"Didn’t you say these things wouldn’t attack us?" In a perilous clash, Yu Sheng barely dodged a "plastic" baton that swung past him, turning his head to shout at Little Red Riding Hood, who was commanding a pack of wolves to mount a counterattack nearby.
The baton held by the plastic security guard struck the wall, creating a series of dazzling sparks and a loud metallic clang.
Yu Sheng quickly grabbed the plastic guard’s arm, forcing him to the ground.
He then wrenched the guard's arm with great strength, snapping it, but he didn’t go as far as to break his torso in half or twist off his head this time.
During their fleeting exchange, he had noticed a pattern—once these plastic dummies were smashed into pieces or damaged beyond a certain point, they would immediately trigger a “repair” process, restoring them in mere seconds.
Instead, simply breaking their limbs would greatly reduce their threat without activating their repairs.
"I have no idea what's going on!" Little Red Riding Hood, retreating while fighting off the persistent security entities, stood firmly in a corner of the exhibition hall.
She shouted quickly, “I’m certain we didn’t break any museum rules on our way here! Normally, these security guards shouldn’t even be here!”
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, wanting to add something, but abruptly heard hurried footsteps coming from the end of the exhibition hall’s passage.
Swaying and comical figures dashed out of the corridor one after another.
Eileen had just ensnared two attacking plastic dummies with her black “spider silk” when she heard the commotion from the corridor.
She turned to look and gasped in fright, “What the… they’re still coming!? Are these entities generated infinitely?!”
“Infinitely generated—until the night show concludes, or until all the actors are dead," Little Red Riding Hood replied swiftly, "or if we can find a way to break free from all the guards' line of sight. At that point, it would temporarily stop more guards from being sent out—they only move to seek out intruders when they’re generated. Once an intruder disappears from their view, they become motionless. On the other hand, if they can still see you, more of these entities will keep appearing around you!”
Upon hearing this, Yu Sheng immediately looked up towards the only door leading outside, apart from that corridor.
However, the door was also occupied by plastic dummies, leaving no blind spots in the exhibition hall and no openings to break through.
We can’t continue to get entangled here.
“Fall back! To a place without ‘guards’!” Yu Sheng quickly thought, shouting to the others.
He then hurriedly ran toward Little Red Riding Hood and the wolves.
"Converge on me—Hu Li, clear an area! Temporarily block that corridor!"
Hu Li immediately nodded and responded, her fox tail suddenly spreading wide.
Large, eerie, and dangerous fox flames blazed fiercely around her tail, the flames radiating out like rings and instantly scorching several nearby plastic dummies, causing them to warp.
Then the fox-girl turned suddenly—two silver tails erupted with brilliant thrusting flashes, separating from her body and roaring toward the corridor.
“Fox Carrot Missiles!” Hu Li shouted with great vigor.
Before her voice faded, a violent explosion erupted in the corridor.
Even with the “exotic” materials, the entire building shook under the impact of the two tails from the great monster.
One corner of the hall collapsed due to the explosion, and the walls near the corridor fell, completely burying the gap from which the guards were continuously pouring out.
But the very next second, the collapsed area began to tremble violently; the steel and cement seemed alive, writhing as they sought to restore their original form.
One after another, hands clad in security uniforms emerged from the rubble, the disfigured plastic dummies struggling and frighteningly clawing their way out to continue their pursuit into the hall.
For Yu Sheng, a few seconds was enough.
Shouldering Eileen, he pulled open a glimmering, phantom doorway. “We’ll go through here!”
To him, the idea of being trapped or surrounded had no relevance.
If he couldn’t fight, he could definitely run away.
Trusting Yu Sheng, Little Red Riding Hood wasted no time diving through the door with the wolves.
Following closely, Hu Li also retreated, holding her tail before aiming the tip at the remaining incoming “entity-guards” in the hall.
Waves of small fox flames shot out from the tip, like bullets from a machine gun: “Da da da da da—”
“Fox Carrot Machine Gun!” The fox girl shot while hugging her tail and quickly turned her head to Yu Sheng.
Yu Sheng replied, “What a ridiculous name—hurry up and get in!”
Hu Li instantly exclaimed “Okay” and, after firing off one last volley to suppress the attacking horde, she jumped into the doorway.
Yu Sheng was about to follow her with Eileen when, at that moment, a previously hidden plastic dummy crawled up from a blind spot of Hu Li’s shots.
Its body had warped and twisted due to the scorched flames, and its strangely rigid face looked like it had turned into an expression of anger.
Dragging its deformed limbs, it pounced and firmly caught Yu Sheng’s ankle.
The strength was as powerful as a hydraulic clamp.
Ignoring it, Yu Sheng summoned his strength, dragging the distorted plastic dummy as he stepped across the threshold, directly slicing off the dummy's arm as he did so.
The surroundings fell silent; the frantic surge of guards, the whooshing explosions of the Fox Carrot Missiles, and the collapsing, burning hall began to fade like a distant illusion.
But Yu Sheng had grown accustomed to this: each time he crossed a “door,” there was an uncanny feeling of an abrupt change in the environment; this was not the first or second time.
He lifted his head, seeing wide hallways stretching on either side.
Glass cabinets containing regular exhibits lined the corridors.
Little Red Riding Hood was attentively scanning her surroundings, while seven or eight shadowy wolves floated around her in the air.
Hu Li, both hands gripping one of her tails, vigilantly checked for movement at the corridor's end, resembling someone wielding a Barrett rifle.
No guards chased after them, and the air surrounding them held no newly generated entities—just as Little Red Riding Hood had said; as long as they simultaneously evaded every guard’s line of sight, the museum's “pursuit” would temporarily cease.
“This is a corridor we walked through before,” Little Red Riding Hood broke the silence, “I thought you would just open the door and leave this museum.”
“Wouldn’t that mean our trip tonight was for nothing?—All those blocking agents you took before coming here would go to waste, and by the sound of it, that stuff must’ve been expensive," Yu Sheng sighed, “And don’t you find it strange? Why did those guards suddenly attack us? This is completely different from the intel you had before; something must be off in this museum, and it’s unsettling not to investigate…”
“Under normal circumstances, the most cautious choice is to evacuate as soon as unexplained changes in the exotic realm become evident,” Little Red Riding Hood glanced at Yu Sheng, then shifted her tone, “But you’re right—if so, then… it was all in vain. In situations where the risks are manageable, continuing to investigate changes in the exotic realm can yield significant gains.”
“Hmm, if things really take a turn for the worse, we’ll just exit through here.” Yu Sheng nodded, his gaze falling on Hu Li.
The fox girl flashed him a proud smile, apparently satisfied with her performance in the light blue exhibition room earlier.
“…Impressive skills, well done,” Yu Sheng had to commend her, but couldn’t help but tease, “But how come your skills suddenly have names? Who named them?”
“Eileen,” Hu Li said cheerfully, readily spilling the beans, “I described the various uses of my tails to her, and she gave me lots of names! I even have a new one in development, called Fox Carrot Charge…”
Before Hu Li could finish, Yu Sheng turned his head to Eileen, “I knew it wouldn’t be anyone else—you named them what kind of lousy names!”
“I seriously thought them through for a long time, what’s so lousy about them!” Even though Eileen felt a bit tired from continuously activating her abilities just a moment ago, she perked up, hands on her hips, and standing firmly, “Just look at her tail; isn’t it descriptive? I even used a clever pun…”
Then she quietly muttered, “Actually, at first we were debating whether to call the continuously shooting fox flames ‘Fox Carrot Biu’… but later decided it wasn’t formal enough…”
A vein throbbed on Yu Sheng’s forehead.
But he quickly comforted himself: at least it wasn’t called ‘Fox Tail Biu’…
Little Red Riding Hood quietly stood to the side, observing the strange scene before her, listening to the exchanges between Yu Sheng, the puppet, and the fox girl.
…Bizarre, absurd, ridiculous, yet somehow it all followed its own logic.
Everything clashed with the surrounding environment.
It seemed nothing like they were executing in the exotic mission; yet they weren’t careless novices wandering the mountains and rivers.
Quite the opposite… she could tell they were serious.
Yu Sheng was serious, the puppet arguing about whether “Fox Carrot” was a clever pun was serious, even the somewhat lost fox girl was serious—they all treated this place with utmost seriousness, the matters they had to face, just with a mindset and attitude that ordinary people wouldn’t possess.
From the perspective of “normal humans,” Little Red Riding Hood found it hard to understand the atmosphere and actions of this “hotel trio.” Naturally, she struggled to assess whether their mental state was “correct.”
She just took a gentle breath, settling onto a wolf’s back to gradually restore her strength.
This was truly a bizarre experience she had never encountered before in her life… meeting such an intriguing group of “people” before reaching adulthood wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
(End of Chapter)