48 Hours a Day

After all, another interview would only reopen the wounds still fresh from losing their beloved daughter.

Zhang Heng returned home at about 8 in the evening. His grandpa was sitting on the sofa reading newspapers, and the food on the table remained untouched.

“I’ve sent you a message telling you not to wait for me.”

“It’s better that we eat together anyway,” said Grandpa as he put down the newspapers. He did not ask where his grandson had gone to since he always believed in his judgment and self-discipline. The two had always lived like that. Grandpa believed that the more he controlled Zhang Heng, the more rebellious his grandson would become.

Zhang Heng later asked his grandfather where he learned such an idea, and the latter told him that he found it out when raising his mother.

“Let me heat the food then.” As he spoke, Zhang Heng brought the dishes on the table into the kitchen.

After learning that those creatures wouldn’t do anything to him for now, Zhang Heng stopped using the Lego kitten as his meal taster. That said, he remained vigilant. The tragic incident that happened to Lin Sisi and the college students was a constant reminder that this was no safe place. The aliens might have replaced people he thought he knew.

After dinner, Zhang Heng contacted Qin Zhen again.

The latter had a cousin who worked as a ticket reseller, specializing in buying, then selling tickets for performances or events at a higher price. Ticket resellers were either loved or hated, especially when it came to popular performances where tickets would be sold out in a blink of an eye on an online ticketing platform. Even if one had a smooth internet connection, there was no guarantee that they could bag a single ticket. If they were lucky enough to snatch one, however, it would be one with an awful sitting position.

Thus, fans who failed to buy the tickets or wanted a good position could only seek the help of a ticket reseller. It wasn’t uncommon for a one thousand yuan ticket to be marked up to at least three or four thousand yuan. As for tickets that sold like hotcakes, the reseller would increase the price to seven to eight thousand yuan. At the same time, there was a risk that the scalper would scam the buyers by selling them fake tickets.

Although all online ticketing platforms claimed that they had nothing to do with these resellers, it was difficult for them to explain the shady order of ticket allocation. Only they would know the truth. Like many, Zhang Heng disliked ticket resellers too. However, there were only four days left before the start of the concert, and purchasing the tickets through the legal channel wasn’t possible anymore. Knowing how Bai Qing was a real big fan of GEM, Zhang Heng had been thinking about how to repay her kindness. It so happened that there was a GEM concert on Friday, so he decided that he’d invite her to the concert as a thank you gesture.

At the same time, Zhang Heng was concerned that Bai Qing would misunderstand his intention. In the end, he decided to bring Qin Zhen with him.

Qin Zhen took a deep breath after hearing that Zhang Heng was inviting him to a GEM concert.

“Did you rob a bank recently? Do you know how much it costs to get GEM’s concert tickets? And you’re even getting the VIP seats?!”

“Don’t worry about the money. Just ask your cousin to help me to get the tickets,” Zhang Heng said.

Since the race proceeds couldn’t be brought back into the real world, it would be all but a waste if he didn’t spend it now.

“Okay, I’ll ask my cousin!” Qin Zhen agreed. He then asked curiously after a pause, “Now, which girl are you blowing-off such a huge fortune on?”

“Look... if you’re not interested, I can pass your ticket to someone else,” Zhang Heng said. “Fine... Fine... You’re the boss since you are paying. It so happens that I like GEM a lot too. Don’t forget me if you are going to do something like this again! I promise to be your eternal wingman.”

IIII

Zhang Heng hung up the phone after that. So far, he had been carrying out continuous investigations for several days and nights. He had to go to class during the day, and hence, didn’t plan to sleep late again tonight. After copying his homework and taking a shower, he retired early and went to bed.

In the next few days, he continued playing high-school student while investigating the alien debacle. Zhang Heng went to the neighborhood where Lin Sisi once lived. Just like what he expected earlier, the girl’s parents had no intention to be interviewed anymore. However, he managed to use a pack of cigarettes to acquire some valuable information at the gate outside the neighborhood.

According to the security guard, the three children often left together in a group. The one thing he didn’t know was where they were heading to.

These three children should have had their own secret base or something along that line.

Through the surveillance clips, Zhang Heng extended his investigation to a place that was ten kilometers away. He was closer to the east of the city, where several state-owned factories and mines were once located.

The 1990s were probably the golden years of the state-owned factories and mines. At its peak, a factory had tens of thousands of employees, and the director of a factory was considered to be on equal footing as a mayor. The factory’s grounds were usually like a self-contained kingdom, having its own kindergarten, elementary, junior, and high school built within its grounds. It had everything the prospective worker needed, including housing and hospitals. Due to various reasons, however, these large state-owned factories started to go downhill. Not only were all the benefits canceled, but the factories even failed to pay the workers as well. Due to this reason, the whole city looked a little bleak.

There was no longer any need for Zhang Heng to masquerade as a worker from a security camera manufacturer. Since he had loads of money with him now, he could just make up an excuse and gave the store manager a hundred yuan to check their CCTV footage. With that, he managed to speed up his investigation.

He tracked the Honda Fit all the way here, but it disappeared all of a sudden. Even after watching all the footage from the nearby shops, the Honda Fit was nowhere to be seen. It all but seemed to have disappeared into thin

air.

Excluding the possibility of a supernatural phenomenon, Zhang Heng figured that they might have changed the car halfway.

After noticing an underground parking lot next door, he went down, wanting to check the parking lot’s CCTV footage. It was then that an accident happened.

There was no one in the duty room, and at the same time, the light above his head began to flicker. Zhang Heng stood still and looked at his surroundings. At least eight to nine people, all holding steel pipes and wrenches in their hands, had emerged from the dark.

“You shouldn’t have been so nosy,” a man who appeared to be their leader snorted in an unfriendly tone.

“Is that so?” Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows, put his hand in his pocket. “What can you do to me then?” he chided nonchalantly.

The leader snorted, “Stop acting like a fool. You know what’s going on here. Someone asked me to tell you to stay put. Otherwise, you might just be the next victim.”

“And... who is that person?”

“Hey, why are you asking so many questions?”. the leader growled impatiently.

“So you actually don’t know anything. You just take their money and do their bidding.” Zhang Heng’s stare swept across the crowd. Judging from their clothes, they should all be the workers from nearby factories, and it seemed that they hadn’t received any stipends for some time. Hence, they could only find other ways to make some extra cash.