Chapter 92: Accumulating Knowledge

The girl in the red coat stood under the streetlamp. Light fell on her slightly thin frame, shadows writhing at her feet and around her—within those shadows lurked pairs of vigilant, prying eyes. One pair noticed the "outsider" approaching, and Little Red Riding Hood immediately sensed Yu Sheng and his group.

"Sorry, the ride was a bit slow," Yu Sheng waved to her. "Been waiting long?"

"Just a few minutes," Little Red Riding Hood said casually, unconcerned, then turned to look aside. "I already sent my wolves to scout this area. No unusual changes detected—the 'Museum' should be stable today, a good day for action. By the way, did you read the materials I gave you?"

"Read them," Yu Sheng nodded, following her gaze to the large building quietly standing in the night.

But it wasn't a "museum"—it was an old theater that had stopped operating years ago. The entrance to the so-called "Museum" was inside this theater.

"After 'Museum Night' begins, don't touch any exhibits that make breathing sounds, don't lock eyes with oil paintings of people for too long, don't enter red rooms, and if you see plastic mannequins in guide uniforms, pay attention to their hand gestures—don't enter any door they point to or hint at. Actually, that's about all the rules to watch out for," Little Red Riding Hood added, still a bit uneasy. "The Museum is a relatively stable alien realm, with its depth consistently maintained around L-2. As long as you follow the rules, its inherent danger is manageable, so its danger level is rated as two..."

Listening to the girl's tireless instructions, Yu Sheng couldn't help thinking back to the "introductory materials" he'd seen in the database when he was familiarizing himself with the "border communications" system earlier.

Those materials were arguably the biggest gain after he registered with the Special Affairs Bureau—a systematic, complete set of foundational intelligence about the supernatural world, including the knowledge about alien realm "depth" and "danger level" that he'd heard Li Lin and Xu Jiali mention but never fully understood.

Depth, simply put, refers to the degree of "deviation" of an alien realm from the real world. With the real world as level zero, depth increases from zero to five. An L-1 alien realm might just be a slightly strange place, and ordinary people could even stumble out of it by accident. But an L-5 alien realm—except for extremely rare, unrepeatable survival records—essentially had no chance of survival. Even experts couldn't be sure whether an L-5 alien realm actually had an "exit" at all.

Generally, an alien realm's depth is relatively stable, but it can fluctuate within a small range over time or under certain conditions. It's prudent to explore when the depth is shallow, and sudden changes in depth are a major cause of death for many spirit detectives and investigators.

Danger level is another important "parameter" for measuring alien realm threats. In most cases, danger level is proportional to depth—the "shallower" the alien realm, the safer; the "deeper," the more dangerous. But this isn't absolute. Some shallow alien realms can generate extraordinarily terrifying entities, while some L-3 alien realms (generally considered high-risk at that depth) might even have stable safe zones.

Because of these exceptions, "depth" and "danger level" became two independent parameters.

At the same time, danger level isn't only used for alien realms—it can also measure the danger of an "entity" on its own.

The group walked toward the entrance of the old theater.

"Honestly, by the rules, I shouldn't be taking a 'newcomer' like you into a L-2 alien realm like the Museum. New spirit detectives and investigators usually start from L-1, since shallow realms are more stable and easier to evacuate," Little Red Riding Hood said as they walked. "But you guys aren't exactly ordinary 'newbies'—you handled Twilight Valley, after all. Apart from lacking experience and knowledge, your actual strength is already overqualified."

"No big deal, it's all about gaining experience," Yu Sheng said casually, then looked at the girl walking beside him with some curiosity. "Speaking of which, I suddenly feel... you seem pretty used to taking care of people?"

"Why do you say that?"

"You usually come off as mature and aloof, but once you start doing something, you ramble about a lot of stuff—especially when leading us 'newbies.' You're like a parent leading a group."

Little Red Riding Hood paused for a few steps, her expression a bit subtle.

But she said nothing, only curled her lip and continued forward.

"You clear on the concepts of depth and danger level?" she broke the silence again after just a few steps.

"Got it. In simple terms, depth means 'how off this place is,' and danger level means 'how deadly this place or thing is,'" Yu Sheng waved his hand. "Easy to understand."

"That understanding—though shallow—is actually pretty vivid," Little Red Riding Hood nodded. "The Museum's depth is L-2, a 'standard' alien realm depth. It already has very obvious differences from the real world, and the environment itself begins to warp. It's very dangerous for ordinary people, but overall, its internal space still follows 'common sense,' the logic of human perception and thinking. Follow the rules, and you'll be fine..."

Before she could finish, Yu Sheng took the initiative to continue: "Danger level two means it won't actively kill, and doesn't have active or indiscriminate malice. But if you don't follow the rules, there's still a possibility of major injury or even death—right?"

"Not bad, you've got it solidly. Then I won't worry."

Little Red Riding Hood said casually, then stopped walking.

They had already entered the old theater's gates. After passing through the half-open, rusty iron door, a lobby paved with dark green tiles greeted them. On both sides of the lobby were passages leading deeper into the theater, and directly opposite the main entrance were several pitch-black ticket windows.

But the first thing Yu Sheng noticed was a strange device placed in the center of the lobby.

It was a dark gray metal quadrangular prism, wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, about half a person tall. On the top of the prism, lights flickered slowly on and off, and from inside came a low, intermittent humming sound—clearly running.

"This was placed by the Special Affairs Bureau. We call it a 'node'—full name 'constant-type node generator,'" Little Red Riding Hood pointed at the metal prism. "The low-frequency cognitive interference it emits affects ordinary people, keeping them away from the explored dangerous points in borderlands. The effect is weak, but enough to deal with ordinary people who haven't awakened spiritually."

"...Are there many of these things in the city?" Yu Sheng looked at the device called a "node" in amazement. "I've never noticed any..."

Little Red Riding Hood glanced at Yu Sheng. She almost instinctively said, "Because you used to be an ordinary person, so you never got close to these things," but she swallowed the words before they came out.

Because she felt that even the fox beside him had more human content than Yu Sheng...

"How effective is this thing? Can it really block all ordinary people?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.

"It works well, but no safety measure is 100% effective. Even if you sealed this place with reinforced concrete, there'd still be people who go to their deaths with hydraulic jacks and impact drills," Little Red Riding Hood sighed. "There are always those with thick skulls and natural talent who push through the instinct of dizziness, blurred vision, and trembling legs to 'explore,' or else they're just unlucky—born with high inspiration and unaffected by nodes. So there are often poor souls who fall into alien realms waiting for us to rescue them. Eventually, they either become payment for spirit detectives and investigators, or become tragic cases in internal Special Affairs Bureau bulletins. In rare cases... after screaming, crying, and psychiatric treatment, they become new detectives, investigators, or Special Affairs Bureau operatives."

"Why not just tear this place down?" Hu Li suddenly asked.

"Tear it down? Oh, that would be a real mess," Little Red Riding Hood knew Hu Li lacked common sense in this area, so she just helplessly spread her hands. "You're only tearing down an already discovered 'entrance.' The alien realm itself isn't in the real dimension. If you tear down its known, controllable entrance, then nobody knows where it will open next."

Listening to Little Red Riding Hood's explanation, Yu Sheng felt emotional. Death-defying stupidity really was human instinct—you couldn't stop it even if you tried...

Meanwhile, Little Red Riding Hood stepped forward to the "node" and swiped her ID card over its top.

"Registering entry and exit info," she turned back, shaking the card at Yu Sheng. "In case you die inside, the corpse collectors know where to fish you out. Once you enter an alien realm, external communication basically cuts off. Registering at the node is the last chance for spirit detectives and investigators to leave a trace in the real world."

Seeing this, Yu Sheng also stepped forward with Ai Lin and Hu Li to register, sighing as he did: "Good thing we got them IDs..."

A faint buzzing sound came from the node.

Then, Little Red Riding Hood led Yu Sheng and the others past the "node" to the end of the lobby.

She stopped in front of those pitch-black ticket windows.

In the long-abandoned old theater, all the ticket windows had naturally been defunct long ago. Two of the four windows were sealed with crisscrossing plastic barriers. Of the remaining two, one had been cleared out, revealing nothing but piles of discarded junk, while the other still held a ticket-printing machine—coated in dust.

Little Red Riding Hood stopped at the window with the ticket machine, took out her phone, and checked the time.

After two or three minutes, she suddenly reached out and tapped the ticket window glass.

"Night show, Museum Night, four tickets."

In the empty, vacant ticket window, light suddenly appeared—even though the electric bulb was broken, a warm, bright glow filled that dusty little booth.

It was as if an invisible ticket seller, forgotten in time and memory, was still sitting behind that window.

The old ticket machine clattered, its empty paper feed rolling round after round, beginning to spit out admission tickets.