Chapter 94 "Security"
Yu Sheng suddenly gained a new understanding of the "peace" in the worldview of these spiritual detectives and investigators at the border.
How could such a weird place be described as "peaceful"? But he thought about the valley before, and suddenly felt that what Little Red Riding Hood said was not wrong - although the "museum" was a bit weird, it was just weird after all. It had a set of rules that allowed people to move around safely, and as long as they followed the rules, nothing would go wrong. However, in that valley, there was an entity that would chase you to death no matter how you followed the rules, and deadly dangers were everywhere in the foreign land. From a lethal perspective, the latter was obviously more dangerous.
The most important criterion between danger level 2 and danger level 3 is "whether the lethal factors in the environment can be avoided by complying with the rules." The lethality of alien domains and entities of danger level 3 and above is unconditionally effective.
"What we are looking for is a statue called 'The Weeper'. It is a small statue, with a specific size ranging from 15 to 25 centimeters," Little Red Riding Hood said to Sheng and Hu Li in a low voice while carefully observing the situation in the corridor. "The statue is a bust of a woman crying with her face covered. The lines are abstract and the back is hollow. Normally, this small statue will be placed in a separate white hall. It is the only exhibit in the hall and there is no one guarding it. So as long as we can find the white hall, it is relatively easy to take the statue away."
Yu Sheng followed Little Red Riding Hood, observing this "museum" curiously, and asked casually: "I have a question, what does the Curious Objects Association want this thing for?"
"Who knows? Either some collector paid a large sum of money to entrust the Association of Wonderful Things, and then the Association outsourced it to us, or the Association did it for research," Little Red Riding Hood said casually. "The 'Museum' is one of the few foreign lands that can continuously 'produce' collections, and many of its products are of high artistic quality... I don't understand art, but there are many wealthy people who are fascinated by the objects collected here - those that are harmless. And there are not only works of art here, sometimes there are antiques and mechanical exhibits of unknown origin. These things seem to show the 'visitors' a fictional civilization and have high research value, so there are also scholars collecting them."
Yu Sheng nodded thoughtfully, then looked back in the direction he came from.
"What are you thinking about?" asked Little Red Riding Hood.
"I was thinking about the 'stage' before, and the invisible clapping audience, and the ticket window earlier," Yu Sheng said his doubts, "those are obviously part of the 'abnormal phenomenon', so shouldn't the entire 'theater' belong to a foreign land, and 'Night at the Museum' is just a part of the 'theater'?"
"You've found the point," Little Red Riding Hood said with a smile. "Indeed, the theater itself is the starting point of all abnormal phenomena here - but the 'theater' is not a complete foreign land, it can only be regarded as an entrance. A foreign land must have its own complete space-time structure and closed-loop rules. The rules of activities in the 'museum' are not effective in the theater, so the two cannot be confused. In addition..."
Little Red Riding Hood paused and turned her head. "Let me tell you another piece of information: the theater's 'entrance' actually connects to more than just the museum."
Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows: "Not just the museum?"
"During sunset, it is a night show. The stage of the theater will lead to 'Night at the Museum'. During the day, another ticket window will be open, and the stage of the matinee show will lead to 'Horror at the Manor'. It is a more dangerous place. There is a 'Suspect 0' inside who will actively hunt down 'participants', and his strength is very strong."
"Compared to 'hunger'?"
"...It's definitely not as good as the 'Hunger' that has been affected by the Dark Angel, but that thing has very strange abilities. I haven't encountered it before, and I don't know how dangerous it is."
"oh."
Yu Sheng followed Little Red Riding Hood in the museum, curiously absorbing all kinds of knowledge related to foreign lands. Irene sat quietly on his shoulders, rarely speaking along the way, and listened very attentively.
The fox was observing its surroundings carefully, turning its big furry ears sharply in a certain direction from time to time, listening carefully to any movement in the museum.
"My benefactor, the painting in front... has a sound."
She suddenly lowered her voice and tugged at the corner of Yu Sheng's clothes.
Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood stopped immediately.
Faint breathing sounds came from an oil painting in front.
The painting depicts a lion with a sword piercing its forehead. There is also a gauntleted hand at the edge of the picture, as if it had just thrown the sword with force a second ago.
The breathing sound came from the sword thrower's perspective, and as Yu Sheng and others noticed the painting, the breathing sound instantly became more obvious and clearer, as if there really was a person standing "outside the frame" that was not depicted in the painting, breathing heavily after fighting the lion.
"Go around here and walk along the wall." Little Red Riding Hood immediately lowered her voice and led Yu Sheng and others to avoid the collection that made the breathing sound.
The sound of breathing gradually faded away.
They walked through the hall and came to a corridor with many doors. Yu Sheng carefully opened one of the doors.
"The Red Room," he said to Little Red Riding Hood, stepping back.
"Then skip this one and go to the next door."
Yu Sheng nodded, walked forward a few meters and opened another door.
Opposite the door was a hall with nothing in it. The sky-blue hall was brightly lit, with only a plaque near the entrance that read the status of the "collection":
"My Friends and My Endless Wealth", created by Fang Wen.
There is a comment below the nameplate: This is a sad work, which embodies the creator's lifelong thinking and feelings.
Yu Sheng looked at the nameplate for a moment, was stunned for a few seconds, turned his head and looked at Little Red Riding Hood: "...This museum has a sense of humor?"
"The humor comes from those who are 'eaten' by the museum. Their 'final works' sometimes have an inexplicable sense of absurdity and self-mockery, but no one knows their state when they left these works, and no one knows whether they really completed these 'creations' rationally," Little Red Riding Hood shook her head. "In the final analysis, the museum itself does not think. It just imitates the facilities run by humans in a clumsy and distorted way, and then 'operates' according to its own set of rules."
As she spoke, she raised her head and looked across the hall where the air was exhibited, where there was an exit.
"Let's go through here. There are many duplicate exhibition halls and corridors in the museum, and they will be randomly generated after each entry. There is no need to remember any routes, but the scope itself is actually limited. As long as you follow the rules and continue to move to the next area, if you are not too unlucky, you will enter the exhibition hall where the 'Wailer' is stored sooner or later."
Yu Sheng nodded and walked forward with Hu Li.
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However, just as he was about to cross the center of the hall, a sudden burst of stiff and monotonous footsteps coming from the opposite passage suddenly made him stop.
The next moment, he saw several staggering figures.
There were several plastic dummies, wearing security uniforms, with stiff and weird features on their smooth faces. They walked into the hall from the passage opposite the hall in a staggering and ridiculous manner.
The fur on the fox's tail and ears stood up all of a sudden.
"It's 'security guard'!" Little Red Riding Hood also exclaimed in a low voice, "How could a security guard suddenly appear..."
But she calmed down the next second, and moved closer to Yu Sheng cautiously while lowering her voice: "Don't retreat, don't make any suspicious moves. Although the security guards are aggressive entities, they follow the rules. We haven't violated the museum's 'management order' since we came in. These things shouldn't actively hurt..."
Before she finished her words, Yu Sheng saw from the corner of his eye that a plastic mannequin in the corridor suddenly raised its hand - it made a whistle-blowing motion, and the next second, a sharp and piercing whistle sounded throughout the exhibition hall! All the "security guards" moved in an instant, rushing towards the people in the exhibition hall with a speed and ferocity that humans could hardly imagine.
“Fuck—”
Yu Sheng only cried out in surprise, then suddenly dodged to the side. As soon as he landed, he kicked one of the plastic dummies hard, causing a loud bang like iron hitting stone.
He kicked the plastic dummy in half, but Yu Sheng's own legs were hurt by the huge recoil force.
"This thing is so hard! It looks like it's made of fucking rock!"
Yu Sheng could not help but yelled, and almost at the same time, dense black lines spread out from the hands of the little puppet on his shoulders, firmly imprisoning another "security guard" who rushed out of the passage in mid-air.
Hu Li pounced forward fiercely and tore the temporarily imprisoned "security guard" into several pieces with his bare hands, then turned around and hit the plastic dummy's head off with his tail.
But the next second, the shattered plastic dummy began to shake violently on the ground, and the limbs like building blocks squirmed quickly, and then pieced together into a complete "security guard" and pounced again.
More footsteps were heard from the direction of the passage, and more and more staggering figures appeared in the corner of Yu Sheng's eyes.
(End of this chapter)
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