Trembling At A High Altitude - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: A Group Of Kind-Hearted People

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

It was still sunny today.

Li Teng was already starved to the extreme. His vision was blurry, and his eyes could no longer focus.

Even after he waited for a whole morning, the film studio’s helicopter didn’t come for him.

He was terribly thirsty again by noon after a morning of exposure to the sun.

Li Teng dived under the bed and wrung the bunched up blanket, which had soaked up the melted snow and hadn’t fully dried yet, hard above his mouth. Surprisingly, he actually managed to squeeze out a few foul water drops and caught them in his mouth.

Unfortunately, there were only a few drops.

Hopefully, the helicopter would come for him in the afternoon.

Otherwise, he really wouldn’t be able to hang in there anymore.

Was he supposed to drink his own urine in the future?

But it wasn’t like he had anything to store it with!

Was he supposed to cup it with his hands?

He waited from noon all the way until the sun set.

Even then, Li Teng didn’t welcome the arrival of any helicopter.

It seemed like the supposed ‘three to five days’ interval wasn’t the minimum of three days this time. It might be four or even five days.

Of course, it might also be a week.

Surely it wouldn’t be as long as a week, right?

If it really took a week, wouldn’t the actors die of starvation or dehydration atop the stone pillars? What did the film studio stand to gain from this?

However, the fact that the film studio was doing this itself was already very strange.

Why were they sending them on top of stone pillars and forcing them to act in movies?

For whose consumption were these movies meant for?

Resentment started to build up in Li Teng again, but soon, he didn’t have the energy to be angry anymore.

He’d better conserve some energy and wait for the helicopter’s arrival the next day.

Tomorrow, the helicopter will definitely come tomorrow.

I’m sure everything will be better tomorrow.

With this beautiful wish in mind, Li Teng stacked the mattress, which was still damp, on top of the bed, and draped the tattered blanket over himself. Then, he huddled into a ball and went to sleep on the bed.

…

It was sunny today, too.

There was a strange wind today. It alternated abruptly between blowing to the left and to the right. Sometimes, it would also suddenly become very intense.

Severe hunger and thirst pushed Li Teng’s bodily functions to the brink of breakdown again.

He was now incredibly weak. He didn’t even wish to lift a finger while he laid in bed.

He thought back seriously to the last time he had entered the helicopter.

In the helicopter, there had been a box with bread, crackers, and a drink inside.

Li Teng deeply suspected that they weren’t normal food and drinks, but possibly nutrition restorative drugs that had been improved via advanced technology.

Otherwise, with his body in such a weak state back then, he couldn’t possibly have functioned as a normal human being in the film studio after just a few hours of sleep in the helicopter and eating only things like bread and crackers.

Perhaps this feeling of weakness was just an illusion?

As long as they didn’t jump off the stone pillar on their own accord, maybe actors like them wouldn’t really die of hunger or thirst?

Of course, all of this was just Li Teng’s conjecture—or rather, a beautiful wish of his.

However, at this point, it had also become the one and only motivation and conviction that supported him in persevering.

…

It was noon. There was still no sign of the helicopter.

The noon sun was making Li Teng rather groggy.

However, at a certain point, he suddenly realized that something was blocking the sun.

He hastily glanced in the direction of the sun and…

…He actually discovered a hot air balloon! It was floating at an altitude of over 1,100 meters high and happened to pass right above Li Teng, resulting in a brief moment of shade from the sun.

It also seemed to be descending slowly at the moment.

“Hey! I’m over here!” shouted Li Teng with all his might at the hot air balloon.

But soon, he gave up on shouting—because the hot air balloon seemed to be coming straight toward him!

Could it be that he wasn’t riding a helicopter to the film studio this time but on a hot air balloon instead?

But that’s not really possible, right?

A hot air balloon couldn’t fly in a specially designated course. The only way it could control the direction it went in was by making use of varying air currents at different altitudes when it ascended or descended.

If the wind direction wasn’t right, it was near impossible for it to head toward a particular location while keeping a constant altitude.

However, Li Teng was pretty lucky. After the hot air balloon descended to roughly the same altitude as the stone pillar, it traveled along with the wind and got nearer to the pillar!

Li Teng could see very clearly that there were people inside the hot air balloon basket!

There were at least five to six people in there!

They had also spotted Li Teng. Someone was even waving at him from afar.

“Help!”

“I’m trapped here! Help!”

Li Teng hastily waved at them too.

They didn’t look like they were from the film studio. Did this mean that they could rescue him from this place? And bring him back to his original world?

Li Teng’s heart pounded wildly. The desire to be rescued filled him, yet he was afraid that if he harbored too high hopes, it would only bring him deeper disappointment in the end.

The wind didn’t let Li Teng down. It continued to push the hot air balloon toward the stone pillar.

Just as the basket beneath the hot air balloon was about to reach the stone pillar’s edge, a strong gust of wind blew over and propelled the hot air balloon toward another direction, far away from the side of the stone pillar.

Unfortunately, the hot air balloon was blown more than ten meters away from the stone pillar in the end.

There was nothing that the hot air balloon operator could do about this. The only thing within his control was the hot air balloon’s ascent and descent, as the wind direction needed to be extremely coincidental if he wanted to stop right beside the stone pillar and rescue Li Teng. The probability of this happening was terribly low. It was entirely dependent on luck.

When the hot air balloon basket passed by the stone pillar from a distance of more than ten meters away, Li Teng noticed that someone in the basket was drinking from a mineral water bottle. He hastily made a drinking gesture at him and pointed at his incredibly parched throat in hopes that he could toss a bottle of water over.

To the current Li Teng, a bottle of water was no different from his life itself.

The person evidently understood what Li Teng meant when he saw his hand gestures. He bent over and quickly grabbed a sealed bottle of water. Then, he hurled it toward the top of the stone pillar where Li Teng was.

It was just a shame that there simply wasn’t enough propulsion power.

Not only were they more than ten meters away, but they were also even in mid-flight. It was too difficult for them to throw a bottle of water over to the top of a narrow stone pillar.

Three to four meters in front of him, a bottle of mineral water incredibly precious to the current Li Teng plummeted to the bottom right before his eyes just like that.

The man that had tossed the water bottle over shrugged rather regretfully and shouted something at Li Teng.

Li Teng couldn’t tell whether it was because of the wind, but he couldn’t hear what exactly he was shouting.

Just as an awfully disappointed Li Teng watched the hot air balloon going further and further away and he was about to miss this precious opportunity of being rescued, the wind direction near the stone pillar changed again.

With the help of the wind, the hot air balloon approached the stone pillar once more.

This time, upon coming nearer, another man in the basket tied a bottle of mineral water to a rope and threw it toward Li Teng.

It seemed like they were a group of good Samaritans. Upon discovering Li Teng, they were indeed making a serious effort to rescue him.

The rope was a little thick. Another thin rope tied around the water bottle had been added to one end.

They hadn’t been successful in throwing it over the first couple of times, but fortunately, the water bottle had been tied to the ropes, so it hadn’t dropped all the way to the bottom of the stone pillar.

At last, at the third attempt, they successfully threw the mineral water bottle over to the top of the stone pillar.

Li Teng caught the bottle and swiftly untied the thin rope around it. Then, he held the rope in his hands, though not too tightly, for fear that a change in wind direction would cause the hot air balloon to suddenly fly away from the stone pillar and throw him off the pillar at the same time.

Nearby the stone pillar, the basket continued to sway left and right unpredictably. The man that had tossed the rope over earlier shouted at Li Teng while he gesticulated. It seemed like he wanted Li Teng to think of a way to secure the rope to the top of the stone pillar. That way, they would be able to gradually come over and bring Li Teng into their basket.

That… was what Li Teng was planning, too.

But where should he secure the rope?

The bed legs were the only things that he could fasten it to.

However, Li Teng wasn’t very confident in the legs’ sturdiness.

The hot air balloon propelled by the wind possessed a very strong pull, which could easily break the leg.

Li Teng also had another idea that he could save himself with.