Trembling At A High Altitude

"After becoming the Best Actor, you can exchange points for lifespan," Li Teng remembered what Liu Shiyuan had told him.

"Yes, but do you know how long it takes to become the Best Actor? Can you even live that long? Can your increasingly weak body sustain your future performances? Besides, exchanging points for lifespan, one million points for one year, can you afford that?" the Grim Reaper retorted with several questions.

"One million points for just one year of life?" Li Teng frowned.

In the Film and Television City, points were the hardest to come by; let alone a million points, so many actors struggled just to earn the first thousand points.

After so many rounds, Li Teng still only had a two-digit count in his account.

If the Grim Reaper wasn't lying, it seemed that in the Film and Television City, using points to exchange for lifespan was merely a gimmick.

"You can choose not to believe me, not to take me with you, and continue to undergo so-called cell regeneration in the Film and Television City, but after you leave this time, my energy won't be enough to support you coming in again, and I will soon perish in these ruins, and you will forever lose the opportunity to steal life resources in the script space and truly rejuvenate," the Grim Reaper said.

"The decision is yours; it's a one-time opportunity, you choose," the Grim Reaper said and then became even more transparent, as if he might dissipate at any moment.

"How do I take you out? Possess my body? Don't even think about it," Li Teng insisted on clarifying the situation before making a decision.

"I am an AI program, a completely different type of life from you. How could I possibly live inside a biological body like yours? I can only transform into an APP and reside in your wristwatch, as soon as I inhabit it later, you just choose to agree to install, and I won't cause any harm to your body, but I can still steal the life resources from the script to nourish you," the Grim Reaper explained.

"Think about it, your wristwatch is bound to you, powered only by your biological energy. If you die, your wristwatch becomes useless, and likewise, I would have nowhere to reside and would die too. We have a symbiotic relationship. So, I will only strive to keep you alive longer, I would absolutely not harm you," the Grim Reaper clarified to Li Teng.

"In that case, I might consider it, but what's in it for you?" Li Teng didn't believe the Grim Reaper would make a deal without benefits.

"I can continue to exist! That's the biggest benefit. Staying in this wasteland, I'll eventually run out of energy and dissipate. Isn't this reason enough to make this deal with you?" the Grim Reaper guessed what Li Teng was worried about.

"Alright, come on then. I'll give you this opportunity, but if you have other schemes, or if you can't steal life resources for me, I reserve the right to uninstall you at any time," Li Teng held out his wrist.

"If your wristwatch prevents you from installing, just tap on a blank area of the watch's screen 37 times, no more, no less, and after ten seconds, the watch will automatically enter developer mode. Once in developer mode, turn on the 'Allow installation of apps from unknown sources' option, then ignore the pages that pop up afterward, just confirm, confirm, confirm, and I'll be installed," the Grim Reaper instructed Li Teng and then turned into a cluster of green characters that entered his wristwatch.

"Warning! Warning! An unknown program is attempting to install."

"For safety reasons, your wristwatch is set to prohibit the installation of apps from unknown sources."

As expected, several warning lines popped up on the wristwatch screen.

Li Teng, following the Grim Reaper's instructions, tapped continuously 37 times on a blank area of the wristwatch's screen and waited another ten seconds, then the interface of the wristwatch entered developer mode.

There was an option that said 'Allow installation of apps from unknown sources'.

After toggling this option, Li Teng received several more warnings.

"Allowing installation of apps from unknown sources can damage the system or make it unstable. Are you sure you want to continue?"

Li Teng hesitated, but after a while, he clicked confirm.

"An unknown program is detected attempting to install, which might contain some sort of unknown trojan backdoor that can severely damage the system, even causing the system to crash or hardware damage. Are you sure you want to continue?"

Li Teng hesitated again.

It felt like the wristwatch was about to be ruined?

Should he really continue to confirm?

He was a bit panicky inside!

He touched his aged face.

Li Teng gritted his teeth and clicked confirm.

"An unknown program is detected illegally obtaining ROOT access, which will cause a series of extremely serious problems. Are you certain..."

Before these lines finished, the wristwatch screen suddenly went blank.

"Did the system crash?"

Li Teng was stunned.

He had really screwed up!

"The system is restarting."

"Writing underlying data..."

"Please do not operate any further, or the system will never start again."

After a few seconds, a slow progress bar appeared on the wristwatch screen.

"Damn it! This Grim Reaper is just malware! Was I tricked?" Li Teng was very worried.

"Well, under my current circumstances, how much worse can things get?" Li Teng found a not-too-severely cracked stone to sit on in the ruins and slowly waited for the progress bar to complete.

...

An hour later.

The progress bar finally reached one hundred percent.

The wristwatch screen returned to the home screen.

The home screen theme had changed to black and red, and the background image had become the Grim Reaper wearing a cape.

The original apps were still there, plus there was an additional app with the Grim Reaper's icon.

The theme could not be changed.

The Grim Reaper APP could not be uninstalled.

This was definitely malware!

Opening the Grim Reaper icon app, it displayed only two items.

Life Resource Points balance: 0 points.

Accumulated exchanged Life Force Value: 0 seconds.

There was also a manual that could be opened.

"By killing monsters or NPCs in the script, there's a chance to gain Life Resource Points."

"Life Resource Points can be used to exchange for Life Force, which is injected back into the owner's body in the form of Biological Energy to extend the owner's lifespan."

"I hope this isn't a trick." Seeing these options, Li Teng finally felt a bit more relaxed.

Otherwise, it would be watching a piece of malware bully the other decent apps on his wristwatch.

If he wanted to know if he was being tricked, there was a simple and direct method.

That was to kill a few NPCs and see if he could gain Life Resource Points.

Of course, it also couldn't be ruled out that the screen showed gains and exchanges, but in reality, there was no effect on extending his life.

At this point, regret was pointless.

He decided to just give it a try.