After being poisoned by mushrooms, all the strange creatures became fascinated by me.

Under the light of the flashlight, footprints appeared one after another on the ground, leading into the distance.

Jiang Hui squatted down and used her hands to roughly measure the footprints, comparing both their size and the stride between them.

"Why... are they adult footprints?"

"Jiang Hui said softly. Her puzzled voice echoed in the dark, silent corridor, ethereal and eerie.

Lu Dapeng claims that what he saw on the first basement level was not a baby, was it?

Judging from the size of these footprints, they are clearly far beyond the size of a child's.

"Shoe size is probably 38...39...40?" she muttered to herself, "Based on stride, height is probably...between 1.7 and 1.75 meters..."

Is it a girl? Or a man who isn't very tall?

But these weren't shoe prints. Jiang Hui looked at the five clearly defined toes on the ground; these were footprints made by bare feet.

A chilling scene flashed through my mind: in the dark basement of a hospital, an adult with his shoes and socks off was walking barefoot on a dusty corridor.

"Could it be that they came to the corridor in an emergency and didn't have time to put on their shoes?" Tang Li asked from the side.

Jiang Hui shook her head: "These footprints are very clear and the pressure is very even. This person walked very calmly. In an emergency, a person would usually walk or run quickly and wouldn't leave footprints like these."

Jiang Hui was still pondering when she didn't notice that Tang Li beside her had fallen into a sudden silence.

She stared at the strangely familiar footprints on the ground, recalling the strangely familiar data that Jiang Hui had just reported.

...No way...

To Jiang Hui's astonishment, Tang Li suddenly began to take off her shoes.

Ten seconds later, an identical footprint appeared on the ground.

"...So it was me." Tang Li said with mixed feelings.

The bizarre experience a few days ago perfectly matches what's happening now; these footprints all over the floor are what she left when she sleepwalked through the underground clinic.

"But I remember my feet were pretty clean the next morning..." Tang Li muttered softly, "And why were there only footprints in one direction? How did I get back to the ward?"

"Gu Xiaoying." "The dungeon boss Gu Xiaoying painstakingly sent you back." "He even wiped your feet like a kind grandfather." The comments, eager for drama, answered her question.

Tang Li pretended not to see: "Good news, if we follow my footprints, we can find ward -104."

"Then let's go." Jiang Hui forced a laugh. "Leave the baby-finding to Qiu Wanting."

At the other end of the basement level.

Qiu Wanting and Lu Dapeng stared at the footprints on the corridor.

Tiny, baby footprints, no bigger than half a palm, densely covered the long corridor.

Qiu Wanting felt a twisted discomfort.

The footprints were too dense, so Qiu Wanting held up a flashlight and gradually shone it forward from one end of the corridor. He could vaguely see the traces of these footprints from stumbling to walking skillfully.

This process is too fast; of course, no baby can go from crawling to walking to running so quickly.

Unless it is merely the body of an infant, yet carries the soul of an adult.

Qiu Wanting frowned in thought, but her peripheral vision remained fixed on Lu Dapeng, who was a few steps away.

Something's wrong with him.

The tall, burly man with a full beard was also staring intently at the footprints on the ground.

His right hand was raised in front of his face, his thick index finger knuckle stuffed in his mouth, clenched tightly by his two rows of teeth. Under the flashlight beam, his eyes gleamed, and a glimmer of light seemed to flash from the corner of his eye and slip into his beard.

Qiu Wanting thought he was very nervous, and perhaps even sad.

—Could there be some special connection between Lu Dapeng and Meng Wanwan? And what is his relationship with Lao Ding?

Qiu Wanting controlled his thoughts, preventing them from spiraling out of control into melodramatic scenarios. He cleared his throat, giving Lu Dapeng time to compose himself: "Let's go."

The two continued walking, and as they walked, Qiu Wanting suddenly realized something was wrong.

He wasn't a father and had no relevant life experience, but he had estimated the extent of the incision on Lao Ding's stomach.

"Meng Wanwan...would a newborn baby have such large footprints?"

Do these patients who "regain their health" quickly grow back to their original age?

Lu Dapeng stopped in his tracks, glaring at Qiu Wanting, his voice booming: "I already said, it wasn't Meng Wanwan!"

Qiu Wanting couldn't completely believe Lu Dapeng's words. Besides, even if there was no relationship between Lu Dapeng and Meng Wanwan, and even if he had always thought Meng Wanwan was dead, it didn't prove that the baby he saw before wasn't Meng Wanwan.

After all, of their group of players, only Lao Ding and Meng Wanwan have entered the "Dream Come True Machine." Who else could this baby be but Meng Wanwan, who was just born to Lao Ding?

Qiu Wanting was still lost in thought and simply nodded casually.

Until Lu Dapeng shouted out a sentence in his rough voice.

"—What I saw earlier was clearly a baby boy!"

An angry roar rolled forward through the air, while at the same time, on this side of the underground floor...

"Did you hear anything?" Jiang Hui suddenly stopped, her ears twitching slightly.

Tang Li looked up blankly; her hearing was about two-thirds as poor as Jiang Hui's: "No?"

"Hopefully, nothing's happened to Qiu Wanting." Jiang Hui rubbed her temples, glanced at the comments briefly, but couldn't find any clues. "Never mind, he's always been cunning and shrewd. Let's just focus on ourselves."

The two followed the footprints and now stood before a rusty iron gate. The scene from her dream was hazy and indistinct. Tang Li seemed to sense something, looked up, and could vaguely make out four words on the faded sign on the door: Ward Number Four.

Yes, this is the door from my dream.

"Luckily, I had the key," Jiang Hui said, inserting the key into the lock. "Ready?"

With a creak, the door opened.

The room was dark inside, and the smell of dust mixed with rust filled the air.

The next second, the body's instincts were awakened, goosebumps rose on the back of the neck, and the brain belatedly reminded:

That wasn't rust, that was blood.