Each of them carried one, bringing them back to the dormitory.
Upon returning, both beds were occupied.
However, Xu Yu and Gu Zhan had no intention of resting; they stayed by the bedsides.
Yu Ye Zhou and Yang Lin were breathing steadily, looking fine.
Only Yang Lin had one of her arms replaced with a mechanical one.
Noticing Gu Zhan's gaze on Yang Lin's arm, Xu Yu quietly said, "It's okay. It will recover after we leave the instance."
Gu Zhan had also been injured in his first instance but had healed by now.
The only concern was whether his spirit would hold up after waking.
"Let’s wait for them to wake up."
There was a sofa in the room. After saying this, Gu Zhan settled onto the sofa.
After everything they had been through, both were mentally exhausted, and no one spoke, leaving the room in silence.
Gu Zhan soon dozed off. After an unknown amount of time, he heard Xu Yu call out, "They're awake."
Gu Zhan's sleep was shallow; half-awake, he opened his eyes directly to see Yu Ye Zhou sitting up in bed, seemingly lost in thought while gazing out the window.
He turned to sit up and said, "You're awake?"
"Ah?" Yu Ye Zhou seemed to just realize this, turning to look around the room. "Um..."
He noticed Yang Lin still lying next to him and paused, "Yang Lin's arm..."
Gu Zhan didn’t say anything about it recovering after they went out, only giving a brief acknowledgment.
His "counterintuitive" approach left Yu Ye Zhou feeling helpless.
A hint of a wry smile crossed his troubled face. "Can’t you say something nice?"
Gu Zhan fell silent.
Yu Ye Zhou knew this was just Gu Zhan’s character. If he wanted to hear sweet words, he would find it almost impossible… However, it was already good enough that he came with Xu Yu to save him.
The two of them had done well.
He snapped back to reality and asked, "Where are we now?"
Xu Yu replied, "In that factory."
"Still in the factory?" Yu Ye Zhou was surprised; he thought they would at least have entered the next phase.
Xu Yu briefly explained the current situation.
Upon hearing that they had jumped off the assessment path and entered the inner world of the instance, Yu Ye Zhou was speechless. "Although the outcome is good... you were too bold."
Xu Yu said, "I thought it was bold too, but once he jumped, I thought about it and followed him down."
Yu Ye Zhou: "..."
If he said "reckless," those two should not deny it, right?
Fortunately, their "recklessness" meant that less than a day had passed since he fell into the gear gap.
The sky outside was still bright, indicating that the day was not yet over.
Yang Lin was not as lucky; she had been taken away early and had already lost an arm.
This was also the reason for Yu Ye Zhou's silence upon waking.
Seeing his companions injured was not a pleasant experience.
The three remained silent for a while until Yang Lin on the adjacent bed began to stir.
Yu Ye Zhou, like a rabbit, quickly hopped out of bed and rushed to Yang Lin’s bedside.
Xu Yu also walked over.
Gu Zhan: "..."
Well, he might as well go over too.
Half a minute later, when Yang Lin opened her eyes, she found three people surrounding her, resembling that popular meme—"You’re awake?"
Yang Lin: "…What are you doing?"
As she spoke, her voice was hoarse. Yu Ye Zhou hurriedly grabbed a cup of water from the bedside and handed it to her.
Yang Lin hesitated to sit up, and when she reached for the water, she suddenly noticed something strange about her arm.
Before Yu Ye Zhou could figure out how to explain it to her, Yang Lin exclaimed, "Did I… become a cyborg?? How cool!"
"…"
This unexpected reaction made Yu Ye Zhou's worry dissipate.
After a while, he slowly asked, "You… don’t feel anything unusual?"
Yang Lin opened her personal panel and glanced: "I do; my sanity value has dropped a lot, but it might have happened in the dream. I feel fine… um, actually, no; I feel more energetic, easily excited, and I can’t quite control my mouth."
Everyone's personality is different, and the fluctuation and manifestation of sanity values vary accordingly.
Yang Lin appeared somewhat similar to Gu Zhan, just not as extreme.
Yu Ye Zhou was relieved that Yang Lin was okay, so he sat back on the bed, a frown returning to his face.
Yang Lin seemed uninterested in the others around her, focused on fiddling with her mechanical arm.
At this moment, Xu Yu quietly said, "Ye Zhou is using his ability; let’s wait a bit."
After a while, Yu Ye Zhou finally opened his eyes.
He shook his head. "I have no clues… This place is very strange; everything feels fake."
Saying this didn’t change anything since Gu Zhan and the others already recognized that the world was divided into inner and outer.
If the inner world represented reality, it was normal for the outer world to be false.
But the problem was, how could they break through the false outer world and enter the real one?
Yang Lin suddenly returned to the conversation, saying, "If you can’t figure it out, don’t think about it. I’m hungry; when are we eating?"
Yu Ye Zhou was taken aback.
At first, he was worried about Yang Lin, but now that she was back, the future of the instance was unclear, but wasn’t every instance like that? There was no need to rush.
He smiled and said, "Right, let’s not think about it for now. By the way, that clown cat… should not come looking for trouble for now, right?"
Xu Yu said, "No, it can’t harm us right now."
"Alright, this can be seen as a breather given to us by the dungeon. Everyone, take a good rest. Only after resting well can we have the energy to deal with other troubles."
After Yu Yezhou said this, the atmosphere in the room suddenly relaxed.
Even if it’s just for a quarter of an hour, let them temporarily set aside the troubles of the dungeon.
They rested for a while, and then the puppet came to deliver their meals.
This was the first time Yang Lin had seen this scene, and she curiously approached the door, sizing up the puppet from top to bottom. “Are they this friendly?”
Gu Zhan recounted what had happened earlier, and then the puppet brought in the food. They ate while discussing their previous encounters.
As Gu Zhan had expected, Yang Lin was captured and brought to the factory because she discovered her identity as a "puppet."
"My parents often fought, and after I returned home, they started arguing again because of me… When they argued, the muscles in their faces looked so awkward, twitching. In a blur, I saw them turn into wood."
"I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. I initially thought I was just some little monster, so I desperately looked in the mirror. While I was doing that, I saw my dad come in from behind, and then I got knocked out… When I woke up, I saw the two people sitting by the bed had changed. I wanted to call you guys, but I was stopped and then brought here."
"They often fought?" Yu Yezhou caught onto something: "Didn’t they say conflicts are not allowed in this place?"
"Huh?" Yang Lin was taken aback. "Are you talking about the rules announced by the system at the beginning? Then... isn’t that targeted at us?"
Though they had just recounted the rescue of Yang Lin, they had left out too many details in between.
Yu Yezhou had no choice but to explain the matter of the "labels" again.
"If everyone here has a good label above their heads, how could there be any fights? They would only defer to one another."
"..." Yang Lin furrowed her brow; the situation was beyond her expectations.
After a moment of silence, she said seriously, "You're right. My parents... have never really fought. They just have sharp words and sarcasm, but they have never truly had a falling out. I remember how I mentioned at school that night—they almost fought, but if I think back carefully, although the atmosphere at home was tense, no one ever said anything excessive. However..."
She frowned and said, "But they must be dissatisfied with each other. According to what you said, they are both good people, so there shouldn’t be any fundamental contradictions in this world. So why do they look at each other with such disdain?"
"Well... you're right," Yu Yezhou replied. "That's a problem."
"Actually, our parents' unreasonable expectations of us are also a kind of negative emotion, aren’t they?" Xu Yu said. "Where does the good come without the bad? Everything relies on contrast."
"Have you ever thought about where this small town came from?" Yu Yezhou asked.
Everyone shook their heads; they were still confused about everything in the dungeon.
After asking, the room fell silent. After a while, Yu Yezhou said, "Forget it, let’s think about it after tomorrow. Let’s just rest well tonight."
For safety, they all stayed in one room, leaving the bed for the two who had been abducted, while Gu Zhan and Xu Yu slept on the sofa and on the floor, respectively.
That clown cat seemed to have really been intimidated by Gu Zhan, as it didn’t appear at all that night, nor did the puppets come to cause them trouble.
Gu Zhan didn’t sleep very soundly. After falling asleep, he had some strange dreams.
He dreamt at one point that the clown cat was crying and saying they were all bad guys, and then he dreamed that the space inside his watch exploded, and that damned director came to trouble him again.
Just like that, the night passed in a daze.
"Gu Zhan? Are you awake?"
He heard Yu Yezhou's voice. Gu Zhan moved his arm that was blocking his eyes and saw Yu Yezhou, who had tidied himself up, standing in front of him.
After a night of rest, Yu Yezhou looked much more energetic.
"What’s wrong?" Gu Zhan asked, his voice a bit hoarse.
Yu Yezhou was startled by him: "Are you sick?"
While people could die in the dungeon, getting sick was quite rare.
Gu Zhan shook his head; it was probably because he hadn’t slept well yesterday, and he felt a bit dazed.
He said, "I’m fine, what’s the matter?"
If everything were fine, Yu Yezhou wouldn’t have come to wake him.
Yu Yezhou said, "The puppet came to find us and said we need to go to work."
"What?"
Yu Yezhou moved aside, and Gu Zhan saw that the door to the room was open, with two puppets standing outside. Yang Lin and Xu Yu seemed to be communicating with them.
Yu Yezhou said, "They said we can’t just eat and drink for free here; we have to go earn money and earn wages."
"???"
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