Trembling At A High Altitude

As the countdown shifted from 60 days to 59.

That is, at the stroke of midnight.

Li Teng, barely alive with severed limbs in the ruins, suddenly sat up in bed with a start.

The bombed-out house, furniture, and bedding—all had been restored to their original state.

His amputated arms and legs were also as good as new.

The balance of the Time Index on the wall had not been reset to zero.

The 30-day countdown had not been reset to zero either.

It seemed that the 30-day countdown would only reset when he was asleep.

Outside, Liu Yin's cries of terror could be heard.

After responding, Li Teng walked out.

Liu Yin was still pale-faced, shivering uncontrollably.

On seeing Li Teng, she wanted to say something, but her chattering teeth prevented her from uttering a word.

Li Teng opened his arms to her.

Liu Yin walked over and leaned into Li Teng's embrace, then burst into tears.

This was the first time she had truly been injured during a performance, experiencing pain beyond her tolerance.

Her body had recovered, but the psychological trauma could not be erased.

Just like Daisy, who had been fine after acting in the first two scenes, but after being whipped by Feng Dahai, she chose to jump off the stone pillar.

Not everyone possessed a mind as strong as Li Teng's.

"It's all over now, everything has passed," Li Teng said patting Liu Yin's back, attempting in vain to comfort her.

Such mental scars, even in the hands of a professional psychologist, took a long time of training and guidance before the victims could walk out from their psychological shadows.

Clearly, that approach was not feasible here.

"I don't want to stay here anymore, I want to go back," Liu Yin said to Li Teng through her tears.

"This is a prison, the only way back is to figure out how to break out," Li Teng had to remind Liu Yin of the harsh reality.

"How can we break out?" asked Liu Yin.

"Sit down, I'll look for the answer," Li Teng suggested.

After helping Liu Yin to sit on the sofa, he took a heavy wooden chair and went downstairs to smash the alloy door of the basement, but he couldn't break through.

He went up to smash the iron gates upstairs, which were also unbreakable.

He returned to the first floor, fetched a pot lid and a frying pan from the kitchen.

"I'm going to explore the outside world; the answer should be outside the house. After I leave, don't open the door on your own. If I knock, it will be two knocks, followed by three, and then two more," Li Teng instructed Liu Yin after some thought.

"It's pitch-black outside now, and there are monsters. Going out is a death sentence!" Liu Yin hurriedly tried to stop Li Teng.

"I won't die. The person who designed this script didn't want to kill us, only to torture us," Li Teng had long seen through this.

"Let's wait until daylight at least. Going out blind won't allow you to discover anything," Liu Yin advised Li Teng.

Ultimately, Li Teng gave in and agreed to venture out after dawn as Liu Yin had suggested.

To divert Liu Yin's attention, Li Teng took her to the treadmill room and together they ran.

Liu Yin's condition was very poor, mirroring Daisy's after her punishment by Feng Dahai.

Li Teng was quite worried but powerless to help.

The key issue is that Liu Yin is now even worse off than Daisy.

Li Teng deeply suspected that before he could get Liu Yin out of this Time Prison, even if she wanted to commit suicide, she wouldn't be able to do it, no matter how severe the injury, even in death, she would still wake up from a fully restored house's bedroom bed when midnight came.

This is the perverted aspect of this plot!

You don't want to endure the torment, and you can't even choose death as a way out!

...

At midnight, Elsa and Gao Fei also woke up in shock and sat up in bed.

Elsa didn't run to the living room to scream like Liu Yin, but instead lay back down on the bed and silently wept.

Gao Fei's situation wasn't much better, he sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly.

...

"Let me out! What kind of hell is this? Who the hell wrote this storyline? I'm not acting it anymore!" Luo Bijiao's bedroom was filled with her protestations that sounded like a pig being slaughtered, which, combined with her girlish voice, created a bizarre and terrifying feeling.

"What sin did I commit? Beaten up by that fatso in the morning, shot in the afternoon, not a moment's peace—how am I supposed to live like this? Director! Please, I'm begging you, let me out!" Huang Xun held his head in his hands, sobbing on the bed, hoping that the director would see this and take pity on him, letting him out of there.

...

"Stop crying! You're a soldier!" Guo Haopeng yelled at his wife.

"But I'm also human! A woman! I can't take it anymore, this is unbearable!" Mrs. Guo continued to sob uncontrollably.

"Think about Lele, don't you want to get back to him? If you can't keep going, what will he do? Who will take care of him? Do you want him to be without parents at such a young age? You need to stay calm! We must find a way out of here!" Guo Haopeng kept persuading his wife.

Everything that started happening at noon dealt a great psychological blow to Guo Haopeng.

But he knew he had to be strong; if he collapsed, it would be the end for him and his wife.

Not to mention the prospect of a family reunion.

"Stay calm? And then what?" Mrs. Guo said with a look of despair.

"We'll go for a run," Guo Haopeng answered his wife.

"Is running any use? I can't see any hope," Mrs. Guo shook her head.

"Let's start with running, and then, when it gets light, we'll go out together to see if we can find a way to leave this place," Guo Haopeng answered his wife.

Mrs. Guo didn't say anything more, her face stricken with grief as she went to the treadmill room with Guo Haopeng and continued running.

...

Over here, Li Teng and Liu Yin also stopped talking, quietly running on the treadmills.

The Time Index slowly increased.

Relying on this speed to earn Time Index, to counteract the 30-day countdown, wouldn't be enough to offset the time consumed while sleeping, unless they found a faster method to decrease the countdown time.

When Liu Yin grew tired and wanted to sleep, Li Teng told her to go back to the bedroom, but she refused.

Li Teng had no choice but to push the couch from the living room in, fetched a blanket for her, and let her sleep on the couch while he continued to run on the treadmill.

Liu Yin slept restlessly, screaming and crying in her dreams, occasionally waking with a start. Each time, Li Teng would stop and go over to comfort her until she fell asleep again before he resumed running.

Unaware of the passing hours, dawn gradually broke.

Liu Yin finally fell into a deep sleep, free of nightmares.

Li Teng moved away from the treadmill room with light steps, going into the kitchen to get a pot lid and a frying pan.

Continuing to stay in the house had become meaningless under the current circumstances.

This time, he planned to explore further afield to see if he could find more clues.

To venture farther out, first he needed to practice fighting the Giant Rats that jumped and bit, if he could master a way to handle them, he might be able to travel further.