Chapter 97: The Surrounded White Exhibition Hall

Whether it was an illusion or not, Yu Sheng felt that Little Red Riding Hood had been a bit nervous since earlier.

He thought this might, probably, maybe, seemingly, perhaps have something to do with him...

But fortunately, his skin was very thick, and his heart was broad (this was mainly cultivated while being with Erin), so he quickly stood up and shifted his attention to the upcoming action.

He could now feel that those security guards were stationary in various areas of the museum, and some of them were slowly "dissolving" in the air; it seemed that as the "intruders" disappeared from the sight of all the security guards, the museum's "clearance" mechanism also stopped, and those plastic dummies temporarily generated to serve as cleaners began to be gradually recycled.

But this recycling process was slow; if they waited until all the plastic dummies disappeared completely before acting, they would likely miss the museum's opening hours.

Yu Sheng still remembered Little Red Riding Hood reminding him that the museum was a foreign realm with a limited duration; it would only open during the night performance.

"Action continues; we head in this direction," Yu Sheng carefully sensed the area, raised his hand, and pointed to a door deep in the corridor, "There are no 'security guards' behind this door."

"Good." Little Red Riding Hood wasted no words and immediately commanded her wolf pack to follow Yu Sheng, the only person who could currently confirm a safe route.

The next exhibition hall was lit with warm, bright orange-yellow light; in the center of the hall stood a set of huge mountain and river sculptures, while many bright-toned, pleasant landscape oil paintings hung on the walls around them; all the collections had no names, and the creators were labeled as "Anonymous."

There were no plastic dummies here, and in the route Yu Sheng had indicated ahead, they encountered not a single "security guard."

Little Red Riding Hood felt this was strange—she had never imagined she could move like this inside a museum that was already in an "activated" state; according to the Secret Service's evaluation standards, the danger level of the museum after generating "security guards" was actually close to Level Three, reaching the point where a fully armed elite unit was needed to take over, yet she was now leading her wolf pack through hall after hall and intersection after intersection in this museum gradually revealing its malice, those "Entity-Security Guards" distributed throughout the foreign realm...

... as if they did not exist at all.

Only when Yu Sheng occasionally lowered his voice and pointed to a certain intersection to give a warning could she confirm once again that those deadly threats still surrounded them on all sides.

Afterward, they passed through many corridors and rooms, yet they still had not seen the white, spacious exhibition hall mentioned in the intelligence.

Yu Sheng suddenly stopped, his brows furrowed tightly.

"What's wrong?" Little Red Riding Hood instantly became tense and asked with a grave expression.

"We still haven't found that exhibition hall." Yu Sheng spoke in a deep voice.

"Perhaps it's deeper inside?" Erin had by then sat back on Yu Sheng's shoulder—when moving outside, this little doll was too lazy to take a single step on her own, "Didn't they say the structure inside this museum is randomly generated?"

"What I mean is, we have already explored all the places where there are no 'security guards' blocking the way," Yu Sheng said with a serious expression, "the remaining intersections are all controlled by those plastic dummies."

Erin opened her mouth, and after a long pause, she managed to squeeze out a curse.

"So it's the worst-case scenario—the white exhibition hall is indeed surrounded by those 'security guards'," Little Red Riding Hood's face instantly flashed with a hint of displeasure, but at least she had gone to school unlike one who only had prenatal education, so she didn't curse out loud, "Really, why did they have to spawn there of all places."

Yu Sheng fell silent for two seconds, then spoke with a hint of speculation: "Or perhaps, those plastic people were simply generated inside the white exhibition hall."

As he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed to a certain door.

"Going out in this direction leads to the center surrounded by those plastic people; there are seven or eight entities distributed within the same space, and I also discovered something else—the 'security guards' in other areas are slowly disappearing over time, as if being recycled by the museum, but only these few over here show no sign of being 'recycled' yet. I suspect that is the white exhibition hall we are looking for, and something must have happened there, causing the entities to spawn, and this 'stimulus source' is most likely still present."

Little Red Riding Hood, Erin, and Hu Li looked at each other in silence.

Yu Sheng's intelligence and analysis sounded very reasonable, yet this did not seem to be good news.

"What should we do? Retreat or go take a look?" Erin was the first to break the silence, "Anyway, this matter is quite eerie; retreating now would be normal, but if we really leave like this, not only would all this trouble be in vain, but there's also the frustration of having taken a beating for nothing... fleeing so miserably before."

Little Red Riding Hood thought for a moment, then turned her gaze to Yu Sheng.

"You decide," she said.

Yu Sheng was stunned: "Are you sure you want to let me, a newbie, make the decision? Newbies know nothing and are very reckless."

"You currently possess the ability to leave this foreign realm, and you are the only one who can confirm a safe route; this has nothing to do with whether you are a newbie or not."

Yu Sheng's expression then became serious; after a long period of careful deliberation, he finally exhaled and turned toward that door.

"First, approach and observe the situation; without alerting those entities, try to get a look at what exactly happened inside the white exhibition hall; if we can confirm the situation, that would be best; if not, we will retreat then," Yu Sheng stated his decision, then immediately confirmed with Little Red Riding Hood, "Do those 'security guards' only act when they 'see' us? Will merely approaching them alert them?"

"Only when they 'see'," Little Red Riding Hood answered immediately, "Previously, investigators confirmed that the 'security guards' in the museum only have vision, no hearing or smell, and their vision covers a fan-shaped range of about one hundred and twenty degrees in front of their heads—so strictly speaking, the perceptual ability of these dangerous 'guards' is actually quite limited, but on the other hand, as long as they are within this one hundred and twenty-degree fan-shaped field of view, they will never be distracted or ignore any intruder's figure; considering that most exhibition halls in the museum are very spacious, if several 'security guards' stand in a room at certain angles, then the entire room will have no 'safe position' where one can hide."

Listening to Little Red Riding Hood's explanation, Yu Sheng nodded thoughtfully, then he led the team out of this exhibition hall and cautiously approached the location that felt "somewhat off" in his perception.

The group quickly passed through another "repeated corridor" that was almost indistinguishable from the ones seen before, and saw an exit at the end of the corridor.

When still some distance away from the exit, Yu Sheng stopped his steps.

"It's the white room."

Erin, with her sharp eyes, saw the glimpse of the scene on the other side of the half-open door at a glance.

And Yu Sheng truly sensed the aura of those "security guards" at the end of the corridor, and had even seen a small section of a dark blue security guard uniform peeking out from the edge of that door.

The situation was exactly as he had predicted; the "entities" were generated with the white exhibition hall as their source, and up to now, the entities inside that exhibition hall showed no sign of fading at all.

Little Red Riding Hood, standing nearby, suddenly furrowed her brows and twitched her nose lightly twice.

"Blood," she said in a low voice, her expression becoming exceptionally grave.

"I smell it too," Hu Li nodded along, "It's very fresh."

Blood, corpses, the scent of death—

The scent of fresh blood was coming from the white exhibition hall, and the "Entity-Security Guards" guarding the museum were generated from this source.

Without a doubt, something had gone wrong.

But from this angle, they still could not clearly see what exactly was happening inside that hall; continuing forward might alert the entities guarding the interior.

"... I should have borrowed Dorothy's drone to come," Little Red Riding Hood suddenly muttered, "Who knew we would run into this kind of situation..."

Hearing this, Yu Sheng couldn't help but feel a bit curious about the "Fairy Tale" organization behind Little Red Riding Hood and its other members—he had indeed found some intelligence related to this organization on the border communications network, but he only knew that the members of this organization all used classic characters from a certain fairy tale story as their aliases; beyond that, he knew nothing more.

Judging from the wolf pack led by Little Red Riding Hood... perhaps every member of the Fairy Tale organization possessed some abilities related to their own "alias"? Then what was the connection between Dorothy and the "drone"?

"If there's a chance later, can you tell me about your companions?" Yu Sheng asked curiously, "I'm quite curious about your 'Fairy Tale' organization."

"Having too much curiosity is not a good thing," Little Red Riding Hood, however, showed little interest in this topic, but did not directly refuse, "Maybe later; if they don't mind, introducing you to them wouldn't be impossible. As for now—we need to decide what to do next. Going further is definitely not an option."

Yu Sheng stroked his chin and said thoughtfully, "You just mentioned a drone... does that mean those 'security guards' have no reaction to drones?"

"They only react to the 'intruder' themselves," Little Red Riding Hood nodded, "In the end, these entities capable of mass generation have no thinking ability themselves; limited perception combined with acting completely according to rules is what leaves many opportunities for people like us to act."

"What about your wolf pack?" Yu Sheng asked again, "Can you send your wolves to check the situation?"

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated for a moment and shook her head.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because in a sense, my wolves are me."

(Chapter End)