There were no clerks in the bath center, only an automated ticket vendor.
Like in the restaurant and clothing store, there was a wall clock and an LCD screen showing a countdown.
The cheapest bath ticket provided hot water, a bath towel, and a small bar of soap, and was time-limited to ten minutes, costing only one credit.
After swiping his card, Li Teng received a coin engraved with strange patterns.
Holding the coin, he entered the changing room, undressed, and proceeded to the bathing area.
The bathing area consisted of individual enclosed shower stalls.
Inserting the coin into the slot of one of the stalls caused the door to automatically open.
The shower stall was a two-square-meter enclosure with a countdown of ten minutes ticking on the screen overhead.
After ten minutes, regardless of whether Li Teng had finished bathing or not, he would be forcibly ejected.
Bathing for women was a complicated affair, typically requiring at least an hour to finish.
But men like Li Teng were different.
He could manage in five minutes.
Half a minute to wet his body, one minute to apply soap, another minute to scrub, and half a minute to rinse off thoroughly.
Another minute was left to dry off with the bath towel.
Li Teng spent a total of five minutes bathing, then used five minutes to quickly scrub his dirty sleepwear with soap and managed everything within ten minutes.
Before the ten-minute countdown concluded, Li Teng was already back in the changing room, putting on the clean clothes and shoes he had just purchased from the clothing store.
Having eaten and drunk his fill, taken a bath, and changed into fresh clothes, the refreshed Li Teng was now a completely different person compared to the incredibly weak man sprawled on top of the stone pillar that morning.
What kind of place was this, exactly?
The changing room provided free plastic bags, and Li Teng put his freshly-washed sleepwear into one before heading back out onto the street.
The street was still devoid of people.
It was incredibly quiet, as quiet as a dead city.
However, the restaurant, clothing store, and bath center were still operating normally, which made Li Teng feel that this place couldn't possibly be a dead city.
Unfortunately, he could not find a public phone, nor was there any place to borrow a cellphone. Otherwise, Li Teng would definitely have made an emergency call to tell the police everything about his situation, for them to locate him and bring him home, and then investigate what organization had abducted him to the top of the stone pillar.
For now, the best plan was to find a living person on this street.
There was a public restroom across from the bath center. Having consumed a lot of beverages and quite a bit of food, Li Teng did need to address that.
The restroom was clean and well-decorated.
Hand dryers and toilet paper were fully stocked.
Inside, there was again not a single person to be seen.
While he was taking care of business in a stall, Li Teng heard footsteps from the street outside.
Was a living person passing by?
After finishing up, Li Teng hurriedly rushed to the street outside.
But the street was still empty.
If someone had passed by just now, they must have headed towards the corner ahead.
Li Teng hurriedly followed.
Indeed, after turning the corner, Li Teng saw two living people.
Two beautiful hostesses stood smiling at the entrance of a store.
Their store's doorway was wide and slightly ajar, with no sign outside, leaving it unclear what the establishment sold.
Li Teng walked quickly towards them, intending to ask the hostesses a few questions or perhaps borrow a phone to make a call.
However, once he reached the hostesses, Li Teng was stunned.
The two hostesses looked indistinguishable from real people, with rosy complexions, but they stood frozen and motionless.
Upon closer inspection, Li Teng realized they were not hostesses.
They wore red dresses, but the specific styles were quite different.
Moreover, the garments were not the typical gowns worn by hostesses but rather resembled ordinary street fashion.
Their smiles were not the welcoming kind typical of hostesses but rather like those of two women pausing to take a photo while passing by.
"Ladies, you're not playing some sort of statues game, are you?"
Li Teng tried asking the two women.
The two of them remained motionless, the eerie smiles continuing to surface on their faces.
Seeing no response to his words and that they remained still, Li Teng reached out to touch them tentatively.
"Are these wax figures?" Li Teng frowned.
Could this be a wax museum?
Li Teng took a few steps back and took a closer look at the facade of the store.
There was no sign, nor any words like "wax museum."
Just then, faint but clear footsteps sounded from within the store again.
"Is anyone there?" Li Teng hurried forward and shouted into the store.
No one responded, but the footsteps stopped.
There definitely was someone inside!
Without another word, Li Teng pushed open the shop door, which was ajar behind the two women, and rushed inside.
After bursting in and seeing everything inside, Li Teng was stunned and froze on the spot.
It was a large hall, about two hundred square meters in size, hosting a party.
In the two hundred square meter hall, there were at least fifty or sixty guests.
All of them were smiling and looking at Li Teng by the entrance of the hall, some holding wine glasses in their hands.
However, the hall was very quiet.
So quiet that Li Teng could only hear his own breathing.
Everyone in the hall remained frozen in a certain posture.
It was like... a photograph, or rather, as if time had suddenly come to a standstill at that moment.
"Is there anyone alive?"
After a moment, Li Teng calmed down and asked aloud into the hall.
He had heard footsteps earlier, which meant there definitely was someone alive hiding among them.
If he could find that person, perhaps he could unravel many of his questions.
No one responded, and everyone continued to look at Li Teng with that same eerie smile.
Of course, they were not looking at Li Teng, but towards the direction of the hall's entrance.
Because when Li Teng walked deeper into the hall, their gazes did not follow him.
This meant they were all just motionless wax figures.
The wax figures were made with such realistic detail that they were almost indistinguishable from real people standing still, which made it very difficult for Li Teng to find the person who had made the footsteps.
"I'm just passing by, I mean no harm."
"I don't even know how I got here."
"I hope someone who knows will step forward and tell me what's going on."
"If you don't come out, I'll have to resort to some extreme measures."
Li Teng shouted a few more times in the hall, touched the wax figures beside him, hesitated for a moment, then picked up a fork from the dining table and violently stabbed it towards the eye of the wax figure next to him.
If there was a living person trying to hide among these wax figures, this method might force them to reveal themselves.
"Damn!"
When the fork Li Teng held touched the wax figure, it made a metallic clinking sound, and the prongs of the fork bent instantly, his arm vibrating numb from the shock.
The wax figure, however, was completely unscathed.
Was this a wax figure?
Were wax figures supposed to be so hard?
"Continue with your party, I was just passing through. I'll go look elsewhere."
Li Teng shook his head and turned to leave the hall through another door.
This place was too eerie, signaling unknown dangers.
Li Teng hadn't intended to make any aggressive moves unless absolutely necessary.
Once he had done so, he had to be prepared for retaliation from these wax figures.
Li Teng no longer believed these wax figures were inanimate objects, nor did he know what they were.
But he felt they were something beyond his ability to provoke.
As Li Teng turned to leave, he was once again shocked and stopped in his tracks.