48 Hours a Day

Chapter 1072: Instant Noodles and Fruit Juice

Zhang Heng wasn’t really struggling with the rankings. His goal was to be in the top 50, and unlike other players, had only played two proxy war dungeons.

However, the points from these two games allowed him to return to the top of the leaderboard.

As soon as Zhang Heng left the lounge on the bar’s second floor, he received several messages. Most of them were congratulatory in nature. The first was from Black Swan, and it was full of hints as usual.

“I’ve opened a bottle of red wine for you at home, handsome. Would you like to join me for a drink?”

The second message was from Rabbit.

“Hahaha! I really want to see the faces of the people from the besieged city in February. Are you for real? Aren’t you a little too strong? You’ve only played two games in the first round of the proxy war dungeon, and you’ve already surpassed everyone? Also, do you know the origin of that Beta below you? He looks mighty too. I can’t take it anymore. Just thinking about it makes me happy. Those Arc of Light guys also have this day. I have to order a midnight snack behind my mother’s back. I also have to tell this good news to that guy, Li Bai!”

Considering the conflict between the Union and Arc of Light, Rabbit was obviously not unhappy without reason. The third message was from D4 of Fortune Building, and only one sentence was written.

“Brother, you’re amazing. We have a new batch of props. I’ll send you the introductions later and see if there’s anything you need.”

Other than that, there was also a message from Shen Xixi—its contents much more spartan, she merely congratulated Zhang Heng. In the end, however, she couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. “It’s one thing to get 3,000 points in the first round, but how did you manage to get a 3.9 GPA at the same time?”

Zhang Heng scrolled downwards and found a message from Chen Huadong, which surprised him a little. He had thought that Chen Huadong already knew about it, but in the end, the contents only said, “When you come back tomorrow morning, pass the overpass next to the school and bring me a pancake and fruit... plus a sausage.”

After that, Zhang Heng pulled up the information list to two days ago, but he still didn’t find any information about Fan Meinan. In addition, she didn’t appear on the list. Even though everyone had entered their ID, countless very bored people had already scoured the list over the past few days.

Other than extremely mysterious people who didn’t reveal any information like Beta, the rest could already be identified. Fan Meinan, however, wasn’t one of them.

Considering the latter’s identity as Loki’s agent, there was no reason for her not to participate in this proxy war. There were two possibilities. Either Fan Meinan didn’t make it into the top 500, which seemed a bit impossible. Fan Meinan’s strength might be unknown, but with her superb deception, there was no reason for her to be eliminated in the first round. Furthermore, the one standing behind her was Loki, the foremost evil god in Norse mythology. And thanks to Manway, everyone now knew the names of him and Thor, his brother.

From this standpoint, this Beta that appeared out of nowhere must very likely be related to Loki. But if Beta was Fan Meinan, then there was no reason for her to not contact him after the first round of the game.

Zhang Heng recalled that the last he met Fan Meinan was about two months ago. Since then, she had never contacted him again. Thus, Zhang Heng was more inclined to think that Fan Meinan was in some kind of trouble.

To put it more accurately, Fan Meinan had been in trouble since early that morning. This was also why she had left home and traveled thousands of miles to live alone in this city. Even during the new year, she never returned home.

Thanks to the influence of the woman in sunglasses, Fan Meinan was still on the bounty list of the three major guilds. Thus, she had to be careful in her daily affairs; her whereabouts kept a tight secret. Previously, Zhang Heng had been in contact with her through phone and WeChat. Now that those two channels were unavailable, Zhang Heng did not know how to find Fan Meinan for the time being.

At that moment, Zhang Heng’s phone vibrated again, indicating that he had received a message.

Unlike the previous messages he received, there was nothing except a location. Zhang Heng looked at the number, but that too was a number he did not recognize.

However, after seeing the address, Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows as though something crossed his mind.

.....

After putting on her clothes, Fan Meinan walked through the dark corridor outside the door. Tiptoeing all the way to the stairs, she tried her best not to disturb those who were sleeping on the side of the corridor. She turned around to make sure that no one had noticed her before she slipped down the stairs with ease.

After passing through a small garden and parking lot, Fan Meinan saw the back door, which meant she was very close to her destination.

Knowing she might get spotted, Fan Meinan pulled down the hood of her coat to cover her face. She walked past the security guard on night duty in the on-duty room, turned a corner, and finally saw the lights of the 24-hour convenience store.

She pushed the door open and walked in.

It was four in the morning, and there was no one else in the convenience store except for a salesperson. Fan Meinan walked around the shelves, first picking a packet of shrimp and fish-flavored instant noodles before grabbing a packet of spicy sticks. After hesitating for half a minute, she sighed and returned the spicy sticks back on the shelves. She changed that with a juice bottle and picked a packet of five-flavor fish and tofu along the way before finally heading to the cashier to pay the bill. She also requested the cashier to get her some hot water for the instant noodles.

Fan Meinan took the instant noodles to the dining corner. While waiting for it to be cooked, she opened the packet of fish and tofu and ate two slices. A few seconds later, she opened the lid of the steaming noodles and took a whiff, letting out a satisfied sigh. Feeling thirsty, she tried to open the fruit juice again, not expecting that the bottle wouldn’t open despite twisting the lid.

Unable to believe her eyes, she brought the fruit juice in front of her and tried again. However, she still failed to open it. At that point, the cashier seemed to have noticed the situation and offered her help.

“Miss, do you need help?”

“I’m good. I can handle this small problem,” Fan Meinan grunted almost subconsciously. She wrapped the bottle cap with her clothes and tried a third time. Yet, the bottle cap still did not budge.

Fan Meinan felt a little awkward at this moment. She realized that she really couldn’t open the bottle. However, she had just rejected the cashier’s help. The latter had already sat down and was playing with her phone. Now, Fan Meinan was too embarrassed to ask for the cashier’s help again.

So she could only put the bottle back on the table. After the incident, she suddenly lost her appetite for the noodles in front of her, surrounded by an unprecedented sense of loss and powerlessness.

She did not expect that she had lost so much strength, to the point she couldn’t open a bottle of juice. If this went on for a week, she wouldn’t even be able to sneak out for a bowl of instant noodles.

Fan Meinan lowered her head. No one knew what she was thinking.

But in the next moment, a pair of hands picked up the juice in front of her, twisted the bottle cap open, and placed it back in front of her. “How long do you plan to hide from me?”

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