Chapter 94

Chapter 94: “Security Guard”

Yu Sheng abruptly gained an entirely new understanding of what “peaceful” meant in the worldview of Borderland spirit realm detectives.

A place like this could be called peaceful?

But when he thought about the valley from before, he couldn’t say Little Red Riding Hood was wrong. The museum was eerie, yes, but it was an eerie place with rules. Follow them and you could move around safely. In the valley, there had been an entity that would hunt you no matter what you did—deadly danger soaked the entire otherworld. From a purely lethal standpoint, the valley was harsher.

One of the biggest lines between danger level two and danger level three was simple: could the lethal factors be avoided by following rules? At danger level three and above, lethality applied unconditionally.

“The thing we’re looking for is a statue called the weeper,” Little Red Riding Hood said quietly as she watched the corridor ahead. “It’s a small statue, usually between fifteen and twenty-five centimeters, though the exact size can change. A bust of a woman covering her face and crying. Abstract lines. The back is hollowed out.”

She kept her voice down, matter-of-fact. “Normally, it’s placed alone in a white hall as the only exhibit. No guard. Once we find the white hall, taking it should be easy.”

Yu Sheng looked around with open curiosity. “I have a question. Why does the Curiosities Association want it?”

“Who knows?” Little Red Riding Hood said, unimpressed. “Either some collector paid a huge price and commissioned the association, and the association subcontracted it to us… or the association wants it for research.”

She gestured faintly at the museum around them. “This is one of the few otherworlds that can keep producing collectibles. A lot of what it produces has high artistic value. I don’t understand art, but plenty of rich people are obsessed with collecting harmless things from here.”

“And it’s not only art,” she added. “Sometimes there are antiques and mechanical exhibits of unknown origin. They feel like artifacts from a fictional civilization. That has research value. Scholars collect them too.”

Yu Sheng nodded, thoughtful, then glanced back the way they’d come.

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

“The stage,” Yu Sheng said. “The invisible audience. The ticket window. Those were all part of the abnormal phenomena. So shouldn’t the whole theater be the otherworld, with museum night as one part of it?”

“You caught the key point.” Little Red Riding Hood’s lips curled. “Yes, the theater is the starting point. But the theater isn’t a complete otherworld. It’s only an entrance.”

She spoke with practiced clarity. “An otherworld needs a complete time-space structure and a closed set of rules. The rules in the museum don’t apply during the theater phase, so the two can’t be treated as the same.”

Then she paused and looked at him. “Also… another piece of intel. This entrance doesn’t connect only to the museum.”

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “Not only the museum?”

“After sunset is the night show. The theater stage leads to museum night.” Her gaze sharpened. “But during the day, another ticket window opens. The day show leads to manor mystery.”

Even her tone seemed to tighten around the words. “That place is more dangerous. There’s a suspect 0 inside. It actively hunts performers, and it’s very strong.”

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

“…It can’t compare to Hunger after it was influenced by dark angels,” Little Red Riding Hood admitted. “But its abilities are weird. How dangerous it really is… I haven’t met it myself.”

“Oh.”

Yu Sheng kept moving beside her, greedily taking in everything she said. Irene sat quietly on his shoulder, unusually silent, listening with intense focus.

Foxy watched their surroundings with a predator’s patience. Her big, fluffy ears kept swiveling, tracking every faint sound in the museum.

Then she tugged Yu Sheng’s sleeve.

“Benefactor,” she whispered, “that painting ahead… it has a sound.”

Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood stopped at once.

A faint breathing came from a painting in the corridor ahead.

The canvas showed a lion pierced through the forehead by a sword. At the edge of the frame was a gauntleted hand, as if it had thrown the weapon with brutal force a heartbeat ago.

The breathing seemed to come from the thrower’s point of view. The moment Yu Sheng noticed it, the panting grew clearer and louder—like someone stood just outside the frame, catching their breath after killing the lion.

“Avoid it,” Little Red Riding Hood whispered. “Stay close to the wall.”

They hugged the wall and edged around the painting.

The breathing faded behind them.

They crossed into a corridor lined with doors. Yu Sheng opened one cautiously.

“Red room,” he said at once, stepping back.

“Skip it,” Little Red Riding Hood replied. “Next door.”

Yu Sheng nodded, moved a few meters, and opened another.

On the other side was an empty hall, brightly lit in sky-blue tones. Near the entrance stood a plaque listing the exhibit information:

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

Below it was a note: This is a sorrowful work, filled with the creator’s lifelong thought and insight.

Yu Sheng stared at the plaque for a long moment, then looked at Little Red Riding Hood. “…This museum has a sense of humor too?”

“The humor comes from the people the museum eats.” Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. “Their final works sometimes carry a strange absurdity, like self-mockery. But nobody knows what state they were in when they made these creations. Nobody knows if they were even clear-minded.”

Her eyes swept the hall, cold and wary. “In the end, the museum doesn’t think. It just clumsily imitates a facility run by humans, then operates under its own set of rules.”

She lifted her chin toward the exit on the far side of the empty hall. “Let’s pass through. Many halls and corridors repeat. They’re randomly generated each time you enter. There’s no need to memorize routes.”

“The overall range is limited,” she continued. “As long as we follow the rules and keep moving, unless we’re very unlucky, we’ll eventually enter the hall that stores the weeper.”

Yu Sheng nodded and started forward with Foxy.

He’d barely reached the center of the hall when stiff, monotonous footsteps sounded from the passage ahead.

The sound made him stop dead.

A moment later, swaying figures appeared.

Plastic mannequins wearing security guard uniforms.

Their faces were smooth and rigid, their features eerie and wrong. They walked with stiff, ridiculous steps, wobbling into the hall from the corridor opposite.

The fur along Foxy’s tail and ears rose instantly.

“It’s security guards,” Little Red Riding Hood hissed, alarm flashing across her eyes. “How did security guards generate—”

She forced herself calm in the same breath and edged closer to Yu Sheng. “Don’t back up. Don’t do anything suspicious. Security guards are aggressive entities, but they act by rules. We haven’t broken the museum’s order since entering. They shouldn’t attack on their own—”

Before she could finish, Yu Sheng caught a movement from the corner of his eye.

A mannequin in the corridor lifted its hand and made a whistling gesture.

In the next second, a piercing, harsh whistle screamed through the entire hall.

Every security guard moved at once, charging with a speed and ferocity no human body should’ve been able to produce.

“Holy shit—”

Yu Sheng got the words out and then threw himself aside. The moment he landed, he kicked one of the mannequins hard.

The impact rang out like iron smashing stone.

The mannequin snapped cleanly in half at the waist, but the recoil shot pain up Yu Sheng’s leg so sharply he nearly stumbled.

“This thing is insanely hard!” he yelled. “It’s like it’s made of damn rock!”

At almost the same time, black threads spilled from Irene’s hands on his shoulder, binding another charging security guard in midair.

Foxy lunged, feral. She tore the restrained mannequin into several pieces with her bare hands, then whipped her tail and sent its head flying.

But the shattered plastic pieces trembled violently on the floor.

Like building blocks dragged by invisible strings, limbs wriggled and snapped back into place.

In seconds, the security guard was whole again—and pounced.

More footsteps sounded from the corridor.

More swaying figures appeared at the edge of Yu Sheng’s vision.