolls and the "friendly neighbor" mannequins, nothing else was clear at the moment.
The biggest difference among these dolls was that some had stitching marks on their bodies.
Of course, it could be like Liu Chengyi said—a way to save costs.
Xu Huo grabbed two dolls and stuffed them into his luggage compartment, then kicked away the approaching mannequins to head toward Xie Ling's location.
Xie Ling was already buried under a pile of dolls. Several active dolls, along with a few mannequins, were holding metal skewers and long steel needles, stabbing relentlessly into the mound of dolls. Every now and then, one or two would come out with blood on them.
Xu Huo directly opened the wall next to him. When he jumped into the Acupuncture Mountain Therapy Hall, Xie Ling also burst out of the doll pile. Her eyes lit up when she saw him.
Xu Huo grabbed her and ran downstairs without hesitation. But things weren't any better in the Acupuncture Mountain Therapy Hall. The mannequins in that venue had all come to life. Unlike the dolls, they were more mobile and even had the option of "mutual destruction," charging at players while covered in steel needles, trying to hug them.
When they reached the first floor, Xiao Ling and the others were locked in a tough fight with the mannequins. Long steel needles were everywhere on the doors and walls, and they had also sustained some minor injuries.
"Why are you still here?" Xie Ling asked in surprise.
They had run fast and should have gotten out of the Doll Clothing Store first. There was no way they should have ended up in the Acupuncture Mountain Therapy Hall.
"You think we wanted to stay here?" Long Aotian knocked down a mannequin. "Take a look outside the door!"
Outside the door were all dolls—big and small, all crammed against the glass of the main entrance, their jaws opening and closing while they waved metal skewers and shouted outside.
"See that?" Long Aotian circled around to them. "Even if we got out, they'd chase us."
In fact, they hadn't even managed to get out. They were directly blocked on the first floor. Like Xu Huo, they had broken through the wall to get here, hoping to leave through the therapy hall, but both sides were pretty much the same. The only advantage was that mannequins could enter the Doll Clothing Store, but the dolls wouldn't come into the Acupuncture Mountain Therapy Hall.
However, unlike the dolls, which basically couldn't move once dismantled, the mannequins could use the long steel needles to piece their bodies back together and stand up again.
"At this rate, no matter how much strength we have, it's all wasted," Xiao Ling said, seeing that the mannequins were endless. She threw a toy car toward the main entrance. "Roadkill Car!"
The toy car slammed into the front wall on impact, causing half of it to collapse. The dolls outside were buried instantly. Then the toy car charged out from under the rubble, made a sharp turn on the street, and after aligning parallel to the venue's main entrance, rammed the debris along with the crowded dolls back into the entrance of the Doll Clothing Store.
When Xu Huo and the others exited the therapy hall, the little car was still ramming into the Doll Clothing Store repeatedly, successfully blocking the store's door with dolls.
But before they could find a safe place to take cover, loud banging came from the Mad Prison. Standing on the street, they could see two mannequins crawling onto the prison's roof from a distance. They scanned the area like real people and quickly spotted their targets.
The two mannequins pointed toward Xu Huo's group, and the mannequins from the Mannequin Building and the Prison venue came rushing out.
"Damn it, this is never-ending!" Long Aotian looked around. "Let's hide in the shops. More people means a bigger target. I'm off first. If we're lucky, we'll see each other tomorrow!"
With that, he was the first to dart into a nearby shop and quickly disappeared.
Xu Huo didn't abandon Xie Ling. He took her into a shop not far away. Liu Chengyi had already run off like Long Aotian, but Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan were still following them.
"There's a small warehouse here!" Xu Ruosi searched inside the shop. "The walls are solid. Closing the door shouldn't be a big problem. Maybe we can hide here for the night."
Xu Huo had already spotted mannequins appearing at the end of the street. His eyes flickered slightly. "I'll go up and take a look."
He put on his invisibility cloak and climbed onto the roof. First, he looked toward the Doll Clothing Store. The two connected venues there also had only mannequins running out to search for people.
Actually, judging by the layout of these venues, there were implicit story connections between each themed venue. For example, the mannequins in the Mannequin Building had numbers, and the Decapitated Cemetery had corresponding graves for them.
On the surface, the Mad Prison and the Acupuncture Mountain Therapy Hall seemed very different in content, but if you thought about it carefully, you could understand that both venues were actually divided into two factions: the victims and the abusers. And the distinction was clear—the abusers wore white clothes or white coats.
The mannequins that had run out were mostly from the abuser faction.
But whether the mannequins would move outside the venues didn't mean much. What was noteworthy was the connection between the Doll Clothing Store and the other venues.
The mannequins had a life-and-death connection, so the dolls in the Doll Clothing Store could also be matched with the pregnant women in the Mad Prison.