48 Hours a Day

This time, Scarlet was left speechless.

Like what she said, 1,000 game points was indeed a very generous offer. It was a fact half a katana was barely usable, and even if Zhang Heng refused to sell his other half, it wasn’t like selling her part of the sword would be a problem. If it were not for the proxy war that was approaching, she might have just accepted Zhang Heng’s proposal.

But now… she appeared to be unwilling to sell her half to him. Zhang Heng had made it clear that he did not want to sell his half because he too lacked a bladed weapon, and it seemed game points weren’t his concern.

Scarlet hesitated for half a minute before finally replying to him.

[I will think about it.]

[Okay.)

Zhang Heng replied politely without pushing it.

Scarlet couldn’t help but ask again at the end.

(Where and whom did you learn your swordsmanship from?]

This time, Zhang Heng refused to reply. It was clear from his attitude that he didn’t want to answer this question. Scarlet realized that she, too, might have crossed the line, and after a while, she saw a prompt on the upper right corner of the screen that Saturn 5 had left the chat room. And so, it was in that manner that the first conversation between the two ended.

Scarlet turned off her Surface. She was relieved. ‘Saturn 5’ was not as crazy as Mr. Coffee. In fact, she thought Zhang Heng to be very rational and communicated extremely well. However, once his mind was made up, changing it was almost impossible. From there, Scarlet could also tell that Zhang Heng didn’t need game points.

Scarlet, on the other hand, had come up with everything she had to gather a total of 1,000 game points. Her loss in the Whistleblower quest forced 800 game points out of her to purchase a mission failure exemption card.

If possible, she wouldn’t mind using some other means to take back the upper part of her katana. After all, Zhang Heng took it from her without permission. Then, when she fought with him, she didn’t manage to get any advantage out of him, and although she held Mr. Coffee in disdain, she had to admit that his strength rivaled a nuclear-powered mecha.

Up until now, she still didn’t understand how Mr. Coffee could have lost the battle. One thing was certain, though-Zhang Heng had terrifying strength. So, whichever way this went, she would still need to rely on a deal if she wanted to get the other half of the katana. While Scarlet continued to weigh the chips on her hands, Zhang Heng was in the lecture room, attending a Western Culture and History class, an elective he had taken.

He’d put in some effort into choosing several courses this semester. Besides selecting those he had an interest in, he deliberately chose courses helpful to the game, even picking Elementary French, a very complicated-sounding language.

He earned lots of course credits in this semester alone, and throughout the period, he also had much more free time. Not to mention the extra 24 hours he had in a day. As usual, after finishing the seventh game, he gave the pen he got at the end to the bartender for identification.

The results, however, were somewhat unexpected. This was the first time the game point failed to identify an item, prompting the bartender to refund Zhang Heng with four points and provide him free advice.

“Such situations are rare, but it has happened before. After all, even the system panel could get hacked at the auction center. I’m not surprised by the results. Perhaps you could tell me how you obtained this pen? I could try to help you figure out the problem.”

Zhang Heng remembered the words of Conan Doyle right before he left. So far, Zhang Heng was confident that the old man in the Tang suit approached him for other purposes. His qualifications and game points had all been provided by the old man, and up until now, he still didn’t know the bartender’s role in the game’s system.

Zhang Heng hesitated for a while and finally decided to reveal his encounter with Conan Doyle in the quest before taking back the pen. He then asked the bartender again about the proxy war. “Proxy war? Ahh, the organizing committee was just about to announce it,” said the bartender, “So, there is nothing wrong with telling you first. Anyway, I guess quite a few people know about it already, and after completing so many rounds, you should know what it’s all about. As of now, most of the agents have been determined. Very few haven’t placed their bets yet, but the important is estimated to be released next month. By that time, the game would be entering its next phase.”

“The next phase?”

“Yes, the qualifiers are about to end, and the main game will commence once the name list is released. The next phase is about to get really exciting! It seems you’ve already got the tickets for the next round. I wish you good luck in advance!”

“What about ordinary players?” Zhang Heng frowned. “What will happen to them after the proxy war starts?”

“They may freely choose the side they wish. They can either join the agents or become apostles. A single person never starts wars. Of course, if you are strong enough to defeat everyone, I will be the first to applaud you,” the bartender added with a sly grin.

Zhang Heng wondered if something was wrong with him. As they conversed about the topic, a wild flash of fanaticism and excitement glistened within the bartender’s eyes.

“You should wait for the organizing committee’s notification for the specific content. I’m going back to work. I overspent last month, and this month, I suffer the consequences of a huge debt.”

And that was all the information Zhang Heng had currently. For good measure, he also sent a WeChat message to Fan Meinan. On a normal day, her reply would come almost instantly, which made him wonder if she really had nothing else to do except to scroll through Weibo every day. This time, she waited for an unprecedentedly long time before sending in her reply.

[I’m busy.]

After that, there was nothing from her. There was still about a month before the proxy war, and Zhang Heng was in no hurry. Fan Meinan seemed to have an important matter. When he thought about the powerful individual behind her, he figured someone was about to meet an awful end. It happened that Zhang Heng needed to deal with something too, hence, didn’t browse the player forum for about a week.

The moment he came online again, he saw something utterly shocking taking place.