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Yu Sheng, still clinging to the quickly fading bits of the message he had overheard, hurriedly repeated every last word he remembered. He spoke so fast that he nearly bit his own tongue, relying entirely on instinct and whatever scraps of memory remained. When he finally finished, Little Red Riding Hood blinked at him and said, “Huh?” as though she hadn’t understood a thing, leaving Yu Sheng on the verge of collapse from sheer effort.

Fortunately, Little Red Riding Hood then reached into her pocket and took out a small voice recorder.

“This is a habit of mine,” she remarked, adjusting the device with quick, practiced fingers. “You should pick it up too. Always keep a recorder running all day and night. Don’t rely on those phones from the Special Affairs Bureau—they drain their batteries far too fast. A simple recorder is better. Strange things happen in the Otherworld, and we humans aren’t always sharp enough to catch every detail. It helps to have a record to go back to later.”

There was a faint crackle of static, and then the words Yu Sheng had just blurted out played back from the recorder.

Little Red Riding Hood, Irene, and Foxy all turned their eyes to Yu Sheng at once. Their gazes carried confusion, curiosity, and a spark of interest.

Foxy was the first to speak. “Benefactor, this is…”

“It was him,” Yu Sheng said, pointing at the lifeless body lying to one side. “He spoke so suddenly that I barely had time to react. Luckily, my short-term memory’s still decent.”

Irene and Little Red Riding Hood recoiled in shock. Only Foxy remained calm, still staring at Yu Sheng with shining admiration. “Your talent for spirit communication is extraordinary, Benefactor!”

“Why are you always so quick to accept anything strange?” Irene exclaimed, looking at Foxy as though she’d grown another head. Then she turned her crimson-eyed glare toward Yu Sheng. “What happened exactly? You were just standing on that platform, staring into space. Since when did that corpse start talking?!”

“Maybe… it happened because I touched this,” Yu Sheng answered, holding out his fingers stained with the corpse’s dried blood. “The instant I touched it, it was as if the entire hall froze in place…”

He explained all that he had experienced: how the hall seemed to change, how Irene, Foxy, and Little Red Riding Hood had appeared frozen and unreal. After finishing his story, Yu Sheng tried touching the bloodstain on the display pedestal again, but this time, nothing unusual happened. The corpse remained silent.

“It looks like it only worked once,” Yu Sheng muttered, rubbing his fingers together thoughtfully. “Little Red, does any of this make sense to you?”

Little Red Riding Hood said nothing. Her expression was stuck in a puzzled grimace, as if this turn of events had completely short-circuited her ability to think logically.

Yu Sheng guessed he wouldn’t get any sensible answer from her. Just like so many other strange happenings in his life, this was one more bizarre event that defied all normal reasoning.

The small doll, after a brief spell of confusion, seemed to piece a few things together. She spoke hesitantly, “I don’t think… this was a hallucination.”

“Hallucination or not, we can check,” Yu Sheng replied, pointing toward the exit on the far side of the white exhibition hall. “The dead man said the Weeper statue was tossed somewhere in the corridor.”

Without the slightest delay, Foxy began striding toward that corridor.

“Hey, be careful! Don’t just rush into traps,” Irene called after her worriedly.

Foxy stopped, nodded, and then made a strange gesture with her hand. To everyone’s surprise, eight of her nine fox tails detached from her body, each wreathed in fox fire, and floated ahead of her like a flock of small, glowing scouts.

She glanced back at Yu Sheng with a mischievous grin. “Benefactor, this is what I call the ‘tail technique’…”

Yu Sheng tried hard not to let his face show how odd he found it, while he focused on sensing whether any guards lurked in the corridor. He found nothing.

Little Red Riding Hood, on the other hand, looked as if she’d swallowed a very sour lemon. The sight of a fox demon using her tails like flying drones nearly made her eye twitch. Although she seemed ready to say something more than once, in the end, she just sighed and kept quiet.

Before long, one of Foxy’s flaming tails returned from the dim corridor, carrying something small and pale.

It was a small, white statue of a woman. The figure’s hands covered her face, as if in sorrow, and her body twisted in a strange, crying posture.

This was the artifact they had come to find.

Foxy reattached her tail and proudly presented the statue to Yu Sheng, like a hunter delivering prized prey. “Benefactor, it’s really here!”

Yu Sheng held the twenty-something-centimeter statue. Even though he had their target in hand, he didn’t feel any sense of victory or relief. What was meant to be a simple, straightforward retrieval mission had become complicated and full of mysteries.

“So the statue was in the corridor,” Little Red Riding Hood said quietly, staring at the Weeper statue in Yu Sheng’s hands. Her expression was hard to read. “The dead man’s words might have been correct. Earlier, you mentioned something like ‘Five Rivers’? That might be a misunderstanding. But there’s a district called Wusong River in the southern part of Boundary City. It’s very far from here… It might just be a matter of accents. Boundary City is huge, and not everyone speaks with the same accent as the main city.”

“What about the phrases ‘Help it descend’ and ‘Save the savior from suffering’? Do you have any idea what they might mean?” Yu Sheng asked, curious.

“I’ve never had any direct dealings with Angel Cultists,” Little Red replied, shaking her head. “They’re too dangerous for a regular spirit realm detective like me. If we ever uncover traces of them, the best plan is to report it and keep far, far away. The Special Affairs Bureau may know more, but I really wouldn’t advise getting involved.”

Yu Sheng frowned. “Why not?”

“Because the so-called ‘angels’ worshipped by Angel Cultists are actually ‘Dark Angels,’ like that thing you saw in the valley before.” Little Red Riding Hood’s voice was serious now. “People who worship such beings as gods… do you think they could be decent folks?”

She paused, then continued, “Among all the twisted cults and extremist groups out there, Angel Cultists are the hardest to understand. Even the ‘Dark Spot Group,’ who are themselves wanted by law-abiding territories, put bounties on Angel Cultists in places they control. Just imagine how terrifying these Angel Cultists must be.”

Little Red leaned forward, wanting to make sure Yu Sheng truly understood. “They’re not only insane, but it seems they do have some sort of link to the Dark Angels. Stay involved with them too long, and you’ll either lose your mind or attract the attention of those Dark Angels. When official forces go after these cultists, they need special psychological evaluations and a forced vacation afterwards. Trust me, you don’t want to tangle with them.”

Yu Sheng nodded slowly, recalling that dreadful, all-seeing eye he had glimpsed in the valley. He understood just how grim the danger was. “I see. I understand.”

Little Red seemed relieved. She glanced around the ruined, eerie white exhibition hall. It was filled with broken pieces and unsettling silence.

“We should leave,” she said.

Yu Sheng tilted his head. “What’s the normal way out of here? I mean, the standard procedure.”

Before Little Red could answer, Irene looked baffled. “Huh? Can’t we just go out through the door and head back home?”

“It might not be that simple,” said Yu Sheng, feeling slightly awkward. “It’s the middle of the night. We can’t just burst into the Special Affairs Bureau from the Otherworld. Their alarms would go off, and that would scare everyone half to death. Besides, I’m curious about the proper way to exit the Otherworld.”

Little Red cleared her throat and explained, “There are usually two main ways to leave this museum. One is to survive here until the ‘night show’ ends, which happens when morning comes in the real world. The other is to bring this strange spectacle known as ‘Night at the Museum’ to a grand conclusion, causing the invisible audience to applaud. That applause will end the show early.”

“Waiting until morning is too long,” Yu Sheng said, shaking his head. “How do we create this ‘grand conclusion’? What does that actually mean?”

“There’s no straightforward rule,” Little Red replied. “Think of everything that happens here as a play unfolding inside a theater. We’re the performers. If we can amaze or satisfy the unseen ‘audience,’ they’ll applaud, and the show will close. There are many ways—some people have painted a picture or sung a song to get applause. Others started clapping mid-argument, and the audience suddenly joined in. I even heard of one investigator who was injured and furious, cursing the museum in desperation, and out of nowhere came thunderous applause.”

Yu Sheng stared, speechless.

After a moment, Yu Sheng looked at the small doll perched on his shoulder. Irene immediately noticed and grew defensive, her eyes flashing as if offended. “Why are you staring at me like that? It’s rude to look at a lady that way! I speak with deep emotion, alright? Stop thinking I’m just some kind of random act waiting to happen!”

Realizing that relying on Irene’s outbursts was too uncertain, Yu Sheng turned to Little Red. “Earlier, we fought those guards in a pretty intense chase scene. Didn’t that count as a ‘grand conclusion’?”

“Battles are too common,” Little Red explained. “The guards are part of the museum’s normal routine. Fighting them is considered standard, so it’s not surprising enough to trigger applause. In my view, the ‘conclusion’ comes from doing something unexpected that breaks the script.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment.

Little Red noticed the thoughtful look on his face, and before Irene could say anything, Little Red said, “You’ve got an idea, don’t you?”

Yu Sheng nodded, a mischievous smile forming on his lips. “You said that battling the guards is normal, part of the script. What if we do something else—something truly ‘artistic,’ let’s say?”

Little Red blinked, confused. “Huh?”

Yu Sheng didn’t explain to her. Instead, he turned to Foxy. “Do you have enough tails left?”

Foxy nodded eagerly. “Plenty! I can create fox fire endlessly, too.”

“Excellent.” Yu Sheng grinned even wider.

Little Red suddenly felt uneasy. “What exactly are you planning?” she asked.

Yu Sheng pointed to a doorway in the distance. “We came from over there, right? There’s a big hall filled with statues and antiques. Let’s have Foxy pile up her spare tails there. Then, before the guards catch on, we’ll blow the place up. If that’s not enough, we’ll set fire to every exhibition hall along the way until it all collapses. That should be surprising enough to end the show!”

Little Red’s jaw nearly dropped. Before she could protest, and before Yu Sheng and Foxy could carry out their wild idea, a sudden sound echoed all around them.

It was thunderous applause, booming from every direction, as though the invisible audience had already decided that the curtain should fall.