Chapter 094

Chapter 94: Security Guards

Yu Sheng suddenly gained a new understanding of what “peace” meant in the Borderland world of Spirit Realm Detectives and Investigators.

This creepy place with The Door could still be called “peaceful”? But when he thought of that earlier Valley, he felt Little Red Riding Hood was not wrong at all: the Museum is strange, but it has rules that let people move around safely. If you follow the rules, nothing bad should happen. The Valley, though, had an Entity that hunted you to the death no matter what you did, and deadly danger filled the whole Otherworld. From a fatal point of view, the Valley was clearly the harsher environment.

The most important line between Danger Level Two and Danger Level Three is this: can you avoid lethal factors by following rules inside the environment? In Level Three and above Otherworlds and Entities, the deadliness applies unconditionally.

“We’re looking for a statue called The Weeper,” Little Red Riding Hood said in a low voice as she cautiously watched the corridor ahead, “it’s a small statue whose size shifts between 15 to 25 centimeters. It shows a woman covering her face while crying, a half bust with abstract lines and a hollow back. Normally, it sits alone in a white hall as the only exhibit. No one guards it, so once we find that white hall, taking it should be easy.”

Walking beside her, Yu Sheng studied the “Museum” with curiosity and asked: “I have a question. What does the Curiosities Association want this for?”

“Who knows,” Little Red Riding Hood answered lightly, “maybe some collector paid a fortune and hired the Curiosities Association, and they subcontracted to us. Or the Association wants it for research. The Museum is one of the few Otherworlds that can keep ‘producing’ collectibles. A lot of what it creates has high artistic value. I don’t understand art, but many rich people love the harmless pieces here. And it doesn’t only show art. Sometimes there are unknown antiques and mechanical displays too. These things seem to show visitors a made-up civilization. They have real research value, so scholars collect them as well.”

Yu Sheng nodded, then glanced back the way they came.

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

“I’m thinking about the ‘stage’ from before, the invisible clapping audience, and the earlier ticket window,” Yu Sheng said, voicing his doubt, “those are clearly part of the anomalies too. So shouldn’t the whole ‘theater’ be the Otherworld, and ‘Night at the Museum’ only a part of that?”

“You’ve found the key point,” Little Red Riding Hood smiled, “the theater is the starting point of all the anomalies here. But the ‘theater’ is not a complete Otherworld. It’s only an entrance. An Otherworld needs its own full space-time structure and closed-loop rules. The rules that work inside the Museum do not apply during the theater part, so you can’t mix them. Also, one more thing.”

She paused and turned her head: “The ‘entrance’ of the theater connects to more than just the Museum.”

“More than the Museum,” Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow.

“At sunset, it’s the night show, and the stage leads to Night at the Museum. In the daytime, another ticket window opens, and the day show’s stage leads to ‘The Manor Cold Case’. That place is even more dangerous. It has a ‘Suspect Zero’ who actively hunts the ‘performers’, and it is very strong.”

“How does it compare to Hunger,” Yu Sheng asked.

“It can’t match Hunger after it was influenced by the Dark Angels,” she said after a short silence, “but its power is weird. I’ve never faced it myself, so I don’t know exactly how dangerous it is.”

“Oh,” Yu Sheng said. He walked on with Little Red Riding Hood, drinking in all kinds of knowledge about the Otherworlds. Irene sat quietly on his shoulder, unusually silent, listening with great focus.

Foxy kept a wary eye on every side. Her fluffy ears swiveled now and then, catching the smallest stir in the Museum.

“Benefactor, that painting up ahead,” she whispered while tugging Yu Sheng’s sleeve, “it’s making a sound.”

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood stopped at once.

A faint, steady breathing came from a Painting up ahead.

The painting showed a lion with a sword driven into its forehead. At the edge of the canvas, a hand in a gauntlet seemed to have just thrown the sword a second before.

The breathing came from the thrower’s angle, and as soon as Yu Sheng and the others focused on the painting, the breathing grew clearer and louder, like a real person standing outside the frame and panting hard after fighting the lion.

“Avoid it and keep to the wall,” Little Red Riding Hood said softly, leading them around the piece that was making the sound.

The breathing faded away.

They crossed the hall and entered a corridor lined with many Doors. Yu Sheng carefully opened one of them.

“Red Room,” he said, stepping back and looking to Little Red Riding Hood.

“Skip it and go to the next Door,” she replied.

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

On the other side was an empty hall, sky blue and brightly lit. Near the entrance stood a single plaque pillar listing the exhibit’s information:

“My Friend and My Endless Wealth,” creator: Fang Wen.

A comment below read: This is a work that brings sadness. It holds the creator’s lifetime of thought and feeling.

Yu Sheng stared at the plaque for a few seconds, then looked at Little Red Riding Hood: “So the Museum has a sense of humor?”

“The ‘humor’ comes from people the Museum has ‘eaten’,” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head, “their final works sometimes carry absurd self-mockery. No one knows what state they were in when they left these works, or whether they finished them with a clear mind. The Museum itself doesn’t think. It clumsily and twistedly imitates a human-run venue and ‘operates’ by its own rules.”

She lifted her chin toward the exit across the empty-air hall: “Let’s pass through. Many Exhibition Halls and corridors in the Museum repeat, and each entry randomizes them. There’s no need to memorize routes. The place is limited in size, and if we keep moving to the next area by the rules, unless we get very unlucky, we’ll reach the Exhibition Hall where The Weeper is kept.”

Yu Sheng nodded and started forward with Foxy.

But just as he stepped into the center of the hall, stiff, flat footfalls sounded from the passage across from them, making him stop.

In the next moment, several wobbly figures appeared.

They were plastic mannequins in security uniforms. Smooth faces wore rigid, uncanny features. With clumsy, jerky steps, they swayed into the hall from the far passage.

The fur on Foxy’s tail and ears bristled all at once.

“It’s the security guards,” Little Red Riding Hood gasped under her breath, “why did security spawn all of a sudden?”

She calmed in the next second and moved closer to Yu Sheng, speaking low: “Don’t step back. Don’t act suspicious. Security is an aggressive kind of Entity, but it follows rules. We haven’t broken the Museum’s management order since we came in. These things shouldn’t attack unprovoked…”

Before she finished, Yu Sheng caught a plastic mannequin in the corridor raising its hand. It mimed blowing a whistle, and an instant later a shrill, piercing whistle filled the Exhibition Hall.

All the “security guards” moved at once. With speed and ferocity no human could match, they charged the group.

“Crap,” Yu Sheng blurted. He dodged hard to one side, planted his foot, and kicked a mannequin in the waist. The impact rang like iron on stone.

The plastic body snapped in two at the middle, but pain shot through Yu Sheng’s leg from the huge recoil.

“This thing is super hard. It’s like it’s made of stone,” he shouted.

At the same time, a net of thin black threads spread from the little doll on his shoulder and bound another charging guard in midair.

Foxy pounced with a snarl. She ripped the bound guard into pieces with her bare hands, then spun and smacked its head away with her tail.

The next second, the broken parts trembled on the floor. Like building blocks, the pieces squirmed and snapped back together, forming a whole “security guard” that lunged at them again.

More footsteps thudded from the passage. Out of the corner of his eye, Yu Sheng saw more swaying figures pour in.