Chapter 93: Museum

In the long-abandoned theater, the ticket window was brightly lit, the ancient ticket machine creaked noisily, and red paper tickets materialized out of thin air—this scene was undeniably eerie, yet Little Red Riding Hood appeared to have seen it countless times before, standing calmly to one side.

A few seconds later, the creaking of the old ticket machine ceased, and three connected admission tickets fell inside the window.

Little Red Riding Hood paused, didn't reach for the tickets, but tapped the glass of the ticket window again: "Wait, four tickets! Four people entering!"

But there was no response from inside the ticket window; after another two or three seconds, just as Little Red Riding Hood was about to tap the glass again, the lights inside the booth flickered several times and then plunged into darkness.

Only three red paper admission tickets remained quietly lying in the dusty window.

Yu Sheng stared in shock, counted the number of people present, and looked at Little Red Riding Hood with confusion: "... What's going on?"

"I don't know, this has never happened before," Little Red Riding Hood replied hesitantly, reaching for the tickets and scanning Yu Sheng, Hu Li, and Ailin. "The entrance to the 'Museum' has communicative properties; after sunset, at every full hour and half-hour, it accurately identifies and responds to eligible entry requests. There has never been this kind of 'intentional error' before."

Yu Sheng frowned, his gaze sweeping twice over the four people including himself, then suddenly froze as his eyes landed on Ailin.

The doll twisted her body: "... What?"

Yu Sheng's tone was uncertain: "... Children under one meter tall get in free?"

Ailin froze, then suddenly realized—she leapt up, ready to bite: "You're the child! Your whole family are children! You'll be a child your whole life! Do you have any idea how much damage that insults a mature lady?"

Yu Sheng, struggling to pin down Ailin's flailing limbs, looked up at Little Red Riding Hood: "Do you think my guess makes sense?"

Little Red Riding Hood was still stunned. In all her years as a Spirit Realm detective, she'd encountered many bizarre things—but never anything quite like this. She remained silent for a long while, then mumbled vaguely: "... There's some logic to it..."

Ailin immediately shifted her hatred from Yu Sheng, let out a yowl, and lunged at Little Red Riding Hood—only to be instantly knocked flat by two wolves that suddenly emerged from the shadows.

The doll girl looked like she was about to cry.

Yu Sheng could only pull Ailin up, comfort her, and ask curiously: "Hasn't anyone ever noticed this 'rule' before?"

Little Red Riding Hood gave a bitter smile: "... People in our line of work, no matter how desperate, wouldn't send infants under one meter tall on missions."

Ailin actually started crying.

"Why did you say it so bluntly!" Yu Sheng frantically soothed the doll girl, then glanced helplessly at the red-clad girl across from him: "So what now? We're one ticket short—can Ailin still enter the 'Museum' with us? Or does the rule genuinely allow 'free admission,' meaning she still qualifies?"

"Hard to say—we'll have to test it," Little Red Riding Hood replied cautiously, handing the tickets to Yu Sheng and Hu Li, yet still casting a doubtful glance at the dark ticket window, muttering to herself: "... This kind of 'entrance'... could it really have such a humanized 'rule'?"

The dark ticket booth offered no reply. In the vast old theater, the corridor leading to the stage suddenly lit up with dim light, as if urging the ticket-holding "audience" to enter quickly.

"Let's go—the passage has opened," Little Red Riding Hood snapped out of her thoughts, turned toward the lit corridor, and waved to Yu Sheng: "Follow me closely. Don't do anything unnecessary."

Yu Sheng immediately adopted a serious expression; even Ailin calmed down, gritting her teeth, and together with Hu Li, followed behind Little Red Riding Hood toward the long, narrow corridor.

The lights extended with their footsteps, gradually illuminating the theater's depths. Slowly, Yu Sheng seemed to hear footsteps around him—more and more footsteps—as if countless invisible audience members walked beside him through this dim corridor, heading toward the theater about to begin.

But after a while, those footsteps vanished.

A door appeared in Yu Sheng's vision, half-open, its interior brightly lit, revealing rows of neatly arranged seats and a stage at the far end.

Little Red Riding Hood raised her paper admission ticket: "Hold your ticket halfway up, like this. If you hear a shout, stop immediately—we'll retreat the way we came. That means entry failed. Forcing entry will generate a physical 'security guard' inside the 'Museum.' It's dangerous."

Yu Sheng immediately became alert, and with Hu Li, mimicked Little Red Riding Hood's gesture, holding up their tickets as if presenting them to an unseen attendant, then slowly stepped through the half-open door.

He heard no shout. Ailin heard none either.

They entered the theater, passed through rows of dusty red seats from behind, and sat down at the front row, closest to the stage.

"We'll need to wash these clothes when we get back," Yu Sheng whispered to Ailin. "These seats are filthy—should've brought some old newspapers when we came."

Little Red Riding Hood, overhearing his mutter, shot him a startled look.

She still couldn't adjust to Yu Sheng's mindset—practical in reality, yet bizarrely out of place in an "Otherworldly Operation."

At that moment, a rapid bell rang from outside the theater.

The audience lights dimmed instantly with the bell's chime; the spotlight above the stage clicked on with the clatter of relays, beams of bright light striking the stage. The next second, Yu Sheng heard applause—

Dense applause, whistles, cheers—sounds erupted suddenly from the empty audience seats like a wave rushing at him from all sides.

Amid the applause, he looked around, feeling the heat of the spotlight scorching his head.

Hu Li, Ailin, and Little Red Riding Hood stood near him, all of them now standing on the center of the stage.

As the records stated—entering the old theater, sitting in the audience with a ticket, when the applause begins, ticket-holders transform from spectators into "performers" on stage; the Museum Night opens with that applause.

This will continue until the night show ends, or the "performance" on stage satisfies the invisible applauders, or the performer on stage becomes a new artifact of the Museum.

Various sets rose from around the stage: walls of beige plaster, ceilings with bas-reliefs and colorful patterns, floors extending in dark green and dark blue, doors, display cases, rooms...

Everything moved rapidly before Yu Sheng's eyes, reassembling dizzyingly into a museum with a labyrinthine structure. He saw a mural suddenly appear on the opposite wall, depicting a crimson dragon—but in the blink of an eye, a gypsum knight emerged nearby, sword raised, stabbing the dragon in the mural; the two clashed, merging into a new bas-relief.

Then soldiers in ancient armor marched out from a distant gate; halfway through, they were ambushed by hidden musketeers painted in an oil canvas. With the crack of gunfire and swirling smoke, the soldiers were annihilated—flowers sprouted from their bones, transforming into neatly arranged decorative planters and green wall screens along the visitor path...

The booming sounds of architectural transformation and the dizzying visuals lasted exactly ten minutes before everything finally fell silent.

Before Yu Sheng now stood only a wide corridor, lined on both sides with various landscape paintings. Above him, lights blazed brightly; in the distance, faintly visible, was a grand hall.

Unsettled whimpers of wolves echoed around them. Little Red Riding Hood had summoned her phantom wolf pack without notice. She glanced at Yu Sheng, who seemed dazed, and smiled: "Startled? The 'Museum' is an incredible place. Strip away its danger, and it's genuinely an artistic sanctuary full of imagination—Aimorabi said exactly that before dying."

Yu Sheng snapped back to reality: "Who's Aimorabi?"

"An artist from outside the Borderlands—famous beyond the boundary. Died inside the Museum—chasing art," Little Red Riding Hood said with a touch of melancholy. "If we're lucky, we might see a blue room with an oil painting called 'Field,' bearing Aimorabi's signature—that's what this artist 'created' after becoming a Museum artifact."

"Can someone still 'create' after becoming a Museum artifact?"

"Experts say so. Occasionally, new things appear in this Museum, linked somehow to those who vanished here. Sometimes it's the victim's portrait or sculpture; sometimes it's an artwork bearing their signature. The widely accepted view is this is the Museum's 'collection' and 'creation' mechanism. But don't worry too much—its danger level is only Grade Two. As long as you follow the rules, avoid direct confrontation with 'security guards,' and don't enter hazardous rooms, the Museum itself won't kill you. It's relatively peaceful."

(End of Chapter)