After a moment’s hesitation, I spoke, my voice betraying a slight tremor. "Who... who are you? Lift your head."

The figure dressed like a sorcerer neither looked up nor moved a muscle.

This confirmed my suspicion that it was an effigy, so I used my pistol to flick its hat off.

As the hat tumbled away, I saw only a desiccated skull beneath, and only then did I allow myself a breath of relief.

Next, I moved to the side of the room to inspect the large wardrobes.

Opening both wardrobes, I found them empty—absolutely nothing inside.

This deepened my confusion. I had clearly seen the woman enter; how could she vanish so suddenly? Could she truly be a ghost?

I searched the room front to back again, yielding no results.

The whole affair began to feel increasingly bizarre. If the entity was indeed a spirit, pursuing it felt like inviting trouble.

With a growing sense of unease, I decided to drop the matter and headed toward the other side of the corridor to find an exit.

But when I stepped back into the hallway, I found the woman had reappeared.

This time, she stood with her back to me, bathed in the flickering light of a single, erratic lamp, which gave me a profound shock.

Had I entered the wrong room? I thought. She must have been in the other room just now.

"Who are you! Don't move, you better raise your hands." I consciously tried to pitch my voice like a police officer on duty, as that tone usually lent authority.

The figure, however, seemed unimpressed by my tone, remaining motionless in the hallway, facing away.

I swallowed hard, wondering why this woman was so strange.

As I contemplated this, I began to take in her form and quickly noticed something utterly unusual.

It was her hair that struck me as profoundly bizarre.

She was tall, her shoulders nearly as broad as a man’s, though her frame appeared somewhat slight.

This person was clad in a somewhat faded green military uniform, cinched with a black utility belt, and wearing white gloves—the exact attire of a soldier.

No matter how I looked at it, the clothing screamed 'male soldier,' yet she possessed a cascade of long, golden hair that seemed both dazzling and deeply unsettling.

A Barbie doll! The hairstyle suddenly reminded me of the Barbie doll I'd spotted when I first fell in.

Could one of the Barbie dolls actually be alive, secretly trailing me ever since my descent?

The thought sent a wave of gooseflesh crawling over my body.

I desperately didn't want to see that plastic face turn around and smile at me.

I silently urged myself to stay put, but my feet involuntarily began to retreat backward.

It was then that the strange Barbie doll figure moved, its head beginning a slow pivot toward me.

When I finally saw her face, the scalp beneath my hair practically exploded.

It was a face covered in grotesque protrusions; the crevices on the skin were deeper and more numerous than the treads on a tire, yet this wasn't the slackness of old age.

The folds on this face were aggressively three-dimensional, like buns piled atop one another, crushing her features into a single knot.

Her gaze was utterly hollow, devoid of irises—pure black, as if her pupils had swallowed the entire eye, making them appear unnaturally large.

Most alarmingly, the entire body seemed rigid. When the neck turned, it emitted a horrific, grating kaka sound, suggesting it could snap at any moment.

She grinned at me, her teeth all appearing to be inlaid with gold, gleaming brightly.

We stared at each other for two heartbeats. I was too stunned to react, taking no action.

The entity, however, wasted no time. Seeing my paralysis, she spun around, extending her stiff arms, and lunged toward me.

Though it was a 'lunge,' her movements were decidedly slow, especially her feet, which seemed leaden, making every step an effort.

But even with her sluggish pace, the distance between us was barely ten meters, and my back was already against a dead end.

I only managed a few steps back before she pressed me hard against the wall.

At this moment, I dared not retreat into another room; if several more of these things emerged, the situation would become unmanageable.

I kept retreating until I was just a few meters from the wall, then raised my gun. "Barbie doll! Stop! What do you want? Go back to your Barbie Kingdom and be a princess! Stop scaring me!"

She clearly recognized the firearm and instantly froze, her attention fixed on the gun in my hand.

Seeing this tactic worked, I racked the slide and barked, "Get back!"

"Eee-ah ah!" The thing on the other side seemed enraged by my sudden volume, letting out several inhuman shrieks before beginning to press forward again.

I thought to myself that this thing was only three parts human and seven parts zongzi (mummy/corpse), certainly no friend. Without further hesitation, I pulled the trigger.

Pang! The bullet left the chamber and struck her left leg, surprisingly eliciting a shower of sparks.

I had held back, not intending to kill her outright, but she seemed completely unaffected, merely stumbling two steps back before resuming her awkward, whining advance.

Looking at the Barbie doll again, as she recoiled too abruptly, she had lost her wig, revealing a bare, metallic-sheened scalp underneath.

It finally clicked: this wasn't some Barbie doll; it was one of the people who had attacked us!

When I fell from the trap earlier, it must not have closed properly, and this creature had followed me down.

It must have stumbled into the pile of Barbies, haphazardly donned a wig, and shadowed me ever since.

Perhaps having lost its weapon, its only option was a sneak attack or trying to scare me to death with illusions.

I hadn't seen clearly under the spotlight before, but now I registered their faces. Were these things human, or were they zongzi?

If they were zongzi, why the use of firearms and the theatrical attempt to scare me?

A chilling realization settled in: this entity before me was complex, likely some form of intelligent life that was neither fully human nor a simple corpse. Were they organized, or taking orders from someone?

In any case, the creature before me now lunged with gritted teeth, clearly intending to kill.

With no retreat left, I fired two more shots to force it back, and in that brief interval of its retreat, I darted into the adjacent room and locked the door.

No sooner had I secured the latch than I heard a loud smack on the door, and two dark, human hands punched directly through the wood, lodging inside.

I backed away two steps just as the door exploded, shattering into countless splinters that flew everywhere.

Through the debris, the Barbie doll figure charged in, claws outstretched.

I inwardly gasped at its strength, easily comparable to a zongzi. My feet shuffled backward, seeking room to maneuver.

This room seemed to be one of the few left undecorated. It was empty save for a few rotted tables draped with seaweed and some broken stools.

Without a second thought, I hurled these pieces of furniture at the creature, but it smashed each one to pieces with a single blow.

Luckily, I was quicker; otherwise, I would have suffered the same fate as the tables and chairs.

After circling around the room to engage it briefly, I felt my way back to the doorway and bolted out in a streak.

I ran a few steps down the corridor and saw the creature slowly follow me out.

But it certainly couldn't catch me; without its gun, it could only roar furiously from behind, wildly swinging its black claws.

Knowing this confined space was unsuitable for a prolonged standoff—if I was cornered again, I'd lose my life—I ran at maximum speed toward the unblocked end of the hall.

If I could just reach the deck, I could find Da Xiong and the others for aid, or at least find a larger area to play this deadly game of hide-and-seek. There had to be more options there.

As I formulated this plan, a brilliant light suddenly flared up behind me.

I looked back in astonishment to see the grotesque thing standing still, its mouth wide open.

And within its maw, intense electrical currents seemed to writhe and surge.

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