48 Hours a Day

The extra game was actually very straightforward. Unlike Zhang Heng, not everyone would spend a year and a half in the game. Most would simply use that time to pick up new skills as their ranks were still not that high. So, the extra game was a good opportunity for them to continue improving their skills.

But then again, 500 game points were simply too costly. Zhang Heng had gone through three rounds of games, yet he had only just broken through the hundred points ceiling. That meant that it would take him at least ten rounds to gather that many. If there was no other way to acquire those game points, very few people would be able to afford this product.

However, that wasn’t even the most expensive thing on the list. Zhang Heng kept scrolling and spotted an item that cost 800 game points – a Mission Failure Exemption Card.

As its name suggested, this little card allowed its holder to escape punishment if they failed a mission.

Presently, Zhang Heng had successfully passed all three games. The first and third game’s main mission was survival. If he failed, he would die – a mission failure exemption card would be useless in such a situation. But for games like Tokyo Drift, Zhang Heng had no clue as to what kind of punishment the players would receive if they did not complete the mission.

If he had enough points, getting one of those cards sounded like a good idea.

Zhang Heng also saw something called the ‘No.137 Permanent Game Point Membership Card’ at the bottom of the page. This one was priced at an eye-watering 999 game points, an item that seemed particularly suspicious.

According to the bartender lady, players with the membership card could enjoy a 20% discount when they spent their game points at checkpoints. Whether this was a good bargain or not, was all up to the players themselves to determine.

Zhang Heng did not see a single game item in this long list. Other than the Extra Game and Mission Failure Exemption Card, the items on the list were real tangible things that existed in the physical world. The penguins, for example, were hard to acquire for most people living on earth. It required only one game point and even included free shipping, which was frankly a fantastic bargain.

Of course, whether anyone would actually buy them in the first place was another question altogether.

…

A week passed in a blink of an eye, and the end of the term was drawing near. The whole school was filled with students who only studied at the last minute. Hence, the library had recently become a hive of activity, brimming with students every day. The queue to the library had now extended to the entrance of the canteen, and this forced Zhang Heng to alter his routine.

He would go to the gym and the archery range during the day, then wait it out until midnight. When the world had come to a halt, only would he make himself a cup of coffee and study in the empty library.

Zhang Heng rarely skipped classes. Except for that time when he missed roll call for English class, he was mostly a diligent student, putting him out of danger of failing his subjects. However, since he had spent such a long time in the game, he had forgotten many things and it was necessary for him to review them.

In the eyes of others, however, his behavior seemed a bit odd. Everyone was bustling around, trying to cram as much as possible in what little time they had to prepare for the term’s final examination. Zhang Heng was the only one wandering around indifferently. Even his roommate, Chen Huadong, had managed to drag himself out of bed early every morning to study. With his head buried in books, Chen Huadong could not help but roll his eyes whenever Zhang Heng left the room with his bow.

Worse still, Zhang Heng would always return very late in the night – almost always just before lights-out. Chen Huadong wondered how his friend would be able to find any time to prepare for the exam.

…

Zhang Heng felt great today, successfully hitting a moving target 50 meters away. All ten arrows hit the bullseye. He ignored the coach’s resentful looks and took a drink of water. Since he had just completed the third game, there was still plenty of time before the fourth and did not pack his schedule with all the training. After his practice, he headed to the park to feed the pigeons there instead of going to the gym. When night fell, he spectated a game of football in the stadium.

It was ten by the time the match ended. Rather than taking the train, Zhang Heng opted to jog back to school. As he jogged, he passed by an alley and quickly noticed two drifters searching for food in a dumpster.

They appeared to be a bedraggled grandparent and her grandchild, both wearing tattered and soiled clothing. The older one fished out a piece of half-eaten fried chicken and two packets of takeaways. She called her grandson to her and they crouched by the wall to eat. When she looked up, she saw Zhang Heng suddenly racing toward them!

The pair had probably been bullied by other homeless for the moment they saw Zhang Heng coming towards them; they looked extremely terrified. The old lady dropped the plastic bag in her hand and reached to pull her grandchild closer.

Suddenly, something fell on her shoulder. From his angle, Zhang Heng was able to see everything. The brick wall behind the old lady melted like hot cheese, and some sort of black liquid crawled onto her shoulder. When her grandson, about seven years old, saw this happening, he froze in his tracks.

Zhang Heng ran quickly towards the elderly lady and grabbed her hand, but the black liquid was a hell lot stronger than he thought. That thing seemed to be able to shift between a liquid and solid form. Zhang Heng’s pulling did nothing to free the old lady of its shackles.

Although he was conservative on strength, it would have been useless even if he used all of it. If he exerted too much force, the old lady’s body might be unable to take it. As Zhang Heng was racking his brain for a solution, the black liquid had already engulfed half of the elderly woman’s body.

Then as, if having a mind of its own, it crawled onto the old lady’s arm towards Zhang Heng as if not satisfied with the prey that it already had.

Zhang Heng reacted quickly, withdrawing his hand at the very last second! Then, he grabbed the motionless child – the sudden movement shook him from his daze, and in panic, he started struggling. He wanted to save his grandmother but the black liquid moved so quickly that, in less than a minute, it had completely engulfed the woman. It then slowly pulled her into the back.

Half a minute later, Zhang Heng and the little vagrant were the only ones left in the alley.

A sharp pain shot up Zhang Heng’s right arm. The kid had bitten him and struggled himself free. He rushed to the wall and fell, knees to the ground. No matter how hard he thumped and punched the wall, the bricks remained unchanged, as if everything that had just happened was a bad dream.