Lin Ye opened his eyes, finding himself back on the hard board bed in the ward.

Dawn had broken, and Little Ye was gone again.

Lin Ye remembered everything that happened last night, including the events in that Void Entity world.

He had woken up immediately after entering the portal.

'I wonder how Little Qi is doing. Was that world one of the Tower's floors? Or did the Tower transport me to that world?'

Lin Ye pondered for a while before finally deciding to stop thinking about it.

After finishing breakfast in the cafeteria and getting his capsule from the medication room, Lin Ye met up with the other two at their usual spot in the activity room.

"The ward door has been smashed by those monsters. I might not survive tonight."

Caroline spoke in a low, depressed tone.

More patients had been taken away by orderlies this morning, leaving fewer people in the activity room. The other patients were in worse condition than Caroline, barely holding on.

"Relying on fragment enhancements, I can still keep up with the monster respawn rate for now, but in another two days, it's hard to say."

Jessica wasn't despondent, but her situation wasn't optimistic either.

"I'll go to the ventilation ducts later to continue searching for an exit. If everything goes smoothly, we'll escape tomorrow."

Lin Ye lowered his voice as he spoke.

"You know how to get out of here?"

Caroline perked up and asked.

"I found an elevator leading upward and got an elevator card from a doctor, but I'm not sure if that's the exit."

Lin Ye whispered.

Suddenly, commotion broke out among the surrounding patients.

"Yours too?"

"Yes."

"We're finished."

"How could this happen?"

"Should we protest?"

"And get beaten to death by the orderlies?"

...

Lin Ye listened carefully for a moment. The patients seemed to be discussing the capsules.

Today's capsules were filled entirely with blue powder.

All three of them unscrewed their capsules and found they indeed contained blue powder.

"We're finished! Without red powder, we can't see those things, can't kill monsters, and can only stay in our wards drooling like idiots!"

Caroline's face was full of fear. She had always been timid, and without her other self, she would never have lasted this long.

Jessica looked gravely at the capsule in her hand. Without red powder, they could only passively wait for death in their wards.

"I'll go look for red powder. The medication room might have some."

Lin Ye wore a heavy expression, though internally he wasn't that worried. The mastermind behind this was clearly getting desperate, otherwise they could have maintained the previous situation where they wouldn't have lasted much longer.

'But not having red powder is indeed troublesome.'

Without red powder, Lin Ye couldn't see Little Ye or enter that world. Although the junior had said there was no exit there, he felt that world was key to escaping this place.

With cover from the other patients, Lin Ye once again crawled into the ventilation ducts.

This time he headed directly for the medication room, arriving above it before long.

The medication room was empty, and the hallway showed no activity. Lin Ye opened the vent and dropped into the medication room.

The medication room was only twenty square meters. Lin Ye spent five minutes searching the entire room, except for two locked personal storage lockers.

The search yielded nothing—only capsules containing blue powder.

Lin Ye didn't unscrew every capsule, but he could quickly check the remaining ones by holding them to the light. All contained blue powder.

Footsteps approached from the distance. Lin Ye looked at the two lockers with the hairpin he'd found earlier. He only had time to open one locker now.

In the end, Lin Ye chose the locker with the young nurse's photo on it. He picked the lock in a few moves, then quickly rummaged through the locker's contents.

'Junk, trash, junk, trash... Capsules!'

As footsteps drew near, Lin Ye pocketed the two capsules from the locker, quickly relocked the door, returned the hairpin to its original position, and climbed back into the ventilation duct—all without making a sound.

A nurse pushed open the medication room door just as Lin Ye closed the vent.

'That was close. Good thing I reacted quickly.'

Lin Ye took out the two capsules and examined them. One contained red powder, the other blue, but both had less than half the usual amount.

'That's a bit scarce. Not sure if it's enough... No, if it's insufficient, we'll be in trouble. I still need to go to the experimental area. I have to find a way to take a look...'

Lin Ye crawled toward the previous passage covered in red fuzz, wondering if he could crawl through while padding his clothes.

'Huh? That's...'

Lin Ye easily found the passage, but a distorted dark shadow was lying on top of the red fuzz.

Moving closer, Lin Ye recognized what the shadow was—a swollen humanoid creature with numerous Black Threads piercing its body surface and patches of red fuzz growing on it. The threads forcibly contorted its body into an inhuman shape, making it look like a bizarre puppet.

The shadow's elongated hand tightly clutched a piece of white paper with a map that looked familiar to Lin Ye.

The shadow was Patient No. 3.

Or had been.

Beside the shadow's hand was a red box, apparently held alongside the map earlier.

The box wasn't locked. Lin Ye used his sleeve to lift the lid and found a photograph and a capsule inside.

The photo showed Patient No. 3 with a young woman. On the back was written a line in blood:

It destroyed all the red powder. I secretly hid one capsule. If it helps you, please take her away from here for me.

'If she's still alive, I'll handle this properly.'

Lin Ye stored the photo and capsule, quickly crawling back to the activity room. With cover from the other patients, the orderlies hadn't noticed someone had been missing from the activity room earlier.

Right after lunch, patients were locked back in their wards, along with that disgusting dinner plate.

"Damn, just finished eating, and now I feel even more nauseated."

Lin Ye leaned against the hospital bed and swallowed the capsule. The moment it entered his stomach, Little Ye appeared in his vision.

Perhaps she had been there all along, just invisible to Lin Ye.

"Let's go. I'll make boiled vegetables for you."

Little Ye said with a smile as the securely locked ward door automatically opened.

"You're lying to me. I've never actually eaten your boiled vegetables..."

Lin Ye tried to resist.

"Don't worry, I've had another brilliant idea. This time it will be delicious."

Little Ye led the way while Lin Ye could only follow with a bitter expression. The halls were empty, and they quickly reached the cafeteria.

"...Isn't that a bit too many ingredients?"

Standing by the pot, Lin Ye attempted to stop Little Ye from throwing more ingredients into the boiling water.

Boiled vegetables were the easiest dish for novice cooks to succeed with, and the simplest dish overall—provided you didn't add too many things, especially various seasonings.

"It's fine, I have a brilliant idea. You find it strange because you don't understand runes. If you knew even the basics of runes, you'd understand the meaning behind this dish."

Little Ye proudly promoted her rune-infused boiled vegetables to Lin Ye.