The “Naked” Rivalry

The chill climbed steadily from his ankle upward.

Ye Shengge’s body turned utterly rigid in an instant.

He had been caught by the doll.

This realization petrified him where he stood. His misty eyes were filled with terror, and his exquisite small face was completely devoid of color.

What frightened him even more was that the doll—perhaps because it had just broken its seal and hadn’t fully mastered the art of walking, yet was desperate to stand—was using a highly distorted posture. Its hands moved continually up from his ankle, using the strength of his legs to slowly climb upward.

The doll’s hands were as cold as blocks of ice. Even through his trousers, Ye Shengge could clearly feel the shifting position of those hands.

The doll was still climbing.

Its speed increased, until finally, those hands moved from the ankles to rest upon the waist of its creator.

The doll was light, not heavy at all, but the sensation of it constantly climbing up was incredibly strange to anyone else.

Feeling the icy temperature at his waist, Ye Shengge instinctively shuddered. His glistening eyes flickered with unease and fear.

In that moment, his mind went blank; he even forgot to resist.

Sensing the beautiful dollmaker’s docility and submission, the doll was overjoyed. The strange wheezing sound in its throat grew louder, as if it wanted to say something to the beautiful dollmaker.

But no matter how hard it tried, it couldn’t produce words.

Far from communicating, its actions only terrified the dollmaker more.

It felt immense frustration, not knowing how to make the beautiful dollmaker stop being afraid.

After a moment of thought, it piteously released its hold on the beautiful dollmaker and fell heavily to the floor. During the fall, it deliberately increased its own weight to create a loud, dull thud, hoping this display of “weakness” would ease the dollmaker’s tension.

Having done this, the doll tentatively crawled back toward where the beautiful dollmaker stood.

However, after witnessing this “performance,” the beautiful dollmaker didn’t relax. Instead, he shrank back a small step, his normally peach-pink lips now bloodless. His mouth opened slightly, his voice trembling as he asked: “What… what exactly do you want to do?”

It wasn’t his fault for asking. The scene of the doll falling and crawling was simply too ghastly.

Anyone facing an evil spirit that looked like Sadako—crawling toward them, gripping them tightly, then suddenly falling and resuming its crawl while staring with unmoving, inorganic eyes—would never think the entity was letting them go. The first thought would be that it was concocting a new way to torture them.

Under such circumstances, not fainting on the spot was already an achievement.

The doll—who had broken its seal, failed to adapt to its new body or master walking, and had disregarded its image to crawl downstairs just to see the dollmaker sooner—felt itself wither like a frost-bitten eggplant upon seeing the rejection and fear on the dollmaker’s face.

It wanted to explain that it didn’t want to “do” anything; it just wanted to look at the beautiful dollmaker who had suddenly vanished and left it alone in the room.

But despite its efforts, it could only produce harsh, terrifying wheezes. Not a single intelligible word came out.

Seeing the misty tears welling up again in the dollmaker’s eyes because of those sounds, the doll felt incredibly aggrieved. Yet, it didn’t dare move recklessly for fear of causing more terror. It remained prone on the floor, staring fixedly at the beautiful dollmaker, planning to wait until he calmed down.

But it didn’t realize that lying unnaturally still on the floor while staring intensely at someone was actually much scarier…

Watching this, Ye Shengge completely forgot how much he had once admired the doll’s perfect features. His vision swam, and his legs felt weak. He couldn’t appreciate the doll’s eerie behavior; he only feared retribution.

The dungeon plot said exactly this: after breaking their seals, the first thing the dolls would do was play ghost to scare the fickle and cowardly dollmaker.

Back then, the doll bosses hadn’t recovered enough to resist “karmic consequences,” so after scaring the dollmaker half to death, they would reluctantly let him go to avoid being tainted.

But things were different now. The doll bosses had deviated from the plot. No one knew if a boss who broke its seal early would still be bound by the original plot’s fear of karma.

If they weren’t, he might not survive.

Deeply influenced by the plot and convinced that all dolls harbored malice, Ye Shengge was scaring himself. He completely forgot that the doll at his feet hadn’t “blackened” yet. Because it was currently the dollmaker’s favorite and hadn’t been discarded, it was actually very attached to him, harboring no malice whatsoever.

This misunderstanding was leading him toward a wrong decision.

But that aside for now.

Just as Ye Shengge and the doll were locked in a stalemate, neither daring to move, the sound of a door opening rang out.

The sound was jarringly abrupt.

At this moment, there were no other living beings in the villa besides Ye Shengge. The only ones who could open doors were the deviating doll bosses.

Ye Shengge and the doll on the floor looked toward the sound simultaneously, their eyes filled with wariness.

Unlike the beautiful dollmaker’s simple fear, the doll at his feet felt wariness and unease toward a peer who had broken the seal even earlier and successfully mastered the ability to walk and talk.

It was wary because it feared the faster-recovering doll would snatch the dollmaker away right in front of it. It was uneasy because things had spiraled out of its control.

It had intended to wait for the dollmaker to calm down before resolving the misunderstanding. But the appearance of this other doll completely shattered its plan.

Even worse, if that doll—who could walk and talk like a normal person—was shameless enough to pretend to be kind to win the dollmaker’s trust, and then used that trust to “swallow” its peer as a private grudge…

In that case, the newly freed doll would surely be at a disadvantage. Even if it weren’t swallowed, it wouldn’t come out on top.

The doll who had also deviated from the plot, broken its seal, and was now being viewed with suspicion by both the dollmaker and its peer, appeared at that moment.

Seeing the doll boss walk out of the guest room with composed, human-like steps—not looking at all pathetic like the one on the floor—Ye Shengge’s heart sank. He realized this one was much harder to deal with.

Not only that, but this formidable doll was the one he had fished out of the basement just yesterday—the one with the deepest resentment, the very first one to have been discarded.

Although Ye Shengge had spent all his free time that morning accompanying this high-resentment doll, he couldn’t judge if it would care about old ties.

Most likely not.

Ye Shengge felt a chill in his heart.

After all, the doll boss had been in the basement for so long. Even if it didn’t want to kill the culprit so soon, it would surely want to collect some “interest,” wouldn’t it?

The more he thought, the more distressed he felt. It wasn’t his fault, yet he had to carry this “heaven-sent” burden.

However, that perfectly normal-looking doll boss didn’t join its peer in hostility as he expected. It didn’t seem to hold a grudge at all. Upon seeing him, it actually revealed a slightly awkward, unfamiliar smile.

That is, until it looked down and saw the shameless doll pressed against the dollmaker’s feet—naked, wearing nothing but a white blanket that was draped so loosely it exposed far too much.

In that instant, the smile on the doll’s lips vanished. Its eyes filled with rage and disbelief. It couldn’t understand why this peer was so shameless—to go without clothes and flaunt its “charms” at the dollmaker’s feet just to get attention.

Pah! Shameless!

How could a fellow who didn’t even understand shame compare to it?

It also wondered why the beautiful dollmaker would discard a superior model like itself for such a “low-class” doll.

But it didn’t blame the dollmaker. After all, the dollmaker had realized yesterday that the other dolls couldn’t compare. He had corrected his mistake, brought it back from the basement cabinet to the upper floor, and even stayed with it all morning!

The doll with the deepest resentment automatically ignored the fact that the other dolls from the basement had also been brought upstairs.

To it, fragments that were destined to be swallowed and re-integrated into a single whole posed no threat; they weren’t competitors.

However, this fragment that had successfully broken its seal right behind it was truly annoying. Perhaps it should start with this one and swallow it first.

With that thought, the doll with the greatest resentment withdrew its gaze and looked at the beautiful dollmaker, who was standing there like a stunned fool: “You seem very afraid. Is it because of him?”

It could sense that the dollmaker felt rejection and fear toward it too, but it didn’t expose this. It spoke with immense patience.

Ye Shengge frowned, unsure of how to answer.

No matter what, the high-resentment doll and the one at his feet were of the same kind. He couldn’t tell if this one was faking it, or if it truly had a conflict with its peer and intended to help its enemy against its own kind.

“I can swear not to hurt you. You don’t need to fear me,” the high-resentment doll said seriously, flaunting its ability to speak right in front of the crawling doll, who looked like it wanted to skin it alive.

Having finished, its tone softened. It looked at the beautiful dollmaker and asked: “Do you need me to… ‘handle’ him for you?”

Hearing this, Ye Shengge’s eyes lit up. He instinctively asked: “Can you?”

To be honest, he was quite afraid of the Sadako-like doll on the floor; it had left him with a significant psychological shadow.

But…

The light in his eyes slowly faded.

Anyone can make an oath, but how many can keep a promise? Especially when the promise is made to an enemy.

Could the words of a resentful doll really be trusted?

Fortunately, the next words from the high-resentment doll—filled with excitement and anticipation—proved that things weren’t as simple as they seemed, dispelling Ye Shengge’s inner doubts.

“Beg me. Beg me, and I’ll help you.”