Trembling At A High Altitude

A Rich Girl like Shen Mengying should have this much pocket change, right?

In this situation, I have no choice but to borrow some money from her to tide me over.

I'll figure out a way to pay her back later.

I really can't afford to hang out with these rich girls!

With the five thousand yuan in manuscript fees, I thought covering a meal wouldn't be a big deal.

But it ended up costing fifty-seven thousand, and on top of that an extra two hundred and fifty...

"Is this Miss Shen?" Li Teng dialed the phone number Shen Mengying had given him.

"Brother Teng?" Shen Mengying's voice came through.

"You recognize my voice..." Li Teng was a little surprised; he had only met Shen Mengying once, and she recognized his voice?

"What do you need?" Shen Mengying asked.

"I wanted to borrow some money." Li Teng braced himself.

"How much?"

"Fifty-two thousand two hundred and fifty. I will think of a way to pay you back as soon as possible." Li Teng gave her the amount.

"What happened?" Shen Mengying inquired.

"Nothing much, it's just that... Liu Yin, she treated me to a meal last time, and I wanted to return the favor, but I only had five thousand yuan on me, and the meal ended up being fifty-seven thousand two hundred and fifty, so..." Li Teng explained.

"You had a meal with her, why didn't she pay?" Shen Mengying continued to ask.

"She got drunk."

"Where did you eat?"

"Liuyun, the restaurant next to where we had the buffet last time."

"Oh, which private room?"

"Let me check... it's... 2088."

"Okay, I've got it, just wait a moment." Shen Mengying said and then hung up the phone.

"Is she lending it to me, or not?" Li Teng glanced at the waiter, then at his phone, with an awkward expression on his face.

The waiter watched Li Teng with a schadenfreude smile.

This guy must have been duped by that girl! Three bottles of wine at 18,888 yuan each.

Judging by his attire, there was no way he could afford to drink such expensive wine.

A few minutes later.

"Sir, will you be paying the bill now?" The waiter nudged Li Teng.

"I'm waiting for a friend." Li Teng managed to explain.

As the waiter was about to say something, he suddenly noticed the restaurant manager rushing in from outside.

"Are you Mr. Li?" After entering the private room, the manager asked Li Teng very respectfully.

"Ah, yes." Li Teng nodded.

"This is a gold card Miss Shen sent you, from now on when you dine at Liuyun Grand Hotel, just sign with this card." The manager handed a gold card to Li Teng.

"I don't have to pay?" Li Teng confirmed, in case it was just a discount card.

"No need, no need, Miss Shen is one of the major shareholders of the hotel, all expenses charged to this card will go on her account. Oh, you need to activate this card the first time you use it, you can do it with your phone." The manager took out his phone, opened the hotel's internal management app, and helped Li Teng with registration, including facial verification and electronic signature, and so on.

After activation, Li Teng handed the gold card to the waiter.

Indeed, the bill was settled without having to pay.

"Can I... can I go now?" Li Teng checked with the waiter.

"Yes, you're good to go." The waiter hurriedly nodded.

"Sorry about that, I've caused you some trouble, made you wait quite a while." Li Teng apologized to the waiter.

"Not at all, it's our job, we're supposed to wait however long." The waiter quickly responded to Li Teng.

After leaving the restaurant, Li Teng, holding Liu Yin, went to the hotel's front desk to get a room.

"Sir, what is your relationship with her?" the front desk clerk at the hotel asked Li Teng.

Nowadays, hotel receptionists are especially cautious when men check in with a drunk woman, fearing the hotel might inadvertently make headlines.

"Friends," Li Teng said, handing over a gold card to the front desk clerk.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I will register you immediately," the clerk said, no longer asking any questions upon seeing the gold card.

This wasn't just any gold card; it was a gold card exclusively held by major shareholders of the hotel.

It was hard to tell that this young man, dressed in Taobao clothes, actually possessed a gold card belonging to a major shareholder.

Could he have picked it up somewhere?

"Sir, could you please look this way?" the front desk clerk asked Li Teng to undergo facial recognition.

And the result... he passed.

So it seems he didn't pick it up.

"Here is your room key. Do you need us to escort you upstairs?" the front desk clerk asked Li Teng.

"No need, I can go up myself," Li Teng said, carrying Liu Yin a few steps before turning back.

"Could you tell me where the elevator is?"

"Over there..."

...

The next day.

"Cough, it really wasn't on purpose, you were the one who initiated it," Li Teng said, looking at the crying Liu Yin beside him, feeling very uneasy.

Liu Yin cried without speaking.

"Actually, I'm in more pain than you. The wound I had was healing over, but it's been rubbed raw again..." Li Teng attempted to garner sympathy.

Liu Yin continued to cry without speaking.

"Alright, even if it was you who initiated it, it's still my fault. After all, you were drunk, and I shouldn't have let it happen.

"What's done is done. Go to the police station and file a report. If I deserve to be jailed, I'll be jailed, if I deserve to be executed, I'll be executed. I confess my guilt and accept punishment," Li Teng continued to apologize.

Liu Yin still cried without speaking.

...

Half an hour later.

"Will you take responsibility for me?" Liu Yin finally spoke.

"I will! Absolutely!" At this point, Li Teng could no longer entertain any conspiracy theories. He was a real man who hadn't kept his brother in check, so he had to take responsibility until the end.

"Come meet my parents at my house, and let's make our situation official," Liu Yin suggested to Li Teng.

"Oh... that... alright," Li Teng did not expect it to happen so fast.

"Does that seem reluctant to you?" Liu Yin asked.

"Not reluctant... I basically got a pretty and rich wife out of the blue..." Li Teng knew the whole situation was bizarre, assuming he had definitely walked into a trap, yet, after what happened last night, he knew he had to step into it even if it was a trap.

"Then let's go."

"Okay."

...

Three hours later.

Li Teng left the Liu Family home.

Just like all the clichéd TV dramas and movies.

At the Liu Family's, he didn't encounter any kind words and was almost chased out.

Liu Yin was placed under house arrest by her extremely strict father—without his permission, she couldn't leave the Liu Family residence, and her phone was confiscated.

"I expected this outcome already."

When Li Teng left the Liu Family home, he wasn't angry at all.

On the contrary, he felt a sense of relief.

When the Liu Family kicked him out just now, he ran faster than a rabbit.

I got a taste of something good, and I don't even have to take responsibility...

Why do I feel like I'm just a scumbag?

Forget it, better not to overthink it. In fact, I really want to take responsibility for her, but this cruel reality won't let me!

Yeah, I'm definitely not a scumbag, just a tragic, poor male protagonist.

I should hurry back and continue drawing comics. Last night's room cost more than two thousand for one night, and I now owe Shen Mengying exactly sixty thousand. How many comics will I have to draw to pay this off?

Just as Li Teng had sat down on the bus, the sky suddenly started to rain.

Dark clouds were rolling in.

"The weather forecast didn't say it was going to rain today!" someone on the street said, puzzled.

"Those clouds look pretty scary!" another person pointed at the sky with a look of terror on their face.

"It's just past noon, how can it be so dark already?" Bystanders stopped and looked up at the sky together.

The dark clouds in the sky kept rolling, like a pot of water about to boil, ready to bubble over at any moment.

And the clouds were gradually forming into a vortex shape, with faint flashes of lightning visible in the middle.

A violent rainstorm seemed imminent, and the street where everyone was standing appeared to be directly underneath this vortex!

Sitting on the bus, Li Teng's phone suddenly rang.

It was Mother Li calling.

"Is it that you won't call me if I don't call you?" Mother Li asked.

"How could that be?" Li Teng laughed.

"Did you have dinner with Yin Yin yesterday? How did it go?" Mother Li asked again.

"She drank too much, I got a room with her at the hotel, she was very forward, and I didn't refuse... In the morning, I told her to report me to the police, but she wouldn't. She took me to her house, and then...

"I was kicked out of her house."

Li Teng explained the situation briefly, as if he was telling someone else's story, his tone surprisingly calm.

"Things are moving that fast? Her parents don't approve of you two being together?" Mother Li asked.

"Yes."

"Then you have to find a way to get together with her a few more times, wait until she gets pregnant, gives birth to your child, then her parents will have no way to stop you two." Mother Li seemed to have anticipated this situation and had already devised a strategy.

"Mom, you..." Li Teng was speechless.

"What's wrong with pursuing love? Her parents are even interfering with their daughter's marriage, it's just too backward!" Mother Li was indignant.

"She's been grounded now, and it seems her phone has been confiscated as well," Li Teng added a few more details.

"No problem, they can't keep her locked up forever, and my son is so capable, you'll surely hit the target with one shot! Don't you dare give up! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you! It's like a salted fish turning over... no, more like a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate..."

As they were on the phone, an extremely bright flash of white light passed by outside the bus.

Even in broad daylight, this white light was blinding.

A burning white column of light appeared between heaven and earth, connecting the center of the dark clouds above to the body of a cement mixer truck speeding across a crossroads below.

After being struck by lightning, the cement mixer truck turned instantaneously into a massive fireball of electrical light and surged forward out of control!

The passengers inside the bus, looking outside, had looks of terror on their faces and instinctively grasped at anything they could hold onto.

"Boom! Crack!"

A deafening thunderclap sounded.

A thunderbolt from a clear sky, everyone inside and outside the bus screamed in alarm.

The traffic light was green, and the bus was passing through the crossroads.

The cement mixer truck that had come rushing out from another street was out of control, completely disregarding the intersection's red light, and it was headed straight for the bus!

The bus driver, noticing something was wrong, quickly jerked the steering wheel, but it was too late.

"Bang!"

Another loud noise.

The hard nose of the high-speed cement mixer truck heavily collided with the right side of the bus's front end!

The massive body of the bus spun violently, and in that instant, due to inertia, all the passengers were flung from their seats.

And Li Teng, who was sitting by the window, flew out of the window directly from his seat since the window was open.

His body hit the cement tanker with a heavy thud, and a strong current passed through his entire body in an instant...

The out-of-control cement tanker continued to charge forward, rolling over violently after crashing into a roadside cement flowerbed and smashing into a storefront, finally expending its energy and coming to a stop after demolishing a three-story building.

During the violent rolling of the cement tanker, someone was thrown off the body of the vehicle.

Head first, they hit the ground and lay motionless.

On the street, a torrential downpour fell, and screams and cries filled the air.

The scene was unspeakably tragic, as if it were the end of the world.

...

Five years later.

"Daddy! Daddy! Are you awake?"

When Li Teng woke up, he heard a crisp voice beside him.

Turning his head, he saw a scrawny little girl about four or five years old, with a dirty face and wearing ragged clothes, staring at him with wide eyes.

"That's great! Daddy, you finally woke up! Yingying has a daddy now!"

The little girl confirmed that Li Teng was awake and started dancing excitedly, shouting loudly.

"Daddy?" Li Teng frowned.

How did he suddenly have a daughter?

Activating Soul Power, he searched carefully at the bottom of his memory; slowly, he began to recall some things from before the crossing.

Before he fell into a coma from the car accident, he and Liu Yin had visited the Liu Family for the first time.

Liu Yin's family were the richest in He City.

At that time, he was an impoverished young man making a living by drawing comics, with not a penny to his name.

But to know what the outcome will be...

Shortly after leaving the Liu Family, he encountered that horrific bus accident, after which he crossed souls to Dream Star, spending a long fifty thousand years there.

In those fifty thousand years, he went from a naive young man from the Blue planet, overcoming various difficulties and enduring countless hardships, to finally becoming the first Dream Master to enter the Saint Realm on Dream Star.

With Soul Power, he could distort time and space, control dreams, create virtual reality, and even engage causality weapons.

Dream Star was located in a very ancient star system. Li Teng's ascent to the Saint Realm consumed a large amount of resources, some of the last remaining resources of Dream Star, which faced collapse due to this.

In desperation, Li Teng, at the cost of his cultivation, exhausted his formidable Soul Power to twist time and space and forcefully opened a Soul Crossing channel between Dream Star and the Blue planet.

He had prepared to seize a body and be reborn on the Blue planet, but his body on the Blue planet had not decayed in five years!

The Soul automatically returned to its original body!

How inconceivable! Such a severe car accident, he had been in a coma or even a dead state for a full five years, so why was his physical body still intact?

Fifty thousand years had passed on Dream Star, but only five years had passed on the Blue planet.

After returning, he suddenly had a daughter?

The little girl seemed to be only four or five years old, and one could roughly make out Liu Yin's features from her brows and eyes.

He and she, it was just that one time? A direct hit?

Five years ago, at the time of his car accident, she had not yet been born. It was impossible for his physical body on the Blue planet to have been guarded by her; there definitely had to be someone else.

"Your name is Yingying?" Li Teng asked the little girl.

"Mhm mhm." Yingying nodded vigorously.

"Is your mother Liu Yin?" Li Teng asked again.

"Yes." Yingying nodded again.

"Then... where is your mother?" Li Teng asked further.

"Yingying was naughty, mommy doesn't want Yingying anymore..." Hearing Li Teng asking about her mother, Yingying's lips quivered, and tears started to fall.

Li Teng frowned, and continued to search his mind for ancient memories.