Chapter 94 – “Security Guards”

Chapter 94 – “Security Guards”

Yu Sheng suddenly gained an entirely new understanding of what “peace” meant in the worldview of these Spirit Detectives and investigators of the Borderland.

A place this eerie and bizarre could actually be described as “peaceful”?

But after briefly recalling the valley from before, he suddenly felt that Little Red Riding Hood’s description wasn’t exactly wrong—the “Museum” might be a bit eerie, but at least it was only eerie. It had a set of rules that allowed people to move about safely; as long as you followed the rules, nothing would go wrong. That valley, however, contained an entity that would hunt you to the death no matter how strictly you followed the rules, and lethal dangers pervaded the entire Otherworld. From a lethality standpoint, the latter was clearly the more hazardous environment.

The most critical criterion distinguishing Danger Level Two from Danger Level Three was whether “the lethal factors within the environment can be avoided by following rules.” For Otherworlds and entities rated Danger Level Three and above, their lethality was unconditionally active.

“The thing we’re looking for is a statue called ‘The Weeping One.’ It’s a small statue whose exact dimensions fluctuate between fifteen and twenty-five centimeters,” Little Red Riding Hood said in a low voice to Yu Sheng and Hu Li while cautiously observing the corridor ahead. “The statue depicts a woman covering her face and weeping—a bust with abstract lines and a hollowed-out back. Under normal circumstances, this little statue is placed in a separate white hall as the hall’s sole exhibit, with no one guarding it. So as long as we can find the white hall, taking the statue should be relatively easy.”

Yu Sheng walked alongside Little Red Riding Hood, curiously observing this “Museum” while casually asking, “I have a question—what does the Curiosities Association want this thing for?”

“Who knows? Either some collector offered a fortune and commissioned the Curiosities Association, who then outsourced it to us, or the Association wants it for their own research,” Little Red Riding Hood said offhandedly. “The ‘Museum’ is one of the few Otherworlds that can continuously ‘produce’ collectibles. Many of its creations possess considerable artistic value… I don’t understand art myself, but plenty of wealthy people are obsessed with the objects collected here—the harmless ones, that is. And it’s not just art pieces; sometimes there are antiques and mechanical exhibits of unknown origin. These things seem to be presenting visitors with a fabricated civilization, which gives them significant research value, so scholars collect them too.”

Yu Sheng nodded thoughtfully, then glanced back in the direction he’d come from.

“What are you thinking about?” Little Red Riding Hood asked.

“I’m thinking about the ‘stage’ from earlier, and those invisible clapping spectators, and even further back, the ticket window,” Yu Sheng voiced the question on his mind. “Those are clearly part of the ‘anomalous phenomena’ too, so shouldn’t the entire ‘Theater’ be classified as an Otherworld, with ‘Museum Night’ being just one part of the ‘Theater’?”

“You’ve hit on the key point,” Little Red Riding Hood said with a slight smile. “Indeed, the Theater itself is the origin of all anomalous phenomena here—but the ‘Theater’ isn’t a complete Otherworld on its own. It can only be considered an entrance. An Otherworld must have its own complete spatiotemporal structure and self-contained rule system. The rules governing activity in the ‘Museum’ don’t apply during the Theater phase, so the two can’t be lumped together. Also…”

Little Red Riding Hood paused and turned her head. “Let me share another piece of intelligence with you: the Theater, as an ‘entrance,’ actually connects to more than just the museum.”

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “More than just the museum?”

“During sunset hours, it counts as an evening performance, and the Theater’s stage leads to ‘Museum Night.’ But during the day, a different ticket window opens, and the daytime performance’s stage leads to ‘Manor Mystery’—a far more dangerous place. Inside it, there’s a ‘Suspect Zero’ that actively hunts ‘performers,’ and it’s extremely powerful.”

“How does it compare to ‘Hunger’?”

“…It definitely can’t match the ‘Hunger’ that was influenced by the Twilight Angel, but that thing has very strange abilities. As for exactly how dangerous it is… I’ve never encountered it myself.”

“Oh.”

And so Yu Sheng continued walking through the museum alongside Little Red Riding Hood, curiously absorbing all manner of knowledge related to Otherworlds. Eileen sat quietly on his shoulder, rarely speaking throughout the journey, listening with unusual attentiveness.

Hu Li, meanwhile, had been carefully observing their surroundings the entire time, her fluffy ears occasionally swiveling sharply toward some direction, listening intently for the slightest disturbance within the museum.

“Benefactor, that painting up ahead… there’s a sound coming from it.”

She suddenly lowered her voice and tugged at the corner of Yu Sheng’s sleeve.

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood immediately stopped.

A faint breathing sound emanated from an oil painting ahead of them.

The painting depicted a lion pierced through the forehead by a sharp sword. At the edge of the frame, a gauntleted hand was visible, as though it had just hurled the sword with great force a moment before.

The breathing came from the perspective of the sword-thrower, and the moment Yu Sheng and the others noticed the painting, the breathing instantly became more pronounced, more distinct—as if someone were truly standing in the unpainted space “beyond the frame,” gasping heavily after a battle to slay the lion.

“Go around it. Walk along the wall.” Little Red Riding Hood immediately lowered her voice and led Yu Sheng and the others in a wide arc around the breathing exhibit.

The breathing gradually faded behind them.

They passed through the hall and entered a corridor lined with many doors. Yu Sheng cautiously opened one of them.

“Red room.” He stepped back and reported to Little Red Riding Hood.

“Then skip this one. Move to the next door.”

Yu Sheng nodded, walked a few more meters forward, and opened another door.

On the other side was a completely empty hall. The sky-blue hall was brightly lit, with only a placard stand near the entrance bearing information about the “exhibit”:

“My Friends and My Endless Fortune,” Creator: Fang Wen.

Below the placard was a single line of commentary: This is a work that evokes sadness, imbued with the creator’s lifelong contemplation and insight.

Yu Sheng stared at the placard for a moment, blanked out for a few seconds, then turned to Little Red Riding Hood. “…This museum has a sense of humor?”

“The humor comes from the people who were ‘consumed’ by the museum. Their ‘final works’ sometimes carry an inexplicable sense of absurdity and self-mockery. But no one knows what state they were in when they left these works behind, nor whether they truly completed these ‘creations’ while still in their right minds,” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “Ultimately, the museum itself doesn’t think. It merely crudely and distortedly imitates facilities operated by humans, then ‘runs’ itself according to its own set of rules.”

With that, she looked up toward the far side of this hall exhibiting nothing but air, where an exit stood.

“Let’s pass through here. Many of the museum’s exhibition halls and corridors are repetitive and randomly generated each time you enter, so there’s no point memorizing routes. But the museum’s actual scope is limited—as long as you keep following the rules and moving to the next area, barring terrible luck, you’ll eventually reach the hall housing ‘The Weeping One.'”

Yu Sheng nodded and strode forward with Hu Li.

But just as he was about to cross through the center of the hall, stiff, monotonous footsteps suddenly echoed from the opposite passage, stopping him in his tracks.

The next moment, he saw several wobbling figures.

They were plastic mannequins dressed in security guard uniforms. Their smooth faces bore rigid, uncanny features, and they swayed forward with stiff, absurd strides, lurching into the hall from the opposite passage.

Every hair on Hu Li’s tail and ears stood on end in an instant.

“Security guards!” Little Red Riding Hood gasped in a low voice. “Why would security guards suddenly spawn…”

But she composed herself a second later, cautiously moving closer to Yu Sheng while keeping her voice down. “Don’t retreat. Don’t make any suspicious moves. The security guards are aggressive entities, but they follow the rules. We haven’t violated any of the museum’s ‘regulations’ since entering. These things shouldn’t actively harm—”

Before she could finish, Yu Sheng caught movement in his peripheral vision—a plastic mannequin in the corridor suddenly raised its hand, miming the motion of blowing a whistle. The next instant, a shrill, piercing whistle blast rang through the entire exhibition hall!

Every single “security guard” sprang into motion at once, charging at the group in the hall with speed and ferocity beyond human imagination.

“What the f—”

Yu Sheng barely got the exclamation out before dodging sharply to the side. The moment he landed, he lashed out with a powerful kick that slammed into one of the plastic mannequins—and the impact rang out like iron striking stone.

The mannequin was kicked clean in half at the waist, but the massive recoil force sent searing pain shooting through Yu Sheng’s own leg.

“These things are insanely hard! It’s like they’re made of goddamn stone!”

Yu Sheng couldn’t help shouting. At almost the same instant, dense black threads spread from the hands of the Little Doll perched on his shoulder, ensnaring another “security guard” that had charged out of the passage and locking it in midair.

Hu Li pounced ferociously, tearing the temporarily restrained “security guard” apart with her bare hands, then whipped around and sent the mannequin’s head flying with a swing of her tail.

But the very next second, the shattered mannequin began trembling violently on the ground. Its limb fragments squirmed like building blocks, rapidly reassembling into a complete “security guard” before lunging at them again.

More footsteps echoed from the direction of the passage, and an ever-growing number of wobbling figures appeared at the edges of Yu Sheng’s vision.

(End of Chapter)