Trembling At A High Altitude

"Oh, I see, so you haven't been actors for long, and you're not famous, are you? Otherwise, I would certainly know who you are." The woman nodded in understanding.

"I'm not really famous, but he has some reputation in the industry already, and sooner or later he'll surely become Best Actor," Yuki Noto said with a smile.

"Best Actor? Haha, I'm quite familiar with the acting profession. Actors without fame, let alone becoming Best Actor, usually can't even get a bit part without relying on all sorts of connections," the woman said, her tone clearly laced with disdain.

"No matter how others see it, in my heart, he's already like a Best Actor," Yuki Noto said of Li Teng with complete confidence.

"Haha, it's the end of the world anyway, everything has turned to dust," the woman said, her face showing an unwillingness and disdain to say more on the subject.

The conversation was not going very well, and a brief silence fell over the group of four.

"What did you do before the apocalypse?" Yuki Noto asked, breaking the silence.

"I was a teacher," the woman replied to Yuki Noto.

"Oh? Just a teacher?" Yuki Noto had been chatting with the woman and found that she was very knowledgeable about the acting profession, and had assumed she was someone with certain accomplishments in the entertainment industry.

"What about a teacher? Looking down on teachers?" The woman became somewhat unhappy upon hearing what Yuki Noto said.

"That's not what I meant…" Yuki Noto said with a smile, realizing the woman had misunderstood her.

"Hmph! Don't think that being a teacher for only six years is insignificant. In that time, I've made enough to buy three apartments, two cars, and I have savings and various financial products worth over two hundred thousand. The bags I carry usually start at no less than fifty thousand; carrying any less than that, I'd feel ashamed to step outside," the woman boasted, thinking Yuki Noto was belittling her.

"Teaching is so lucrative? What school do you work at? Such a high salary?" Now Yuki Noto was genuinely surprised: three apartments, two cars, plus savings of more than two hundred thousand—if in a first-tier city, those assets could be worth tens of millions, and even in a second-tier city, they'd be worth at least over ten million.

How could a teacher earn so much in six years? An average monthly salary starting at two hundred thousand?

"You don't understand, do you? Relying on the school's salary? That's a joke!

"My parents and brother are teachers, and they run their own extracurricular tutoring classes, which have now turned into a tutoring school, employing quite a few teachers from our school.

"In school, we teachers just stick to the textbook. If students actually want to learn something, they have to attend our family's extracurricular tutoring classes.

"Several hundred bucks an hour for a student, with hundreds of students—you do the math and see how much you could earn in a year," the woman said with a smug look on her face.

"So you mean to say that kids without money learn nothing at school? If they want to learn, they have to attend your tutoring classes?" Yuki Noto frowned.

"It can't be helped. Society is just that realistic. Everyone is born facing all sorts of unfairness, and I am truly grateful to have been born into a good family, making it easy for me to live a better life than most people," the woman continued, still smug.

"Haha." Yuki Noto didn't know what else to say.

"The money I've earned is nothing compared to his. When we talked earlier, he told me he's a doctor, a doctor from Tumor Hospital. Convince a patient with a scare, come up with a big, expensive treatment plan—treat a small illness as a serious one, a serious illness till death—and you can easily make hundreds of thousands..." Having boasted about herself, the woman then started to show off about the man she had just met.

They were both currently single and felt a sense of regret for not meeting sooner after talking in this post-apocalyptic world.

"Cough, cough, cough… It's not like that... Don't talk nonsense..." The man said, having boasted to the woman earlier because they were attracted to each other and because she was showing off first.

But such things are better not discussed in front of others, as they don't reflect well on anyone.

"Haha." Yuki Noto continued to find herself at a loss for words.

"What a pity, the apocalypse came, and all that money, the houses and cars, they're all gone! The aliens are just so hateful!" The woman said, triumphant, but then her mood darkened as she remembered her loss.

"Sometimes, the apocalypse might not be entirely bad," Yuki Noto said with a smile.

"What now? You think this apocalypse is good?" the woman asked, looking quite upset.

"At least now everyone is on equal footing," Yuki Noto said with another smile.

"Petty peasant mentality! A bitterness towards the wealthy is unacceptable!" the woman said, looking down on Yuki Noto with disdain.

"Heh, it's not a bitterness towards the wealthy. My family isn't exactly rich, but it's still among the top fifty in the Fortune Global 500. I'm just not interested in business, which is why I want to become an actor," Yuki Noto said with a faint smile.

"Keep boasting!" the woman's expression grew even more disdainful.

Yuki Noto didn't say a word; it was pointless to converse with such a person.

Besides, they weren't from the same world.

Her own world was the real one, whereas this place was merely a Scripted World.

But was the world she originally belonged to... really the real world?

Suddenly, such a thought popped into Yuki Noto's mind.

What she knew was that her own world and the world Li Teng originally belonged to were not the same, indicating that at least one of the worlds was fake.

Forget it, such a profound question should be left to a genius like Li Teng to consider; no need to give herself a headache.

"I want to go to the restroom, you come with me," the woman said as she stood up and made the request to Yuki Noto after a while.

"Okay," Yuki Noto also stood up.

"Once we get there, don't close the door. You two... keep an eye on us, but no peeping," the woman instructed Li Teng and another person.

"What hasn't he seen? He wouldn't peep at you," Yuki Noto felt that the woman's words were an insult to Li Teng.

Having lived for over a thousand years, what kind of stunning beauties hadn't he seen? Would he be interested in you? Didn't you notice he hasn't spared you a glance from the start to finish?

"Tch," the woman still had that disdainful expression and didn't say anything further; she walked to the bathroom with Yuki Noto.

"I'll go first, just stand by the door, and I'll let you take your turn in a moment," the woman told Yuki Noto as they reached the restroom.

"Mm-hmm," Yuki Noto nodded in agreement.

Even though everything in this villa appeared very clean, as soon as the woman walked over, she looked at the toilet with disgust; then, she pulled the roll of paper and fiercely wiped the seat before laying down a thick layer of toilet paper on it and finally taking her seat after disrobing.

Yuki Noto leaned against the door, her gaze turning to the villa's first-floor hall.

All the lights in the first-floor hall were on.

That wasn't strange.

In such a terrifying setting, light always offers a sense of security.

No one wishes to face ghostly entities and such horrors in total darkness.

The four individuals still asleep were dead to the world, some even snoring.

Li Teng sat upright, like a meditating Zen master, yet his eyes were wide open.

The other man kept yawning, looking as if he could hardly keep awake.

Seeing that man yawn, Yuki Noto felt as if it were contagious, and couldn't help but yawn herself.

Just then, she suddenly heard a strange noise behind her.

Yuki Noto swiftly turned to look inside the restroom.

To her alarm, she saw the woman on the toilet grasping her own throat, a look of sheer terror and helplessness on her face, mouth open but unable to make a sound.

"Something's wrong!" Yuki Noto shouted to Li Teng and another in the hall before rushing into the bathroom, trying to pull the woman's hand away.

But the woman suddenly flew out from the toilet in the bathroom.

Her entire body flew out of the bathroom, swiftly crossing the entire hall, and then with her head forward, she crashed hard into the wall opposite the hall.

There was a dull 'thud!'

A large patch of bloodstains appeared on the wall across the hall, and then the woman's body limply fell to the ground by the wall.

When Li Teng and the others rushed over, they found that the woman's entire head had been completely shattered from the impact, and because she hadn't pulled up her pants while sitting on the toilet, her bare buttocks were eerily exposed under the harsh white light of the hall.

Even the man who was a doctor, accustomed to gruesome sights, couldn't help but retch at the sight of this scene.

"What just happened?" Li Teng hugged the trembling Yuki Noto who had come over and asked her.

"She went to the bathroom. I was looking this way in the hall, just a few seconds without paying attention to her, right? When I turned back, I found..." Yuki Noto recounted everything that had just happened to Li Teng.

The four people who had been asleep were also woken up by the commotion, and they came over to see the gruesome death of the woman, all of them screaming or retching.

When they learned that the woman's misfortune had occurred in the bathroom, everyone was even more terrified.

"Besides the person I caught, how did the first person among our ten die?" Li Teng asked everyone.

Li Teng and Yuki Noto were not present when the first person died.

"Almost the same as the one you caught. When all of us were together, talking normally, he suddenly grabbed his own neck and then flew off the cliff," someone answered Li Teng.

"Was he... doing anything like peeing at the time?" Li Teng thought of a possibility.

The fat man probably had an accident when he went to the restroom, and now the woman had met with misfortune in the bathroom too. If the first man had encountered trouble while peeing, could it mean...

But in the meantime, many people had used the restroom, including Li Teng himself.

So this reasoning wasn't foolproof.

"No, he was just talking to us normally, then suddenly it happened," someone answered Li Teng.

"He didn't leave the group or do anything strange, and then the accident happened?" Li Teng confirmed.

"Yes."

"What was the topic of conversation at that time?" Li Teng asked again.

"I don't remember."

"I remember, it seemed to be about hitting on girls. He and that missing fat man were getting along really well," someone interjected.

Li Teng fell into thought again.

No clues at all!

This terrifying thing, whether it's aliens or ghostly entities, doesn't care whether there are other people around when it kills.

But the fat man who was alone and the woman who just went to the bathroom, in a sense, were also alone.

That is to say, being alone has a big chance of getting killed, but even if you're not alone, the inevitable still can't be avoided.

This is almost an unsolvable dead end.

However, Li Teng knew that according to the rules of Film and Television City, there couldn't be such an unsolvable situation.

It must be that he hadn't found the solution yet.

Once the correct solution was found, he should be able to pass the level effortlessly.

Just like the mission he had with Dolores, Ke Wan, and Scarlett – finding the solution and using earplugs to block their ears, they could pass easily.

All the sentence reduction tasks in the prison should come from the same production team.

The same screenwriter, the style of the tasks would definitely have similarities.

So this time, if not blocking the ears, could it be covering the eyes?

But guessing blindly wouldn't work; last time they used earplugs because there were many clues leading to it.

For example, the earplugs they found, and the noise mentioned in the diary of the male homeowner.

The various soundproofing and noise reduction facilities in the room and so on.

Including the title "Listen, the Cry of Ghosts," all clues pointed towards sound, which ultimately prompted Li Teng to cover his ears.

But this time, there were no valid clues about covering the eyes or plugging the ears.

Li Teng took everyone to the bathroom again and thoroughly inspected it, trying to find some useful clues.

Unfortunately, there were no clues.

"Do you have a cellphone?" Li Teng suddenly remembered that the fat man who had gone to the restroom alone had a cellphone, although it couldn't make calls. However, the NPCs in these task worlds should all carry a cellphone.

"Yes."

Three people took out the cellphones they had on them, unsure of what Li Teng intended to use them for.

"Switch your phones to camera mode. The next time you see a companion in trouble, hurry up and record it with your phone," Li Teng instructed the three people.

Whether it was useful or not, if they could record a video of the scene, perhaps they might discover some clues upon repeated viewing.

Speaking of which, Li Teng had also witnessed such a death phenomenon with his own eyes.

The team leader he had caught died right in front of him like that.

Li Teng could still recall many details from memory, but he hadn't recorded a video. He reckoned that he must have overlooked some details.

"What should we do now?" Everyone looked to Li Teng.

After such an ordeal, the four who had been sleeping were now fully awake, and everyone was utterly terrified.

"If you can't sleep, we might as well call the staff and continue to the remaining restrooms to look for the fat man. Maybe there will be some useful clues where he is," Li Teng came up with an idea.

If it hadn't been for nightfall, he would have wanted to continue searching for the fat man.

But after dark, everyone was scared, and the search for the fat man had to be temporarily put on hold.

Now it seemed that it didn't matter if people stayed together or if they stayed in a brightly-lit villa. Would they not die just the same?

"No way, it's too dangerous to go out in the dark like this!"

"In the middle of the night like this, it's better not to go out."

"I'm scared to go out..."

"I don't want to go out!"