48 Hours a Day

The bad news was that he needed to be in school today to relive his high school life. There was a silver lining though. Today was Friday, and the weekend break was finally on the horizon if he were to hang in school for another day.

Zhang Heng yawned. He was a little sleep-deprived, having spent quite a long time at the college student’s house last night. He wanted to try his luck and wait for the student or his parents to come home, but astonishingly, after waiting until five in the morning, none of them returned to the house.

To avoid being discovered by his grandfather, Zhang Heng had to sneak back to his house when the sky began to light up. Initially, he wanted to lie down for a while, but he remembered that he still needed to copy biology homework from someone else. So, he forced himself out of bed and gave his face a splash of cold water to feel better.

Seeing that he was running late, Zhang Heng gulped down two mouthfuls of soy milk, took a fried dough stick, and hurried out while carrying his schoolbag.

“Eat slowly, and... don’t stay up late to read novels next time,” Grandpa advised while flipping through his newspaper. “Anyway, the author stopped updating the novel,” Zhang Heng replied to grandpa while changing shoes.

Although he had left home today a little earlier, the bus did not arrive on time, meaning he wouldn’t arrive at school earlier than he did yesterday. On the contrary, Bai Qing, the one willing to lend Zhang Heng her homework, had been more attentive, arriving almost twenty minutes earlier than him. When she saw him walking into the classroom, she raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry for getting up late. I forgot to buy you a cup of milk tea. I will make it up in the afternoon.” With one hand, Zhang Heng put down his school bag and pulled out the chair with the other.

“It doesn’t matter. You won’t be going anywhere soon anyway.” Bai Qing handed over the biology workbook to Zhang Heng. “You should complete your homework first. I will take it back after the morning reading session.”

“Thank you,” he replied. At that moment, he realized how important it really was to have a good tablemate.

“I will help you keep an eye out for Teacher Han.”

Although a kind soul by nature, she was a member of the study committee, and hence, hadn’t done such a thing before. Instead of looking at the teacher, she couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of him from time to time. As a result, it had now caught the attention of the teacher. Fortunately, Zhang Heng had high efficacy for copying, and by the end of the morning reading session, he managed to complete his homework.

So the second day of his high school life, Zhang Heng finally turned in his homework on time.

“What did you do last night?” Bai Qing said while doing her math homework during the break.

“Hmm?”

“We have only gone through two classes. And I lost count of how many times you yawned. You are affecting me,” complained a frowning Bai Qing while moving the bangs covering her forehead aside.

“I was at my friend’s house for a while.” “For a while?” Bai Qing erased an auxiliary line with an eraser, her frown only getting deeper.

“Well, until dawn.”

“Huh,” Bai Qing snorted, adding the other two auxiliary lines, and wrote down the answer. After a while, she poked Zhang Heng’s arm with a pen. “Is it a girl or a boy?”

“A brother, seven or eight years older than

me.”

“Pfft! You expect me to believe that?” Bai Qing rolled her eyes.

“The truth usually sounds unbelievable,” replied Zhang Heng.

His mind appeared to be absent that morning, not only because he lacked sleep, but he was still trying to figure out what took place last night. Initially, Zhang Heng thought that the student was the one with the problems. Now, it seemed like his parents were the ones who had bigger issues.

Had they grown suspicious of him because of what happened yesterday afternoon?

Zhang Heng was confident with his skills, extremely certain that he had acted fast enough. When the student’s mother entered the room, she couldn’t have seen him jump out the window. However, the possibility that the college student told his parents about it couldn’t be ruled out.

Other than that, it seemed that it was no coincidence that the student’s mother left work yesterday. She probably wasn’t there for him, but there was an 80% chance that the mother found out that he left home the night before. After all, the student was forced to jump into the river, and his clothes and socks must have been soaking wet. It wasn’t easy trying to sneak into the house without anyone finding out.

What happened last night might have had something to do with this incident. For now, Zhang Heng was unsure how the college student and the three drowning children were connected. Right now, what he worried about the most was the safety of the college student.

After school was over, Bai Qing halted Zhang Heng, who was in a big hurry to leave the classroom.

“Eh, what do you want to do with your homework? Do you still want to copy it? I can’t finish the weekend’s homework in a day.” “Can I have your address? I can come on Sunday,” replied Zhang Heng as he stopped to think for a while. “Well, on Sunday I’m going to watch a movie and go shopping with a friend. We’re just going over to Wanda Plaza. Can we meet there?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“We’ll continue this on WeChat then.” Bai Qing, too, stuffed the books on the table into her backpack. “Are you in a rush to meet your girlfriend?” she muttered.

II

II

Having learned his lesson, Zhang Heng took a taxi home this time. It also meant he had spent his weeks’ worth of pocket money, the price he had to pay if he wanted to talk to the college student again before his parents got off work. Before he could do that, he had to be sure that the student was even alive in the first place.

No doubt, Zhang Heng was worried about him; it was also true that killing someone in modern society would be almost impossible without word getting around.

Unless the student’s parents were criminal masterminds, they wouldn’t have taken the route of murder. Amid worrying for the student’s safety, Zhang Heng unexpectedly met somebody who looked like the student walking into the convenience store. “Please pull over,” Zhang Heng told the taxi driver.

He quickly scanned the QR code to pay the fare and got out of the cab. Even before entering the store, Zhang Heng could confirm that the person inside was indeed the college student. However, he looked better than usual. He had shaved, changed a shirt, and was no longer wearing slippers. Now he looked like a top-tier college graduate. Standing in front of the cashier, he was talking to her. While they were talking, she lowered her head shyly and smiled. Zhang Heng then pushed open the glass door of the convenience store, and the doorbell rang.

A look of disappointment flashed across the cashier lady’s face, but she still did not forget to greet her customer. “Welcome.”

“Your name is Zhang... Zhang Heng, right?” The college student turned around, and he no longer panicked when he saw Zhang Heng. Instead, he seemed polite. While smiling, he stretched out his hand, “I remember you. You are Uncle Cheng’s grandson, right?”

“Hmm.” Zhang Heng shook hand with him.

His temperature and skin looked fine. Yesterday was the first time Zhang Heng approached the college student, and the man in front of him did look exactly like who he saw. In other words, he was indeed the college student that he encountered at the bridge pier.

Zhang Heng pointed at his head, “You feel better?”

“Yeah, I finally thought it through. I was so stupid. Love is not everything,” the college student smiled bitterly. “When I was in college, I could solve all kinds of problems, even winning the grand prize for our national physics competition. I didn’t expect that this simplest of problems would bother me for so long.”