Reborn Action Star: Starting in Hollywood

"Nothing should happen," Meng Tao said through gritted teeth.

His uncertain tone and solemn expression made everyone's hearts tighten.
Coach Meng was also unsure; he had no idea what to expect!

Director Miller was at a loss for what to do. Should he stop filming and immediately hoist the iron cage?

As planned, let the cage continue to sink to the predetermined depth of 15 meters.
Just then, a gentle yet firm voice rang out among the crowd:

"Please stay at your posts and focus on completing your tasks. Filming will proceed as planned. Lin Yuan will be fine, don't worry!"

The crew looked in the direction of the sound and saw GAKKI holding a megaphone, standing on a large rock.

"Miss Aragaki..."

Seeing her confident expression, director Miller immediately felt much more at ease.

So he spoke up and said, "Everyone, continue filming according to plan."

It would be unrealistic to say that GAKKI-chan completely calmed the crew's panic with just a simple sentence.

But as soon as she spoke, the atmosphere calmed down, and the most crucial reason for this was:

When someone makes the final decision, it means someone has to take responsibility.

There's no doubt that the crew members were worried about Lin Yuan's safety.

However, Miller's crew was not Lin Yuan's own team. They could not prioritize Lin Yuan's safety as much as the employees of Lin Yuan Film Studio did.

For the crew at this moment, the biggest concern is who will bear the consequences if an accident occurs during filming.

Should the crew members take on this responsibility? Or should director Miller?
Clearly, they simply cannot withstand it, nor are they willing to.

At this critical juncture, whoever speaks out and issues the order must bear the responsibility.

GAKKI-chan saw this clearly, so she immediately stepped forward.

Judging from her position, she is a producer and has every right to make such a statement.

Since her experience with "Jungle Bully," she has taken on the role of producer.

GAKKI knew that if she didn't step forward to stabilize the situation, director Miller would probably order filming to be stopped and the cage to be hoisted up.

After all, they took emergency measures immediately after discovering the danger, so that if Lin Yuan were to have an accident, the crew members would have enough reason to exonerate themselves.

But if that happens, all the risks Lin Yuan took will be for nothing.

She knew that Lin Yuan must be going through a very difficult time underground, perhaps even facing a life-or-death situation, but she believed that Lin Yuan could create a miracle.

This was true in the past, and it is true now!
Thanks to GAKKI's efforts, the restless crew finally regained some semblance of order, and everyone continued filming according to plan.

"Crunch—crunch—"

The groans of the chains grew slower and deeper, like the gasps of a dying giant.

By this time, the iron cage had completely sunk beneath the quicksand, leaving only four iron chains taut and trembling, emitting a chilling metallic grinding sound.

Everyone who witnessed this scene felt as if a prehistoric behemoth was lurking beneath the quicksand, swallowing the iron cage used as bait whole and tugging at the chain that resembled a fishing line, making a creaking noise.

The war boys held their breath, staring intently at the four chains that were still being slowly pulled down.

Each slip of the iron chain was like the Grim Reaper tightening his noose, pulling the iron cage and Lin Yuan inside inch by inch toward eternal silence.

“Wait a little longer…” Immortal Joe’s voice was hoarse and grating, as if he were watching a meticulously prepared execution: “Let’s see… what surprises the desert has in store for us.”

Finally, all the chains had been laid down, which meant the cage had reached its maximum depth.

"Enough! It's time to hoist the iron cage up!" Commander Freyosa said, clenching her fist.

Immortal Joe smiled and shook his head, but said nothing.

After more than ten seconds, he said in a hoarse electronic voice, "Hang up the iron cage!"

Upon hearing "Immortal Joe" finally give the order, Commander Friosha immediately shouted, "Lift the cage! And hurry up!"

The entire scene was filmed continuously, and everyone on set, as well as the audience in the theater, can clearly see how Lin Yuan's iron cage is gradually swallowed by quicksand and pulled underground.

Everyone felt an indescribable fear in their hearts.

Humans experience an extremely strong sense of unease when they see their fellow human beings being swallowed up by nature.

The feeling of oppression is even greater when one is swallowed by opaque surfaces like swamps and quicksand than by transparent bodies of water like the ocean.

Besides being terrified, everyone was also filled with worry.

Because when you are swallowed by quicksand, it is completely different from the seawater.

A person can hold their breath underwater, slowly consuming the oxygen stored in their lungs, and can endure for a relatively long time without suffocating.

However, this is not the case in quicksand. The huge semi-liquid and semi-solid characteristics of quicksand bring greater lateral compressive force.

This forces the air stored in Lin Yuan's lungs to be squeezed out, causing him to enter a state of oxygen deficiency for an extreme period of time. Normal people would not even last a minute before fainting.

But this whole scene has already lasted more than 5 minutes. Can Lin Yuan really handle it?
"Crunch - crunch -"

Suddenly, the winch of the gantry crane emitted a piercing metallic roar, and the four iron chains, as thick as pythons, tightened abruptly.

Unlike the previous demotions, every link of the chain is now under double pressure—it has to contend with the swallowing force of the 15-meter-deep quicksand, and it has to pull the several-ton iron cage back from the abyss of death.

The quicksand clung tightly to the iron cage like viscous asphalt.

The trembling of the chains echoed throughout the set, and everyone could feel the teeth-grinding "crack" sound—the mournful cry of metal fibers subjected to immense tension.

Everyone held their breath in tension, staring intently at the chains.

Under everyone's gaze, the sand began to rise, forming a bulge with a diameter of three meters.

"Look! The iron cage is coming out!" a war boy couldn't help but shout.

A broken iron chain hanging from the top of the cage protruded from the sand like a bone claw reaching out from hell.

Just as the top of the iron cage was about to break through the sand—

"collapse!!"

The chain on the far right suddenly exploded!
The 20-meter-long steel cable, like a decapitated python, swung wildly in the air, shattering the searchlights on three gantry cranes.

The remaining three iron chains were suddenly subjected to uneven force, and the iron cage was pulled out of the sand at an angle, presenting a dangerous 45-degree angle.

This scene stunned everyone on set, including not only the actors who were filming, but also the staff who were holding their posts backstage.

This wasn't part of the filming schedule; it was a genuine accident.

No one could have imagined that the chains would break!
Meng Tao's face turned deathly pale!
"What's wrong, Coach Meng?" Miller asked, his heart pounding.

“I have rigorously calculated the tension of the chain. Under normal circumstances, it should never break, which means…” Meng Tao was extremely reluctant to face this reality, and he couldn’t bring himself to say the rest.

"This indicates that the resistance of the sand layer exceeded expectations," director Miller continued, his tone equally filled with despair. "The most likely explanation is that the quicksand has somehow become wetter."

Wet flowing sand with higher water content obviously has greater resistance than dry flowing sand.

As for the source of the water, everyone actually knows, but no one dares to say it out loud.

More water vapor!

Higher underground temperatures!
What this meant was something that neither Meng Tao nor director Miller dared to say. They simply couldn't imagine how they would face such an outcome if they saw Lin Yuan cooked alive.

They could only stare intently at the iron cage, praying that the terrible outcome wouldn't occur.

Accompanied by the mournful cries of the remaining three iron chains, the iron cage was slowly pulled out of the sand.

The iron cage was unearthed at a 45-degree angle.

The moment the iron cage completely detached from the sand surface, the prop dummy wearing the "Bloodfang.Gam" armor suddenly exploded.
The composite material torso exploded like a ripe fruit, and the exoskeleton parts clattered and scattered all over the ground.

"130 degrees! That's definitely over 130 degrees!" the prop master screamed, staring at the monitor.

He pointed to the melting heat-sensitive patch inside the dummy: "Our safety threshold is set at 120 degrees Celsius!"

The prop master's exclamation shattered the last shred of hope in Meng Tao and director Miller's hearts.

Their faces turned pale in an instant.

The two exchanged a glance, both reading the same fear in each other's eyes: beneath the sand, the intermittently erupting geothermal steam was likely at a temperature far exceeding expectations.

The iron cage continued to rise, each second feeling like an eternity stretched out.

The three remaining iron chains creaked and groaned in their death throes, each swing sending down a massive sandstorm.

The crew members unconsciously pushed forward, staring intently at the monitor, completely unaware that someone had stepped on and broken a blood pack on the ground.

When the iron cage finally hovered in mid-air, the entire set fell into a deathly silence.

The cage was empty.

Apart from the exploded dummy and the remnants of cooked flesh on the railing, there was no trace of Lin Yuan.

Grains of sand were trickling down through the mesh, cascading like a golden waterfall in the sunlight, yet they couldn't conceal the utterly perplexing truth:

Lin Yuan disappeared.

"Where is the Source God? Where did the Source God go?"

"This isn't a magic trick, where did this living person go?"

The crew members exclaimed in surprise.

Suddenly, a sharp-eyed stagehand pointed tremblingly at the broken part of the iron cage: "What...what's that?"

Following his finger, everyone looked at the tip of a broken railing, where a charred fragment of a tactical uniform hung, its edges still bearing traces of melted synthetic fibers.

The fabric swayed gently in the hot air, like a tattered flag that had been declared missing.

"This is?"

"This is the iron railing that Bloodfang Gam broke during filming just now!"

Everyone suddenly remembered that during the filming just now, Lin Yuan used his legs to wrap around Bloodtooth Gam and used the momentum to slam him hard against the railing.

The immense impact completely destroyed a rusty, aged railing.

At the time, no one paid much attention to this; they just considered it a nice scene destruction effect.

"He made it out?" Director Miller's voice was filled with disbelief. "In quicksand 15 meters deep? How did he get through the broken railing?"

No one could give him an answer, because it was almost impossible.

Let alone 15 meters underground, or even 2 meters underground, even if the quicksand only reached above Lin Yuan's chest, his lower body would feel as if it were tightly bound with ropes, making it impossible for him to move.

The viscosity of wet quicksand is approximately 1000 cP, which is 1000 times that of water. This means that even if Lin Yuan just wants to move his arm, he will have to overcome enormous resistance.

Once he was buried 15 meters underground, it was no different from being thrown into an empty pipe and then filled with cement.

So where exactly did Lin Yuan go?
Just then, a "rustling" sound came from the monitor again!

"It's the microphone transmitting the sound! Lin Yuan isn't deep in the area, which is why he can hear the sound!" Meng Tao exclaimed in surprise.

……

……

Lin Yuan was unaware of what was happening on set.

From the moment the sand completely buried him, he felt like he was having a long nightmare.

The sand grains, like millions of yellowish-brown fireflies, surged wildly before my eyes, then went out completely.

Darkness did not descend, but rather pressed in from all sides.

It felt like someone had smeared a mass of darkness from the night directly onto his face.

Perhaps this is not pitch black, but a more primal, terrifying chaos.

He struggled desperately, but found it difficult to move; every movement of his hands and feet caused him unbearable soreness and pain.

Even when he tried to blink, he found that his eyelids were already stuck with sand, and every slight tremor felt like rubbing sandpaper.

This feeling was terrifying. Lin Yuan had experienced too many moments of death, and he had also experienced deep-sea spacewalks before.

It's equally pitch black, and the body endures immense pressure, but the feeling beneath quicksand is even more despairing than the deep sea.

He now deeply understands why burying people alive was a cruel method of execution in ancient times.

Just as he began to lose consciousness, a new torment began:

What seeped out between the sand grains was not water, but scalding steam.

They burrowed into the gaps in the combat uniform's fibers, burning tiny blisters on the skin.

Lin Yuan tasted the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth—it was the taste of his oral mucosa being steamed.

If a thermometer were present, it would have already exceeded its reading.

His back was pressed tightly against the wire mesh of the cage, the metal bars burning his skin like a frying pan.

The plastic buckles on the belt began to soften and deform, emitting a pungent, burnt smell.

(Post-event measurements by the props team showed that the temperature recording chip inside the dummy reached 142°C at a depth of 8 meters.)
Lin Yuan's brain was working frantically despite the lack of oxygen:
The current depth is about 7 meters, and the sinking speed is about 0.3 meters per second.

12 meters: His lungs will be crushed by unexpectedly high humidity and mud.

14 meters: High-temperature steam caused severe burns all over the body.

15 meters: It turns directly into stewed meat in a pressure cooker.

Save yourself!

Must save ourselves!

But how can one save themselves when locked in a cage?

Suddenly, his fingertips touched something in the iron cage—

There was a broken iron cage pillar there, its edges as sharp as knives.

Lin Yuan immediately realized that this was the glimmer of hope that Bloodfang Gam had just created!
If he can overcome the difficulty of moving, he can escape from here. (End of Chapter)