Dimensional Hotel

Dark, damp, as if forever trapped in the atmosphere before twilight rain, with chaotic dim yellow lights illuminating the mottled, old signs of the shops on both sides, brewing an exceptionally eerie and sinister aura in the alley.

The adventurer team stepped through the puddles beside the road, checking every possible oddity in the alley, and displaying skilled team coordination and personal discipline as they advanced.

The figure of the stealthy assassin occasionally vanished from Yu Sheng's view, seemingly melting into the shadows of the buildings, only to suddenly appear from a corner beside some house, elusive like a spiritual body. The wandering mage summoned a floating blue eye that constantly scanned the path they had taken behind them, while the swordsman walked at the front of the team to guard against entities that might form prematurely in the alley—a low probability, but in the Exotic Realm, deep fluctuations could sometimes lead to unexpected dangers.

The priest girl holding a short staff walked in the very center of the team, continuously muttering something akin to a prayer in a low voice. With each round of recitation, a light blessing with the effects of Clear God and healing was refreshed on everyone.

Curious, Yu Sheng approached the priest girl, who, strictly speaking, counted as the King's "summoning item". He heard her muttering the same few lines repeatedly: "...Holy Light like the wind, blessing the cat, Holy Light like a beacon, illuminating the cat, only my kitty, meow meow meow meow..."

It was downright magical.

Little Red Riding Hood was clearly familiar with the various combat units summoned by the "King". She rode on a giant wolf, directing a few wolves at the edges of the team to coordinate with the stealthy assassin, while also noting the subtle expression on Yu Sheng's face.

"Impressive, right? The things the King conjures sometimes feel like they actually have intelligence," she said to Yu Sheng with a smile. "They can even hold simple conversations with outsiders, and the most advanced summoning creatures—like the flatterer and 'Prime Minister'—can understand and remember the rules of the 'outside' world, and it's challenging for ordinary people to recognize them. But in essence, these summoning items are 'entities' generated within the 'Fairyland Exotic Realm'... My wolves are the same."

"Interesting." Yu Sheng muttered, glancing again at the "priest" in the team. This "clerical girl," dressed as if she'd stepped out of an RPG or novel illustration from a bygone era, politely smiled at him and continued stiffly repeating: "Only my kitty, meow meow meow meow..."

Then she went on to cast another layer of Saint Cat blessing over the whole team.

"...If you don't deal with them often, it can really feel like the uncanny valley."

"We thought so at first too, but after spending enough time with the King, we got used to it," Little Red Riding Hood said with a smile. "Besides, compared to the King's advanced units, these stiff combat units actually make us feel safer—after all, I don't like the 'flatterer.' Those old men are like living people, maybe even too much, fortunately, the King only lets them out when he wants fish treats."

As they spoke, they had already walked halfway through the alley.

Yu Sheng looked up and saw the intersection ahead, with crisscrossing wires strung between the shops on either side, dim light strings hanging from the wires, and faded pennants swaying weakly in the wind, bearing auspicious sayings like "Grand Opening," "Safe Travels," "Promotions and Fortune," "Happiness for the Whole Family," which looked cheerful yet somehow odd in this environment.

Under those dim light strings were shops with tightly shut doors and windows along the street.

Only one shop had particularly bright lights at its entrance, and its doors were wide open, as if silently beckoning them.

The King waved a paw, and the youth swordsman with the Village Sword, along with several Shadow Wolves, approached the shop, while the stealthy assassin somehow followed along, slipping through the door like a shadow.

"Your Majesty, the path ahead is clear."

The wandering mage's raspy voice declared.

The group of Yu Sheng drew near and saw that it was, in fact, an old bookstore.

Little Red Riding Hood frowned slightly, an evident cautious expression on her face.

"What's the story with the bookstore?" Yu Sheng curiously asked.

"In the 'Dark Alley,' the most common operating shops are grocery stores, pet food shops, and old bookstores," Little Red Riding Hood explained. "Grocery stores are the safest; they appear to offer meaningless items that are useless for finding a safe exit, but also pose no harm. Pet food shops sell only pet food for cats, and you must exchange a small piece of your skin as currency. The old bookstore is the riskiest of the three types—it might contain useful information, but it might also be a trap or even contain books with mental contamination..."

She paused for a moment, shaking her head. "Clues and risks coexist, making it troublesome and confusing."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, rubbing his chin. "Oh... indeed."

He then casually slid open a palm-sized small door in the air beside him, placed his hand at the entrance, and called out, "Reveal..."

A sharp blade swiftly jabbed out of the small door, pricked his palm, and quickly withdrew.

Little Red Riding Hood watched this scene in astonishment, then watched Yu Sheng, waving his blood-spattered hand, stride to the old bookstore's entrance without a word, slapping seven or eight bloody handprints onto the outer walls, doorframes, and windows, then writing in big letters with the remaining blood: "Yu Sheng was here, with Little Red Riding Hood, and a cat."

The added section at the back clearly had not dried, and they didn't want to waste it.

The red-dressed girl, who had been an obedient Spirit Realm detective for years, was utterly shocked, managing to stammer out, "You really lay down spores like a fungi carpet wherever you go?"

Yu Sheng couldn't hold back his smile: "You're playing too much with Erin..."

As he spoke, he opened another small door from the side, fetched out a fox tail from the door to wipe his hands, and amidst the fox girl's protest, "Savior, don't waste it; let me lick it," he stuffed the tail back in. With this familiar series of actions done, he clapped his hands and stepped into the bookstore.

Little Red Riding Hood was staring blankly from the side, turned her head and poked the King's owl head: "What did I just say—if no one stops him, he'll open a door wherever he goes; his DNA must be in the shape of a door spiral."

The King replied with a deep voice: "It's not a big issue, as long as it's door-opening on the same level, and we're still at the shallow part of the Dark Alley."

Yu Sheng ignored the muttering from behind. He had already entered the old bookstore, which had an extremely nostalgic style.

A warm yet somewhat musty yellow light illuminated the store. To the right of the entrance was a wooden counter piled with several account books and some dirty A4 papers. Besides that, the rest of the store was almost entirely occupied by tall and wide bookshelves lined up against the walls.

Two-thirds of the shelves were filled with various old books, while the remaining third wasn't empty either—a peculiar, gelatinous substance filled the empty spaces, coagulating into soft, "melting" piles of books, with black liquid constantly dripping from them and being absorbed by the ground quickly.

The old bookstore was empty, and behind the deserted counter stood a peeling wooden chair, with a paper stuck to it that read "read read read read read read read..."

A jumble of words piled up, becoming more blurred towards the end, as if something dark was trying hard to squeeze out from the depths of the text.

Yu Sheng frowned.

The connection with the blood was being established and strengthened, and he heard a strange, hollow whistling sound, but that sound... it didn't seem to come from this bookstore.

It didn't even seem to come from any corner of this "Dark Alley," but from somewhere more distant, more obscure.

Somewhere outside this "Exotic Realm."

He looked up in the direction the sound was coming from, but there were only tall bookshelves and the walls of the shop itself, almost entirely obscured by the shelves.

"Be careful of these black liquids," Little Red Riding Hood's voice came from behind, "they're 'rotting knowledge' and have strong mental contamination—avoid it unless you want a thousand people reciting wrong chemistry and physics formulas in your head."

Yu Sheng turned his head in surprise: "How do you know so much? Seems like these details are not in the database..."

Little Red Riding Hood pressed her lips without speaking, but the "King" beside her had already jumped lightly onto the counter, casually saying while pawing at the scraps on the counter, "Because she accidentally touched it once—the next day, she scored eight points in her midterm science exam, shocking the entire academic office."

Little Red Riding Hood's face turned red: "Shut, shut up!"

Yu Sheng listened dumbfounded, and quickly turned his attention back to the surrounding bookshelves before Little Red Riding Hood could snap.

The kind of hollow whistling, seemingly from beyond the alley, was still hovering in his head, while his eyes scanned the rows of old books on the shelves.

Most of the book covers were gray and dusty, with the titles on the spines printed in blurred scripts, making it impossible to read the book names or guess their contents.

"Shelf contents that are normal and complete can be read with caution, but avoid becoming engrossed," the King took the initiative to remind upon seeing this, "they sometimes record hints about safe exits, or stories that seem to be real events occurring somewhere in the Boundary Land—they could be past events or currently happening, but they won't predict the future, unless it's a weather forecast."

"There might also be records about the 'Broken Tower'—in theory, the old bookstore should give priority to recording the changes in the Dark Alley itself." Little Red Riding Hood muttered to herself.

Yu Sheng slowly nodded, looked again at that chair behind the counter with a paper full of "read" on it, felt eerie but cautiously pulled a dusty old book from the shelf, and opened it with a hint of curiosity.

On the yellowed pages, only a few large characters were written—

"Not enough quality."