The Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital on Elm Street was filled with noise, and the remnants of the Central Continent team exchanged anxious glances.
Following Yujin's suggestion, everyone had brought their families—spouses and children—to supervise them and also to help themselves stay awake.
There were only two hours left until nightfall, and at the thought of facing an even more unbearable night alone, the elderly woman who hadn't joined last night's group action couldn't help but burst into tears.
She was just an ordinary retired woman, slightly fitter than average.
If she had known that helping her grandson with the computer would lead to this, she would have never touched that cursed mouse, even if it cost her life.
Following her lead, the other four newcomers also began crying, clutching their heads.
"What crime have I committed? I just took a little construction fee—does that mean I deserve to be tortured here?" Liu, who called himself the foreman, sobbed uncontrollably. "I'm so tired, I can't hold on, I want to sleep, I want to sleep!"
The scene also made Zheng Zha's poor wife begin to sob.
"Don't cry, darling." Zheng Zha patted his wife's back gently, unsure of what else to say.
After all, in reality, he was just an outsider who had ended up here, while his wife had truly lost her daughter.
"Daddy, why are they crying?" Diana, dark circles under her eyes, tugged at Yujin's finger. Her big eyes blinked adorably.
Yujin crouched down. "If you fall asleep, Daddy and Mommy will cry like this too, okay? No sleeping."
"Oh, okay. Diana won't sleep then."
"Ahhhhh!"
A sudden scream drew everyone's attention!
The foreman Liu, who had just been crying, now had a huge hole in his chest! His tongue hung out, and his eye sockets were empty.
It was sheer horror.
The members of the Reincarnation Squad and the bewildered family members collectively fell silent, no longer complaining.
The wife and child of Foreman Liu, arranged by the Lord God, nearly fainted from fright.
Seeing this, a flash of realization struck Yujin's mind!
He slapped his thigh. "The calculation was wrong!"
"What… what do you mean we miscalculated?" Zhan Lan asked, confused.
"We can't just count the squad members, we need to count the whole family of three!" Yujin said, quickly pointing to everyone present.
Excluding Zheng Zha's unlucky daughter and Foreman Liu, the number of people present was twenty-five.
Yujin recalled the details of encountering Freddy in the dream and quickly reached a conclusion.
This was a demon who liked to drive people to the brink, breaking their minds before making a move!
"Judging from last night, even when someone falls asleep, Freddy won't attack immediately in the first thirty seconds," Yujin explained.
"A thirty-second safety window," he smiled at everyone in the room. "If we use this wisely, we can avoid a lot of danger!"
"Taking control of the danger yourself," he continued, "is like holding a kitchen knife."
"If it's in your hand, it's no longer dangerous!"
Zhan Lan nodded, bewildered. "But… but how exactly do we do that?"
Yujin's eyes lit up. "Sleep together!"
"Sleep together?" Zheng Zha blinked, dumbfounded. "What do you mean?"
"If everyone sleeps together, Freddy can only chase one person at a time in the dream! As long as we control it to twenty-five seconds, the chase is basically harmless."
Yujin tapped his fingers on the table. "Although twenty-five seconds of sleep is short, it's heavenly compared to staying awake for ten days straight!"
"If we steal enough moments of sleep during the night, accidents during the day will be much less likely."
"At the same time, controlling Freddy becomes much easier! It won't have the time to attack me before re-entering the dream."
"But… but…" Zhan Lan quickly caught the problem. "How can we make sure everyone falls asleep and wakes up at the same time? By phone?"
"Of course not. We sleep in person," Yujin said without hesitation.
"Sleep in person? But won't that mean facing Freddy's chase at night?!" Zhan Lan's heart skipped a beat just thinking about the terrifying scenes from last night.
"You're not the ones being chased, so what's there to fear? I'll take the hit!"
"But… how do we actually do it?" Zhan Lan pressed on.
Yujin then looked at Zheng Zha. "Tonight, you'll need to contribute. Start sleeping from now."
"Zhan Lan, if you don't want Zheng Zha to die, wake him up every twenty seconds. That's on you."
Yujin then turned his gaze to the group.
"Then."
"Let's spend the night in the anesthesia room of the hospital tonight!"
Night had fallen, and Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital was shrouded in an eerie silence.
The hospital lights seemed unusually dim, as if even the light itself could barely penetrate the oppressive atmosphere.
In the hallway, two young nurses lay on the cold floor, unconscious, making the entire hospital feel even more dead and terrifying.
A strange wind echoed through the corridors and ventilation ducts, sometimes near, sometimes far, like the breathing of some unseen creature, or like invisible hands lightly tapping on the windows, sending chills down one's spine.
Inside the anesthesia room, the tension and fear were almost tangible.
Blankets and mats were spread out on the cold floor, and everyone except Zheng Zha and Yujin lay on them, their expressions full of dread.
Some kept their eyes tightly shut, afraid that opening them would reveal something they shouldn't see.
Others kept their eyes wide open, staring fixedly at the ceiling, as if searching for a sliver of hope.
The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant, mixed with the scent of sweat and fear, creating a suffocating atmosphere.
The door to the anesthesia room was firmly shut, as if trying to keep the outside terror at bay, yet the strange wind still seeped in through the cracks around the door and windows, making it impossible to feel safe.
Yujin raised his hand to check his watch; only a minute remained until Freddy's appearance.
Holding a syringe in his hand, Yujin muttered, "Administering anesthesia to so many people at once requires some skill. Thankfully, I have these eyes."
Zheng Zha looked curiously at Yujin's three-tomoe Sharingan.
Since Zheng Zha had been pulled from the 2007 timeline into the Lord God space in real life, he wasn't unfamiliar with the cultural impact of the Naruto manga, and he knew what Yujin's eyes signified.
"Captain," Zheng Zha swallowed hard, "if you've strengthened to the three-tomoe level, how many horror movies must you have gone through? I heard from Zhang Jie that this seems to be your second horror movie you can freely navigate. How are you so amazing?"
"Talent."
"Talent, huh? I wish I had that kind of talent too." Zheng Zha slowly lowered his head, his eyes filled with envy.
Yujin didn't even bother to comment on Zheng Pangu.
Entering the Lord God Space in Resident Evil, just passing through. Then Alien unlocked the first lock, Grudge unlocked the second, and The Mummy unlocked the third.
Zheng Zha leveled up like riding a rocket.
After experiencing so many things, Yujin still hadn't unlocked the second-stage gene lock. Who was really the one to envy?
"When will I unlock the second lock?"
Just as he thought this, a series of hurried footsteps in the corridor interrupted his thoughts.
"A visitor!"
****
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