No one knew how much time had passed. The five men's eyes were now bloodshot, and they looked like demons from hell, no longer remotely human.
Drool ran down the corners of their mouths, but they paid it no mind.
Being forbidden to sleep might have sounded like a trivial punishment, but in reality, it was the most grueling punishment of all.
As time passed, the torment only grew worse.
By the end, every additional second multiplied their suffering.
They had screamed themselves hoarse and could only make ragged sounds as they breathed in and out.
Throughout this time, they kept cursing Hawkeye and Su Yu, then begging Hawkeye for mercy.
But they received no response. Only when they could no longer make a sound did they stop this futile behavior.
They had already despaired. Despair as deep as an endless abyss covered their mouths, noses, ears, and eyes, leaving them powerless to struggle.
At that moment, Hawkeye finally opened his eyes.
A trace of confusion first flashed through his eyes before he remembered what had happened earlier.
He hurriedly checked on the five men, only to be startled by their current appearance.
Then he glanced at the timer above and discovered that a full day and night had passed.
He patted his head. He had gotten too absorbed in his meditation and forgotten the time.
Inside the transparent room, one minute was a day, twenty-four hours. In other words, the five men had gone a full 1,440 days-nearly four years-without sleeping.
This was only possible inside this transparent room. Under normal circumstances, an ordinary person would die after going without sleep for a dozen days or so at most.
But at this point, the five men were little different from corpses. They looked as though they had lost their