Seeing that the patient was behaving himself, the long-haired nurse smiled with satisfaction. Then she turned to Zong Lanzhi and the others. "You've only just checked in, so remember to protect yourselves. Don't let these people hurt you, and don't let them lead you astray. They're all out of their minds."
What could Zong Lanzhi and the others say? They obediently nodded. Otherwise, they might well be restrained and given injections and medication.
The injections and medication might not even be real, but psychological suggestion could be highly convincing. Given enough time, they might really start confusing imagination with reality.
The rooms were soon assigned, and the Players who had been given rooms had to stay on their assigned floors. Thus, the higher they went, the fewer people remained. By the time they reached the eighth floor, only Zong Lanzhi, Jiang Ke, Xiao Yue, and Zhuang He were left.
The four were assigned to four different rooms, as though someone had deliberately separated them. Each ward also had other patients.
There were two people in Zong Lanzhi's ward. One was strapped to a bed, eyes wide open and fixed on the ceiling, without so much as blinking for a long time. The other sat on the bed facing the wall, muttering to himself nonstop. He rambled on about all kinds of nonsense that no one could understand.
The long-haired nurse didn't close the door when she left. She simply reminded him patiently, "You can walk around during the day, but don't come out at night."
Zong Lanzhi smiled and agreed.
The nurses soon left, and the floor grew noisy again after only a brief lull. Jiang Ke and the other two came out of their rooms. They had already tested things out: the patients in the wards felt completely real.