“The mechanism of the Tibetan Secret Box is triggered by direction, not by specific latitude and longitude.”

Li Ang picked up the wooden box along with the compass and quickly walked to the right side of the living room. “The box is a testament to our first meeting…”

This sentence seemed to hint that the contents of the box were related to the love of the box's creator.

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

But if that's the case, why does the compass have no lid?

Could it be that in order to make the Tibetan Secret Box, the maker deliberately destroyed the keepsake? Was that necessary?

Li Ang pondered, came to the door, and gently placed the compass into the circular groove on the door frame.

*Click.*

The compass fit snugly into the circular groove, and the wooden door opened, revealing a corridor extending downwards.

The lights in the corridor seemed to be voice-activated. As soon as Li Ang's leather boots stepped on the corridor stairs, the lights came on.

Li Ang stroked the wall and walked down to a basement.

The walls and ceiling of this room were covered with wavy sponge panels that could absorb noise, and the floor was covered with solid wood flooring.

On the wooden platform shelves on both sides of the room were placed rectangular glass cabinets of various sizes. The cabinets were lined with black cloth, and on the cloth were placed various doll toys.

The dolls were male and female, and the materials were different: wood, ceramic, plastic, rubber.

The production styles were also different, some were delicate and exquisite like real people, and some had big eyes and round heads in an anime style.

These dolls were in various shapes, either sitting or standing.

Some cabinets even had wardrobes and small houses prepared for these dolls.

The entire room was a luxurious collection room for doll toys.

Li Ang glanced over it. He only knew a little about the doll circle, but no matter how he looked at it, purchasing and collecting this huge number of dolls required a lot of money and energy.

“Such a huge collection project cannot be completed in a short period of time.”

Li Ang said silently, “The doll collection is most likely not for the family's daughter to play with, but the personal hobby of the mistress or master of this house.”

His gaze passed over the dolls in the display cabinet and stopped on the display cabinet itself.

At the bottom of all the display cabinets in the room were embedded metal circular holes, which could be locked with padlocks of the same style as the one in Li Ang's hand.

The difference was that the padlocks on these display cabinets did not have keys attached.

Li Ang tried to use the A key of his own padlock to open these display cabinets, but failed every time.

“Like the original padlock, the size of the A key perfectly corresponds to the padlocks of these display cabinets, but it cannot be opened.

In other words, all the padlocks in the room are from the same series, but the internal tooth shapes are different.

From a collection point of view, doing so is too much trouble - the collector must prepare hundreds of different keys and know which key corresponds to which lock.

Unless the collector carries a master key, the tooth shape of which can just open all the padlocks in the room.”

Li Ang put the A key of the original padlock back in his pocket, turned around and came to the wall, in front of a transparent display cabinet.

This display cabinet was very special. The padlock below it was missing, and there were no dolls placed inside.

However, the thick black cloth in the display cabinet clearly had indentations from being pressed by heavy objects.

And in the indentation, there was a flat-blade screwdriver-like key.

“Only this display cabinet in the room is empty.

Could it be that the doll wearing a red dress in the living room escaped from here, took the padlock, came to the living room,

and then knocked out the master of the house, the character I'm playing,

cuffed him with a padlock, and locked him in the utility room?

What is this?

A doll revenge story?”

Li Ang pondered, opened the collection cabinet, and took out the flat-blade key from it.

This new key was completely different in size and tooth shape from the padlock key. It was a whole size larger and was not a master key for the doll collection room.

He took the new key, left the basement, returned to the living room, and went straight to the bathroom - through previous observations, he was very confident that the key corresponded to the bathroom in the house.

Sure enough, with a *click*, the key rotated, the door lock opened, revealing the dimly lit bathroom without the lights on.

A strong smell of modern cleaning agent, and a bloody smell, rushed to his nose.

Li Ang held the meat cleaver in his right hand and unhesitatingly raised the flashlight in his left hand, turning on the strobe strong light mode and shining it into the bathroom.

The strong light emitted by the flashlight illuminated the dark bathroom as bright as day.

Blood, blood, blood.

A large number of splashed blood stains remained on the walls and ceiling of the bathroom, forming a clear contrast with the white tiles.

Some blood mixed with the water on the ground, forming strands of clear blood in the water, accumulating above the floor drain - the metal floor drain of the bathroom was entangled with a large amount of long hair, blocking the drain holes and preventing the blood from flowing away.

And the source of all the blood was a corpse in the bathtub at the innermost part of the bathroom.

The corpse was as tall as a person, was cut open, and was soaked in a bathtub filled with eighty percent blood. An arm was draped over the edge of the bathtub, and no blood was dripping from the fingertips - it looked like it had been dead for some time.

The reason why Li Ang used the strange description of "as tall as a person" to describe the corpse,

was very simple.

The corpse was not human, but an anthropomorphic pink plush bunny doll.

It had limbs and torso similar to those of humans (it was impossible to tell the fingers and toes), and its body was covered with pink fluff. It was not wearing clothes, and it was impossible to tell the gender or age.

Its belly was completely cut open, and the internal organs inside disappeared, leaving only the gloomy rib structure.

“Meow!”

A shrill cat meow came from the ceiling of the bathroom. Li Ang turned the direction of the flashlight.

He only saw a black cat, whose fur was stained with a lot of blood, quickly and swiftly burrowing into the broken ventilation duct in the ceiling of the bathroom and disappearing.

This cat was obviously the source of the meow that Li Ang heard when he first arrived at the bathroom door.

*Thump!*

Li Ang heavily stepped on the ground with his feet, stepped on the ceramic washbasin and jumped up. The strong light flashlight in his hand swept towards the ventilation duct, but he failed to catch the black cat's figure - the other party had already turned a corner along the winding ventilation duct, avoiding the light.

*Dong.*

Li Ang fell from mid-air, his leather boots stepped on the bathroom floor, splashing a lot of blood.

Couldn't catch it...

Li Ang shook his head. Before he opened the door just now, he had already adjusted the flashlight to the strobe strong light mode.

However, the black cat seemed to have reacted the moment it heard the sound of the lock cylinder.

Taking advantage of the gap when Li Ang opened the door, it directly escaped into the ventilation duct.

“Was that cat disturbed and frightened, or did it know that the flashlight would pose a threat to it?

I haven't seen this cat in the family photos collected in the room before, but it can't be ruled out that it was originally a member of the family - the back door and front door of the house both have pet doors for pets to pass through.”

Li Ang shifted his gaze away from the ventilation duct. To prevent the black cat from returning,

he first glanced at the blood on the ground, confirmed that there was nothing in the blood,

took a few tissues, picked up the long hair at the floor drain, allowing the blood to flow into the floor drain,

and then turned on the lights in the bathroom, while keeping the flashlight in the strong light strobe mode, aiming at the ventilation duct.

After preparing, he took the meat cleaver and looked at the pink bunny corpse in the bathtub.

Under close observation, this life-size pink bunny was indeed getting weirder and weirder.

It was cut open and its internal organs were dug out, and blood flowed all over the floor.

But the expression on its face was still like that of an ordinary life-size plush toy, with its eyes closed and its mouth pouting.

Li Ang waited for a while, and did not see any changes in the pink bunny corpse. Under the strong light mode of the flashlight, the pink bunny corpse did not become stiff or numb.

“A wooden puppet wielding a dagger to chop people, a bunny doll in the bathroom tub whose internal organs were eaten by a cat. This house is really a wonderful place.”

Li Ang muttered to himself, lifted the bunny corpse out of the bathtub, and carefully inspected it.

The anatomical structure of the bunny corpse was very strange, similar to the fusion of humans and rabbits.

However, in some very obvious places, there were traces of artificial dolls.

For example, the bunny's eyeballs were connected to the brain by a thread, rather than complex optic nerves.

The bunny's drooping ears also contained doll-like cotton filling, rather than rabbit meat.

“This... even advanced alchemy couldn't create such a strange living thing, right?”

Li Ang gently pressed his finger on the uneven traces on the bunny's belly, which had been gnawed by a cat. After thinking for a while, he reached into the bunny's body, groped for a while, but did not find the key he was guessing about.

“…So what is this room for? Just to let me see a *Happy Tree Friends*-style grotesque scene.”

Li Ang complained, washed the blood stains on his hands with water from the faucet, and his gaze swept towards the washbasin.

The washbasin was filled with common daily necessities.

Toothbrushes, toothbrush cups, toothpaste, mouthwash, facial cleanser, sunscreen, etc.

“There are a total of four sets of toothbrushes and toothbrush cups, and four sets of towels, corresponding to a family of four. But the traces of use on the two relatively small sets of toothbrush cups and toothbrushes are clearly lighter than those on the two large sets.

Children use less than adults.

All the toothbrush cups and toothbrushes are relatively dry, and have not been used for at least a few hours.”

Li Ang put down the toothbrush cups and toothbrushes, and looked up at the mirror above the washbasin.

In the mirror, he was wearing a suit.

Storage cabinet, opened the storage cabinet under the flashlight's illumination.

The storage cabinet was divided into three compartments. The bottom compartment contained miscellaneous items such as hair dryers and curling irons.

The top two compartments were filled with various medicines.

Li Ang didn't feel much different about this.

Unlike the East Asian people who believe that “every medicine has three parts poison” and are afraid of taking medicine,

it is very normal for people in the real world of the United States to take medicine, and there is even suspicion of drug abuse and taking medicine as a necessity.

“Let me see what there is.”

Li Ang took down the medicine bottles from the storage cabinet. “Ibuprofen, for anti-inflammation,

Acetaminophen, for pain relief,

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

Pseudoephedrine, for treating nasal congestion, for expectoration…”

Many of these in the cabinet were common medicines. Li Ang unpacked the medicine boxes and medicines, and there were indeed traces of taking them.

“Wait, lithium salt?”

Li Ang's gaze suddenly stopped as he scanned the medicines. He picked up a white medicine bottle, opened it and smelled it.

“In addition, there are lamotrigine tablets, carbamazepine, quetiapine…

Could it be…”

Li Ang lined up these medicines in front of him. Through the amount missing from these medicine bottles, he could know the family's medication habits, and even infer what kind of problems they had.

“The master of the house locked in the utility room, the basement filled with dolls, the medicine bottles in the storage cabinet in the bathroom…”

Li Ang pondered for a moment, selected some medicine bottles and put them in his pocket, held the flashlight in his mouth, dragged the bunny corpse out of the bathtub.

The fluff on the surface of the bunny was particularly absorbent. Fortunately, its internal organs had been eaten by the black cat before, and Li Ang could still drag it.

He took a lot of effort to drag the bunny corpse from the bathroom to the living room.

He wiped the water and blood stains on the surface of the bunny corpse with paper, and dragged it to the stairs leading to the second floor at the back of the living room.

“I have almost understood the mode of this script mission.

From the moment I woke up in the utility room, unlocked the shackles on my hands,

to opening the Tibetan Secret Box on the driver's seat of the Chevrolet SUV, and then to this corpse.

Each link is almost closely linked.

According to this logic, the existence in the bathroom is not useless…”

Li Ang picked up the gutted bunny corpse, placed it on a chair,

used a dagger to dig a hole in the bunny corpse's left hand,

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

Then, Li Ang held the bunny's right hand with his left hand, and held the other exposed wire with his right hand.

The 12v mark printed on this white wire was implying that

the human body can also conduct electricity.

After Li Ang held the wire, a slight tingling sensation immediately came from his palm.

At the same time, the LCD panel of the fingerprint unlocking gate also lit up, emitting light, and a fingerprint mark appeared.

“Huh…”

Li Ang slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and pressed his palm on the fingerprint panel.

*Click.*

The sound of the bolt moving rang clearly inside the metal gate.

This heavy door automatically opened outwards.

As expected.

Li Ang slowly let go of the hand holding the bunny corpse. The safe voltage for the human body is around 36v.

The 12v mark on the wire was implying that the iron gate could be made to work normally by using the human body to conduct electricity.

He didn't rush to climb the steps, but picked up the flashlight and shone it upwards.

The corridor staircase leading from the living room to the second floor was folded back,

and there was a row of wooden railings next to the fingerprint unlocking gate.

Under the light of the flashlight, the second floor of the house was silent and could be heard even if a needle dropped, appearing gloomy and terrifying.

[Second stage mission objective has been completed]

[Third stage mission objective: Explore the second floor of the house and learn the truth]

The system prompt sounded in his ears. At the same time, the sound of ceramic shattering came from the living room behind Li Ang - the sealing time of the doll had arrived.