48 Hours a Day

“It seems you’ve taken a long trip this time.”

The bartender lady leaned over the wine cabinet and stared at Zhang Heng with a sparkle in her eyes. As he sipped his whiskey, he unconsciously tried to wipe away the foam on his beard. Suddenly, he realized that he no longer had a beard. All he had was his bare, smooth chin. After a short pause, he asked the bartender a few questions.

“What’s the longest a player has ever stayed in the game?”

“No one knows. I heard of a player who stayed in his quest for a total of six years. This is the longest known time a player has spent inside the game. Also, the world he was in wasn’t much different from the real world. After his quest was completed, he had to spend a long time telling apart real and fictional events that he had gone through.”

“So, this is just a game?”

“Why? Why would you ask something like that?”

“I have a solid foundation in world history, and I have done extensive research about it as well. So far, every event that I’ve experienced in the game is no different from real history. Of course, with my involvement, the game’s history differs slightly to the real world.”

Zhang Heng then took out his cellphone, clicked on his Baidu browser, and typed in the keyword, Nassau. He discovered that Nassau’s history didn’t change at all. In the year 1718, Roger Wood had been appointed by George I of Great Britain to become the governor-general of Nassau. He also led the navy to New Providence and reinstated order there after driving out all the pirates in the area. Not long after Blackbeard Teach assaulted Charleston, he was killed by the navy. They also captured Anne, causing her father a great deal of money just to give her back her freedom. She died of old age in the colony.

He realized that everything about him had been wiped out of history. Logically speaking, this was impossible. After the Mannerheim quest, Zhang Heng had a plan inside his head. During the Black Sail quest, he deliberately made his name known in as many countries as he could during his last few years in the game. Once he left the quest, he wanted to verify his speculation and eventually found the answer that he wanted.

“During my second quest, I was wondering if I had traveled through time, but the possibility was simply too slight.”

“Hmm?” The bartender cocked her head.

“Because in a dynamic system, even the smallest change can spur a long-term chain reaction in the system.”

“It’s called the butterfly effect,” the bartender snapped her fingers.

“Yes. If all the players are really being sent back to the past, our world history would have turned into a mess. During the last auction, around four to five thousand players were present, and I can say for certain that there are at least tens of thousands of players in the system. With so many wings flapping, the changes it would bring to history would be unimaginable.”

“Perhaps, those living in their countries don’t even know that their nation’s borders have changed,” shrugged the bartender.

“That is a possibility, but I’ve left many marks on the script this time. It’s impossible that the real world had remained the same, and I clearly remember two different periods of history.”

“Wow. It seems like you’ve done many great things this time,” exclaimed the bartender.

“So, I’m now leaning toward the theory that you’ve integrated a historical timeline in each quest and made it a game. My question is, why do it? Why did you choose actual human history? What’s the message you’re trying to convey? And what happens to the people inside the quest when I leave?”

Now that the thought crossed his mind, Zhang Heng told the bartender, “Give me an extra round of the game.”

Having spent over ten years in the Black Sail quest, he had accumulated a shocking 342 game points, a whole 100 points more than he had expected. Whether it battling against the proud Scarborough of the Royal Navy while he was on Sea Lion, or when he and Black Sam and the others robbed the Spanish treasure ship, or even fighting against Roger Woode to keep him from capturing Nassau’s fleet, eventually earning himself great fortune and reputation – all these earned him many points.

Including the remaining 700 game points from the sale of the Moresby Bones, he now had more than 1000 game points. Spending 400 points to buy a chance at an extra game wasn’t extravagance on his part.

That said, he had just ended a long episode and was in no hurry to begin a new journey.

So, Zhang Heng spent 400 game points on an extra round of the game, but he wouldn’t be using it any time soon. Shortly after, he passed ‘Betty’s Shell,’ the game item, to the bartender and left the bar.

Upon stepping out of the lounge, he was greeted by the deafening thump of electronic dance music, with folk bobbing their heads and flailing their arms in the rhythm.

The nights here were always so lively, an actual city that never slept.

Zhang Heng walked down the steel staircase. With his figure, he would soon be swallowed by the manic crowd. This time though, when the hormone-filled youths saw him walking down the steps, they automatically stepped aside to make way for him. Even the showoffs, rebellious thugs who loved to exhibit masculinity before their female counterparts dared not strong-arm him.

They had no inkling of why they would unconsciously step backward when they saw the man who looked no different from a university student. Those who frequented the establishment knew better than to mess with the two brawny men standing at the bottom of the staircase. When compared to Zhang Heng, however, the bouncers in suits and sunglasses seemed like harmless sheep.

Zhang Heng frowned. He could guess what was going on, sort of. He had been an 18th century pirate for more than a decade in the Caribbean Sea, and he became a horrible nightmare in all of Great Britain, and even Europe, putting the fear of God in them. Even if he didn’t enjoy killing people, he spilled a lot of blood to survive in the cruel and harsh environment – so much he could not even remember how many people he must have killed, or how many had died because of him. Without him realizing it, his temperament had undergone tremendous changes.

In the eyes of these intoxicated youths, born and raised in peacetime and dancing the night away in a nightclub, Zhang Heng was like a dinosaur that trespassed the chicken coop.