"The mechanism inside the hidden box is triggered by direction, not by specific latitude and longitude."

Li Ang picked up the wooden box and compass together, quickly walking toward the right side of the living room. "The box is a testament to our first encounter..."

This statement seemed to hint that the contents of the box are related to the maker’s love.

Could it be that they met each other because of this compass?

But if that’s the case, why does the compass have no cover?

Could the creator have deliberately damaged the token of love to make the hidden box? Is that necessary?"

Li Ang pondered as he approached the door, gently placing the compass into the circular groove on the door frame.

Click.

The compass fits snugly into the circular groove, and the wooden door swings open to reveal a corridor extending downwards.

The lights in the corridor seem to be voice-activated, lighting up as soon as Li Ang’s leather boots stepped onto the stairway.

Li Ang felt the wall as he descended, arriving at a basement.

The room’s walls and ceiling were lined with wave-shaped sponge boards that absorbed noise, while the floor was covered with solid wood panels,

and the wooden platforms on both sides of the room’s walls housed numerous rectangular glass cabinets, lined with black cloth, displaying a variety of doll toys.

There were dolls both male and female, made from various materials like wood, ceramic, plastic, and rubber,

with different styles, ranging from intricately realistic to large-eyed and round-headed anime styles.

The dolls had different poses, some sitting, some standing,

and some cabinets even contained wardrobes and small houses prepared for these dolls.

The entire room is a lavish doll toy collection room.

Li Ang glanced around, knowing only a bit about the doll circle, but no matter how he looked at it, such a massive collection must have required a lot of money and effort.

"Such a grand scale collection project cannot be managed in a short period."

Li Ang remarked to himself, "This doll collection is probably not for the family’s daughter,

but rather a personal hobby of the female homeowner or the male homeowner."

His gaze moved past the dolls inside the exhibition cabinets to focus on the cabinets themselves.

The base of every exhibition cabinet in the room was embedded with metal circular holes,

locked with padlocks identical to the one Li Ang had in his hand.

However, unlike the original padlock, these cabinet locks did not have keys attached.

Li Ang attempted to use his own padlock’s A key to unlock these exhibition cabinets but failed every time.

"Just like the original padlock, the A key perfectly corresponds to the size of these cabinet locks, but cannot unlock them.

This indicates that all locks in the room are from the same series but have different internal tooth patterns.

From a collector’s perspective, this seems unnecessarily troublesome—requiring hundreds of different keys and knowing which key corresponds to which lock.

Unless, the collector carries a universal key, with a tooth pattern that can open every lock in the room."

Li Ang put the A key back in his pocket, turning to a transparent exhibition cabinet by the wall.

This exhibition cabinet is very unique, with its lower lock missing, and no dolls inside.

However, the thick black cloth inside the exhibition cabinet prominently displays a depression, indicating a heavy object previously rested there,

and within the depression lies a straight key.

"This is the only empty exhibition cabinet in the room,

does this mean the doll in the red dress in the living room escaped from here, took the padlock, went to the living room,

and subdued the male homeowner, my role,

knocked him unconscious, handcuffed with the padlock, locking him in the utility room?

What’s this?

A doll’s revenge tale?"

Li Ang pondered, opening the collection cabinet and taking out the straight key.

This new key is vastly different in size and tooth design from the padlock keys; it’s larger overall, not the universal key for the doll collection room.

He took the new key and left the basement, returning to the living room, and went straight to the bathroom—based on his earlier observations, he’s confident this key corresponds to the bathroom in the house.

Indeed, accompanied by a click, the key turned, the door lock opened, revealing a dimly lit bathroom without lights.

A strong fragrance of modern cleaning agents and a bloody scent assaulted his senses,

Li Ang gripped a butcher knife in his right hand, his left hand decisively raised the flashlight, switching to strobe mode to illuminate the bathroom.

The strong light from the flashlight made the dim bathroom as bright as day.

Blood, blood, blood.

Tons of splatter-pattern blood stains linger on the bathroom walls and ceiling, contrasting starkly against the white tiles,

some fresh blood mixed with floor water formed clear strands of blood mixing in the water, amassing over the drain—bathroom’s metal drain entwined with lots of long hair, blocking the drain holes, preventing blood water from flowing away.

And all the blood’s source lies in the bathtub at the far end of the bathroom, where a corpse resides.

That corpse stands one person’s height, gutted open, soaking in a bathtub filled with 80% blood water, one arm outstretched over the tub’s edge, fingertips no longer dripping blood—appears to have been dead for a while.

The reason Li Ang used "one person’s height" to describe this corpse,

is quite simple,

this corpse is not human, but a pink anthropomorphic plush rabbit toy.

It has limbs and torso resembling those of a human (no distinguishable fingers or toes), covered in pink plush fabric, without clothing, unable to discern gender or age,

its belly entirely sliced open, with missing internal organs, only leaving a chilling rib structure.

"Meow!"

A sharp, piercing cat cry emanated from the bathroom’s ceiling, prompting Li Ang to redirect the flashlight beam,

just in time to see a pitch-black, blood-stained black fur swiftly disappear into the damaged ventilation ductwork in the bathroom ceiling, vanishing from sight.

This cat was obviously the source of the cat sound Li Ang first heard at the bathroom door.

Thump!

Li Ang slammed his foot down, kicking off the ceramic sink to leap up, his strong flashlight sweeping the ventilation ducts, failing to catch sight of the black cat—it had already navigated the winding ducts, dodging the light beam.

Thud.

Li Ang landed on the bathroom floor, his leather boots splashing up blood water.

He couldn’t catch...

Li Ang shook his head; he had already set the flashlight to strobe mode before opening the door, 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

but the black cat seemed to react instantly to the lock cylinder’s click,

taking advantage of Li Ang opening the door to directly escape into the ventilation duct.

"Was the cat startled by the disturbance, or did it know the flashlight posed a threat?

The collected family photos in the room didn’t show this cat, but it’s not ruled out it might be a family member—both the back and front doors have pet doors."

Li Ang shifted his gaze from the ventilation ducts; to prevent the black cat’s return,

he first scanned the blood-soaked ground, confirming no objects were hidden in the blood.

He pulled out a few pieces of toilet paper, fished out the long hair from the drain, letting the bloody water flow into it,

then turned on the bathroom light, while keeping the flashlight in high-intensity strobe mode, aiming it at the ventilation duct.

After preparing, he picked up the meat cleaver and looked at the corpse of the pink-furred rabbit in the bathtub.

Upon closer inspection, this human-sized pink rabbit indeed became more eerie the more he looked at it,

It had been gutted and emptied of its innards, leaving a pool of blood,

but the expression on its face was still like that of an ordinary life-sized plush toy, with eyes closed and lips pursed.

Li Ang waited for a moment, saw no changes in the pink rabbit’s corpse, and under the strong light of the flashlight, the rabbit didn’t become stiff or numb.

"A puppet wielding a dagger to slash people, a rabbit doll in the bathroom tub with its innards eaten by a cat—this house is quite extraordinary,"

Li Ang muttered to himself, lifting the rabbit’s corpse from the bathtub and examining it closely.

The anatomical structure of the rabbit’s corpse was extremely strange, resembling a fusion between human and rabbit,

yet in some clearly obvious places, there were traces of an artificial puppet.

For example, the rabbit’s eyeballs were connected to the brain by a thread, rather than a complex optic nerve.

The insides of the floppy rabbit ears were not rabbit meat, but the cotton filling commonly used in toys.

"This... even advanced alchemy couldn’t possibly create such a bizarre living thing, right?"

Li Ang’s fingertips lightly pressed the uneven marks left by a cat’s gnawing on the rabbit’s stomach. After pondering for a moment, he reached inside the rabbit’s body, feeling around without finding the key he suspected might be there.

"...So what’s the purpose of this room, to show me scenes reminiscent of ’Happy Tree Friends’?"

Li Ang quipped, washing the blood from his hands with water from the faucet, his gaze drifting toward the sink.

Everyday items were arranged on the sink.

Toothbrushes, cups, toothpaste, mouthwash, facial cleanser, sunscreen, and so on.

"There are four sets of toothbrushes and cups, four sets of towels, corresponding to a family of four. But the smaller two sets, showing signs of use, are lighter than the larger sets.

Children use them less than adults.

All the toothbrushes and cups are relatively dry, at least not used in the past few hours."

Li Ang set down the toothbrushes and cups, lifting his head to look at the mirror above the sink.

In the mirror, he was wearing a suit.

The storage cabinet was illuminated by the flashlight as he opened it.

The cabinet had three compartments, with the bottom containing a hairdryer, curling iron, and other miscellaneous items,

while the upper two shelves were filled with a wide array of medicines.

Li Ang didn’t find this surprising,

unlike the East Asian people who view "every medicine has its toxicity" and shy away from taking medication,

it’s quite normal for people in the real-world United States to take medicine, even to the point of overuse and treating medication as essential.

"Let’s see what we’ve got here."

Li Ang took down the medicine bottles from the cabinet, "Ibuprofen, for inflammation,

Paracetamol, for pain relief,

Cetirizine, for treating urticaria, skin itching, and preventing motion sickness,

Pseudoephedrine, for treating nasal congestion and expectoration..."

Many of the items in the cabinet were common medicines, and upon opening the boxes, he indeed found signs of use.

"Wait, lithium salt?"

Li Ang’s gaze froze as he picked up a white bottle and sniffed it after opening it.

"Besides that, there’s Lamotrigine, Carbamazepine, Quetiapine...

Is it possible that..."

Li Ang laid these bottles out, and by the depleted amounts in these containers, he could deduce the family’s medication habits and even infer their issues.

"The man locked in the storage room, the basement filled with dolls, the medicine bottles in the bathroom cabinet..."

Li Ang mused, selecting a few bottles to pocket, holding the flashlight in his mouth, and dragged the rabbit’s corpse out of the bathtub,

the rabbit’s fur particularly absorbent, but fortunately, much of its innards had been devoured by the previous black cat, allowing Li Ang to still move it.

He exerted quite a bit of effort to pull the rabbit’s corpse from the bathroom to the living room,

wiped the water and bloodstains off its surface with paper, and dragged it to the stairs leading to the second floor, at the back of the living room.

"I roughly understand the pattern of this script task.

From waking up in the storage room, breaking free of the shackles on my hands,

to opening the hidden box in the Chevy SUV’s driver’s seat, and now to this corpse.

Each part is approximately linear.

According to this logic, what’s in the bathroom is not without a purpose..."

Li Ang lifted the gutted rabbit’s corpse, setting it on a chair,

carved a hole in its left hand with a dagger,

and inserted the wire connected to the fingerprint lock gate into it.

Then, Li Ang used his left hand to hold the rabbit’s right hand, and with his right, he gripped another exposed wire.

The "12V" mark on this white wire was a hint,

indicating that the human body can conduct electricity.

Upon grasping the wire, Li Ang’s palm immediately tingled slightly numb,

at the same time, the liquid crystal panel for the fingerprint lock gate illuminated, glowing with the outline of a handprint.

"Phew..."

Li Ang slowly exhaled a breath and pressed his palm against the fingerprint panel.

Clack.

The sound of the lock moving was distinctly audible inside the metal gate,

this heavy door automatically swinging outward.]

Just as expected.

Li Ang gently released the rabbit’s hand, knowing the safe electrical voltage for humans is about 36V,

the 12V marking on the wire served as an indicator to use the human body to conduct electricity to operate the iron gate regularly.

He didn’t rush up the stairs immediately, instead shining the flashlight upward.

The corridor stairs from the living room to the second floor were turn-backed,

beside the fingerprint lock gate, there was a row of wooden railings.

Under the flashlight beam, the second floor of the house was silent, the drop of a pin could be heard, an atmosphere of eerie gloom.

[Second stage task goal complete]

[Third stage task goal: Explore the house’s second floor, uncover the truth]

The system’s prompt sounded beside his ear, and at the same time, behind Li Ang in the living room, the sound of ceramics shattering was heard—the puppet’s sealing time had come.