Trembling At A High Altitude

"Give me a chicken leg." After standing up to leave earlier, Anna, seeing the lavish spread in front of Li Teng, came back with her meal box and sat down again.

"Do I owe you a chicken leg?" Li Teng asked, full of confusion.

"What do you think? If it weren't for that roasted chicken last time, I wouldn't have needed to blow myself up at all! And now, to help you, I'm going to Hell too! It seems like you should owe me a whole chicken, don't you think?" Anna said, clearly annoyed.

"That roasted chicken was meant to be a gift to me. Legally speaking, giving and lending are two completely different things. You don't have to repay what was given as a gift," Li Teng retorted quietly to Anna.

His quiet tone was absolutely not due to guilt.

"Really? How do you explain helping me kill Feng Dahai, which got me dragged down to Hell too?" Anna stared intensely at Li Teng.

"Honestly, you going to Hell because you exploded was purely your own foolishness; your main goal wasn't even to help me, but to save yourself. Even if it inadvertently helped me, if you had been upfront and shared your clues with me before the confrontational performance, I would have told you I wasn't the Underground Worker; Elsa was, and then Feng Dahai wouldn't have made you explode and dive into Hell in your stupidity," Li Teng explained to Anna.

"Saying all this, doesn't your conscience hurt?" Anna was heartbroken.

"How can something I don't have hurt?" Li Teng muttered under his breath.

"What did you just say? I didn't catch that," Anna said, her eyes widening.

"Fine, take this chicken leg and we're square. From now on, we owe each other nothing," Li Teng said, tearing off a chicken leg and putting it on Anna's plate.

"A single chicken leg and we're even? Your math seems a bit off," Anna expressed her skepticism.

"Don't want it? Fine, give it back then," Li Teng took the chicken leg back.

"Hmph! I don't need your chicken leg; just keep owing me a favor!" Anna walked away again, meal box in hand.

"Isn't it tiring to keep walking back and forth?" Li Teng shook his head, then stuffed the entire chicken leg into his mouth.

Debts die with the debtor; tomorrow we enter Hell Mode, and who knows if we'll come back alive? Keep the favor you owe me; after all, tomorrow only one of eight will survive. Either you die, or I die, this debt will definitely be resolved.

"Anna, can you also get me a roasted suckling pig, some pig's feet, two spicy shrimp dishes, and a beef stew with potatoes, and I'll owe you a big favor, okay?" Thinking of debt disappearing with death, Li Teng hurriedly made the request to Anna.

"Get lost!" Anna quickly finished her food and fled in a panic.

...

"Can you really eat all this?" Huang Xun, having already finished his few buns and even the one he picked out of Feng Dahai's mouth, was still feeling hungry, so he shamelessly moved over to Li Teng's dining table.

Even if he couldn't eat, smelling the aroma of the roasted chicken was good enough.

"Actually, I can't finish it all," Li Teng nodded.

"Let me help you eat some, don't let it go to waste," Huang Xun suggested.

Although he really wanted to snatch Li Teng's leftover half a bag of roasted chicken and run away, considering the example of Feng Dahai being dragged away after being electrocuted, Huang Xun dared not act rashly.

"It won't go to waste; I'll eat a good part of it tonight and save some buns and half of the chicken for the morning. That way, I'll save on tomorrow's meal cost," Li Teng thought it over and started packing up half of the food in a food bag.

"With this weather, the food will go bad by morning. You might as well be a good person and give it to me now," Huang Xun said, drooling.

"Who are you kidding? The room has a fridge that can be used for free. Plus, if it goes bad tomorrow morning, I can still feed it to the dogs. Giving it to you would be a total waste," Li Teng shook his head.

"You..." Huang Xun quickly ran away, worried that Li Teng might infuriate him to death.

Li Teng could only marvel that Huang Xun's skin was indeed thick enough, knowing full well he was asking for an insult yet still daring to come over—his courage was indeed admirable.

...

After dinner, the crew members strolled around near the hotel.

The designated area for the crew members to move around was very limited, restricted to one or two streets near the hotel.

Even with only one or two streets, all kinds of commercial facilities were readily available.

Restaurants, clothing stores, supermarkets, bath centers, bars, cinemas, KTVs, sports venues, and game rooms, etc.

However, all entertainment and shopping would cost credits.

For these extras, the lowest tier of Film and Television City, all they could do was look on longingly.

While the people were wandering the streets, they saw the director with two bodyguards also entering the hotel, apparently staying at this hotel for the night as well.

Li Teng, who had been strolling around with everyone else, saw the director and left the group, keeping a moderate distance as he followed the director into the hotel.

"Elsa, what do you think he's up to?" Anna asked a fellow female white-collar worker as she watched Li Teng's figure disappearing into the distance.

For some reason, the girls were reluctant to reveal their real names, so everyone simply referred to them by their stage names from the last performance.

As extras, the chance to have a character name wasn't common. The last confrontational play was an exception, where each extra had received a character with a name.

"Could he be thinking of hitting on the director?" Elsa speculated.

"Is there anything he wouldn't dare to do?" Anna snorted.

"Of all people to stalk, he chooses to stalk the director. I bet those two bodyguards will beat him to a pulp," Elsa grinned, imagining Li Teng with a bruised and swollen face.

"They will permanently mess up his plumbing and put an end to those ideas of his," Anna pictured an incredibly miserable scene involving Li Teng.

"Wouldn't that make you sad?"

"Why would I be sad?"

"You wouldn't have him to use, right?" Elsa laughed teasingly.

"Who needs him? You're the slut who wants him, aren't you?"

...

Outside a hotel room.

Standing five meters from the door, the two bodyguards motioned for Li Teng to stop.

"Director! It's me, Li Teng, the handsome guy under your wing, the future Best Actor, Li Teng!" Li Teng yelled as the director was about to close the door.

"What do you want?" the director asked coldly, his face hidden behind a mask.

"I'd like to invite you to dinner," Li Teng brought up.

"I've already eaten."

"Then how about we play some arcade games?" Li Teng changed his offer.

"Not interested."

"Then maybe we could find a place to drink some coffee and talk about life?" Li Teng kept changing his approach.

"Throw him in the elevator and keep him off this floor," the director instructed his bodyguards.

"Wait! I actually came to make a complaint," Li Teng changed his stance again.

"A complaint against whom?" the director stopped the bodyguards.

"I want to complain about a black-hearted doctor at the hospital. He's abusing his power to bully and extort new actors, forcing me to sign blank papers while my life was in danger, and performing a live dissection on me on the operating table, creating a fake account stating I owe him 999 points and pocketing it all!" Li Teng raised the issue to the director.

"He's not part of the same system I am; I can't deal with this matter," the director denied Li Teng's request.

"Then who should I complain to?" Li Teng wasn't giving up.

"Extras don't have the right to complain; only once you get promoted to supporting role level can you have the right to complain," the director responded to Li Teng.

"Director, your actor is being bullied, and a handsome future Best Actor at that. Are you really going to stand by and do nothing? He's slapping your face by bullying me!" Li Teng cried out desperately.

Getting promoted to supporting role level—when would that ever happen?

I can't swallow this indignity!

And the debt of 999 points only made Li Teng's chances of advancing several times harder!

"If, if you can come back alive from Hell Mode tomorrow, I'll try my best to secure an opportunity for you. Whether you can seize that opportunity will be up to you," the director replied to Li Teng, then turned and entered his room.

"By the way, Director, what exactly does Hell Mode entail tomorrow? Could you describe it?" Li Teng quickly asked another question, seizing the moment.

"No comment," the director closed the door.