Trembling At A High Altitude

The two chatted as they ran, and before they knew it, nearly half an hour had passed.

Li Teng had earned over three hundred Time Index points while Liu Yin earned over two hundred.

In total, that was worth...

Just over six yuan.

Enough to buy a cubic meter of natural gas and two kilograms of potatoes.

Without oil, they could only boil the potatoes.

Soon, Li Teng remembered he didn't have water either; if he was to buy water, he had to buy at least a ton of it.

And a ton of water would cost over two hundred Time Index points.

Well, then, bake the potatoes it was.

The mere thought of the delicious baked potatoes had Li Teng finding it hard to stay put, so he decided to stop running for a bit, buy two kilos of potatoes, and eat them baked.

But just as Li Teng was about to make his baked potato dream come true, the power went out.

The already dim room plunged into darkness.

Liu Yin's scream followed immediately.

It seemed the advanced loan of electricity had run out.

"Don't scream, I'm here, there's nothing to be afraid of." Li Teng groped in the dark, feeling his way towards Liu Yin, and grabbed her arm.

Liu Yin quickly grabbed Li Teng's arm in return and then stepped down from the treadmill.

"What's going on? It's so dark," Liu Yin's voice trembled.

"The power's out, I'll go add some value to the electricity meter and that should fix it." Li Teng led Liu Yin towards the door of the treadmill room.

The electricity meter was next to the security door, with a recharge screen below it.

Li Teng spent a little over fifty Time Index points to charge the meter with one kilowatt-hour of electricity.

The lights in the room came back on.

He only loaded in 0.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity; it seemed half of it went to pay back the previous advance.

After considering for a moment, Li Teng charged the meter with two more kilowatt-hours of electricity, to prevent the lights from going off again and giving Liu Yin a fright.

He then took Liu Yin to the kitchen, bought two kilograms of potatoes from the fridge door, and prepared to eat them raw again.

"We should be able to use the microwave to bake the potatoes, right?" Liu Yin pointed to the microwave built into the cabinet.

"If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have even noticed the thing," Li Teng said as he opened the microwave door and placed a few potatoes inside.

"It's better to bake them one at a time," Liu Yin suggested to Li Teng.

"For someone like you, a pampered young lady from a wealthy household, to know about baking potatoes in a microwave?" Li Teng thought she must be the type to have everything handed to her on a plate.

"My sister and I have to stay at our foster parents' home to experience life every summer and winter holiday, the life of an ordinary family," Liu Yin replied to Li Teng.

"Rich people really know how to play around," sneered Li Teng, who couldn't believe they actually tried to experience the life of ordinary folks. It sounded incredibly tedious to him.

Why doesn't anyone offer me a chance to experience the life of the rich?

Once the potatoes were baked, Liu Yin finally ate two, but Li Teng ate all the rest.

"You still want to run?" Liu Yin could hardly manage anymore; the long run earlier had pushed her to her limit.

"If we don't run, there's nothing to eat," Li Teng returned to the treadmill room.

"You really go all out for a bite to eat," Liu Yin commented.

"Isn't that what living is about: just for a bite to eat? What else could there be?" Li Teng's expression conveyed his conviction.

"But there's family, love, ideals, careers... There are so many other things to live for. How can it just be about eating?" Liu Yin disagreed with Li Teng's perspective.

"Family? Love? According to some spooky research, they're actually... No, can't say that, someone told me not to spread it around," Li Teng thought better of it and stopped himself from finishing his sentence.

"What are they? Spooky? Who told you not to talk about it? You can tell me; I won't spread it around," Liu Yin's curiosity was piqued by Li Teng.

"Swear you won't spread it."

"I swear I won't spread it around."

"I absolutely won't tell a second person."

"I definitely won't."

"Alright, then I'll tell you..." Li Teng exaggerated the gene theory he heard from Yao Xue when he told Liu Yin, but he didn't reveal the source, nor did he mention that it was Director Yao Xue who said it.

"So, stop talking about family affection or love. They are unreliable; it's food that's the most dependable," Li Teng concluded.

"Isn't that too horrifying? It's too subversive! Somehow, it just doesn't seem possible," Liu Yin was indeed shocked.

"Others may not know, but I can always feel that my genes dictate my actions; often my behavior is involuntary," Li Teng cited himself as an example.

"Hmm, taking advantage of Anna, following the female director around, those are the results of your genes at work, right?" Liu Yin was very astute.

"Look what you're saying—am I that kind of person?"

"Heh."

With Liu Yin to talk to, Li Teng wasn't so bored and unknowingly ran for another hour. Holding over seven hundred Time Index, he this time bought a pound of flour, exchanged for one character's worth of natural gas, and one ton of water.

After mixing the flour into dough, he rolled it into thin pancakes and cooked them in a pan.

"Try this." Li Teng tore one of the cooked pancakes in half and handed one half to Liu Yin.

Without oil or salt, it really wasn't very tasty, and Liu Yin lost her appetite after trying it.

Li Teng cooked a few more pancakes and ate them all by himself. He didn't mind whether they tasted good; as long as he was full, that was all that mattered.

Then he went back to the treadmill.

"So, having something to eat can make you do anything, huh?" Liu Yin admired how Li Teng could run for so long without getting tired.

"No, I do have my principles. I won't agree to anything that crosses my moral line, no matter how high the stakes," Li Teng responded to Liu Yin with conviction.

"Heh."

...

As Li Teng ran and the two of them talked, daybreak caught them by surprise.

Li Teng walked to the window, pulled back the curtains, and looked outside through the glass.

The day had indeed broken, but it was a murky gray; fog filled the air, making it impossible to see clearly what the outside world was like.

To understand it better, it would be best to go out and see.

There could be some risk.

There might even be a danger to life.

But staying in the house all the time, how would the plot move forward?

They agreed that this was the Time Prison, and a prison break was in order.

Actually, Li Teng was somewhat reluctant to leave.

As long as he ran, there was food, and he had a beautiful girl to chat with—it was far more comfortable than the top of the stone pillar.

If they couldn't escape, being trapped here forever wouldn't be so bad.

The problem was, Li Teng figured they wouldn't be trapped here indefinitely.

The 60-day countdown on the wall was likely the limit.

During this period, if another group found a way to escape first, and theirs was the last, one of them would be eliminated and sealed in wax.

In addition, the first group to successfully break out would get double the salary. For him, that would be 40 points, which was very tempting.

So, it was better to quickly investigate the world outside the door; relative to other groups, this would give them an advantage.

If it was dangerous, he would just run back quickly.

Li Teng found a kitchen knife and then prepared to leave.

"Are you really going out? You're going to leave me here alone? Maybe I should come with you," Liu Yin was very afraid.