Trembling At A High Altitude

"This is a forced method of script integration under the rules of the Film and Television City, a form of cooperation between us directors. To promote each other and for the convenience of shooting, we set unrelated scripts as side-storylines for each other. This way, actors can use various skills, equipment, and props accumulated from different scripts, as long as they do not violate the foundational rules of the other scripts."

Liu Shiyuan briefly explained to Li Teng before his phone suddenly rang.

"I have some calls to make. If you have no objections, you can have a half-hour break. Come back here in half an hour, and I'll take you over," Liu Shiyuan said before standing up and walking into the café while answering his phone.

"Okay."

After setting an alarm on his wristwatch, Li Teng walked towards the beach again.

He sat on a large rock and watched the waves crash onto the shore, listening to the seagulls' cries, trying to recall some past events, but he found his memory somewhat blurry.

Then, his mind was emptied by the sound of the waves.

When the alarm on his wristwatch went off, it caught Li Teng by surprise.

He struggled for a good while to recall that the director had given him a half-hour break before he was supposed to hurry back to the café.

Li Teng hastily returned to the café.

After waiting for five minutes, Liu Shiyuan came out of the café, summoned his bodyguard-cum-driver to bring the car around, and with Li Teng on board, they drove towards the building where the Time Bubble had been last time.

It seemed that Director Liu Shiyuan and his director friends were quite fond of using Time Bubble Technology for filmmaking.

But it was not surprising, as lengthy scenes were difficult to shoot in ordinary settings.

The more senior directors like Liu Shiyuan, with greater authority, naturally preferred longer scripts.

It wasn't hard to deduce; novice directors, like Yao Xue, with less experience, simply weren't qualified to use Time Bubbles, and had to settle for designing low-budget, small-scale scenes—even resorting to shooting next to a café, as in the last two scenes.

Yao Xue's "Lurking War Wolf" was probably the biggest production she could manage with her available resources.

A director like Liu Shiyuan, ranked within the top twenty-five thousand, wouldn't normally take over a new production full of inexperienced extras like theirs. Li Teng surmised that Liu Shiyuan was probably assigned to their crew as a punishment for some mistake.

Of course, all of this was just Li Teng's speculation. Everything might not be as he imagined.

This time, the shooting location was the same building where "Time Prison" was filmed, and they were using Time Bubble number 619.

After ushering Li Teng into the building, Liu Shiyuan left, instructing him to head to Time Bubble 619 on his own, saying that the assistant director would be waiting for them in the break room to explain the script.

When Li Teng arrived at the break room next to Time Bubble 619, everyone else had already gathered.

The temporary script was created by one of Liu Shiyuan's senior director friends to appease the Film and Television City inspectors. The assistant director in charge of this script seemed very busy, constantly on the phone in the hallway with seemingly unrelated matters.

The other seven actors were the lowest-tier extras gathered from who knows where, clearly unfamiliar with each other. They were all young, six men and one woman. They looked surprised when Li Teng entered and took a seat next to them.

An actor with such graying hair and a seemingly unsteady walk was a first for them!

"Sir, how old are you this year?" the only female actor asked Li Teng.

"Eh?" Li Teng pretended to be hard of hearing and did not respond clearly.

"Sir, how old are you this year?" the woman raised her voice.

"Oh, seventy-eight!" Li Teng stretched out his fingers and gestured.

"..."

The others were all speechless.

A nearly eighty-year-old man, was he going to shoot a film, or was he going to a nursing home... no, was he going to his death?

Film and Television City really was becoming more and more shameless.

"Is everyone here? The shoot will start in less than three minutes, so I'll keep this brief." The assistant director finally finished his phone call and came in, starting to talk rapidly.

Suddenly, he saw Li Teng and then stopped.

"Whose idea was this, bringing me an old man? Hey, you, which crew were you with before?" The assistant director came over and asked Li Teng a few questions.

"Ah?" Li Teng slowly looked up, pretending not to hear.

"The old man's hearing isn't good," the woman quickly explained to the assistant director.

"Damn it to hell! Did you bring him here for his funeral? These people are too wicked!" the assistant director cursed.

The faces of the other extras did not look too good.

Although the old man was also an extra, there was no need for this attitude, right? Cursing someone in front of others and talking about 'sending off the dead.'

"Alright, we don't have much time, let's get to the story."

"The script for this time is called 'Guardianship.'"

"In ancient times, there were always small-scale skirmishes along the border between Long Kingdom and Barbarian Country. Both sides dispatched a large number of soldiers to stand guard at their respective borders, following a long-standing agreement between their ancestors that if conflicts arose, they were not permitted to use long-range killing weapons or magical treasures; at most, they were allowed to use swords and other weapons."

"You are a group of soldiers guarding a border area of Long Kingdom, trapped in a mountain outpost by a blizzard, and your communication spiritual artifact is severely damaged in the snowstorm; you can only receive messages, but can't send any out."

The assistant director projected a map of the area near the outpost onto the wall's screen.

"Barbarian Country has always tried to enter the territory of Long Kingdom and forcibly construct outposts and Spirit Towers to create a fait accompli, continuously provoking conflicts between both sides."

"The area near your camp could become one of their breakthrough points."

"This river is the boundary line between the two countries, you are stationed in a valley, and the camp on the opposite side of the river belongs to Barbarian Country, your mission is to prevent them from crossing into Long Kingdom's territory to build the Spirit Tower. Although there is a river on the border line, it has long been frozen over, so it cannot effectively prevent their invasion."

"As long as you prevent them from constructing a Spirit Tower within Long Kingdom's borders in half a month's time, and reinforcements arrive after the snow melts, you can successfully end the storyline."

"Upon the successful conclusion of the storyline, each surviving extra will receive double the normal single show payment score based on their level."

"However, if the border line falls and the Barbarian Country's army succeeds in constructing a Spirit Tower within Long Kingdom's borders, your mission will be considered a failure, the storyline will transition to BADENDING, and each surviving extra will have double their level's single show payment score deducted!"

"If you 'buy the farm' during the storyline, you will be deducted 1000 points and be immediately disqualified!"