A long, quiet hallway stretched out before them. Little Red Riding Hood leaned forward, peering around carefully before turning to face Yu Sheng. “The ‘guards’ created by the museum won’t leave their own areas,” she said, keeping her voice calm but firm. “We can rest here for a little while, right in this corridor.” She paused, then spoke more quietly. “But we have to be extra cautious once we move on. We still don’t know how many of these ‘guards’ the museum can produce. If some of them are blocking the entrance to the White Exhibition Hall, that would be terribly unlucky for us.”
Irene hopped down from Yu Sheng’s back, looking puzzled. Her small, doll-like face twisted in concentration. “What I don’t get,” she said, “is how these ‘guards’ are triggered at all. I mean, we didn’t do anything wrong, and yet, as soon as they appeared, they attacked us without a word…”
Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something, then closed it again and fell silent.
Irene noticed this hesitation and prodded gently, “Come on, spill it. You clearly have something on your mind.”
Taking a steadying breath, Little Red Riding Hood finally exined, “The most likely reason is that we’re not the only ones in here. Someone else must have entered the museum before us, and that person’s presence might have set off the museum’s ‘purge’ mechanism. But this shouldn’t be possible. I checked the schedules. No other investigative teams were supposed toe tonight—just ours.”
Irene raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Maybe someone snuck in? Some shady character, maybe?”
“It’s not very likely,” said Little Red Riding Hood, shaking her head. “The Special Affairs Bureau keeps strict watch. The moment a ce like this is opened, it’s all officially reported. Every single ‘node’ is under constant surveince, creating a hugework of sensors. If any Otherworld gate or rift in spacetime opened up without warning, it would set off immediate rms.”
Irene nodded in a way that suggested she recognized the idea—though no one could be sure if she truly understood. In fact, her attention was already drifting. Her gazended on Yu Sheng, who was crouched down just a few steps away.
Yu Sheng had picked up something strange—a twisted, stic arm that had been sliced clean off one of the ‘guards.’ The detached limb, now drained of its supernatural life, looked just like a store mannequin’s arm. He tapped it lightly against the floor, creating a hollow clunking sound. It felt like stic, looked like stic, and he couldn’t help but wonder, with a bizarre curiosity, if it would taste like stic if he bit into it.Just as this odd idea crossed his mind, Irene shrieked in rm, “Hey! Yu Sheng, what do you think you’re doing?! That’s stic! You can’t eat it!”
Yu Sheng sighed, a tired look on his face. “I’m not going to eat it,” he said tly, rolling his eyes at the little doll. “I might be a bit unusual, but I’m not that crazy. Even if it wasn’t stic, I wouldn’t eat it. Those guards look human enough—I wouldn’t be able to stomach that. I was just thinking about how these ‘things’ move. I’m curious, that’s all.”
Irene let out a huge sigh of relief, patting her tiny chest. “Phew! You really had me worried there for a second. With you, I half-expected you to whip out a cooking pot and try making stew or something.”
Yu Sheng looked offended. “Is that the kind of person you think I am?”
Little Red Riding Hood watched this exchange with a puzzled expression. She was not as startled by Irene’s rm as she was by the memory of their earlier adventures. Last time they visited Wutong Road No. 66, there had been a te of stir-fried meat involved. She suspected, just for a moment, that Yu Sheng might have seriously wondered about the taste of the arm, even if only as a weird passing thought.
Her uneasy musings were cut short when Yu Sheng suddenly took out a small knife from his pocket. Without a second’s hesitation, he made a tiny cut on his own arm and let a thin trickle of blood run down. Then, to her horror, he began smearing his blood onto the severed stic arm.
Chilled, Little Red Riding Hood blurted, “What are you doing?!”
Yu Sheng, sounding perfectly calm, said, “I’m testing something, trying to find an advantage.” He continued spreading his blood over the stic limb. “My blood can connect with a lot of different things, including entities. I’m curious if it can work on a separated piece like this.”
Irene didn’t even blink. She had grown ustomed to Yu Sheng’s unusual methods. She turned to Little Red Riding Hood and exined, “Yu Sheng’s blood is super strange. Foxy and I have bothe into contact with it before…” ?
Suddenly, Yu Sheng looked toward Little Red Riding Hood and, with a sly twist of his mouth, asked, “Well? Don’t you want a taste?” He gestured toward his wounded arm, which was already beginning to close up. “Better hurry. I heal fast, and if you wait too long, there won’t be any left.”
Little Red Riding Hood yelped and jumped off the wolf she’d been perched on. She backed away quickly, shaking her head so hard her hood nearly flew off. “No way!” she shouted.
Turning to Foxy, the silent fox demon who had remained calm this entire time, Little Red Riding Hood pleaded, “Isn’t something about all this really, really off?” She hoped Foxy would agree that this was insanity.
But Foxy only looked at Yu Sheng with admiration glowing in those vulpine eyes. “Benefactor’s magic is deep indeed,” Foxy said quietly. “This is the art of Blood Sorcery!”
Little Red Riding Hood felt more lost than ever. “Blood Sorcery?” she wondered aloud. She knew almost nothing about the cultivation world or these strange abilities. She was just a high school student, not someone used to such odd, supernatural skills.
Meanwhile, Yu Sheng was already observing the results of his experiment. He noticed that his blood was being absorbed into the stic arm, sinking into it quickly, almost hungrily. “It seems to be working,” he murmured thoughtfully.
Irene’s eyes went wide. She hopped closer, voice brimming with excitement. “Really? Can you see anything yet? Did you find out why those ‘guards’ went berserk?”
Yu Sheng closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “The connection is weak right now,” he said, holding up a hand to keep her quiet. “I can’t get detailed information just yet.” He grew silent, concentrating, feeling the faint link between himself, his blood, and whatever force powered these odd museum guardians.
He imagined his senses drifting through the halls, stretching beyond the corridor, through sealed doors and dim galleries, over disy cases and centuries-old artifacts. He searched for the source of the arm’s energy, something like a pattern that would let him understand the ‘guards.’
Suddenly, he found them—no, he felt them. He could sense himself in their ce, wearing a security guard’s uniform and standing strangely still. He was surrounded by other guards just like him, each made of the same hollow stic, each waiting for something unseen.
It was only a brief sh, a dizzying instant much like his experience with ‘Hunger’ back in Night Valley. He understood he wasn’t truly in their bodies. He was only receiving bits of information from the blood link, tranting it in his mind as though he were in their shoes.
He hadn’t formed a perfect bond, not enough to fully “be” them. But maybe, if he strengthened the connection, it would be like that feast in Night Valley, when he had tasted an entity’s essence and understood it from the inside out.
With that glimpse fading, Yu Sheng opened his eyes and pointed down the hallway. “Most of the ‘guards’ are two intersections away from here. They’re standingpletely still, like they’re waiting for orders. A few others are scattered in distant exhibition halls, but none of them are moving at the moment.”
Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes grew wide. Until now, she hadn’t fully realized just how powerful Yu Sheng’s abilities were. Sure, they had fought side by side in Night Valley, but that had been chaotic. Here, watching him calmly use his blood to connect with these strange guardians, she finally understood how valuable his power could be. One simple drop of blood, one careful touch, and Yu Sheng could trace, locate, and understand these creatures before they made a move. For investigators and spirit detectives, this sort of skill was extraordinary.
Then another thought made her shiver: If his blood could do this to entities, what could it do to humans? She remembered how he’d teased her, offering her a taste. She shook off the thought, trying not to imagine it too deeply.
Instead, she focused on something more practical. “So with this information, we can avoid running straight into them,” she said. “Do you think you can sense anything else about the exhibition halls? Maybe where the White Exhibition Hall is located?”
Yu Sheng shook his head. “The connection isn’t strong enough for that,” he admitted. “It’s mainly tied to these ‘guards.’ I can’t get a clear map of the whole building or the location of the White Exhibition Hall.”
As he spoke, Yu Sheng took his knife again and lightly cut his arm a second time, letting another small bead of blood appear. He smeared it over the walls and the floor tiles, testing them just as he had tested the arm. But this time, there was no noticeable change, no new information. The stone drank up his blood, but it offered nothing in return.
“It’s probably not enough,” he said with a sigh, standing up straight. “To truly connect with the museum’s structure, I’d have to do something extreme—like cover the entire ce in my blood three or four times. That would be a bit much, wouldn’t it?”
At the idea of coating the museum in his blood, Little Red Riding Hood’s face turned pale with horror.
Noticing her expression, Yu Sheng let out a nervous chuckle and quickly waved his hand. “I’m just joking,” he assured her with a crooked grin. “I’m not that reckless. I’m just a curious person, that’s all.”
Little Red Riding Hood blinked, unable to find the right words.
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