Chapter 092

Chapter 92: Accumulating Knowledge

The girl in a red coat stood under a streetlight. The glow fell across her slight frame, and the shadows at her feet seemed to stir. Hidden in those shadows were pairs of alert, watchful eyes. One pair noticed the “outsiders” coming closer, so Little Red Riding Hood also sensed Yu Sheng and the others.

Yu Sheng waved and said, “Sorry, the taxi was a bit slow, did you wait long?”

“Only a few minutes,” Little Red Riding Hood said casually as she turned her head. “I already sent my wolves to circle the area. They didn’t find any unusual changes. The Museum should be very stable tonight, a good day to act. By the way, did you read the files I gave you?”

“I did.” Yu Sheng nodded, then followed her gaze to the large building standing quiet in the dark.

It was not a Museum at all, but an old theater that had been closed to the public years ago. The entrance to the so?called Museum was inside this theater.

Little Red Riding Hood reminded them, speaking a bit faster as if afraid to miss something: “After Night at the Museum starts, do not touch any exhibits that make breathing sounds, do not stare at the portrait paintings for too long, and do not enter any red rooms. If you see plastic mannequins in guide uniforms, pay attention to their hand signs, and do not enter the Door they point to or hint at. Honestly, those are the main rules. The Museum is a relatively stable Otherworld, and its depth sits around L-2 long term. As long as you follow the rules, the danger is controllable, so its danger level is rated at 2.”

Listening to her careful warnings, Yu Sheng thought of the “Door entry files” he had studied when getting familiar with Border Communications. [Those files were his biggest gain after registering with the Special Affairs Bureau: a full, systematic set of basic intel on the extraordinary world.] It finally cleared up what Li Lin and Xu Jiali had mentioned before but never fully explained, the ideas of Otherworld “depth” and “danger level.”

Depth, in simple terms, measures how far an Otherworld has drifted from the real world. With the real world set as level zero, depth rises step by step from 0 to 5. An L-1 Otherworld might only look a bit strange, and a normal person could even wander out by accident. At L-5, aside from a few rare, nonrepeatable survival records, there is almost no chance of coming back. Experts are not even sure if an L-5 Otherworld truly has an exit.

Usually, an Otherworld’s depth is fairly stable, but it can shift slightly with time or under certain conditions. Exploring when the depth is shallow is the safest choice. Sudden depth changes are a main reason Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators lose their lives.

Danger level is another key measure of threat. Most of the time, danger level rises with depth. The “shallower” the Otherworld, the safer it tends to be, and the “deeper,” the more dangerous. But it is not exact. Some shallow Otherworlds create Entities that are terrifying, while some L-3 zones, which are generally considered high risk, even contain stable safe areas.

Because of these exceptions, “danger level” and “depth” are treated as two separate numbers.

At the same time, danger level is not only used for Otherworlds. It can also rate an Entity on its own.

They walked toward the old theater’s entrance.

“To be honest, by the book I shouldn’t bring ‘newcomers’ like you into an L-2 Otherworld such as the Museum,” Little Red Riding Hood said as they went. “New Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators usually start with L-1. Shallow Otherworlds are more stable, and pulling out is easier. But you are not exactly normal rookies. You managed to handle Night Valley. So except for a lack of experience and knowledge, your strength already exceeds the standard.”

“No big deal. We’re here to see and learn anyway,” Yu Sheng said, not worried. He glanced at the girl walking beside him and added, “By the way, I suddenly feel like you are pretty used to looking after people.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You seem cool and mature most of the time, but when we start working you remind us of a lot of details, especially with us ‘newbies.’ It feels like you’re the team parent.”

Little Red Riding Hood paused for a few seconds, her expression a bit hard to read.

She said nothing, just curled her lip and kept walking.

“Do you understand depth and danger level now?” After a few steps, she broke the silence.

“Got it. Depth means how far this place has drifted from normal reality, and danger level means how deadly the place or thing is,” Yu Sheng said, waving a hand. “Easy enough.”

“That explanation is simple, but not bad,” Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “The Museum’s depth is L-2, a ‘standard’ Otherworld depth. It already differs from reality in clear ways. The environment itself starts to twist. For normal people it’s very dangerous. But overall, the space still follows common sense and human logic. If you follow the rules, nothing should happen.”

Yu Sheng cut in before she finished and said, “Danger level 2 means it won’t actively kill you, it doesn’t have active or random malice. But if you break the rules, you can still suffer serious harm or even die, right?”

“Not bad. You remember it well. Then I won’t worry.”

She stopped walking.

They had stepped through the theater’s door. Past the half open iron door was a lobby paved with dark green tiles. Hallways on both sides led into the theater, and straight ahead were several black ticket windows. Yu Sheng’s eyes were drawn first to the odd device placed in the middle of the lobby.

It was a black gray metal pillar with four sides, wider at the base and narrower at the top, a little over half a person tall. Small lights at the top faded in and out. A low, broken hum came from inside. It was clearly running.

“This was set by the Special Affairs Bureau. We call it a ‘Node,’ full name ‘Constant Node Generator,’” Little Red Riding Hood said, pointing at the pillar. “It puts out a low frequency cognitive interference that nudges ordinary people away from known dangerous spots in the Borderland. The effect is weak, but it is enough for people without any awakened senses.”

“Do we have a lot of these in the city?” Yu Sheng stared at the Node, surprised. “I never noticed them.”

She glanced at Yu Sheng. She almost said, “Because you were a normal person before, so you never got close,” but swallowed the words. In her mind, even Foxy had more human warmth than Yu Sheng. [She decided not to say that out loud.]

“How well does it work? Can it really keep normal people out?” Yu Sheng asked.

“It works pretty well. But no safety measure has a 100 percent block rate. Even if you seal a place with concrete and steel, someone will grab a hydraulic cutter and a drill to tempt fate,” she sighed. “There are always stubborn ones or gifted ones who push through the dizziness and leg cramps to ‘go exploring.’ Sometimes they are just unlucky and naturally insensitive to the Node, so they fall into an Otherworld and wait for us to rescue them. In the end, they either become the pay for Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators, or they end up as grim internal case reports at the Special Affairs Bureau. In a few cases, after a lot of crying and therapy, they become new detectives, Investigators, or Bureau operatives.”

“Why not just tear this place down?” Foxy asked.

“Tear it down? That would be a mess,” Little Red Riding Hood said, spreading her hands. “If you destroy a known ‘entrance,’ it is only the entrance you remove. The Otherworld itself is not in the same dimension. If you knock down the controlled entry point, no one knows where it might open next.”

Hearing her explanation, Yu Sheng sighed to himself. [People will always push their luck. You can’t stop it.]

Little Red Riding Hood stepped up to the Node and swiped her Identification Card at the top.

“Registering entries and exits,” she said, showing Yu Sheng her card. “If we die inside, the body collectors will know where to look. Once you enter an Otherworld, outside contact is basically cut off. Registration at the Node is the last place Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators can leave a trace for the real world.”

Yu Sheng brought Irene and Foxy over to register too. As he followed the steps, he muttered, “Good thing we got them their IDs.”

The Node answered with a light hum.

Then Little Red Riding Hood led the three of them past the Node to the far end of the lobby.

She stopped before the dark ticket windows.

In this abandoned theater, the windows were, of course, out of use. Two of the four were crisscrossed with plastic tape. Of the two left, one had been cleared out and was piled with useless junk. The other still held a ticket punch machine, thick with dust.

She stood at that window, checked the time on her phone, and waited.

After two or three minutes, she tapped the glass.

“Night show, Night at the Museum, four tickets.”

Light suddenly filled the empty booth, even though the bulb above was broken. Warm light filled the dusty little room, as if an unseen ticket seller, forgotten by time and memory, still sat behind the window.

The old machine creaked. The empty paper feed spun round and round, then started spitting out red admission tickets.