48 Hours a Day

Chapter 923: Changes

“When are you going home?” Wei Jiangyang asked the three people in the dormitory after the exam.

“Oh, you know my situation at home. As usual, I have to work during the holidays, so I won’t be going back to my hometown,” Ma Wei said. As soon as the exam was over, he immediately took out the high school textbook and at the same time boiled a pot of water, sat down, and started to study what he needed to teach during the summer holiday.

The boy tutored by Ma Wei was said to have made a lot of progress during this semester. So, his parents decided to hire Ma Wei as a permanent tutor and doubled his hourly salary. Of course, Ma Wei wouldn’t let such a rare opportunity slide.

What surprised Wei Jiangyang was that Chen Huadong, who was the most eager to go home every time, would say, “I’ll be staying in school for a while because Nanako wants to know more about the city. As her Chinese teacher, I have to stay by her side and explain everything to her.”

“Hmm.” Wei Jiangyang raised his eyebrows, “It seems someone has completely fallen under Nanako’s spell. All you ever talk about is Nanako.”

“You have no right to say that about me.” Chen Huadong rolled his eyes. “When you and your girlfriend show off your lovey-dovey moves in front of me, I didn’t even ask for any compensation to cure my fragile heart.”

“However, a huge barrier still separates you both. What do you plan to do when Nanako stops being an exchange student and returns to Japan?” Wei Jiangyang didn’t sound too optimistic about their future.

“We will find a way to deal with it when the time comes. Didn’t you see me pouring my heart out to learn Japanese? I can always move to Japan with her to teach Chinese there after graduation, or she can stay here and teach Japanese.” Chen Huadong glanced at Zhang Heng. ” Young Master Zhang secretly managed to master his English. I can do it too.”

“Young Master Zhang has scored nearly 700 points in his Level Six English Test. I have never seen you score such a high score in a foreign language.”

“…”

“This is different. This time, I have the power of love with me.” Chen Huadong gritted his teeth.

It was true that he reduced his gaming time recently, and he had somehow become less enthusiastic about watching dramas. Recently, he devoted most of his time to learning Japanese. And his Japanese had improved a lot.

“I think you read too much manga.” After Wei Jiangyang finished speaking, he looked at Zhang Heng, “What about you, Young Master Zhang?”

“When I finish dealing with the things at hand, I will probably go for a trip during the holiday,” Zhang Heng said.

“Are you going to go on a trip with that rich woman again?” Chen Huadong probed.

“No, just me this time.”

“Ah, what’s the point? Even if you don’t like that rich woman, you can ask Hayase Asuka to go with you. I heard Nanako saying that Hayase Asuka has been talking about you. If you ask her to go on a trip with you, she will definitely say yes.”

With Nanako being his informant, Chen Huadong had become quite well-informed recently. He scratched his head and said, “Seriously, Hayase Asuka is a pretty good girl. You should just go be with her. If that happens, we can work as Chinese together in Japan, and we can become neighbors too. I have always wanted to visit Akihabara.”

“There’s an 80% chance that you will be disappointed,” Zhang Heng said.

“Uh, what are you talking about? Becoming your neighbor or going to Akihabara together?”

“Both.”

While chatting with the three people in the dormitory, Zhang Heng turned on the computer. The school exam was over, but there was still one more exam waiting for him to take.

Zhang Heng logged in to the official website of the organizing committee and looked at the rankings. The first round of the proxy war was halfway done. And the rankings had changed a lot. Zhang Heng was no longer in the first place. The person that now topped the leaderboard was Pegasus, the president of the Silver Wing.

He took the lead with 2203 points, followed by the Arc of Light’s vice president, Mu Ren, ranked second with 2176 points. And most of the players that ranked below him came from the three major guilds, once again proving that the three major guilds were extremely powerful. As for Zhang Heng, since he had completed only one round of the game, his rank had dropped to 49th.

Zhang Heng was not bothered by the fact that he was no longer in first place. It was because he did not feel the need to fight hard to maintain his honor or build a reputation like the players from the three major guilds. According to the bartender lady, the top 500 players were qualified to enter the next stage of the game. And the top fifty players would receive a small gift. Hence, there was no difference between getting first place or the 50th.

Right now, Zhang Heng only needed to make sure that he would be placed in the top-50 category.

Since it was not the deadline yet, and his current rankings would still undergo changes. However, Zhang Heng figured that he did not need to complete all three rounds of games. As long as he completed one more round of the game, he would not fall out of the top-50 category.

When Zhang Heng entered Fan Meinan’s player number into the search bar, however, it yielded no result. When Fan Meinan told Zhang Heng that her sister used some kind of method to scam the Dreamland of Death from the auction, she had also mentioned that her sister hacked the character panel, resulting in both of them being banned from playing the game. But later, the organizing committee seemed to have forgiven them, or they had found some new loopholes. When Fan Meinan invited Zhang Heng to enter the Lego dungeon on New Year’s Eve, the ban on them had obviously been lifted.

However, Zhang Heng did not see Fan Meinan join the proxy war.

Fortunately, when Zhang Heng logged into the player forum, he did not see any news related to her.

Recently, most of the players were focusing on the proxy war, especially the players who were relatively high in the rankings. They became the topic to discuss on the player forum, analyzing who among them was the strongest.

Most of the posts were just hypothetical discussions. Their theories could only be proven when the players that were being compared went on a real fight and see who would prevail till the end. Even then, there was no way to judge the strengths and weaknesses of the two fairly. That was because different players had different development priorities and game items. At the same time, they were also greatly affected by the environment and teammates. An all-around player like Zhang Heng, who was capable of taking care of everything, was probably rarer than a unicorn.

However, it did not stop the player from comparing them enthusiastically. It was human desire to compare with each other. No matter what game it was, the introduction of the leaderboard into the game had always been something huge.

Zhang Heng then quickly looked at the hotter posts in the forum, and few of them were dedicated to him. However, since he had always been alone, he left very little information to the other players. Hence, the other players could only make speculations about him. Unlike Pegasus, with a lot of his information released to the public, they soon stopped talking about Zhang Heng.

And Zhang Heng thought this was a good idea. He could play his second game a day before the deadline, helping him to keep his profile as low as possible. After that, he could go ahead to complete his ordinary round of game in July. Once that was done, he could set off to fly to Iceland to look for more information about himself.

In that huge wasteland, there was something waiting for him.

Especially after escaping from the underwater palace on Yonaguni Island, Zhang Heng noticed that his body started to change again. Not only did he have the ability to breathe underwater, but he also became more and more fond of water. At the same time, he could control the water flow to a certain extent.

Different from the pair of Shadow Wings that he had on him. Zhang Heng could feel that the abilities he mastered this time seemed to belong to him. When he manipulated the ocean currents on the bottom of the sea, it was as natural as eating and drinking.