48 Hours a Day

A peaceful week passed quickly.

Zhang Heng was flipping through a book about photographic composition in the library this afternoon. He then received a call from Shen Xixi.

“Is it convenient to talk now?”

“Wait a minute.”

Zhang Heng got up, left the borrowing area, walked into the safe passage, and glanced around. There were only a few freshmen discussing assignments around him, and no one even noticed when he walked past.

Picking up the phone, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

“I remember you telling me before that you know how to drive?”

“Yeah.”

Zhang Heng knew Shen Xixi wasn’t talking about whether he had a driving license, but she spoke of driving skills.

“Can you please help me with something?” Shen Xixi asked, “Heard about the news that was circulating in the forum recently?”

“Sorry, I haven’t been on the forum much this week.”

“Oh, if that’s the case, you should take a look at the forum news first. After that, if you want to talk, you can come to the Time Sculpting restaurant in Food Alley to look for me.”

“Sounds good.”

Zhang Heng hung up the phone, opened his laptop, plugged in the USB flash drive that allowed him to hide his IP address, logged into the player’s forum, and started browsing the most popular posts. He did not need to search long, though. After a glance, he instantly knew what Shen Xixi wanted to discuss with him.

The most exciting news circulating the forum was the Sphinx. Unlike Moresby and Zavilcha that Zhang Heng had encountered before, the Sphinx was the mythical creature that everyone had heard of. It originated from Egyptian mythology, but most of its famous tales came from Greek mythology. According to legends, Sphinx would squat on the cliff near Thebes city, intercepting bystanders and asking them to solve a riddle”What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?”

Whoever failed to solve the riddle would get eaten by the Sphinx. Until one day, Oedipus passed by and solved the riddle. The Sphinx was so ashamed of itself that it jumped to its death.

Like all Greek myths, the story was the kind filled with wisdom. Discounting the fact that Sphinx jumped to its death after Oedipus solved the riddle, each mythology also described the Sphinx as a monster with a lion’s torso, a woman’s face, and had wings on its back. Since it had a pair of wings, it could not jump off the cliff to kill itself.

The post about the Sphinx’s spotting was first uploaded by a player named Goldbach. He said he was a high school teacher. One night, while he was on the way home after work, he saw a creature akin to a large hunting dog springing out from the side of the road. Its appearanceuncannily similar to what the myths and legends described the Sphinx looked like. There, it stood beside a garbage bin. Then, what happened after that played out exactly like the myth.

The monster made Goldbach solve a riddle. If the answer were correct, he would let Goldbach walk away, but punishment was in store if he gave the wrong answer.

Goldbach felt nervous suddenly. As a player, he quickly realized that he had encountered a supernatural incident that would most likely cost him his life. Although the Sphinx did not mention that it would take his life, Goldbach knew from the myth about the fate of those who failed to solve the riddle.

It scared Goldbach to death. He lived in a relatively rural settlement, and there were not many pedestrians on the road. He was not the kind of player who specialized in combat either. All he could do was bite the bullet and start listening to the riddle that the Sphinx had for him. Fortunately, the riddle was as bad as it was recorded in the myth.

“The upper and lower limbs are all hands, sometimes it crawls, and sometimes it walks. It walks like a person but crawls like a dogguess the animal. Remember, you only have one minute and three chances to guess the right answer!”

Goldbach was so nervous his mind instantly became blank. After a while, he managed to calm himself down and came up with an answer. “Monkey… is it a monkey?”

“Congratulations, that’s right!” the Sphinx replied in a robotic voice. It then retreated into the bushes and disappeared, as if it had never appeared in the first place.

Considering the relatively large difference in combat power between the two parties, Goldbach did not dare ask the Sphinx why it did not kill itself after he solved the riddle. After the Sphinx left, Goldbach felt like he had woken up from a terrible dream. Terrified by his ordeal and worried that the monster might follow him home, he did not dare return to his residence. Instead, he went straight to the game checkpoint and spent the night there. His wife and daughter thought he must be having an affair. Unfortunately, he could not tell them the truth either.

After that, he wrote a long post and posted it on the forum. The whole thing looked like a made-up story; hence no one believed in him in the beginning. Some people commented on his post.

[My brother, are you from uc?]

[Are you trying to create fake news?]

It was not until more and more victims surfaced that it became the most popular post in the forum.

The second victim was not that lucky. He was walking his dog early in the morning, and as he strolled to a driveway, his dog barked suddenly. It refused to go any further. Although the player reacted quickly, he still failed to avoid the suspected Sphinx.

“It’s not too old. It has a thick beard and is neither big nor small. The only thing that it knows is to call out to its mother. Guess the animal.”

“What the hell?!”

The second victim almost fell to his feet from the immense shock and terror he was experiencing “The answer is wrong! You have two more chances.”

“I just used up an attempt?”

“The answer is wrong! You have one more chance.”

The second victim did not dare speak freely again this time. After a while, he came up with an answer, “Is it a cat?”

“Wrong answer.” Following that, the Sphinx charged at the second victim. Just when the latter thought he was about to die, the creature swung its paws and scratched his arm. It then jumped onto the driveway, and Teddy’s aggressive barking disappeared after jumping over the wall.

The second victim quickly rushed to the hospital immediately and had a doctor check on him. The results showed no abnormality, and after a shot of rabies vaccine, he headed home to rest. As of now, he remained in good physical condition. The mild fever he had was a normal side effect after vaccination. He would need to continue to go to the hospital to finish the remaining four injections. A large number of players criticized him to the ends of the earth.

[Brother, the answer is sheep. How can you get it wrong? And you even used up all your three chances.]

(Since when did the Sphinx become so lovely? All it did was scratch you, then run away after you failed to solve the riddle?]

(Where is your dog? Didn’t it save you during that critical time?]

(My friend. While you expected Teddy to save you, Teddy was expecting you to save him.]