Trembling At A High Altitude

When Li Teng stepped into the hospital room, the construction team boss was squatting in the corner, muttering something with his head lowered.

"Hello," Li Teng walked over and patted his shoulder.

The construction team boss jumped in fright but calmed down slightly when he saw it was Li Teng. He then looked around behind Li Teng.

"If you answer my questions properly, they won't hurt you," Li Teng said as he sat down on the floor.

"Those paintings... those paintings..." the construction team boss mumbled, his body trembling again.

"What paintings?" Li Teng pressed on.

"The ones you told me to hide, the ones you told me not to tell anyone about," the construction team boss replied to Li Teng before lowering his head toward the corner again.

"Yes, I told you to hide them. Where are they now? I need you to find them and give them back to me. Once you do that, those wronged souls won't bother you anymore," Li Teng said, patting the construction team boss's shoulder.

"They won't let us in; they won't let us in. They'll beat us..." the construction team boss shook his head.

"It doesn't matter, I'm the boss here. No one dares to stop me. Anyone who dares to hit you, I'll hit back. Hurry and take me to those paintings." Li Teng pulled the construction team boss up from the corner and half-supported, half-dragged him towards the exit of the hospital room.

With his head down and crouching, the construction team boss led the way through the somewhat complicated inner corridors of the research center. They went in circles several times, but finally, with Li Teng's help and prompting, they arrived at an exit, yet the door was locked.

The construction team boss pointed at a nearby room.

Li Teng walked over. The room's door was open, and inside sat a burly security guard in uniform.

"Open that door over there for me," Li Teng commanded the security guard.

"Director Hu said that door can't be opened," the security guard refused Li Teng.

"Do you know who I am?" Li Teng raised his voice.

"You're the boss, but here I only listen to Director Hu," the security guard continued to refuse Li Teng curtly.

"I'm going to count to three, and then you go and open that door," Li Teng started to count.

"Even if you count to a hundred, I won't open it," the security guard didn't take Li Teng's threat seriously at all.

After counting to three, Li Teng landed a heavy punch on the security guard's face, flipping him onto the ground. The security guard got up in a rage and swung his fists back at Li Teng.

But he was no match for Li Teng; his punches didn't even graze Li Teng.

In just a few punches and kicks, Li Teng had the security guard flat on the ground, unable to move.

"Keys," Li Teng said with his knee pressed against the security guard's neck.

"On my waist... I was wrong, please let me go, I can't breathe..." the security guard begged Li Teng.

Li Teng felt a set of keys on the security guard's waist. The construction team boss recognized the key and happily used it to open the room at the exit.

After confirming that the door was indeed open, Li Teng grabbed the security guard's head and twisted it sharply. The security guard lay on the ground, motionless.

Li Teng then dragged his body into the room and closed the door.

Several new female actors who saw this scene couldn't help but be horrified.

"I don't want any complications. I don't want anyone disturbing us while we are looking for things," Li Teng explained to the female actors.

"They're all NPCs, and they're most likely NPCs following the villain—a mere first tier of computer programs. Don't overthink it," Elsa added a few words to explain for Li Teng.

The female actors didn't say much more, but it was clear they were still somewhat scared; after all, it was the first time they had witnessed Li Teng do such a thing, and in their hearts, he had always been the image of a warm man.

Exiting the room at the entrance, they found themselves in a small garden.

The construction boss ran straight to a flowerbed in the corner at the end of the garden, and after grabbing a trowel from the wall, he began to dig in the flowerbed.

After digging for quite a while, he unearthed a half-meter-deep pit and then retrieved what seemed like an empty canned food glass jar from it and handed it to Li Teng as if to claim credit for it.

The glass jar was stuffed with folded papers, and there was plastic between the jar's mouth and the lid to prevent the items inside from getting damp, keeping the papers inside intact.

"You've worked hard," Li Teng guessed that everything he needed was all there.

As for the construction boss, he seemed to be quite ill, and trying to get something out of him by questioning was starting to seem impractical.

"You said if I preserved this jar well and gave it back to you, you'd reward me with a good meal," the construction boss reminded Li Teng.

"Mm-hmm… what would you like to eat?" Li Teng asked the construction boss.

"Braised pork!" The construction boss drooled at the thought.

"No problem, I'll see if the recovery center's kitchen has braised pork. I'll have them make you a serving and send it over," Li Teng nodded.

"Braised pork! Braised pork!" The construction boss kept salivating.

It was also around noon by then.

Li Teng took the construction boss directly to the recovery center's dining hall.

The chefs in the kitchen were busy cooking.

More than a dozen dishes were already cooked, being plated onto the meal cart, made with top-quality ingredients and looking delicious.

The dish the chef was cooking next was a large pot of food that didn't look quite as appealing.

"Where is this dish headed?" Li Teng stopped the meal cart.

"It's for Director Hu's office," the kitchen worker pushing the cart replied to Li Teng.

"It's confiscated," Li Teng declared.

"What? That can't be right?" the worker's eyes widened in shock.

"If I say it can, then it can," Li Teng punched and knocked down the worker. After this meal, he was planning to find Director Hu for a chat. For some reason, his subconscious was already feeling that Director Hu might not be up to any good.

It wasn't just his subconscious; the way the security guard had said that he only answered to Director Hu and the like had really irked Li Teng, the 'boss'. So, intercepting his meal now felt quite natural to him.

"What's happening? What's going on?" Two chefs came out and saw their coworker had been hit. They quickly raised their spatulas to hit Li Teng.

With a few punches and kicks, Li Teng had them all down on the ground as well.

After seeing Li Teng beat up the security guards, the female actors were not as shocked by this scene as they had been before.

They were just a few NPCs, after all.

It seems this warm man also possessed a violent streak!

As luck would have it, among the confiscated food was braised pork, which Li Teng handed over in its entirety to the construction boss. He also added some side dishes and a large bowl of rice, telling him to eat on the side.

For safety, Elsa still arranged for one of the female actors to taste the food first. After more than ten minutes passed and it seemed there was nothing amiss, the others gathered to eat together.