On the Ark.

It's cute!

How could any man resist a pretty, adorable (?) girl like White Owl? Besides, he didn't need to pay her a salary, and White Owl was the only one interviewing him, so there was absolutely no reason to refuse, right? As for White Owl's good points, he only discovered them later.

However, the white-faced owl was quite aware of its own intelligence, which surprised Lin Ye.

While Lin Ye was talking to the white-faced owl, everyone else's attention was focused on the computer.

"This is the dungeon that trapped Liz?" Nearl said. "It looks rather rudimentary."

Shining shook his head and said, "It's probably because it's not perfect yet."

The white-faced owl said, "Yes, this map was constructed based on the information the doctor gave me, but the information he provided was limited, so the map he made was relatively simple."

Lin Ye smiled wryly: "Because I haven't been to most of these places, I can only mention the ones I have been to. And this is just the dungeon; I certainly can't remember the intricate network of tunnels."

Nearl looked at Shining: "Do you remember me?"

Shining shook his head: "No, to be precise, I don't know anything about it. Because when I found Liz, the dungeon and those tunnels had already been almost completely destroyed."

Nightingale was watching from the side, and Lin Ye asked her hopefully, "Liz, do you remember this place?"

The nightingale shook its head.

Well, if she can remember this place, then Lin Ye won't need to bring Liz out of the dungeon.

"So what should we do next?" Nearl asked.

"and many more."

Lin Ye didn't rush into discussion. Instead, he told White Owl everything about his abilities and the dream. White Owl, surprisingly, didn't fall asleep. After listening to Lin Ye's account, a slight hint of surprise appeared in its usually emotionless eyes.

“A very amazing ability,” said the white-faced owl.

Do you understand?

“Agreed.” White Owl nodded. “White Owl believes this is still a game, but one that gambles with Miss Liz. Because we don’t know how much damage this game will cause Miss Liz, we need to try to reduce the number of games. Do you agree with this?”

There's nothing to deny about that. Although Nearl wasn't keen on comparing the nightingale's fate to a game, she said nothing and tacitly agreed with the White-faced Owl's explanation.

“That’s how it is,” Lin Ye said. “Do you have any good methods to minimize the risks?”

The white-faced owl nodded: "The white-faced owl already has an option."

"What plan?" Lin Ye asked immediately.

“As I mentioned to you last time, we need to gather more information,” the White Owl said slowly. “In my opinion, to achieve the goal of saving Miss Liz in the dream, we need to enter the dream at least twice. The first time, the goal is not to save Miss Liz, but to gather as much information as possible and to successfully leave the dungeon while in stealth mode.”

Lin Ye understood what the white-faced owl meant: "Then I'll bring you that information so you can come up with more and better plans?"

The white-faced owl nodded.

"At least twice?" Nearl frowned deeply. "Kreiz's body..."

This was a concern for everyone, especially Lin Ye. Lin Ye remembered the first time he used his ability on Nightingale; after Nightingale lost control, he and Kal'tsit successfully calmed her down in a few hours. But the second time, it took him, Shining, and the entire medical team nearly a day and a night, and even now, Nightingale's mental state couldn't be considered stable. This made Lin Ye very worried about a third time, and according to White Owl's plan, the third time was just a prelude; at least a fourth time would be needed, and at most… who knew how many times.

But everyone knew that the probability of succeeding on the first try was extremely low. Lin Ye hadn't even left the dungeon himself, so how could he possibly know where to take Liz? Ultimately, it was due to insufficient preparation in the previous two attempts; he didn't even know what to do, resulting in a pitifully small amount of information being brought back.

Just as everyone was in silence pondering, the white-faced owl spoke again.

"There's a problem with the white-faced owl."

"Hmm?" Lin Ye looked up at the white-faced owl. "What's the problem?"

The white-faced owl held up three fingers: "According to what you said before, there are three possibilities for how you escaped from the dream."

Three possibilities? Before Lin Ye could react, he heard the white-faced owl say.

"The first scenario is that you 'die' in your dream, examples of which are: Miss Liz, Miss Shining, and Miss Nearl."

"Yes." Lin Ye nodded.

"The second scenario is that the dream ends. Examples of this are Miss Hibiscus and Miss Flame Melt."

"Ah."

“The third scenario.” The white-faced owl lowered two fingers, with only the last one standing upright. “The dream’s owner voluntarily wakes up from the dream, an example being Officer Chen from Lungmen.”

Lin Ye was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized: "Oh yeah! How come I didn't think of that!"

“Because your intelligence… is probably flawed in the direction of your thinking,” the white-faced owl said.

Lin Guang didn't understand: "What do you mean?"

“In Miss Liz’s dreams, Dr. Lin Ye always ends with ‘death,’ meaning that no matter what happens, it’s a nightmare,” White Owl said. “But if we wake Miss Liz up halfway through and end the nightmare early, would that prevent or lessen the harm to her?”

Everyone's eyes lit up.

Chapter 115: Overcoming Challenges (4,000 words)

Although the White-faced Owl had openly and subtly mocked Lin Ye's intelligence more than once, Lin Ye really couldn't do anything about it. Compared to the White-faced Owl, Lin Ye sometimes did wonder if he had forgotten to pay his intelligence bill. After all, the White-faced Owl could always think of things he had never thought of before in the shortest amount of time, and they were things that were obvious and readily apparent.

Aside from Lin Ye and the bewildered Nightingale, everyone else present was also surprised by the White Owl's idea.

After pondering for a moment, Shining asked the first question: "So how do we time to wake Liz? Apart from Lin Ye, no one can know what happened in the dream."

“White Owl thinks we can set a time limit,” White Owl said. “For example, we can set the time Dr. Lin can stay in Miss Liz’s dream for ten minutes. Then we can wake Miss Liz up after ten minutes, and Dr. Lin only needs to make sure he doesn’t die in the dream, so the dream ends early. According to Dr. Lin, if he doesn’t actively attack the characters in the dream, he has a stealth state that won’t be detected. As long as he gathers information in stealth mode, instead of risking taking Miss Liz out, we should be able to ensure the dream doesn’t end early.”

The people at the medical facility exchanged glances.

Clearly, none of them could point out any flaws in the plan; given the information they had, it was undoubtedly the most suitable for Nightingale. Therefore, Shining didn't hesitate much and immediately decided, "I think we can give it a try."

Lin Guang had no way to refute it, and after careful consideration, he nodded: "If this will minimize the harm to Liz, then I agree."

With the two bosses agreeing, Furong and Yanrong naturally had nothing more to say.

Finally, there was Lin Ye. Although Lin Ye was somewhat uneasy, he had to admit that this method was worth a try.

So Nightingale sat down in the chair, and after connecting all the instruments, Shining gave her the sleeping pills.

"You'll feel better after a good night's sleep," Shining said to Nightingale.

Nightingale nodded, then looked at Lin Ye: "Pineapple Bun, will I see you again later?"

Lin Ye asked, "Do you mean in a dream or after waking up?"

"all."

"I can't guarantee that, but you'll definitely see me when you wake up," Lin Ye said.

Nightingale seemed to have gotten the answer she wanted, nodded with satisfaction, and then took her sleeping pills.

As Lin Ye watched the nightingale slowly close her eyes, he felt a mix of emotions.

Hibiscus asked the White-faced Owl, "How long should the first attempt take?"

The white-faced owl tilted its head and said, "The white-faced owl believes that for Miss Liz's safety, the first experiment should not be too long, but it also should not be too short. Otherwise, Dr. Lin will not be able to do much in Miss Liz's dream. In conclusion, I think thirty minutes is a reasonable time."

Lin Guang looked at Lin Ye and asked, "Is thirty minutes enough?"

Lin Ye thought about it carefully for a while, but still couldn't make up his mind: "It should be... enough. Although it's impossible to explore the entire tunnel, it's more than enough to run through the dungeon. The dungeon isn't that big, but if we investigate it according to Bai Gugu's requirements, it might not be enough."

The white-faced owl protested: "My name is White-faced Owl, not White-gugu."

The protests were ignored by everyone.

Shining said, "Let's give it a try first. If we're sure this method won't harm Liz, or can minimize the harm, then we can try it as many times as we want."

“In that case, let’s set the timer at thirty minutes.” Nearl looked at Nightingale. “Is Liz asleep?”

The nightingale did not respond.

Lin Ye walked to Nightingale's side amidst everyone's gaze. He first glanced at the clock, silently memorizing the time, and then took Nightingale's hand.

……

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in that dark tunnel.

This was his third time here, yet he felt no sense of familiarity. Like the previous two times, he had lost all his possessions from the real world except for his clothes, leaving him empty-handed. However, unlike the previous two times, this time he had a clear plan—a plan that required careful time management.

So he didn't linger and ran straight towards the dungeon. A few seconds later, he heard heavy footsteps behind him. He deftly sidestepped, letting the Sarkaz warrior run past him. He increasingly felt that this was a game, everything was pre-programmed, and he was a player who kept failing in the game.

It seems I've been overthinking it again.

Lin Ye shook his head, then quickened his pace. He arrived at the dungeon in less time than the previous two times. This time, he didn't rush to find Liz, but instead spent a few minutes carefully memorizing every detail of the dungeon plaza. Then he immediately headed to the next location to find the young, strong male Sarkaz imprisoned in the cells.

According to White Owl's deduction, most of the women imprisoned in the cells should be "medical personnel" like Liz, while the men are likely from opposing forces, a fact confirmed by Shining. Therefore, Lin Ye could take advantage of this when escaping with Liz to unlock the prisoners and release them all, creating enough chaos to slow down the pursuers.

After searching for a while, Lin Ye actually found quite a few suitable targets. Although most of them were missing limbs, they were demons after all. As long as their heads weren't cut off, they should still be able to fight. They didn't need to be particularly good; they just needed to be competent cannon fodder, able to block one or two blows and buy a second or two of time.

Lin Ye felt his thoughts might be a bit cruel, but upon reflection, players are inherently cruel. Just imagine how many players can remember how many goblins they've killed? That question is as difficult to answer as how many loaves of bread they've eaten. And compared to goblins, Sarkaz samurai… are only slightly more numerous.

After memorizing the approximate locations of the male Sarkaz cells he could use, Lin Ye began searching for the keys. The Sarkaz warriors carried keys, but taking them from them would be a waste of time. Therefore, Lin Ye decided to see if he could find the keys in the dungeon; theoretically, they should all have them.

As it turned out, Lin Ye's idea and luck were both quite good. In less than three minutes, he found the keychain on a wall, in a very conspicuous location. Clearly, the proud Sarkaz warriors didn't believe their medics and enemy prisoners could escape from the dungeon.

Lin Ye took the keychain off and found that the keys were labeled with numbers, which was a great help.

As he was thinking this, the "square" erupted in noise again, and the wounded Sarkaz centurion and the Sarkaz warriors escorting him appeared as per the "script." Lin Ye knew they would soon be going to find Liz, and after a moment's hesitation, he decided to skip Liz and continue exploring the dungeon to gather more information.

Most importantly, he wanted to find the "secret passage" that the Sarkaz warriors had mentioned last time, which led directly to the surface.

Lin Ye had confirmed this with Shining as well; the Sarkaz did indeed construct a secret passage leading directly to the surface when building the underground tunnels. This passage wasn't for people, but for transporting supplies. Therefore, most male Sarkaz couldn't enter; only a small number of women and children could. In other words, if he could find the passage and take Liz inside, he could escape almost all his pursuers. However, what they would encounter after entering the passage was anyone's guess.

However, Lin Ye needs to find it and investigate it to determine whether it can serve as a shortcut to escape the dungeon.

However, Lin Ye didn't have much time left. Although he didn't know the exact time, he had a feeling that nearly half of it had already passed. So, when Liz was taken out of the cell by the Sarkaz warriors, Lin Ye headed in the direction where he and Liz had been chased for the second time.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck wasn't on his side this time. He ran all the way to the end but found no secret passage, only a small storage room filled with jars and pots. This reminded Lin Ye of his previous experience and made him feel nauseous.

Are all these jars filled with...?

Lin Ye initially intended to leave, but then felt it wouldn't be wise and decided to stay and thoroughly examine the storage room. It mainly contained jars; he opened the first jar and found it contained raw meat, immediately breathing a sigh of relief. It seemed this storage room was for storing food.

and many more.

Lin Ye felt something was off. Why would raw meat be in a jar?

Curious, he stuck his head into the jar and sniffed it. The next second, Lin Ye realized what a terrible decision he had made. A putrid stench assaulted his nostrils, almost making him faint. He then realized that the raw meat in the jar wasn't food at all, but rather scraped off by the Sarkaz warriors from their enemies.

Lin Ye covered his mouth, feeling like he was going to vomit.

So he lifted the lid of another jar, and just as he was about to spit it in, he found that there was nothing in the jar.

There was only one narrow passageway.

Lin Ye opened his mouth slightly, and the next second, he lost consciousness.