48 Hours a Day

“What kind of person is that,” the cashier lady muttered. She felt that the situation wasn’t fair for Zhang Heng. “He was so rude. You shouldn’t have paid for him.”

“It’s alright. It’s only one yuan anyway,” Zhang Heng said, “We should help each other since this is a small community.”

If Zhang Heng remembered correctly, when the man that just left was still a college student, the cashier used to have a crush on him. Whenever he came to the convenience store, the cashier always wanted to buy him some snacks. At the same time, she would try to look for a topic to chat him up. Tragically, their lives were very different, and in the end, their relationship did not work out well.

However, his current situation did make it difficult to relate to the bright young man before. Zhang Heng did not dwell on this issue, scanning the code of his purchases, and left the convenience store. He then went around to wander a little longer and returned home after realizing that it was almost time for his grandpa to be home.

After dinner, Zhang Heng returned to his room, closed the door, and turned on the computer.

The first thing that he did was to search for news about the three drowned children on the internet. Two of them were boys, and one of them was a girl, and they were all from the same community where they knew each other. The girl came from a single-parent family, where her father had passed away when she was still very young. When the distraught mother found out that her daughter had drowned, she wailed and fainted several times. The police officers had to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital. Zhang Heng watched the interview, but he couldn’t find anything amiss. If the victims of the incident weren’t three children, it would not have received such big attention. It would just be another ordinary piece of news.

Unfortunately, few useful clues were found regarding the incident, and he could only carry out the basic investigations first.

He waited until 10:30 when his grandpa went to bed. After waiting for a further half-hour, he figured that his grandpa should be asleep. At 11, he carried the backpack with the Pestilence Bone Bow on his back, grabbing his car key on the table before leaving. Zhang Heng entered the car, tossing the backpack and bow to the rear seats. He chose a CD and inserted it into the stereo, and Jay Chou’s melodious tunes started filling the car.

His residence was quite a distance from the river where the three children were drowned. Considering that he was now a high school student and had barely turned eighteen, a detour was necessary. Thus, he avoided a few intersections with more traffic.

By the time he arrived at his destination, it was 11:36 at night.

The place was devoid of people at that hour, and there were no lights either. The only sound that filled the air was the powerful sound of water rushing through the river. The place was dark and gloomy, but for someone like Zhang Heng, who killed a Horseman of the Apocalypse, he found no fear in himself.

He found a place to park, turned off the engine, and took his backpack and bow with him. Turning on his freshly powered flashlight, he began to walk toward the river. The police had found their bodies downstream, but as for the exact spot where the accident took place, authorities deduced it must have happened where they found the girl’s shoe.

They speculated that the girl fell into the river accidentally. The two boys must have attempted to rescue her, and they too entered the river. Thanks to that, all three were lost in the currents of the dark, raging waters.

Zhang Heng descended into the embankment. During the rainy season, these walking paths and the riverbank would be completely submerged underwater. A drought during the past two years, however, had brought the water level down, and many often came here to fish and swim.

After walking for about five minutes, Zhang Heng came to the spot where the accident happened. Since police investigations were complete, they removed the yellow-stripe tape that once cordoned off the area. Not far from where Zhang Heng stood, a new sign had been erected, prohibiting swimming in the river. When Zhang Heng pointed his flashlight at the signboard, he found that the word ‘prohibited’ was missing. The area was deemed unfriendly to investigators, seeing how pebbled littered the entire riverbank. This made looking for footprints almost impossible. The police had already been here once, and to them, it was pointless to investigate the scene again. Zhang Heng could only start his investigation from somewhere else.

He stood at the place where the girl left her shoes, then stretched out his foot and felt the ground. Apparently, the moss-laden rocks on the riverbank were extremely slippery, and if one were not careful, they would most definitely lose their footing and fall into the water.

There were many small puddles around Zhang Heng, probably formed when the water level rose to a certain level. Communities of small fishes and tadpoles were trapped in these puddles and could be caught easily with a plastic bottle. Now, Zhang Heng understood why this place was so attractive to children. Coupled with the diary that the police found later, was this really just an accident? While Zhang Heng was in deep thought, a sudden noise came from behind him. He moved the flashlight over and found a small toad. The amphibian remained motionless as the bright light hit it. He figured that the sound must have originated from this little thing leaping and kicking the pebbles around.

At that instance, an idea struck him. When the light hit the spot under the bridge, he saw something else in a split second. However, when he shone his torch at the spot again, there was nothing there. Zhang Heng stood there, thought for half a second, and decisively turned off the flashlight.

He took out his Filter Lens from his pocket, put it on his eyes, and walked towards the bridge pier.

If there was something hidden behind the bridge pier, that thing should have fled right before he walked toward it.

Of course, it did not rule out the possibility that the thing would continue to stay there, waiting to ambush him. Zhang Heng wasn’t too worried, though, carrying the Pestilence Bone Bow and Paris Arrow with him. There was also a pocket knife in his pocket.

Just as Zhang Heng took two steps forward, he saw a black figure rushing out from behind the bridge pier and running to the other side. Judging by its silhouette, it looked like a person or at least a humanoid creature. His face was covered, and all Zhang Heng could tell was that the person was a male.

Zhang Heng quickly went after him. The opponent’s stamina was below average. Let alone a powerhouse like Zhang Heng; he was even slower than the ordinary man. Besides, the surroundings were pitch black, and his vision severely impaired. Zhang Heng’s speed, on the other hand, didn’t reduce thanks to the help of the Filter Lens.

The two drew closer and closer. The mysterious man realized that he could not outrun Zhang Heng. With gritted teeth, he jumped into the river.

Zhang Heng did not follow him in. Although a fine swimmer, this was known to be a perilous river, where powerful, unpredictable undercurrents could overpower a man in seconds. Zhang Heng was surprised when he saw how willing the mysterious man was to risk his life just to shake him off.

The more important thing was that Zhang Heng already knew who the person was. He could just go and look for him tomorrow. Zhang Heng did not want to go into the river simply because he did not want to get his clothes and game items wet.