Alien Hotel

The girl in a red coat stood under the streetlight, and the light fell on her slightly thin body. Shadows squirmed under her feet and around her. Hidden in the shadow were pairs of alert and prying eyes - one of the eyes noticed what was going on. As the "outsider" approached, Little Red Riding Hood immediately noticed Yu Sheng and his party.

"Sorry, the taxi is a bit slow," Yu Sheng waved to the other party, "Have you been waiting for a long time?"

"It's only a few minutes," Little Red Riding Hood said casually, turning to look aside, "I've sent my wolf to circle around here first, and I didn't find any abnormal changes. The 'museum' should be very stable today. It's a It’s a good day for action. By the way, have you read all the information I gave you?”

"I've seen it." Yu Sheng nodded and followed Little Red Riding Hood's line of sight to the large building standing quietly in the night.

But that is not a "museum", but an old theater that was no longer open to the public many years ago - but the entrance to the so-called "museum" is in this theater.

"After the opening of 'Museum Night', do not touch collections that make breathing sounds, do not look at portrait paintings for a long time, and do not enter the red room. If you see plastic models wearing ushers' uniforms, pay attention to their gestures. Do not enter what they direct or imply Doors—actually, there are only a few things you need to pay attention to," Little Red Riding Hood told with some worry, "The museum is a relatively stable foreign land, and the depth has been maintained at around L-2 for a long time. As long as you abide by the rules, its own dangers are It’s controllable, so the risk is also rated as Level 2..."

Listening to the girl's tireless instructions, Yu Sheng couldn't help but think of the "introductory information" he had seen in the information encyclopedia when he was familiar with "Border Communications".

That information can be said to be his biggest gain after registering with the Secret Service - a systematic, complete set of basic information about the extraordinary world, including what he had heard Li Lin and Xu Jiali mention before, but had never done much about. Clear knowledge about the "depth" and "danger" of foreign lands.

Depth, simply understood, refers to the "degree of deviation" of a foreign land from the real world. Taking the real world as zero level, and the depth increases step by step from zero to five, the foreign land of L-1 may just be a place that looks a little weird. , ordinary people may even go out by mistake, but in the L-5 level alien land, except for extremely rare and irreproducible survival records, it can be said that there is no possibility of survival at all, and even the L-5 level alien land has no chance of survival. Whether there is really an "exit", experts are not sure.

Generally speaking, the depth of an exotic is relatively stable, but it will fluctuate in a small range over time or under the influence of certain specific conditions. It is safe to explore when the depth of an exotic is shallow, but the depth of an exotic changes suddenly. It is the main reason for the death of many detectives and investigators in the spiritual world.

Danger is another important "parameter" to measure the threat of foreign lands. In most cases, the degree of danger is directly proportional to the depth of foreign lands. The "shallower" foreign lands are safer, and the "deeper" foreign lands are more dangerous, but This is not entirely certain. There are some strange entities generated by shallow foreign lands that are particularly terrifying. There are also some L-3 level foreign lands (usually considered to be high-risk foreign lands at this depth) that even have stable safe zones.

It is precisely because of the existence of these exceptions that "danger" and "depth" have become two independent parameters.

At the same time, the degree of danger is not only used to measure foreign lands, but can also be used to measure the danger level of "entities" alone. The group of people walked towards the entrance of the old theater.

"To be honest, I have to follow the rules. I shouldn't take a 'newcomer' like you to an L-2 foreign land like a museum. New detectives and investigators in the spiritual world usually start at L-1 level. , After all, shallow foreign lands are more stable and easier to evacuate," Little Red Riding Hood said as she walked, "But you can't be considered ordinary newcomers.

Hands' - after all, you can even handle the Night Valley. In addition to your lack of experience and knowledge, your strength has already exceeded the standard. "

"It's not a big problem, it's all about gaining experience anyway," Yu Sheng said nonchalantly, while looking at the girl walking beside him curiously, "Speaking of which, I suddenly feel... you seem to be quite used to taking care of others? "

"Why do you say that?"

"Usually, he looks very mature and cold, but once he starts doing things, he will talk about a lot of things, especially when he is leading a group of 'newbies' like us, like a parent leading a team."

Little Red Riding Hood stopped for a few seconds, with a subtle expression on her face.

But she didn't say anything, she just whispered and continued walking forward.

"You understand the concepts of depth and danger, right?" She broke the silence again after taking a few steps.

"I understand. To put it bluntly, depth refers to 'how evil this place is', and danger refers to 'how deadly this place or thing is.'" Yu Sheng waved his hand, "It's pretty easy to understand." "

"So I understand... Although it is superficial, it is quite vivid." Little Red Riding Hood nodded. "The depth of the museum is L-2, which is the 'standard' exotic depth. There is a very obvious difference with the real world. The environment It itself begins to distort, which is very dangerous for ordinary people, but overall, the space inside it is still in line with "common sense", in line with human perception and thinking logic, and nothing will happen if you follow the rules...

Yu Sheng didn't wait for the other party to finish speaking, then took the initiative to speak and continued: "Danger level 2 means that it will not actively cause death, and does not have active or indiscriminate malice. However, if the regulations are not followed, it may still cause serious injury or even death. Maybe—right?"

"It's okay. I remember it well, so I won't worry about it." Little Red Riding Hood said casually, and then stopped.

They had already entered the door of the old theater. After passing through the old iron door that was ajar, they saw a hall paved with dark green floor tiles. There were passages leading to the interior of the theater on both sides of the hall. Facing the gate are several dark ticket windows.

But what Yu Sheng noticed first was a strange device placed in the center of the hall.

It was a black-gray metal square prism, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was about half a person tall. There were several lights slowly turning on and off at the top of the pillar, and a low and intermittent buzzing sound came from inside it from time to time. , obviously running.

"This was placed by the Secret Service. We call this 'node', and its full name is 'constant node generator."" Little Red Riding Hood pointed at the metal square prism. "The low-frequency cognitive interference it releases can affect ordinary people. The effect of keeping them away from the discovered dangerous locations in the border area is actually very weak, but it is enough to deal with ordinary people who have not had spiritual awakening. "

".Are there many of these things in this city?" Yu Sheng looked at the device called "node" in surprise, "I have never found..."

Little Red Riding Hood glanced at Yu Sheng. She subconsciously wanted to say, "Because you used to be an ordinary person, so you wouldn't get close to this thing at all." However, she swallowed the words before she could even speak.

Because she felt that even the fox next to her had a higher human capacity than Yu Sheng..

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

"The effect is good, but no matter how good the security measures are, the interception rate is not 100%. Even if you seal the place with reinforced concrete, there are also people who use hydraulic clamps and impact drills to commit suicide." Little Red Riding Hood sighed, "There are always The hard-headed and the unusually gifted will defy the instinct of dizziness and calf cramps and insist on going on an adventure, or they may simply be unlucky and naturally gifted. Sensitivity is not affected by nodes, so there are often unlucky people who fall into foreign lands waiting for us to rescue them - they end up either becoming the rewards of detectives and investigators in the spirit world, or they become the pain of internal notices from the Secret Service. Cases, and in a small number of cases... they will become new detectives, investigators or Secret Service agents after crying and crying and receiving psychiatric treatment. "

"Why don't you just demolish this place?" Hu Li asked suddenly.

"Demolish it? That would be great fun." Little Red Riding Hood knew that Hu Li lacked common sense in this regard, so she just spread her hands helplessly, "What you demolished is only a proven 'entrance', and the foreign land itself is not in the real dimension. , if you remove its known controllable entrance, then no one will know where it will open next time.”

Listening to Little Red Riding Hood's explanation, Yu Sheng felt deeply that seeking death is indeed a human instinct and cannot be stopped... At the same time, Little Red Riding Hood took another step forward and came to the "node" "Next to it, he swiped his ID card on the top of it.

"Register the access information." She turned around and waved the ID in her hand. "In case of death inside, the body collector will know where to find it - after all, once you enter a foreign land, contact with the outside world will basically be interrupted. Registration at the Node is the last stop for detectives and investigators in the spiritual world to leave traces in the real world. "

Seeing this, Yu Sheng also took Irene and Hu Li forward to register. While doing the operation, he said with emotion: "Fortunately, I got the certificates for them two... A slight buzzing sound came from the nodes.

Then, Little Red Riding Hood led Yu Sheng and the others across the "node" to the end of the hall. She stopped in front of those dark ticket windows.

Of course, all the ticket windows in the old theater have been abandoned long ago. Two of the four windows have been covered with plastic tapes. Of the remaining two, one has been emptied, with only You can see a lot of junk that no one wants, and in another there is a machine for printing tickets - the machine is covered with dust.

Little Red Riding Hood stopped in front of the window with the ticket machine, took out her mobile phone and looked at the time. After two or three minutes, she suddenly stretched out her hand and knocked on the glass of the ticket window.

"Night at the museum, night at the museum, four tickets."

A light suddenly appeared in the empty ticket window - even though the electric light was broken, the warm and bright light filled the dusty cubicle. It was as if there was still an invisible conductor left behind in time and memory, still sitting behind the window.

The old-fashioned ticket machine squeaked, and the empty paper feeder rotated around and over, and began to spit out admission tickets.