48 Hours a Day

Chapter 660 You Guys Should Be Running

Zhang Heng figured that his recent actions must have alerted those beings. After all, he had been collecting security footage along the street, and he knew it wasn’t something he could hide. Such a move had probably caused them to feel that he was threatening their existence, and thus, hired a group of people to teach Zhang Heng a lesson.

To them, Zhang Heng was nothing more than a high school student. Once the group of thugs taught him a lesson, they expected him to realize reality’s cruelty and hoped that he’d give up on what he was doing.

Obviously, they had severely underestimated Zhang Heng and his abilities.

Technically speaking, this was actually a double-blind quest. Zhang Heng had no idea where those creatures originated from, nor did they know his identity as a player. Hence, both parties were still at the stage of testing the waters they were in.

“How much did the person pay you to teach me a lesson?” Zhang Heng looked at the group’s leader.

“Why are you asking this?” the leader asked cautiously. “I want to see if money can be used to settle this,” Zhang Heng said. After all, he was now quite rich in this dungeon. He would opt for a more civilized solution if he encountered troubles.

“He paid us 3,000 yuan, and he wanted us to beat you up so bad that you wouldn’t be getting out of bed for a week.”

“Then I will pay you 6000 yuan for you guys to leave me alone. And I also want to know more about the person that you guys contacted.”

After the leader heard Zhang Heng’s proposal, he looked at the man with a wrench next to him and asked in doubt, “Are you trying to get our personal information and hand them over to the police while you transfer the money to

us?”

“I can give you cash,” Zhang Heng said. “You have 6000 yuan on you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you pay first.”

Zhang Heng wasted no time, taking out 6000 yuan from his schoolbag and handing it to the leader. At the same time, he said sincerely, “I would advise you to give up on any unnecessary thoughts you have in your mind.” However, the latter obviously had no intention to listen to Zhang Heng’s advice. After getting the money from Zhang Heng, the leader had no intention to leave Zhang Heng alone. A sense of greed started to manifest in his eyes. When Zhang Heng was searching his bag, the leader saw more money in Zhang Heng’s schoolbag. In total, Zhang Heng came out with 10,000 yuan this time. So, the leader changed his words on the spot, “No, we can’t take your money. We are trustworthy people. So, we will definitely deliver what we promised. Otherwise, no one would dare to work with us in the future.”

The leader’s self-righteous talk amused Zhang Heng. “Then how much do you want?” he asked directly without beating around the bush.

“How much do you have on you?”

“It’s better not to be too greedy, uncle.” Zhang Heng said lightly.

“We have been waited for so long for an opportunity to make more money. Do you really think we will leave you alone if we don’t squeeze out everything you have on you?” The leader curled his lips.

“I guess it’s time for things to get ugly.”

Zhang Heng zipped up his schoolbag and slung it on his back again.

“What are you trying to do? Are you trying to run?” The leader let out a sly smile, “There are so many of us here. If we allow you to run away before our eyes, no one will hire us again in the future.”

“Run?” Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows and took out the utility knife in his pocket. “No, you are the one who should run.”

The entire battle did not last long.

All of them were workers from nearby factories, and obviously, hadn’t received combat training of any sort. So, they could only intimadate others with the fat and tattoos on their bodies. In a one-on-one battle, they might even lose to an ordinary civilian. Although they had the numbers, they were facing an experienced player like Zhang Heng. In other words, they would lose the battle regardless.

Since he was not in Nassau or 19th century America, Zhang Heng did not beat them up too badly. Things could get troublesome if he caused them to be permanently disabed, or even worse, killed them. So Zhang Heng beat them up only to disable them temporarily. Doubling down on his generosity, Zhang Heng was actually helping the local hospitals or clinics to earn more money. Truth be told, Zhang Heng only had to defeat four men. The rest were so frightened that they dropped the steel pipe in their hand and ran away.

Zhang Heng ignored those who ran away, walking directly to the leader that was lying on the ground and moaning. When he saw Zhang Heng walking toward him with a utility knife, he became nervous and started to talk, “Wh… What are you doing?! Don’t come near me, eh? We are all civilized people here. If you continue to beat me up, I will call the police!”

Zhang Heng squatted down beside him, and used his clothes to wipe the blood on the utility knife, then recollected the 6,000 yuan.

“Tell me, who is this person that contacted you.”

The leader saw that the 6,000 yuan that he received from Zhang Heng earlier was now gone. He wanted to slap himself so bad right now. Initially, he could have just left with an extra 6000 yuan in his pocket. Even if he returned the 3,000 yuan he received from his client, he could still earn an extra 3,000 yuan. Thanks to his greed, however, he now lost every dime on him. And he would also have a hard time explaining his failure to his client.

Since the leader’s arm still bled, he did not dare plot anymore evil plans. So he told Zhang Heng everything about the person who hired them.

Zhang Heng was not too surprised when he heard about the person. Since the college student was waiting for him in the corridor that night, he was ready to expose himself. That would also mean the fake college student was the best person to deal with Zhang Heng. He had figured out that Zhang Heng’s investigation would lead him to this parking lot sooner or later, and he had got some hire muscles to ambush Zhang Heng here.

In other words, the college student’s family did change their car here that night, but the security footage should have been deleted by now.

This came in no way as good news for Zhang Heng. The investigation had to be put on pause again.

On the other hand, Zhang Heng was now very close to where the college student’s family went that night.

He had a hunch that the creatures’ nest was very likely nearby. Although the CCTV footage had been deleted, Zhang Heng believed that the residents around the place must have sensed something amiss.

So, for the next step of the investigation, Zhang Heng decided to focus on interviews.

Five minutes later, he confirmed that he could not extract any more useful information from the leader. So, Zhang Heng walked out of the garage and looked up at the sky outside. There was not much time left before the dark of night would set in, and the last thing he wanted was to let grandpa wait for him. Thus, today’s investigation would have to end here.

He called a taxi and chatted with the driver as they drove on the road. After a while, he received a message from Qin Zhen, who said that he had obtained the concert tickets. Since Qin Zhen had bought the tickets from his own cousin, he only needed to pay an extra 500 yuan for each. In total, Zhang Heng was only required to pay 7,120 yuan for all the tickets.

To his cousin, this was a significant loss, having made not much more than the cost to purchase those tickets. This was clearly not a bad deal for him.

Zhang Heng was fine with it, though. The price was indeed reasonable. It would be unrealistic to expect Qin Zhen’s cousin to not earn a single cent from them. After that, he asked Qin Zhen to send over the QR code on the ticket to confirm that the tickets were real. Once he saw that the tickets were fine, Zhang Heng sent the money to him after arriving home.

Qin Zhen, on the other hand, was in high spirits, since he’d be able to watch the concert for free. He had stopped asking Zhang Heng about the girl that would attend the concert with him.

He prepared himself and said, “Don’t worry, even if the girl is super ugly, I’ll not say a word. After all, I still have a masterpiece on the stage for me to watch.”