Chapter 101: Ending Amid Applause

Yu Sheng, before he forgot the torrent of information he'd just heard, blurted it all out in one breath, nearly biting his tongue—his entire delivery relied purely on instinct and fleeting short-term memory, and when he finished, Xiao Hongmao simply stared blankly and said, "Huh?"—he felt utterly deflated.

Fortunately, Xiao Hongmao immediately pulled a voice recorder from her pocket…

"My habit—you'd better adopt it too," Xiao Hongmao said while operating the device, "carry a 24/7 recording device at all times—don't use the Special Tasks Bureau's phone, it drains battery too fast; a recorder's fine," she added, "in the Expanse, unexpected situations always arise, and human attention isn't reliable all the time; having a recorder lets you review everything later—it's extremely useful."

After a faint burst of static, the recorder played back the rapid-fire account Yu Sheng had just delivered.

Xiao Hongmao, Ai Lin, and Hu Li all looked up simultaneously, their gazes—confused, astonished, curious—fixing on Yu Sheng.

Hu Li spoke first: "Savior, this is…"

"He said it," Yu Sheng pointed to the corpse beside him, "it spoke out of nowhere—I barely reacted in time, but luckily my short-term memory's decent."

Ai Lin and Xiao Hongmao both looked horrified, while Hu Li gazed at Yu Sheng with unshakable admiration: "Savior, your spirit communication technique is truly extraordinary!"

"How can you accept any bizarre thing?!" Ai Lin stared at Hu Li in disbelief, then turned to Yu Sheng, her crimson eyes wide, "What just happened? You were just standing there frozen by the display—when did the corpse start talking?!"

"Maybe… because I touched this?" Yu Sheng was pondering it himself, now staring thoughtfully at the dried blood residue on his fingertip, "At that moment, I suddenly saw the entire hall freeze…"

He didn't hold back—he poured out his brief experience: the anomalies in the hall, the strange states of Hu Li, Ai Lin, and Xiao Hongmao. After speaking, he curiously rubbed his finger against the bloodstain on the display again—but this time, the "dead man speaking" phenomenon did not reoccur.

"Seems like a one-time thing," Yu Sheng muttered, rubbing his fingers. "Xiao Hongmao, does this make sense?"

Xiao Hongmao said nothing—she was still stuck in a state of "this is too chaotic, I haven't sorted it out."

Yu Sheng saw at once there was no need to ask—this clearly didn't make sense.

Just like many other irrational things that happened to him, just like countless other things in this world that seemed irrational to him.

The little doll, after a moment of stillness, finally understood the situation. She hesitated before speaking: "I think… this wasn't an illusion."

"Whether it's an illusion or not, we can just go check," Yu Sheng said, pointing toward the exit at the far end of the white hall. "The corpse told me the weeper statue was discarded in the corridor."

Hu Li immediately walked toward the corridor.

Ai Lin hurriedly warned: "Hey, be careful—don't trigger any traps."

Hu Li, hearing this, thought it made sense, nodded, and formed a strange hand gesture—eight of her nine tails instantly detached, flying ahead of her in a circle of foxfire, like a squad of armed reconnaissance drones slowly advancing.

She turned back to Yu Sheng to explain: "Savior, this is called 'Tail Control Technique'…"

Yu Sheng's face twitched; he forced himself to look serious while pre-sensing—confirming no hidden "security" lurked in the corridor.

Xiao Hongmao still couldn't accept the sight of this fox spirit sending all her tails out like drones—her eyelid twitched several times, each time nearly speaking, but she swallowed the words back.

Moments later, one fox tail returned from deep within the corridor, its tip curled around an object.

It was a small white statue—a woman sculpted with her hands covering her face, weeping in a grotesquely twisted pose.

It was precisely the original target of this "commission."

Hu Li retracted her tail, hugged the statue joyfully, and returned to Yu Sheng, offering the commission item like a hunter presenting prey: "Savior, it's really here!"

Yu Sheng reached out and took the twenty-centimeter-tall sculpture—but holding the commission item brought him no sense of "successful completion."

What had begun as a simple, quick commission—expert guiding a novice—had now become an unusually complex and troublesome incident.

"The statue really was in the corridor… so the information you 'heard' from the corpse is likely true," Xiao Hongmao looked at the "Weeper" statue in Yu Sheng's hands with a complex expression. "I just recalled—you misremembered 'Wudao River.' But there is indeed a district in southern Jie City called Wusong River, far from here… Jie City is huge; some districts have accents different from the main area."

"What about 'assist His descent' and 'save the savior from suffering'? Do you understand those?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.

"I've never dealt with angel worshippers—too dangerous for ordinary Spirit World detectives. We report any such clues immediately and try to get as far away as possible," Xiao Hongmao shook her head. "Special Tasks Bureau personnel surely know more—but… I strongly advise against you inquiring about this."

Yu Sheng frowned: "Why?"

"Because the 'angels' the angel worshippers revere are, in plain terms, 'Dark Angels'—that thing you saw in the valley last time. People who worship such a thing… do you think they're sane?"

Xiao Hongmao spoke with grave seriousness.

"Even among all the insane cults and extremist groups, the angel worshippers are the most incomprehensible. Even the Black Dot Group, widely wanted across many orderly zones, issues wanted notices against angel worshippers within their controlled territories—you know how bizarre they are."

Worried Yu Sheng still didn't grasp the danger, she added quickly: "They're not just insane—they seem to genuinely have some connection to the 'Dark Angel.' Prolonged contact with them spreads madness, and even the 'Dark Angel' may turn its gaze upon you. Even the 'regular troops' assigned to exterminate them must undergo strict mental evaluations and mandatory administrative leave after every encounter. Seriously—don't ever interact with them."

From Xiao Hongmao's solemn, repeated warnings, Yu Sheng sensed the gravity of this matter. He recalled the eerie, terrifying giant eye he'd seen in the valley, and his expression grew serious: "Alright, I understand."

Xiao Hongmao exhaled, scanning the white hall—now appearing especially eerie and ravaged.

"We should leave."

"How do we get out again?" Yu Sheng asked. "I mean, the normal procedure."

Before Xiao Hongmao could answer, Ai Lin spoke up in confusion: "Huh? Don't we just open the door and go home?"

"Better not," Yu Sheng looked embarrassed. "It's late at night, and we can't call the Special Tasks Bureau from the Expanse—their alarm going off suddenly would be terrifying. Besides, I want to experience the proper exit procedure from the Expanse."

"Ahem," Xiao Hongmao cleared her throat. "There are only two ways to leave the museum normally: either survive until the 'night performance' ends—that is, until the next morning in the real world—or trigger a grand 'finale' for 'Museum Night,' causing the theater to erupt in prolonged applause—after the applause, the performance ends early."

"Waiting for the night performance to end takes too long," Yu Sheng immediately shook his head. "What does it mean to trigger a grand 'finale'? How do we do it?"

"There's no clear standard," Xiao Hongmao explained. "Essentially, if we treat our entire activity in the museum as a stage performance, we must make the invisible audience in the theater seats feel 'satisfied' or 'amazed.' Many methods can achieve this—sometimes it triggers randomly. Someone once painted an impromptu piece in a hall, someone hummed a song, someone even got applause during an argument with their teammate. The most absurd case? A detective once got trapped in a hall, severely injured, and in despair, started screaming curses at the museum—then suddenly, thunderous applause broke out…"

Yu Sheng: "…"

Is this really that random?!

After a moment of stunned silence, he turned his gaze to the little doll, who had climbed back onto his shoulder.

Ai Lin instantly understood. She glared at him—unimpressively: "Why are you looking at me?! Hey, that's rude to a lady, you know—I speak my mind because I mean it. You've got stereotypes about me…"

Yu Sheng thought for a moment and decided having Ai Lin curse out the "audience" seemed unreliable. He turned to Xiao Hongmao: "Our chase with the 'security' was pretty intense—didn't that satisfy the 'finale' condition?"

"Combat is actually the hardest way to trigger a 'finale,'" Xiao Hongmao said seriously. "Because 'security' is part of the museum's mechanism. Fighting them is treated as part of the normal performance—it doesn't feel 'astonishing' or 'off-script.'"

Yu Sheng listened, then began thinking.

This time, no prompt from Ai Lin was needed—Xiao Hongmao instantly realized something: Yu Sheng had another idea.

Sure enough, Yu Sheng soon spoke: "You said just now that our encounter with the 'security' was a legitimate part of the museum night's grand 'script,' right?"

Xiao Hongmao, unsure of his intent, nodded vaguely: "Right."

"What if we created a huge 'artistic' moment without ever encountering the 'security' at all?"

Xiao Hongmao: "... Huh?"

Yu Sheng didn't explain—he turned directly to Hu Li: "Do you still have enough tails left?"

Hu Li nodded vigorously: "Plenty. And I still have foxfire—those are infinite."

"That's good." Yu Sheng immediately smiled, his expression exceptionally pleased.

Little Red Riding Hood felt the other's smile was somewhat creepy and finally couldn't hold back: "What exactly do you want to do?"

Yu Sheng chuckled, raising a finger to point at the nearby doorway: "See the one opposite? We came from there before. There's a huge exhibition hall over there, piled with a mountain of sculptures and antiques. In a moment, have Hu Li pile all the stored tails there. Before the security guards arrive, we'll set off a big explosion. If that doesn't work, we'll burn down every exhibition hall along the way and collapse all the passageways here..."

Little Red Riding Hood was dumbfounded, but what stunned her even more was that Hu Li actually nodded without hesitation.

However, the next second, before Little Red Riding Hood could voice her doubts and before Yu Sheng could take any action, a sudden sound coming from all directions interrupted everyone's movements.

Applause thundered through the museum.

(End of this chapter)