章節 27: Chapter 27: The Long Night

編輯: Atlas Studios

The helicopter cabin had a countdown.

A five-minute countdown.

Clearly, this five minutes was for Li Teng to climb from the rope ladder back to the top of the pillar.

If he exceeded this time and hadn't gone down, there was only one outcome.

That would be being sent back to the Film and Television City.

And at that time, returning to the Film and Television City, there was also only one outcome.

That would be being immediately encased in wax, turned into a handsome wax statue.

Li Teng had no choice but to continuously encourage himself in his heart, to overcome the emotions of fear and despair, and then cautiously climb down the swaying rope ladder hanging from the helicopter to the top of the pillar.

Finally, Li Teng's feet once again touched his own bed.

The bed was piled with about half a meter of snow.

After completing the delivery mission, the helicopter quickly flew away and disappeared into the distance.

Leaving Li Teng alone, solitary at the top of the pillar.

Previously in the Film and Television City, although there was the danger of being eliminated during shooting, at least it still looked somewhat similar to the real world.

But returning here felt like a nightmare.

I really didn't want to come back!

Bone-chilling cold.

Looking up at the gloomy sky, Li Teng let out a piercing long howl.

What is life's loneliness like snow?

This is it.

...

Although the snow had become lighter now, because it had snowed all day, the bed was piled high with thick snow, and even under the bed, snow blown in by the wind filled it up.

Needless to say, the blankets and mattresses under the snow must all have been soaked through and frozen solid.

Lying down to sleep was out of the question.

Is fate trying to cut off my survival?

How am I supposed to get through these next few days!

Without even a place to sleep and avoid the wind, could I even survive till tomorrow morning, or would I just die outright?

When I went to buy clothes at the Film and Television City's clothing store, I never thought I would be sent back here.

Otherwise, I should have bought some thick clothes for warmth then.

So few credits, really not enough.

Forget it, past events, better not to think about them anymore.

Better to focus on how to keep warm, how to survive tonight's extreme cold, and hold on until the next time I get into the Film and Television City.

A gust of cold wind came through, bringing some sparse snowflakes into Li Teng's neck.

It also took away the precious heat from his body.

He didn't have much time left, he needed to act quickly.

The wooden bed was partially broken, leaving only three legs.

It did leave Li Teng with a small bedside platform on the top of the pillar.

After clearing the snow from this small platform beside the bed, Li Teng stood there and urinated toward the space below the pillar, then after pondering for a moment, he crouched down and carefully started to dig under the bed board.

Underneath the bed board was all snow, as long as the snow between the underside of the bed board and the top of the pillar was removed, a Snow Cave could be dug out to provide shelter.

Although the Snow Cave was still cold, at least it offered protection from the wind.

Half an hour later, Li Teng finally managed to dig out a Snow Cave under the bed board that could accommodate him.

Then he pushed the snow to the edges and tried to compact it, building up snow walls on all four sides between the bed board and the pillar, leaving only a vent on the leeward side to create a snow shelter for himself.

After hiding in this snow shelter, although it was still very cold, without the wind directly blowing on him, it was indeed much better.

Looking outside through the vent hole, the sky had completely darkened.

A long night was about to arrive.

Recalling everything that had happened during the day felt like a dream.

Although the role he played in the film could be killed off at any time, and he could thus be turned into a wax statue,

Li Teng would rather stay in the Film and Television City to continue filming indefinitely than return to the top of this pillar.

Although he could look forward to using credits to lower the height of the pillar in the future, the present hardships were simply too difficult to endure.

Li Teng doubted whether he could survive until the day the pillar was lowered.

Despair.

Anger.

That old woman, that young girl, that female white-collar worker, and Gao Fei, weren't they experiencing the same things as him?

If those women could persevere, why couldn't he, a grown man, grit his teeth and endure?

Forget it, don't think wildly, better to conserve some energy to extend my life a bit longer.

Resting his head on a pillow made of snow, Li Teng recalled the events of the day, his mind slowly becoming hazy.

No amount of coffee could stave off his sleepiness.

Perhaps coffee didn't have a stimulating effect on Li Teng.

He didn't know how long it had been.

Li Teng, having drunk too much coffee, really needed to urinate.

He found himself on the streets of the Film and Television City.

It was pitch dark as if it were nighttime.

He was almost too late to avoid wetting his pants.

Rushing, he hurried to the restroom on the street corner and unzipped his pants to relieve himself with abandon.

For some reason, he couldn't empty his bladder completely, as if his belly was full of water.

After a while, Li Teng heard footsteps from outside.

He forced himself to stop and walked to the restroom door to look out onto the street.

A large group of people stood outside the restroom door, all staring at Li Teng with a bizarre smile as he emerged from the restroom.

But they were all motionless.

Among the crowd, Li Teng also saw Guo Zhipeng.

He wasn't smiling but wore a sinister expression.

"Not this again! Who are you trying to scare?" Li Teng cursed.

He turned around intending to return to the restroom to continue urinating when the group of wax figures suddenly came to life, led by Guo Zhipeng, and charged at him, some grabbing his arms, some his legs, and forcefully dragged Li Teng toward the opposite wax museum.

"Let me go!" Li Teng struggled fiercely.

But he woke himself up instead.

It was pitch black all around.

This clearly wasn't the Film and Television City.

Where was this?

A moment later, Li Teng realized.

This was the top of a stone column!

The snow cave he had dug under the bed's plank!

The urge to urinate was real.

He had been dreaming of running to the restroom in the Film and Television City to urinate.

Now, he was truly awakened by the urge to urinate.

He needed to figure out a way to crawl out of the snow cave to pee.

But soon, Li Teng discovered a serious problem.

He was utterly unable to get up!

His body was completely out of his control!

Vaguely, he felt his body move, crawling out of the snow cave, and even standing on the edge of the stone column's top to urinate below.

But in an instant, he realized he was still lying motionless.

It was like being pinned down by a ghost.

He clearly knew he was awake, knew where he was, knew what he wanted to do, but he just couldn't get up!

Why was this happening?

Maybe he should continue sleeping.

No, he absolutely needed to urinate!

He couldn't just wet his pants, right?

Had his body frozen and lost control?

After another bout of hallucinations and random thoughts, Li Teng suddenly realized the severity of the situation.

Could it be that the snow had fallen heavily during the night, blocking the ventilation hole he had used?

Was his current ghost-pressed state due to severe lack of oxygen?

If that was the case, once he fell asleep again, he would truly never wake up!

"Wake up! Wake up!"

"Come on, wake up!"

"You can't sleep now!"

"Wake! Wake!"

The increasingly intense urge to urinate finally completely awakened Li Teng's consciousness, his arm twitched in an instant, and then his entire body regained sensation.

Although his body regained sensation, he had no strength at all, as if he had been poisoned by gas.

After feeling around, Li Teng discovered that the ventilation hole had indeed been blocked! There was hardly any oxygen left in the snow cave, and every breath was unbearably stifling!

Had he dug his own coffin?

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章節 28: Chapter 28 The Consequences of Drinking Too Much Coffee

編輯: Atlas Studios

Li Teng's consciousness was in a half-awake, half-comatose state due to extreme lack of oxygen.

Taking advantage of his last bits of lucidity, Li Teng quickly recalled the angle of his body relative to the ventilating snow cave before he fell asleep and locked in on the direction of the air hole.

The entrance was buried by freshly fallen snow, which meant that this area's snow was relatively soft; other parts had been compacted by Li Teng into almost ice-like hardness.

Feeling around with his hands, he furiously dug towards that direction and soon found the softer snow. After a fierce digging session, he punched through with his fist, finally creating a hole.

Fresh, cold air rushed in from outside, and Li Teng's mind cleared up instantly as he breathed in the oxygen.

He hurriedly made the hole a bit bigger.

It was pitch black both outside and inside the snow cave, but he could feel that the snowfall outside had increased, occasionally blowing large snowflakes into the cavity, slowly trying to block the hole again.

Li Teng dared not sleep anymore. He intermittently cleared the snow accumulating at the entrance to prevent the air passage from being blocked again.

Having escaped from a near-death experience due to suffocation, another pressing trouble now lay before Li Teng.

He needed to urinate.

Li Teng somewhat regretted drinking so much coffee during the day, as now crawling out to urinate was a troublesome matter.

In such severe snowstorms, he could easily slip off the top of the pillar.

Falling from a height of over a thousand meters would definitely mean certain death.

Thinking back, drinking all that coffee during the day wasn't without benefits... Fortunately, he had drunk so much coffee that it had awakened him.

If he hadn't been awoken by the urge to urinate, he might have simply slept to death in this sealed snow cave.

It was best to resolve the urination issue first.

In such heavy snow, making a hole big enough to crawl out and urinate was too much effort.

If the hole was too small he couldn't get out, but if it was too big he could accidentally knock down the wall of the hole, and without shelter in the latter part of the night, he would quickly freeze into an icicle in such ferocious snowstorms.

After thinking for a while, the clever Li Teng quickly thought of a solution.

A method that did not require leaving the cave to solve the issue.

He slowly dug a downward-angled hole in the snow wall at the level of his midsection, bit by bit with his hand.

The frozen hard snow was difficult to dig through, and after a great deal of effort, he managed to dig a fist-sized hole.

Soon Li Teng's hands were frozen stiff, making it extremely difficult to continue digging.

Impatient, Li Teng lay on his side, took out a drainpipe, and carefully controlled the release of some hot water into the snow cave.

The heat and force further expanded the hole.

However, the air inside the snow cave did not smell good.

Fortunately, cold air occasionally blew in through the vent, dispelling those odors.

Although he wanted to relieve himself thoroughly, Li Teng couldn't do so. If the flow was too great, there was a risk of backflow, which could flood the snow cave.

But controlling the flow made him very uncomfortable, like reading serialized novels online, chapter by chapter, which felt very unsatisfactory.

There was no choice but for Li Teng to find a balance between the two.

After several minutes, Li Teng suddenly felt another gust of wind pass by his midsection.

No way? Water dripping wears away a stone... no, water pouring melts through ice?

Since it had melted through, Li Teng had no more concerns and quickly discharged a large amount.

It took nearly half a minute to stop.

Refreshing!

Truly refreshing!

Afterwards, Li Teng reached out and dug a snowball from outside the vent, and used it to block the drain hole to keep the bad smell out.

"God Teng is just too talented!" Li Teng couldn't help but praise himself.

The snow outside continued to fall heavily.

Li Teng dared not fall asleep again, struggling to keep himself awake, guarding the air hole to prevent it from being blocked by the accumulating snow.

If he only had a plastic pipe to embed into the snow wall extending outside, the vent would never be blocked.

It was extremely tough enduring the darkness.

Li Teng recalled some online novels he had read, remembering how those positive characters overcame numerous difficulties to reach victory, and drew on the positive energy he absorbed from those online novels to support and encourage himself.

Hours passed.

The drainage hole was dug open several times and blocked several times.

Snow finally stopped after midnight.

Li Teng was very sleepy and couldn't hold on any longer. After thinking about it, he enlarged the ventilation hole a bit more before lying down again.

If the ventilation hole was too small, it could easily get blocked; if it was too big, the wind would blow in and be very cold.

He had to find a balance between the two.

...

When Li Teng woke up again, it was already light outside.

It was a gray kind of light.

The snow was falling again, very lightly.

He could feel that it was very cold outside.

Although it was as cold as an ice cave inside the snow cave, it still felt a bit better than outside.

Given the situation, there was no point in going out.

No food, nothing to do, and no girlfriend with whom to discuss the matters of human reproduction and evolution.

So, he continued to hide in the cave.

He didn't know when these hard days would end.

The only hope for Li Teng now was to try to earn more points to lower the height of the stone pillar.

But earning points was really difficult.

A lot of effort would only yield a few points, and the next time he went to Film and Television City, he could still only afford porridge and steamed buns.

Thinking about porridge and steamed buns made Li Teng drool again.

The food he had eaten yesterday in Film and Television City was completely digested.

The coffee he had drunk had all turned into urine.

Li Teng was ravenous once more.

After becoming hungry, one can feel even colder.

Fortunately, it was cold weather, so he was not very thirsty now.

Li Teng stretched his arms and legs from time to time in the cave to prevent the prolonged cold from damaging them.

He had originally planned to hide in the snow cave for the whole day, but...

Li Teng encountered a new problem.

Having been fortunate enough to eat a fair amount of food the day before, his intestines now produced a fair amount of waste as well.

He couldn't deal with it inside the snow cave.

He had to leave the cave.

He really didn't want to leave the cave in this weather.

But under the circumstances, it wasn't a matter of whether he wanted to go out or not.

Even if the outside had flashing lightning, thunder, and was full of viruses, he still had to go out.

The bed where Li Teng slept was an ancestral large wooden bed left to him by his parents.

It was a double bed nearly two meters long and two meters wide.

Although one corner of his bed was knocked off by a civil airliner, the remaining part was still fine for one person to sleep on.

Having the corner knocked off actually had a benefit.

It was that Li Teng had a small triangular platform at the corner on top of the stone pillar.

After slightly clearing the snow, he had a place where he could stand to conduct his business.

After crawling out of the snow cave, Li Teng took several large clumps of snow from the bed, packed them into a basin shape, and squatted on the small platform to relieve himself.

After he was done, he shaped a few triangular snow blocks and used them to clean his backside.

Then he kicked away the snow basin he had just made, thus avoiding the problem of flushing.

He didn't know if there were any residents in the small town, but even if there were, they wouldn't go out in such cold weather, right?

It couldn't possibly land precisely on someone's head, right?

Li Teng didn't want to literally dump it on someone else's head, but he had no choice right now.

He certainly didn't want to be stunk to death.

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