Trembling At A High Altitude - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Footsteps in the Waxwork Museum

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

There was no staff inside the bathing center, only vending machines. Just like the cafeteria and the clothing store, there was a clock, and a countdown LED screen on the wall.

The cheapest bathing ticket provided only hot water, a bath towel, and a small piece of soap, with a time limit of 10 minutes. It required only 1 point.

After tapping the card, Li Teng received a coin engraved with strange patterns.

While holding the coin, he entered the changing room, took off his clothes before entering the bathroom inside.

The bathroom contained closed bathing compartments.

After dropping the coin into the coin collection device in one of the compartments, the door of that compartment opened automatically.

It was a shower, with only the space of 2 square meters, with the countdown of ten minutes showing on a screen at the top of the wall.

After 10 minutes, regardless of whether Li Teng finished bathing, he would be forcefully chased out.

It was a very troublesome thing for women to bathe, as in general, it took at least one hour.

But for men like Li Teng, it was different. He could do it in five minutes—half a minute to get his body wet, one minute to apply the soap, one minute to rub, half a minute to rinse off, and one minute to dry his body with the towel.

It took Li Teng only a total of five minutes to finish showering. Then, he used five minutes to apply soap on his dirty pajamas, gave them a few fast rubs, and got everything done before the 10 minutes ended.

Before the 10-minute countdown ended, Li Teng had already returned to the changing room and put on the clean clothes, socks, and shoes from the clothing store.

After eating and drinking, taking a shower and changing into new clothes, Li Teng was now refreshed. He was almost like a different person from his extremely weak self on the top of the stone pillar in the morning.

Where is this place, after all?

The changing room provided free plastic bags. Li Teng placed the pajamas he just washed into a plastic bag, before returning to the streets again.

There was still no one in the streets.

It was extremely quiet everywhere like it was a dead city.

However, restaurants, clothing stores, and bathing centers were still operating normally, making Li Teng feel that it must not be a dead city.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a public phone and had nowhere to borrow a cell phone from. Otherwise, Li Teng would surely call the police first, tell them about all that he had encountered, letting them locate him, get him home, and then find out what organization had kidnapped him and left him onto the top of the stone pillar.

As for now, he should find a living person on this street first.

There was a public toilet opposite the bathing center. Li Teng had a lot of drinks and food, and he needed to go there.

The toilet was very clean and pretty well decorated—dryer, toilet paper, and other such things were all available.

There was similarly not a single person inside.

When he was doing his business in a cubicle, Li Teng heard footsteps on the street outside.

A living person is passing by outside?

After Li Teng finished his business, he hurriedly rushed out onto the street.

But the street outside was still completely empty. If someone passed by just now, they had probably gone to the street corner in front.

Li Teng hurriedly chased over.

Indeed, after turning around the corner, Li Teng saw two living people.

They were two very good-looking reception ladies, standing with smiles in front of a shop.

The door of the shop behind them was very big, and it was ajar. There was no sign outside the shop, so Li Teng couldn’t know what business ran inside.

Li Teng walked over rapidly and was about to ask the two reception ladies a few questions, or borrow a cell phone from them to make a call, and such.

After coming before the two reception ladies, Li Teng was actually stunned.

The two reception ladies looked completely the same as real people, with red cheeks. Yet they stood there, not moving at all.

When he looked carefully, Li Teng felt that they weren’t actually reception ladies.

Though the clothes the two of them wore were both red, the exact designs were very different. Besides, they weren’t the kind of formal wear worn by reception ladies, more like fashionable clothes worn by passersby in the streets.

They were also just smiling, not the kind of guest-receiving smile by reception ladies.

They felt very much like two women passing by standing over here, posing for a photo.

“Ladies, you aren’t playing the game of ‘wood man1′, right?”

Li Teng tried asking the two women.

The two remained completely still, with the creepy smile continuing to appear on their faces.

Upon seeing that they didn’t react at all to his words, and didn’t move at all, Li Teng tried to reach out and touch them a little.

“Are they wax statues?” Li Teng frowned.

Can this be a waxwork museum?

Li Teng retreated a few steps to look at the exterior wall of this shop again carefully.

There was no sign or any such words like “Waxwork Museum”.

Right at that time, some vague yet very clear footsteps were heard from inside the shop.

Li Teng hurried to rush forward and shout, “Anyone in?”

Nobody responded, but the footsteps stopped.

There were indeed people inside!

Li Teng waited no more, reached out, pushed open the door that was ajar behind the two women, and rushed into the shop.

After seeing everything inside, Li Teng was immediately frozen with shock, standing where he was.

It was a big hall inside, about 200 square meters or so. A cocktail party was happening.

Inside a hall of around 200 square meters, there were at least 50–60 guests.

Everyone looked at Li Teng standing beside the door with smiling faces—some even held wine glasses in their hands.

Yet the hall was so quiet that Li Teng could only hear the sound of his own breathing.

Everyone in the hall maintained a certain posture and stayed completely still.

It was like… A picture. Or rather, like time had suddenly stopped at this moment.

After an instant, Li Teng calmed down and asked, “Anyone alive?”

He had heard footsteps just now, proving that there was indeed someone alive hidden in there.

If that living person could be found, it might resolve many of his doubts.

Nobody responded. Everyone continued looking at Li Teng with the somewhat creepy smiles.

Of course, they weren’t looking at Li Teng, but in the direction of the hall’s door.

When Li Teng walked deeper into the hall, their eyes didn’t move following Li Teng. This showed that all of them were just unmoving wax statues.

The details of the wax statues were made in such lifelike ways that it was almost no different from real people who stood still. This made it very difficult for Li Teng to find out the person who had made the footsteps just now.

“I’m just passing by. I have no ill intentions.

“I also don’t know how I ended up here.

“I hope someone who knows can come out and tell me what all this is about.

“If you don’t come out, I will have to take some extraordinary measures.”

Li Teng shouted a few more times in the hall and touched the wax statues beside him. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he took a fork from the dinner table and stabbed it forcefully into the eye of the wax statue beside him.

If a living person was really hiding amongst these wax statues, this was the only way to force him to show himself.

“Sh*t!”

After the fork in Li Teng’s hand came into contact with the wax statue, it actually produced the sound of metals colliding. The fork prongs were instantly bent, and Li Teng’s arm that held the fork felt numb for quite a while from the impact.

Yet the wax statue was completely intact.

Is this a wax statue?

Are there wax statues with such hard material?

“You may continue your cocktail party. I’m just passing by. I’ll look around in other places.”

Li Teng shook his head, turned, ready to leave through the door of the hall.

It’s too creepy here, and it also means unknown danger.

Just now, Li Teng had been forced to attack, but he didn’t want to do it. Once it was done, he may have to guard against the wax statues’ retaliation.

Li Teng no longer saw these wax statues as dead things. He also didn’t know what things they were. But he felt like he couldn’t afford to offend them.

Yet when Li Teng turned around and was going to leave, he was again frozen in shock.