Trembling At A High Altitude

Li Teng's skillful hands and good medical ethics earned him high praise from numerous female patients, quickly allowing him to reach the occupational ceiling for his doctor role.

Thus, he obtained another opportunity for a mini-draw.

In the world of tasks, ten years had passed.

Li Teng, through his mini character advancement, touched the ceiling in over a thousand occupations.

In those ten years, Li Teng had experienced every occupation in the world, and it was nearly impossible for anyone else to know or master all occupations like he did.

He had practically become a living encyclopedia.

The mission ended.

Li Teng's sentence was reduced from fifteen years to ten years.

"What was the point of this mission anyway? Just to make me understand all the occupations?"

Though ten years of his sentence remained, Li Teng was on his final mission.

Because completing this last mission would allow him to eradicate those ten years of his sentence all at once.

This was also the final task in the massive "Terror Cycle" mission.

It had been a long time since his last visit to Film and Television City, and Li Teng felt truly tired.

Or rather, somewhat weary.

After completing this final mission, he would take a good rest back in Film and Television City.

Right, didn't he still have a wife there?

He had almost forgotten what Shen Mengying looked like.

"This 'Terror Cycle' task was actually your quest to become the Best Actor.

"Even though your popularity has been waning and continues to decline, you have already proven your strength and you are without a doubt a worthy candidate for Best Actor.

"Successfully complete the last 'Terror Cycle' task, and you will be promoted to be the newest Best Actor in Film and Television City.

"Keep it up!"

Suddenly, a synthetic voice rang out.

"Damn!"

Li Teng was caught off guard.

The information he had learned previously stipulated that either high popularity or a special summon from Film and Television City were needed for the Best Actor promotion battle.

Since his popularity had never met the required standards, and he had never been specially summoned by Film and Television City,

he had nearly forgotten about it.

Speaking of forgetting... in truth, he no longer had a great desire to become a Best Actor.

A man who had lived over a thousand years had experienced everything there was to experience.

Once vast like the ocean but now shallow like a stream.

There was scarcely anything in the world that could still greatly interest him.

Even those immensely terrifying tasks couldn't keep his nerves taut for even a moment.

Living too long was a form of torture in itself.

A torture of desirelessness and boredom.

If there was any regret in these thousand years of life,

then not having become a Best Actor might be the only one, the only thing still worth striving for—even if not that urgently.

Once he became the Best Actor, what would be left in his life to pursue?

The only thing remaining might be the exploration of the truth behind the scenes in Film and Television City.

Then, everything would end.

No use thinking too much about it—just get past this Best Actor mission for now.

...

Li Teng woke up from his stupor.

It seemed he was... in a laboratory?

Sitting up, Li Teng's head felt quite dizzy.

He was wearing a thick work suit and a helmet.

It was like the type worn by astronauts, but not quite the same.

This made him feel very cumbersome, and the joints of the suit were somewhat stiff, making any movement slow.

Li Teng tried to take off the helmet and slowly remove his work suit, but was met with an electronic warning.

It indicated that the radiation in the area was extremely severe. Once he removed his helmet and protective suit, he would expose himself to a lethal dosage of radiation and would soon die.

Well, he had to keep wearing them for now.

Within his field of view, there was no one else in the laboratory.

Nothing much to say, entering a new world, it was time to explore around.

Looking for clues, looking for the main quest.

Back when he played some AAAA-level big games, it was rare to encounter a game without a clear main quest.

But in the Scripted World Li Teng was in, many didn't hint at the main quest and he had to fumble about on his own.

Clearly, this was another task without a clear main quest.

Li Teng was in a very large room.

It was filled with various types of equipment, the purposes of which he couldn't discern.

It must be that the technology in this mission world was advanced, so this equipment was not present in Li Teng's original era, making it hard for him to determine their purposes.

After wandering around the room extensively, he found no terminals or related devices that could be operated.

It seemed there was no point in exploring the initial room any further.

Time to figure out how to leave this place.

The initial large room had an iron door leading outside.

But the iron door was locked.

And very heavy.

Li Teng tried for a long time but couldn't open the iron door.

He had no choice but to continue searching around the laboratory.

Eventually, he found a steel chisel, and after stabbing it fiercely into a circular glass on the door, Li Teng reached his hand outside, found the exterior lever, and after turning it, he unlocked the door.

Li Teng successfully left the original laboratory room.

However, just as he reached the corridor outside, he heard a series of heavy footsteps coming from around the corner.

Li Teng looked over and saw a dilapidated robot running towards him.

It made strange electronic sounds, then swung its fists and attacked Li Teng!

Though Li Teng was clad in the cumbersome protective suit and helmet, making his movements clumsy, the robot was even more awkward, perhaps due to insufficient power, and Li Teng easily dodged its attack.

After grabbing the robot's neck from behind with both hands, Li Teng forcefully twisted.

The robot's neck was twisted three hundred sixty degrees.

The cables and chips inside the neck made cracking sounds and emitted a puff of blue smoke, while a large amount of white oil leaked out, and the robot's body collapsed softly to the ground.

"Is this a starter monster? Its combat is so weak?"

Li Teng squatted down, attempting to loot the robot.

But he really didn't find anything useful.

Eventually, Li Teng only retrieved what looked like a battery from the robot's chest.

According to the markings on it, the remaining battery life was less than five percent.

Moving in the direction from which the robot had come, Li Teng walked slowly into another room.

In this room, Li Teng saw another dilapidated robot.

This robot was in worse condition than the previous one.

It sat on the ground, only its head could move, and upon seeing Li Teng, it only emitted some strange electronic sounds.

Li Teng cautiously approached, circling half around the seated robot.

He discovered that the robot was charging.

But at the other end of the cable, the power source was also displaying a 'low battery' warning.

"Can you speak human?" Li Teng tried to communicate with the robot to figure out what this mission was all about.

"Chirp chirp, murmur murmur..." The robot didn't speak human, continuing to make weird electronic sounds.

"You won't speak human, will you? Then I'll unplug you!" Li Teng reached out to the power source,

"No!" The robot finally spoke human language.

"Damn! You can speak human after all! Quickly tell me, what has happened here? What is all this about?" Li Teng interrogated the robot.

"Dream Ark will launch in ten minutes! The laboratory will shut down in fifteen minutes! Relevant personnel, please board the Dream Ark promptly! If the data transmission time..." The robot played a recording.

Then, due to low power, the subsequent words became bizarrely distorted and were utterly unclear.

The power indicator light at the cable connection flickered a few times before it went out completely.

The seated robot's eyes quickly dimmed, and its body slowly slumped to the ground.

Just before the body completely collapsed, the robot's hand lifted, seemingly pointing at something.

"Dream Ark? Launch? Data transfer?" Li Teng pondered but temporarily had no clue.

Li Teng walked in the direction the robot's hand was pointing.

After passing through a cluttered laboratory, Li Teng heard some indistinct human voices.

He cautiously moved closer.

The voices were coming from one of the rooms.

At last, he saw something relatively familiar.

A terminal-like device.

The device was still powered, but the signal on the screen was extremely unstable, with various severely disturbed snowflake dots.

"Calling! Calling! Can anyone hear me?"

A voice sounded, and at the same time, a blurry figure appeared on the screen.

"Anna?"

Although the figure was blurry, Li Teng recognized immediately who it was.

He just didn't know whether this Anna was the one he originally met in the Film and Television City or the grown-up Nana.

"Dad?"

The voice from the other side confirmed this Anna's identity, it was his daughter Nana.

"Nana, where are you?"

Li Teng urgently inquired.

The signal suddenly worsened, and then abruptly cut off.

The terminal had run out of power.

Li Teng took out the battery he had found earlier from the worn-out robot, which didn't have much charge left, studied the terminal for a moment, and after some fiddling, found the battery port and inserted the battery.

The terminal lit up again.

"Nana, are you still there?" Li Teng urgently asked.

"Upstairs... above..." Anna managed a few words before the signal cut off again.

No use talking about it, it's time to hurry upstairs, find his daughter Nana, and after meeting her, consider the next steps.

The problem was... from where to go upstairs?

With no map to guide him and no one to ask, the thick protective suit also obscured his view of his watch.

But Li Teng guessed that even if he could see his watch, there probably wouldn't be any hints on it.

He could only explore the surroundings by himself.

As he turned another corner, a figure suddenly appeared ahead.

It couldn't be considered human.

The head was human, but the body below the neck was that of a damaged robot structure.

Upon seeing Li Teng, the figure immediately drew something that appeared to be a laser gun and fired at Li Teng.

Li Teng hastily hid behind some nearby equipment.

The destructive power of the laser gun was substantial, blasting a large hole through the equipment in front of Li Teng, with debris scattering everywhere.

When the figure tried to fire again, the gun had no energy left.

He pressed the trigger several times, but the gun did not respond. Cursing, he threw the gun away and turned to flee.

Li Teng, of course, would not give him a chance to escape and immediately rushed forward to grab him from behind by the neck.

"What happened here? What is all this about?"

After subduing the half-machine, half-human creature, Li Teng pinned him to the ground and began to interrogate him.

"You have no memory?" the half-machine, half-human retorted.

Li Teng actually let out a sigh of relief, finally having found someone who could speak.

"Tell me everything you know!" Li Teng demanded from the half-machine, half-human.

"Haha, having no memory is a fortune indeed! Why would you want to know the harsh truth?" the half-machine, half-human laughed.

"It's not up to you to decide whether I should know, just tell me everything you know right now! Otherwise..." Li Teng reached for the battery on the half-machine, half-human.

"Help me pull out the battery, I've never had the courage to do it myself—please help me," the half-machine, half-human, recognizing Li Teng's intention, not only showed no fear but even wanted Li Teng to aid him in dying swiftly.

Li Teng rolled his eyes... It seemed he had to find another way to intimidate him.

"Want to die? It won't be that easy." Li Teng pulled the half-machine, half-human to a large machine, drew out a cable from it, and firmly tied him up next to the device.

"If you don't tell me everything I want to know, you'll just sit here and wait to die slowly, unable to go anywhere or die," Li Teng continued to threaten the half-machine, half-human.

"Heh, then I'll just sit here and wait to die slowly," the half-machine, half-human closed his eyes and leaned there motionless.

"You're not afraid of dying, right? But are you afraid of pain?"

Li Teng found a sharp metal wire in the cables and stabbed it toward the half-machine, half-human's face.

When the half-machine, half-human opened his eyes, Li Teng held the metal wire in front of its eyes, ready to stab at any moment.

"Well, go ahead and stab!" The half-machine, half-human showed no fear on his face.

This time Li Teng really had no idea what to do.

Isn't there a single normal person here?

"What kind of trauma have you suffered to seek death like this?" Li Teng asked the half-machine, half-human.

The half-machine, half-human kept silent, looking at Li Teng with a hint of pity in his eyes.

After a moment, his face suddenly started twitching and then he spat out some white oily substance from his mouth as his pupils gradually dilated and lost their focus.

"This..."

Li Teng shook his head.

It seemed to be the cursed plot setting, determined to keep him from understanding the current situation.

The only way to quickly understand the situation was to find a route upstairs and reunite with his daughter, Anna.

Anna would definitely provide him with some useful clues.

Upon searching the half-machine, half-human, Li Teng not only found a battery that had only 10 percent charge remaining but also discovered a card.

It appeared to be some sort of pass.

Perhaps the purpose of this NPC was to provide this pass?

Li Teng continued to wander about. He didn't encounter any more robots or half-machines, half-humans but found an elevator that could take him upstairs.

Fortunately, the elevator still had power, but it was locked. The pass came in handy.