48 Hours a Day

Chapter 929: Level

The housework robot quickly cleaned up the sofa, and Zhang Heng finally had a place to sit down.

While Xu Qian was working, Zhang Heng took the time out to check his character panel.

Name: Zhang Heng

Gender: Male

Age: 20

Player Number: 07958

Number of games completed: 9

Current game points: 217

Possessions: Shrouded Sheath (B), Infinite Building Blocks (B), Plague Bone Bow (B), Death Vision (C), Heart of Kreis (D), Filter Lens (D), Paris Arrow (D), Lucky Rabbit Feet (E), Oath Ring (F), Marble Soda (F)

Skills: Swordsmanship lv4, Sailing lv3, Shooting lv3, Assassin lv3, Language Proficiency lv2 (eight languages are good enough for daily communication), Lego Assembly lv2, Archery lv2, Field Survival lv2, Driving lv2, Modification and Maintenance lv2, Aerospace lv2, Hacking lv2, Criminal Investigation lv2, Makeup lv2, Cowboy lv2, Piano lv1, Skiing lv1, Rock Climbing lv1, Herbology lv1

Evaluation: The player inherits the power of shadows, is proficient in eight languages, and possesses incredible swordsmanship. As an opponent, you don’t want him to lay his hands on any bladed weapon during the battle. At the same time, he is also a Lego master, sharpshooter, an assassin lurking in the shadows, a highly-skilled cowboy, an investigator with excellent criminal investigation skills and camouflage abilities. He has a slightly higher chance of encountering enemies than the ordinary person. He is a messenger of Pestilence with a fierce blade and excellent sailing experience. Proficient at using bows and arrows, he can drive cars, airplanes, spacecraft, and other vehicles. Other than that, he can adapt well to the wilderness. The player possesses multiple skillsets, a combat expert, and abides by his promises, a rarity among players.

…

After all the effort Zhang Heng put into the Ancient Roman’s quest, he finally increased his previous zero game points to 217. And the game items that he carried with him this time were different from before. he replaced the White Horse Crown and Hunter’s Blessing with Shrouded Sheath and Heart of Kreis. With these two items, he was not better at combating coupled with his lv3 assassin skill.

However, when Zhang Heng read his evaluation, he found out that for some reason, the system did not mention his ability to breathe underwater and manipulate ocean currents upon acquiring them there after his trip to Yonaguni Island. On the contrary, the Shadow Wings that he obtained not too long ago was mentioned in the first sentence of the evaluation.

Fortunately, everything was normal on his character panel so far.

Zhang Heng had been sitting on the sofa for more than 45 minutes, and he had lost count of the cup of tea he drank; the studio’s door, however, remained locked. It was not until after an hour later that Xu Qian walked out of the room with an exhausted look on her face. After she came out, she lifted the teapot and gulped down the remaining tea before sitting down beside Zhang Heng.

“Uh, why don’t you go back to the bedroom and change?”

“No, I’ll start streaming again in an hour. I’ll change after that,” Xu Qian said, stretching her body. “By the way, what did we talk about just now?”

“I was asking why you hired a bodyguard.”

“Oh, it’s no big deal, actually,” Xu Qian replied. “I just felt as though that some time ago, someone was following me.”

Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows. “Managed to catch a glimpse of his face?”

“No. I’m not even sure if I’m really being followed.” Xu Qian hesitated, “It’s just a hunch. I have this feeling when someone is watching me. Oh, yes. There was this once when I came home. I discovered that someone moved my cup. I am left-handed, so the handle of my mug has always been facing the left. On that day, I realized that the ear of my mug was facing my right.”

“Well… did you find anything else unusual besides this?” Zhang Heng continued to ask.

“No,” Xu Qian leaned against the sofa after shifting her body. She did look like a cat now. “The alarm didn’t go off. There were no visitors recorded for unit 3094 at the security door downstairs. I even went to look for the apartment management to check the elevator’s security camera footage. Well, I found nothing unusual. So, maybe I was just hallucinating. To be honest, I’ve been a little nervous recently.”

“Because of what?”

“Work matters,” Xu Qian sighed. “The income of this job is not bad, but the competition is too fierce, especially for mid-level streamers like me. Most of the time, the company would invest most of its resources in those super-famous streamers. There is never a shortage of young and beautiful girls waiting to climb the ranks. My viewers have been declining in numbers for four consecutive months. The number of VIP customers willing to spend money on a personal chat with me is reducing too. I recently got one VIP subscriber, though. So, I spent a long time chatting with him.”

Xu Qian shook her head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be complaining about these things to you. In short, I know that pressure is likely to be the reason for my paranoia. I have been unable to sleep for consecutive nights. When I went on a walk earlier, I saw your company’s . So, I contacted your people to hire someone as my bodyguard for two weeks.”

“It doesn’t sound like a big thing. Why didn’t you look for your friends to help you first?” Zhang Heng asked.

“Friends?” Xu Qian looked at Zhang Heng when she heard his suggestion.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing. I haven’t heard of this word for quite a while now,” Xu Qian lamented. “The people in this industry spend most of their time on the internet. In real life, they don’t have much time and energy to make friends. I have lots of colleagues, but all they do is backstab. There are only so many resources, and others will get less if you take a huge chunk of it. So, it’s not easy to maintain a superficial friendship with others. Even if someone were willing to help me, I wouldn’t dare to accept the favor too. If I do accept the help, news of a streamer going haywire would appear on the internet next morning.”

“This line you’re in seems like a tough one.”

“It’s never easy. However, if it weren’t for this job, I wouldn’t be living on the third floor and renting an apartment like this.” Xu Qian’s words indicated that she was proud of herself.

Of course, her curvaceous body was one reason she was so good at her job. While Xu Qian was streaming, Zhang Heng did not stay idle. He continued to collect more information about this world on the internet, especially information related to this city. Zhang Heng now knew there were a total of five levels on the New Shanghai 0297.

There was no class division in this city. However, due to the huge gap in housing prices, the five levels of New Shanghai 0297 divided the citizens into five categories.

The poorest citizens would live at the lowest level and the billionaires on the top floor. The higher the level, the better the infrastructure, living environment, education quality, and public security. The third level that Xu Qian lived in was mainly occupied by university professors, part of the city’s higher-income public officials, and middle-level members of large companies. Basically, all of them were social elites.

This situation would undoubtedly cause dissatisfaction among the people that lived at the bottom level. But fortunately, it was not that hard to go up a level. And there was a considerable fluidity between the classes. Hence, no major incidents happened.

Xu Qian asked the housework robot to add some hot water to the teapot. “When I first came to New Shanghai 0297, I lived on the fifth level. At that time, I was a nobody. I worked as a waitress in a small restaurant. My daily job was dealing with a couple of idiots. After that, a company’s scout found me. He thought I was rather charming and good at dealing with people; hence, we signed a contract, and I got introduced to this streaming job. After that, I put in a lot of effort to get to where I am today, step by step.”