48 Hours a Day

Zhang Heng followed Vesta’s instructions and slowed the car down. The gray Lada slowly rolled past Aunt Sauk’s door. Fortunately, the thing that everyone was worried about didn’t happen. The house was very quiet, and there was almost no movement.

Although it wasn’t night yet, the sky had already started to darken. Zhang Heng looked in the direction of the window. It was pitch-black there, and the curtains were tightly drawn, covering the inside. No one knew what the weird old woman called Sauk was doing inside.

Zhang Heng took a look, and then he heard the voice of Svetlana behind him. “Let’s go. We’ll go back early to eat barbecue.”

Zhang Heng nodded and looked away. Then he stepped on the accelerator, and the car started to speed up, leaving the hut on the hillside behind.

…..

Zhang Heng and Svetlana, the receptionist, spent two days in the countryside. Other than hunting, they also went fishing by the river.

Initially, she wanted to show off in front of Zhang Heng. Hunting was a male-dominated sport, after all, and she had been fishing with her grandfather since she was very young, so she had pretty respectable skills.

However, never did she expect that she couldn’t beat a certain someone when fishing.

Zhang Heng seemed to have picked a random place and dropped the bait. Soon, a fish would bite the hook. After a whole morning, she looked at the fish in Zhang Heng’s bucket and then looked at the fish in her own bucket; the Kiev meat pie prepared by her grandmother instantly lost its fragrance.

“This is too unfair.” Svetlana threw away the fishing rod and protested, “It’s one thing to learn languages so quickly, but how are you so good at hunting and fishing?”

“I don’t have any tricks. I just practice a lot.” Zhang Heng lifted the fishing rod, took the freshly caught fish from the hook, and put it into his wooden bucket. Previously on the island, if he weren’t good enough at catching fish, he would have starved to death.

He had to admit that life in the countryside was quite comfortable.

Other than the white mare he had met by the stream and the old woman named Sauk, who lived alone in the west of the village, Zhang Heng didn’t encounter anything strange.

Everything here was beautiful. The people were simple, and the air was fresh. It was no wonder that many residents of Pripyat were willing to go to the nearby villages to relax during weekends and holidays.

Unfortunately, in less than two years, nuclear radiation would contaminate the place and become desolate. Even the wild animals would be cleaned up by the militia as a mobile source of radiation until decades later, where only animals would return to settle down. Trees and vegetation would grow again. Some residents, having greatly cherished their homeland, even ignored warnings and secretly returned to settle down here.

However, the radiation would also plague this land for a long time, like a curse.

With the bread and sausages made by Svetlana’s grandmother, she and Zhang Heng set off on their return journey.

There were still about 400 days left in the parallel dungeon, and Zhang Heng had basically learned everything he could from the nuclear power plant. Due to his excellent skills, he even managed to become the director of the Steam Turbine Department.

After that, Bryuhanov also spoke to him, hinting that once he had accumulated another three to five years of experience, he would be promoted to the vice chief engineer position in the operations department. At that time, Zhang Heng was only in his early thirties, and such a promotion rate could be considered heaven-defying. He would also be the youngest vice chief engineer in the history of the nuclear power plant.

However, Zhang Heng himself was not too interested in the appointment. He entered the parallel dungeon to look for a solution to the main mission, not to play the role of Du Lala’s promotion. The reason he wanted to become the director of the steam turbine department was also to become part of the higher-ups of the nuclear power plant. Only then would accessing core documents be more convenient.

Now that his work at the nuclear power plant was basically completed, he naturally didn’t care about whether he was promoted or not. Furthermore, according to Bryuhanov, the parallel dungeon would have already ended by that time, and he wouldn’t be here anymore.

Thus, in the following days, Zhang Heng also announced that he had become a salted fish. The work within his scope was still very well done, but he didn’t really care other than that.

The waitress was pleasantly surprised to find that Zhang Heng seemed to have a lot more time since returning from the countryside. The two of them would wander around the town whenever they had nothing to do, from shopping malls to restaurants, and Zhang Heng even led her on a tour of the newly built amusement park.

Furthermore, when they went shopping, the waitress realized that she was no match for Zhang Heng. The latter would often walk around for a whole day, not even sparing some corner of the town. In addition, Zhang Heng seemed to be particularly concerned about the construction of the city. Whenever he heard that a construction project had started, he would run over to take a look.

She found it hard to understand the innate passion that men had for excavators. However, overall, she was quite satisfied with her current life. Even though Zhang Heng had completed his language studies, he was still paying her salary on time, which made her feel a little embarrassed. She took the initiative to do all the grocery shopping and housework.

However, she would occasionally see Zhang Heng standing by the window in the middle of the night, looking at the city under his feet. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

Once he stopped calculating the time on purpose, time would fly by.

In the blink of an eye, Zhang Heng had stayed in the parallel dungeon for the 1440th day. That morning, she and her friends went to the stadium to watch the game, leaving Zhang Heng alone at home. He looked at the clock on the wall.

He looked at the starfish in his hand again. There was only one second left until 24 o’clock. Zhang Heng adjusted his breathing and lay down on the sofa.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the hammock, and a sense of weakness washed over him.

—it was the long-awaited nuclear fatigue.

Zhang Heng knew that his physical condition had been reset back to before he entered the parallel dungeon. The good news was that he already knew his current physical condition, including the schedule for the subsequent deterioration. Still, the bad news was that he had to experience the pain of his body being destroyed by the nuclear radiation again.

Zhang Heng did not want to experience what he had experienced in the hospital room again. Even though he could endure and handle the pain better than the average person, he was unsure if the treatment would be as smooth this time. No, in fact, Zhang Heng was almost certain that this time would not be as smooth as the last. Therefore, he needed to clear the dungeon quickly before his body deteriorated to the point he could not move.

However, Zhang Heng knew that it would not be an easy task. Fortunately, after the four-year parallel dungeon, he was ready.