48 Hours a Day

Panda Novel

Patrol cars sent the group was back to the city. Their statements were taken down, but unsurprisingly, the police could do very little about it.

That was a small crime that did not result in anything serious, so they merely entertained them and warned other campers. Unless a similar incident were to happen again, they were not going to invest resources in conducting an investigation.

An unavoidable situation, the officers already had plenty of cases piled up. Sorting the cases by priority was an essential skill of every officer.

And just like that, the outing was ruined. By the time the group reached the campus, it was already close to midnight. They bid each other goodbye and returned to their respective rooms.

Chen Huadong was in luck! Thanks to his heroic performance of standing his ground when the trespasser threatened him, he successfully obtained Xu Jing’s phone number!

With him setting the ball rolling, everyone else started to exchange contacts with each other. As soon as they returned to their room, the seats on their chairs still cold, the pair had already started hooking up.

Shen Xixi sent Zhang Heng a text to remind him to be extra careful.

Zhang Heng thought about it and then politely replied thanks.

He had only just sent the text when the world around him suddenly went eerily quiet. After more than a month, Zhang Heng was no stranger to this phenomenon.

Setting the alarm on his phone to 7 hours, he climbed into bed.

When he opened his eyes, the world was still steeped in darkness. Zhang Heng turned off his alarm and rolled out of bed. After making himself a cup of oats, he walked down the stairs with the cup.

The caretaker lady arrived a little earlier than usual, already locking the main door the moment the clock struck twelve.

Zhang Heng went straight into the control room and very deftly fished out a set of keys. He proceeded to unlock the door.

He dropped by Wumart first, grabbed a pineapple bun¹ from the rack and them left the change on the cashier. It had actually been a long time since he’d done anything like this. Not since a terrified grandmother ran all the way home with her grandchild after hearing about the 12 o’clock rumor. He switched to stocking up his food before bed.

This time was an exception due to an unforeseen circumstance. If Cheng Cheng had not interfered, he would still be out there camping. After he had finished his oats and bun, he left his cup on the supermarket’s rack, then jogged to the 24-hour gym. By that time, the contents in his stomach were almost fully digested.

He began his training with the water resistance rowing machine. Three hours went by quickly. After that, he took a quick shower before checking himself into the rock-climbing club… Finally, he wandered around the city on his daily tour with his camera.

He was passing by a small hotel when a red BMW caught his eye. Zhang Heng stopped cycling as he slowly glanced at the license plate. It was Cheng Cheng’s car.

Zhang Heng was for all intents and purposes, not bothered by this son of some wealthy tycoon. Like he had told Shen Xixi, he was not involved in any clubs or group activities and had very little interaction with the student union. If Cheng Cheng wanted to take down Zheng Heng, it would require quite a lot of effort on the former’s part.

Cheng Cheng might be famous in school, but he was no fool. It was because of money that they were willing to be his accomplices in tricking naïve young girls. But if they had to give up their certificate of graduation for him, or even break the law, sorry. No one would do it.

Outside school, on the other hand, even though that young man was not a member of any society. After Shen Xixi’s cue, however, Zhang Heng realized that he was also another bored fuerdai with nothing to do like Cheng Cheng.

That was just purely asking a friend for a favor, but these people were sometimes even more of a nuisance than thugs. They were willing to do almost anything for their face.

Zhang Heng figured that since he had so fortuitously come upon him, it was best to get rid of this trojan horse once and for all.

He parked the shared bicycle by the building and walked into the hotel. He did not know where Cheng Cheng was, but that was not a problem as he easily accessed all customer information on the computer at the front desk.

He found Cheng Cheng’s name quickly, took down the room number and borrowed a set of spare keys. Two minutes later, he pushed opened the door into room 305.

There was steam all over the glass door of the bathroom but there was no sound of water.

Zhang Heng could make out the silhouette of a girl but he was not the kind to take advantage of situations like this. He immediately looked away and then continued into the room. There were clothes strewn everywhere.

There was even a brassiere handing from the television.

On the bed, Cheng Cheng was naked except for an underwear, smoking while texting on WeChat.

Zhang Heng plucked the phone from his hand and saw that the person he was chatting with was a guy called Wu Fan with a picture of a tattoo as his profile picture. Zhang Heng tried to recall to the intruder’s tattoo but failed to realize anything significant. That was alright, though. Zhang Heng clicked on the contacts, scrolled down, and found the same picture.

The owner of the WeChat account had taken a full body picture with his wardrobe, with a caption underneath—Can’t put the shoes down. What should I do?

The face on the picture belonged to the guy with the folding knife.

Zhang Heng went back to the conversation page, and then looked through the messages. It was almost exactly as he had guessed. Cheng Cheng was indeed the one who came up with the idea! He was nearby when it happened, ready to show up once he got the signal!

He did not expect his plans to be disrupted by Zhang Heng. Forced home with a belly full of anger he couldn’t vent, Cheng Cheng invited a junior he had wooed to go out on a date with him.

Wu Fan asked Cheng Cheng if he wanted to try and push the bowman around for a bit.

Out of caution and not kindness of the heart, Chen Cheng replied that he would have to look into Zhang Heng first.

After that, the conversation grew boring, delving into what club had awesome girls, which limited edition shoes were worth collecting, who managed to get the girl, or whose boobs were bigger—that kind of subject. Other than that, Zhang Heng also found out that Cheng Cheng was dabbling with recreational drugs and had tricked the girls he was with into doing them.

Zhang Heng shook his head reprovingly. This guy had caused so much harm to other people. When Zhang Heng was done reading the dialogue, he created a new chat group which included Wu Fan and all the other contacts in the list which looked like fuerdais, and then began typing…

‘Wu Fan that dumb fuck! I just need to bring up our friendship and loyalty to get him to do whatever I want. He will do anything I ask him to do. Now, he’s as obedient as my dog.’

When he was finished composing the text, Zhang Heng even added an emoji with a coquettish smile and shades at the end, then hit the send button.

He could foresee that after zero o’clock tonight, a solid friendship was about to face a brutal test.

This, however, may not humble Cheng Cheng. So, Zhang Heng decided to give him a warning.

He did not do anything too inhumane—he was not a monster. He only gave Cheng Cheng some water to drink.

After forcing down two bottles of water down Cheng Cheng’s esophagus, Zhang Heng was worried that Cheng Cheng would not be satisfied so he took another two from the front desk. Then, to prevent permanent damage to his nervous system from water intoxication, he took another three bottles of Pocari Sweat.

In the end, though there was a bottle, Cheng Cheng’s stomach had already grown a size larger and when shaken, Zheng Heng could hear water slushing inside.

To top it all off, Zhang Heng deleted all the apps in Cheng Cheng’s phone before setting a Bride of Chucky picture as wallpaper. Finally, he left a grave message in the memo—Think about what you’ve done.

When it was all done, Zhang Heng jumped onto his little yellow bike, leaving the hotel behind to continue exploring the artistic path.