Chapter 097

Chapter 97: The Surrounded White Exhibition Hall

Yu Sheng felt like Little Red Riding Hood had been nervous since a while ago.

He guessed it might have something to do with him.

Thankfully, he had thick skin and a calm heart, mostly trained by spending time with Irene. He stood up and put his focus back on the next steps.

He could tell the ‘guards’ were standing still across the Museum. Some of them were slowly being “taken apart” into the air. It seemed that when the intruder vanished from their sight, the Museum’s “purge” system also stopped. The temporary plastic janitors were getting reclaimed bit by bit.

But the reclaiming was slow. If they waited until every mannequin faded away, they might miss the Museum’s open hours. Little Red Riding Hood had warned him: this Museum was a timed Otherworld that only opened during the night show.

“We move on. We go this way,” Yu Sheng said after sensing again. He pointed to a Door deep in the hallway. “There are no ‘guards’ behind this Door.”

“Got it,” Little Red Riding Hood said at once. She signaled her Wolf Pack to follow the only person who could confirm a safe route.

The next Exhibition Hall glowed with warm orange light. A huge mountain sculpture rose in the middle. Bright landscape paintings hung all around on the walls. None of the pieces had titles. The creator line said only “anonymous.”

There were no mannequins here. On the route Yu Sheng picked, they met no “guards.”

Little Red Riding Hood found this amazing. She had never thought she could move like this inside a Museum that was already “active.” By the Special Affairs Bureau’s standard, once ‘guards’ spawn, a Museum’s danger level is near Level Three, the point where a fully armed elite squad should take over. Yet now, with her Wolf Pack, she crossed one Exhibition Hall and junction after another in this Museum that was starting to bare its fangs. The Entities spread through the Otherworld felt… absent.

Only when Yu Sheng lowered his voice at a corner and warned them did she remember that deadly threats still ringed them on all sides.

They passed many more corridors and rooms but still did not find the white, empty Exhibition Hall from the intel.

Yu Sheng stopped and frowned.

“What is it?” Little Red Riding Hood asked at once, tense.

“We still haven’t found the hall,” Yu Sheng said, voice low.

“Maybe it’s deeper in?” Irene said. She had climbed back onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder again. When they were out in the field, the little Doll refused to walk. “Didn’t we say the Museum’s layout is random?”

“I mean we’ve already explored every place that isn’t blocked by ‘guards,’” Yu Sheng said, face serious. “Every path left is controlled by those plastic mannequins.”

Irene opened her mouth, then only managed to squeeze out a curse.

“So it’s the worst case. The white Exhibition Hall is really surrounded by those ‘guards,’” Little Red Riding Hood said, her face dark for a second. She kept it in and did not curse out loud. “Of all places, why did they spawn there.”

Yu Sheng fell silent for two seconds, then spoke with a guess: “Maybe the plastic people were generated right inside the white Exhibition Hall.”

As he spoke, he raised a hand and pointed at a certain Door.

“If we go out this way, we hit the center of the ring. I sense seven or eight Entities in the same space. I also found something else. In other areas the ‘guards’ are slowly disappearing, like the Museum is reclaiming them. But only these ones show no sign of being ‘reclaimed’ at all. I think that’s the white Exhibition Hall we’re looking for. Something must have happened there, which made the Entities spawn. The ‘stimulus source’ is probably still there.”

Little Red Riding Hood, Irene, and Foxy looked at each other.

Yu Sheng’s intel and analysis sounded reasonable, but none of it was good news.

“What do we do? Pull out, or go take a look?” Irene broke the silence first. “It’s fair to bail. This is creepy. But if we leave now, this trip is wasted, and it feels like we took a beating for nothing after that messy escape earlier.”

Little Red Riding Hood thought, then looked at Yu Sheng.

“You decide,” she said.

Yu Sheng blinked: “You’re sure you want a newbie deciding? Newbies don’t know anything and rush in.”

“You have the power to leave this Otherworld, and you’re the only one who can confirm a safe route. That has nothing to do with being a newbie.”

Yu Sheng’s face grew serious. After weighing it carefully, he exhaled and turned toward the Door.

“We get closer and observe. Without alerting the Entities, we find a way to peek into the white Exhibition Hall and see what happened. Best case, we confirm the situation. If not, we pull out,” Yu Sheng said. He checked with Little Red Riding Hood: “Those ‘guards’ only act when they ‘see’ us, right? Will getting close set them off?”

“Only when they ‘see’ you,” Little Red Riding Hood answered at once. “Earlier teams confirmed it. ‘Guards’ in the Museum have only vision. No hearing, no smell. Their vision is a cone about one hundred and twenty degrees straight ahead. So their senses are limited. But inside that cone they never zone out, and they won’t ignore any intruder. Most Exhibition Halls are empty. If several ‘guards’ stand at set angles, their cones cover the entire room. There’s no safe corner to hide in.”

Yu Sheng nodded thoughtfully at her explanation. Then he led the group out of this Exhibition Hall and crept toward the “off” place he had sensed.

They soon passed through another “repeat corridor” that looked almost the same as the others and saw an exit at the far end.

Yu Sheng stopped before they reached it.

“It’s a white room.”

Irene, sharp-eyed, had spotted a slice of it through the half-open Door.

Yu Sheng felt the presence of the ‘guards’ at the end of the corridor and even saw a sliver of dark blue security cloth peeking from the Door’s edge.

Just as he expected, the Entities had spawned from the white Exhibition Hall. None of the Entities in that hall had faded at all.

Little Red Riding Hood wrinkled her nose and sniffed twice.

“Blood,” she whispered, face going grim.

“I smell it too,” Foxy said with a nod. “Very fresh.”

Blood. A corpse. The breath of death.

The white Exhibition Hall carried fresh blood-scent, and the Museum’s Entity guards had formed with it as the source.

Something had gone wrong.

But from here they still could not see into the hall. If they moved forward, they might alert the Entities on watch.

“…I should have borrowed Dorothy’s drone,” Little Red Riding Hood muttered. “Who knew we would hit this.”

Hearing that, Yu Sheng felt a spark of curiosity about the Fairy Tale Organization and the other Fairy Tale members. He had found some info on the Border network: members used classic fairy tale characters as codenames. He did not know much more. Judging from Little Red Riding Hood’s Wolf Pack, maybe each member had powers tied to their codename. What did Dorothy have to do with drones?

“Tell me about your teammates when you get a chance?” Yu Sheng asked. “I’m curious about your Fairy Tale Organization.”

“Too much curiosity is not great,” Little Red Riding Hood said, not very eager to talk, but she did not shut him down. “Maybe later, if they don’t mind. I can introduce you. For now, we need to decide what to do. Going any closer is not an option.”

Yu Sheng rubbed his chin and thought: “You mentioned a drone. Do the ‘guards’ ignore drones?”

“They only react to an intruder’s actual body,” Little Red Riding Hood nodded. “These mass-generated Entities don’t think much. Their senses are limited and they follow rules. That’s what gives people like us some room to act.”

“What about your Wolf Pack?” Yu Sheng asked. “Can you send your wolves to check?”

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated, then shook her head: “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because in a certain sense,” she said quietly, “my wolves are me.”