As soon as the man in the military coat shuffled away with his back hunched, a notification flashed before Tang Danqing’s eyes, just as she’d expected.
[Achievement Unlocked: Lend a Hand]
[Achievement Reward: Wooden Stick ×1]
[Quest Complete! Reward: 3,000 Survival Coins]
[Side Quest 6: Keep exploring and unlock 40 achievements. (30/40)]
What?
What was the achievement reward?
A three-foot-long wooden stick appeared out of nowhere, leaning against Tang Danqing’s thigh. She looked down at it and blinked.
This was the first achievement reward that wasn’t Survival Coins. The stick’s sudden appearance had caught her by surprise.
She picked it up with her left hand and weighed it. It was solid, long, and heavy, but otherwise didn’t seem to serve much of a purpose. Unless you wanted to hit someone with it.
Tang Danqing stared at it for a moment, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
Ah. Self-defense.
She considered it, but wasn’t particularly surprised.
She checked outside through the peephole again. The hallway was empty.
Then Tang Danqing turned back to the NPC. “Jelly, you have to be careful when you’re home alone. Don’t open the door for anyone, understand? That includes the man from before. If I’m not here and he comes back, don’t open it under any circumstances.”
Little Jelly had thin arms and legs, and she was malnourished. Tang Danqing couldn’t see any way she could protect herself.
Tang Danqing also locked the door from the inside and handed both sticks to the NPC for protection.
To be safe, she repeated “Don’t open the door when you’re home alone” four or five more times while finishing her cake. Only after delivering a long, heartfelt lecture did she log out.
Shang You wasn’t stupid. She could tell that Shan Qing had been very wary of the man who’d begged for food. Shan Qing knew he was dangerous.
And yet she’d given him food anyway, leaving a threat on their doorstep…
She was so strange. Had she done it on purpose? Was she looking for a thrill?
After Tang Danqing disappeared into thin air, Shang You had no idea where she’d gone. She stayed in the living room by herself, practicing how to use the telescoping baton.
…
Over the next two days, the film crew finished its script read-throughs and moved on to the next stage: action training for the lead cast.
Tang Danqing arrived at the hotel’s training room at eight in the morning and followed the fight director’s instruction. She had more experience than the other actresses and picked things up quickly. By eleven, she was usually able to finish early and head home.
She wasn’t close to anyone there, and there was no need to wait around for anybody. The crew had no special team spirit that required her to stay and keep them company.
Afternoon training started at two. Tang Danqing ate an early lunch at home, then logged in to Extreme Cold Apocalypse. By the time she got home in the evening, the afternoon’s grueling workout had drained her. She showered and went to bed early.
On the fifth day in the game, Tang Danqing finished setting up the study.
It was the room farthest from the central heating system. She also considered how the NPC might get cold hands and feet if she sat still for too long, so she installed a panoramic vapor fireplace on the wall. It cost a fortune, but the experience was worth it. The flames looked like a prairie fire in motion, a dramatic contrast with the heavy snow drifting past the window. It made the room feel warm, intimate, and inviting.
Tang Danqing didn’t hesitate to buy books, either. Shelves full of knowledge and exciting stories filled an entire wall.
With so many good books to keep her company, the NPC wouldn’t be too lonely, would she?
Tang Danqing told the NPC, “Remember to take care of your eyes when you read. Give them a break every so often and do something else.”
So she added another storage cabinet to the study.
Tang Danqing bought all kinds of craft kits to put inside. There were simple flat puzzles and three-dimensional models, all with pictures and designs Little Jelly had said she liked. She picked out several jigsaw puzzles of famous paintings and more than a dozen building kits—factories, bus stations, flower shops, and more—and packed them into the cabinet.
There were trickier projects, too: miniature dioramas and mortise-and-tenon building blocks. The sets included farms, forests, oceans, research centers, and palaces. They were more complicated and difficult, but could keep someone happily occupied for hours. Tang Danqing stocked the cabinet with plenty of big boxes.
She also bought more open-ended craft supplies: fuse beads, wool felt, clay, paints, and general-purpose mechanical parts. She put them in the little cubbies of the storage cabinet.
Any child who saw that cabinet wouldn’t be able to tear themselves away.
Tang Danqing saw the NPC’s eyes light up and knew she liked it too. Good. She wouldn’t be bored by herself at home.
Tang Danqing stroked the NPC’s increasingly smooth golden hair and smiled. “All work and no play isn’t good for you.”
On the sixth day of the game, Tang Danqing logged in around noon as usual. After adding 300,000 Survival Coins to her account, she set about renovating the gym. She also bought the NPC a body composition scale, a health-monitoring watch, a blood glucose meter, a high-precision ECG monitor, a thermal imager, an all-in-one health screening device, and an automated external defibrillator. She had to make sure the NPC didn’t get sick again.
That day, Tang Danqing used all the equipment to give the NPC a checkup, following the instructions in each manual.
Without any health records for the NPC, she’d just have to find out what the numbers meant herself. Tang Danqing studied the equipment with a serious, meticulous expression.
But after she collected every reading the machines could provide, her expression grew even more serious.
The NPC had an irregular heartbeat and low blood pressure. Her BMI was far below the healthy range, she was anemic, and her thyroid hormone levels were low. Almost all of it could be traced to long-term malnutrition.
“No, no, no, Little Jelly.” Tang Danqing wrote down every problem and insisted the NPC take it seriously. “You need to eat more, sleep more, and do less. You have to get healthy.”
Tang Danqing ran through the tests herself to show the NPC. Nearly all her health readings were perfectly normal.
The NPC stared at her in shock, envy, and admiration.
Had Tang Danqing escaped every hardship of this long, bitter freeze?
The next day, during a break from training, Tang Danqing sat cross-legged on a padded mat and browsed an online guide to healthy eating.
She propped her cheek on a fist and tilted her head as she read a post titled “How I Recovered from Years of Anemia by Eating These Foods.” Suddenly, a faint, clear beep sounded from somewhere in the room.
At the same moment, the ceiling lights dimmed.
The air conditioner’s rush of air dwindled away, and its vents folded shut.
Tang Danqing looked up. The temperature display had gone dark.
The power was out.
At first, nobody paid much attention. The fight director kept leading the actors through their choreography, and Tang Danqing picked up a prop sword and practiced the movements from her script.
But as the outage dragged on, everyone started to get restless.
Winter was lasting longer than usual this year. Even in February, people still had to bundle up in their coats when they went out. The indoor air was damp and cold, and heated air conditioning was a necessity in every building.
The power on that floor of the hotel stayed out. The cold crept into the rooms, and the actors and instructors had to stop training, pull on warm clothes, and wait.
Nobody could jump around or practice their moves dressed like that. They were too cold even to sit comfortably, so they huddled together and watched their breath fog in the air.
“What’s going on?”
“When are they turning the power back on? It’s just our floor. The rest of the hotel’s fine.”
“Are we even training today? Maybe we should call it and take the day off. Ha, just kidding.”
“I heard Brother Rong went back to his trailer. Lucky him… Hey, hey! He just messaged me. He says I can come down and sit with him!”
A few of the lead actors hurried downstairs to relax in the big shot’s trailer.
The training session was temporarily dismissed. Tang Danqing went to the hotel’s mahjong room on another floor, ordered a cup of tea, and waited for an update from the crew.
It didn’t take long for the Executive Producer to post in the group chat. The hotel was inspecting the outage on the 17th floor of Yanyun Hotel and estimated it would take another two or three hours to restore the power. The interruption had come out of nowhere, but since that was the case, everyone should take the day to relax. The Executive Producer was treating the entire crew to a private hot-spring club nearby.
The group chat filled with messages thanking CEO Feng. Tang Danqing copied the others and thanked her too. Feng Shiyi was a major investor in the film company. Treating the whole crew to a high-end hot spring was pocket change to her.
An hour later, Tang Danqing and Feng Shiyi were soaking in the same hot-spring pool.
Five people were in the large pool. Another actress played with the water beading on her shoulder and sighed contentedly. “Air conditioning and heating really are incredible inventions. I can’t stand being without them. I was freezing when the power went out earlier. Thanks for bringing us here, CEO Feng. This is amazing. It’s my first time at a private hot-spring club.”
The young actress took a sip of the mint tea on the ledge and smiled at the big shot. “Thank you, CEO Feng.”
Feng Shiyi smiled affably. “You’re all here to enjoy yourselves, so relax and stay as long as you like. You’ve been working hard in training lately.” As she spoke, her eyes traveled over the group.
Maybe Tang Danqing was imagining it, but Feng Shiyi didn’t seem to be looking at their faces or their eyes. Her gaze drifted to their more intimate parts, lingering a little longer on the prettier ones. There was something greedy in her eyes.
Tang Danqing felt uncomfortable.
She got up and moved to the next pool. Feng Shiyi’s eyes didn’t linger on her.
By the time Tang Danqing had soaked for long enough, she returned to the changing area behind a screen and abruptly spotted Feng Shiyi gripping the wrist of the smiling young actress from the pool.
The actress had played a supporting role billed fifth in the film. Tang Danqing remembered the character’s name, but not the actress’s. That didn’t matter. What did matter was—
Feng Shiyi had an arm around the young woman’s smooth waist, her hand wandering where it shouldn’t. The actress tried to back away, her voice a soft, anxious murmur.
“CEO Feng, please don’t. You’re not really going to joke around with me like this…”
“You’ve got a nice figure. Don’t you think your role has too few scenes? I think we could add a few.” Feng Shiyi’s voice carried a smile, and the meaning behind it was clear.
Tang Danqing had walked in on a casting couch situation. She planned to quietly back out.
But the young actress had shrunk into herself. She didn’t want this, but she also didn’t dare to raise her voice or push Feng Shiyi away. Her face had gone red with panic.
Tang Danqing hesitated, then hurried over.
“There you are.” Tang Danqing didn’t know the actress’s name, but she took the wrist Feng Shiyi had hold of as if they were close friends. “Come on, they brought in those pinecone cookies you love. They’ll be gone if we’re late. Let’s go. Sorry, CEO Feng. We didn’t mean to interrupt. We’ll come back later.”
Tang Danqing smiled at Feng Shiyi, whose expression had gone cold, and led the young actress away.
…
“Have you lost your mind? Picking fights with Rong Yu was bad enough, but now you’re sticking your nose into CEO Feng’s business too! Did she do anything to you? Why’d you have to interfere? Who is Zhou Yan to you? Why are you sticking your neck out for her? Are you sick of working and ready to retire? Do you even know which company put up most of the money for this film—and who its biggest shareholder is?”
The assistant director who’d recommended Tang Danqing for the film was in her car, her face flushed with anger and sweat.
“CEO Feng just told me she wants the screenwriter to change your role! Are you happy now? Do you want your part to end up like Zhou Yan’s? Is that what you wanted?”
“Tang Danqing, who do you think you are? You think you can fix everything you don’t like? What makes you think you have that kind of power? Rong Yu and Feng Shiyi could get you thrown out of this industry with a little effort. How can you be this clueless? If you weren’t the only woman among the young martial arts actors who’d made it this far, you wouldn’t last a month in this business! Go on, keep pushing your luck. You’ll ruin yourself sooner or later. Don’t you dare say we’re friends after this. You’re hopeless. Don’t drag me down with you!”
Tang Danqing only nodded and said, “Mm-hmm,” and, “Come on, don’t get so worked up.” She didn’t say anything else. When the assistant director had finished yelling and told her to get out, Tang Danqing climbed out of the car and went home.
She wrapped her hands and pounded the heavy bag until the blows landed with a dull thud. Once she’d worked up a sweat, she showered. Her face never broke into a smile.
She could barely taste the salad and fish at dinner. Tang Danqing figured she really was close to being driven out of the industry now. She didn’t stand a chance against people with the influence of those two.
Expressionless, she washed the dishes in the kitchen, then climbed into her game pod.
Shang You thought something was wrong that day. When Shan Qing first came back, she looked tired and didn’t greet her. She quietly sat in the play nook beside the giant stuffed rabbit and leaned against its belly with her eyes closed, gently holding its paw and rubbing it.
She seemed to have something on her mind.
