In the long-abandoned old theater, the ticket window was brightly lit with no one in attendance, and the old ticket machine creaked as it spat out red paper tickets for entry—a scene undoubtedly eerie, yet Little Red Riding Hood seemed as though she had seen it countless times before, only waiting calmly by the side.

A few seconds later, the creaking of the old ticket machine stopped, and three connected tickets fell inside the window.

Little Red Riding Hood paused, not reaching for the tickets but knocking on the glass of the ticket window again: "Wait, we need four tickets! Four people entering!"

However, there was no movement inside the ticket window, and after another few seconds, just as Little Red Riding Hood was about to knock on the glass again, the light inside the compartment flickered a few times and then returned to darkness.

Only three red paper tickets lay quietly in the dusty window.

Yu Sheng looked at this scene in astonishment, counted the number of people present, and looked at Little Red Riding Hood with some confusion: "...What's going on?"

"I don't know, this has never happened before," Little Red Riding Hood replied with some hesitation, taking the tickets and scanning Erin, Hu Li, and Yu Sheng, "The 'Museum' entrance has interactive characteristics; at every whole and half hour after sunset, it can accurately identify and respond to eligible entry requests. There's never been an 'intentional error' like this."

Yu Sheng frowned, glancing between the four of them, including himself, and then suddenly started, fixing his gaze on Erin.

The little doll twisted her body: "...What?"

Yu Sheng spoke with some hesitation: "...Children under one meter tall get in free?"

Erin blanked out for a moment before realizing, nearly leaping up to bite someone: "I'm a child! Your whole family's children! You'll be a child for life! Do you know how much you're hurting the feelings of a mature lady with your words!"

While Yu Sheng was busy trying to hold down Erin's flailing and jumping, he looked up at Little Red Riding Hood: "Do you think my guess is reasonable?"

Little Red Riding Hood was still stunned. She had been a Spirit Realm detective for so many years and had encountered numerous strange things, but this was the first time she had come across such an eerie situation. Still dazed, she could only vaguely muster a response: "It seems somewhat logical..."

Erin immediately transferred her animosity from Yu Sheng to Little Red Riding Hood—with a howl, she pounced at Little Red Riding Hood—then two wolves suddenly emerged from the shadows and instantly pinned her to the ground.

Miss Doll seemed on the verge of tears.

Yu Sheng could only pull Erin up to comfort her while curiously asking Little Red Riding Hood, "Has no one ever discovered this 'rule' before?"

Little Red Riding Hood gave a wry smile: "...In our line of work, even the most cold-hearted wouldn't send infants under one meter tall out on a mission."

Erin really started crying.

"Why be so blunt!" Yu Sheng was frantically comforting Miss Doll, looking helplessly at the red-clothed girl opposite, "So what do we do now? With one ticket short for entry, can Erin still join us in entering the 'Museum'? Or does the rule truly include 'free admission', meaning she still qualifies to enter?"

"It's hard to say; we have to try to find out," Little Red Riding Hood pondered, while distributing the tickets to Yu Sheng and Hu Li. But then she looked doubtfully at the pitch-dark ticket window, muttering to herself, "...Would such an 'entrance'... really have such a humane 'rule'?"

The dark ticket compartment did not answer her question. In the vast old theater, only the corridor leading to the auditorium suddenly lit up with dim lights, as if urging those who got tickets to hurry in.

"Let's go, the passageway is open," said Little Red Riding Hood, immediately shaking off her distractions. She turned and headed towards the lit passageway, waving at Yu Sheng, "Follow me, don't do anything unnecessary."

Yu Sheng immediately put on a serious face, and even Erin calmed down as she clenched her teeth, following Hu Li closely behind Little Red Riding Hood towards the long, narrow corridor.

The lights extended with the footsteps of the group, gradually illuminating the depths of the theater. Slowly, Yu Sheng thought he could hear footsteps around him—more and more footsteps, as if many invisible spectators were walking with him along this dimly lit corridor, heading to the theater about to begin its performance.

But after a while, those footsteps all vanished.

A door appeared in Yu Sheng's field of vision, halfway ajar, with bright lights emanating from within, revealing rows of neatly arranged seats and the stage at the end of the rows.

Little Red Riding Hood lifted the paper admission ticket in her hand: "Hold the ticket up in the air like this, and if you hear a reprimanding sound while entering, stop immediately. We'll return the way we came from the entrance—that means admission has failed. Forcibly entering will cause a 'Museum' security entity to materialize, which is very dangerous."

Yu Sheng immediately heightened his alertness, and along with Hu Li, copied Little Red Riding Hood, holding their tickets aloft as if to show to some invisible staff at the entrance, and then slowly walked through the half-open door.

He didn't hear any reprimanding sound, and neither did Erin.

They walked into the theater, passing through the rows of red seats covered in dust from the back, all the way to the front row at the very end of the seating area, and sat down in the position closest to the stage.

"This outfit will need a wash when I get back," Yu Sheng muttered softly to Erin, "These chairs are too dirty—if I knew this, I should've brought some old newspapers."

Little Red Riding Hood, who was beside him, heard his muttering, and cast a somewhat astonished look at him.

She still couldn't quite adapt to Yu Sheng's way of thinking, which, though practical, seemed particularly bizarre in the context of an "Exotic Realm operation."

And just then, a rapid ringing sound came from outside the theater.

The lights in the auditorium dimmed quickly with the ringing sound, and spotlights above the stage ignited with a clatter of relays, beams of bright light pointing towards the stage. The next second, Yu Sheng heard applause—

Dense clapping, whistling, cheering, all manner of sounds unexpectedly surged from the empty audience seats, like a sudden tide rushing toward him from all directions.

He looked around amidst the applause, feeling the heat of the spotlights scorching the top of his head.

Hu Li, Erin, and Little Red Riding Hood stood near him, together with him at the center of the stage.

Just as the information indicated—entering the old theater, sitting in the audience seats with a ticket, as applause erupted, the ticket holders would transform from the audience below the stage into the "actors" on the stage. Museum Night thereby commenced among the applause.

This would last until the evening session ended, or until the "performance" on stage particularly satisfied those invisible clappers, or until the actors on stage unfortunately became the Museum's new exhibits.

Various stage backdrops rose around the stage, walls in creamy yellow, ceilings adorned with reliefs and colored patterns, stretched-out floors in dark green and dark blue, a series of doors, display cases, rooms…

Everything moved quickly in front of Yu Sheng, dazzlingly rearranging into a Museum with a structure as complex as a labyrinth. He saw a mural of a fiery red giant dragon suddenly appear on the opposite wall, but in the blink of an eye, a plaster Knight appeared near the wall, raising his sword to strike the Evil Dragon in the painting, and the two merged into a tumultuous new relief.

Then, soldiers in ancient armor marched out from the distant doors, only to be ambushed halfway by musketeers hiding in oil paintings. Amid bangs of gunfire and a haze of smoke, the soldiers were decimated. Flowers sprouted from their skeletons, turning into neatly arranged decorative pots and green wall planters along the tourist route…

The roar of the building's transformation and the dizzying spectacle went on for a full ten minutes before everything quieted down.

All that remained before Yu Sheng was a spacious corridor with a variety of landscape paintings hanging on both sides. The lights were bright overhead, with the end of his line of sight vaguely marking a large hall.

Low uneasy whimpers came from around, and it was unknown when Little Red Riding Hood had summoned her Shadow Wolf Pack. She took a glance at Yu Sheng, who seemed a bit dumbfounded, and smiled, "Startled, isn't it? The 'Museum' is a truly incredible place, and if we set aside its dangers, it could even count as a hall full of imaginative art—this is how Amorabi admired it before he died."

Yu Sheng snapped back to reality: "Who was Amorabi?"

"An artist from afar, quite famous outside the Boundary Land, died right here in the Museum—pursuing art," Little Red Riding Hood said wistfully, "If we're 'lucky' later, we might see an oil painting called 'Fields' in some sky-blue room with Amorabi's signature on it. That is the 'creation' made by the artist after he became part of the Museum's exhibits."

"Can one still 'create' after becoming the Museum's 'exhibit'?"

"Well, that's what the experts concluded. Occasionally, new items appear in this Museum, and they have some connection to those who disappeared here, the sacrifices. Sometimes it's a portrait or sculpture of the sacrifice themselves, and sometimes it's an artwork carrying the sacrifice's signature. The prevailing view is that this is the 'Museum's' 'collection' and 'creation' mechanism—But don't worry too much; the Danger Level here is only second-class. As long as we follow the rules, avoid direct confrontation with the 'Security Guards', and stay out of dangerous rooms, the Museum itself will not actively kill. It's rather peaceful."

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