diff --git a/qobject/block-qdict.c b/qobject/block-qdict.c
index 1487cc5dd8..4a83bda2c3 100644
--- a/qobject/block-qdict.c
+++ b/qobject/block-qdict.c
@@ -251,12 +251,12 @@ void qdict_array_split(QDict *src, QList **dst)
         if (is_subqdict) {
             qdict_extract_subqdict(src, &subqdict, prefix);
             assert(qdict_size(subqdict) > 0);
+            qlist_append_obj(*dst, QOBJECT(subqdict));
         } else {
             qobject_ref(subqobj);
             qdict_del(src, indexstr);
+            qlist_append_obj(*dst, subqobj);
         }
-
-        qlist_append_obj(*dst, subqobj ?: QOBJECT(subqdict));
     }
 }