48 Hours a Day

Zhang Heng clenched his fist and squeezed the black heart with no vacillation, and bright, black, blood oozed out of it. At the same time, the horse stopped neighing as well and the previously dim room was now bright again. It was at that time, Han Lu felt as if she reconnected with the world again. The sinking feeling of desolation and loneliness had disappeared. The shock that she experienced, however, would never fade.

Director Kuang’s body seemed to be frozenthe anger on his face sealed-in forever; his mouth wide open like a roaring lion. And behind him stood a man covered in black blood. It was like David facing Goliath—Every inch of his body was bathed in black.

Han Lu’s heart started thumping in her chest again.

In the end, “Director Kuang” lost his vitality, and his body plopped to the ground. It also indicated that this short but perilous battle was finally over. “Zhang Heng?” Han Lu finally recognized the person who rescued her during the critical moment.

Zhang Heng stood there with his eyes closed, motionless as if he had not heard his name being called at all.

When Han Lu started getting worried, Zhang Heng suddenly spoke up. “Can you help me find some clothes?”

“Okay…”

Han Lu was back to normal when she heard Zhang Heng speaking. She was reluctant to take her eyes away from him. Being the woman she was, Han Lu had dated all kinds of young and handsome men, including a club’s young master, a buff young man from the gym, and even several celebrities. All of them were in excellent shape, to say the least, but for whatever reason, their muscles seemed to lack a sense of beauty, not unlike expensive and fragile glass toys displayed before a store’s window.

Han Lu opened the cabinet beside her, finding a set of sportswear that belonged to one of the patients. She quickly grabbed it and handed it to Zhang Heng. “How did you end up like this?”

“I climbed from the window in the emergency room. My clothes are still there.” Zhang Heng tore off the infusion sticker on his hand, turned on the faucet in the bathroom, and washed off the blood on his body.

“Are you… okay? The doctor told us you weren’t doing so well.”

Before Zhang Heng could reply, Han Lu’s phone rang again. She immediately answered the call, where a very anxious Fan Meinan came over the line. “Where are you??? I didn’t see you in the hallway. What happened?!”

“Uhh, I’m in Ward 207, and the situation is a bit… well… It’s hard to explain in words,” said Han Lu.

As soon as she finished speaking, the door of the ward pushed open from the outside.

Fan Meinan saw the corpse of “Director Kuang” on the floor. After that, she saw Zhang Heng, stark naked and wet, coming out of the bathroom. Suddenly, her cheeks turned red.

“Seems you are enjoying what you see too?” Han Lu handed over the sportswear to Zhang Heng, and he quickly put on the pants and jacket. The showcase of nudity was finally over.

Fan Meinan closed the door behind her immediately. “…Who can explain to me what in the world is going on here? How did you get yourself into the rescue room, and how did you get out?”

She turned to look at Zhang Heng.

“The person your sister wanted to meet here is Pestilence, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” said Zhang Heng as he picked up the bone bow on the ground. “We met outside the elevator, and he touched my skin. After that, I felt like smallpox, flu, and the plague all attacked me at the same time.”

“The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse? Pestilence himself? This… how did you defeat him?” Fan Meinan asked in bewilderment.

“I’m not so sure myself. I thought I was going to die too. I almost expired in the emergency room… My respiratory system was failing, the temperature kept rising, and my head hurt like hell. I couldn’t speak, and even opening my eyes was almost impossible. All I could hear was people walking around me and talking,” related Zhang Heng. “Then my heart stopped for a few seconds… it felt like the whole world had quieted down. I vaguely saw that the heart rate monitor had flatlined. But the best thing? I didn’t actually feel sorry for my own death. In fact, I felt nothing during that time.” “You were dead?”

“For a while, I believe.” Zhang Heng said. “Who saved you after that?”

“No one. I don’t remember what happened in those few seconds, but somehow, I opened my eyes and I found myself to be healthy again. I had no fever, headache, or nausea, and my strength had recovered. However, I also saw a doctor holding defibrillator paddles in her hand, and she was about to place them on my chest. I didn’t want to get shocked, so I had to knock her out and the nurses around her as well. After that, I climbed through the window and returned to this floor. I happened to see that Han Lu was in danger from outside the window, so I quickly crawled in to help.” “You survived the plague? How is that even possible? The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse are supposed to be powerful enough to destroy the world!” Fan Meinan’s eyes widened as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. “But compared to that… I can’t believe that you managed to kill Pestilence! How the hell did you do that? How did you know what his weakness was, and how did you accurately pinpoint it?”

“I wish I can answer all your questions, but unfortunately, I can only tell you that I wasn’t thinking back then. I acted entirely by instinct. When I was young, though, my parents told me stories of many myths. Maybe one or two of those mentioned the weakness of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” said Zhang Heng. He squatted down and picked up the crown on and the peculiar bone bow from the ground.

The bone bow was his most significant yield yet after a fight. However, there was no way of knowing what it could do before it was sent to be appraised. But being equipment of a Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he couldn’t be wrong about its prowess. “Director Kuang’s” body had decayed and melted at an incredible speed before finally turning into a pile of ashes.

If it were not for the black blood on the ground, it was as if the situation never occured at all.

After that, Zhang Heng and Han Lu stayed behind to ensure no one would enter the room. At the same time, Fan Meinan stole a few detergent bottles and brushes, and the three of them started cleaning up the blood on the ground.

The two ladies were still in shock after witnessing what happened earlier. Han Lu witnessed the battle with her own two eyes, and when the bone bow was pointed at her, she almost stopped breathing. This was her first time getting that close to a celestial being, and before the scalpel stabbed Pestilence’s back, she thought that this was the day she would die. The scene where Zhang Heng extracted Pestilence’s heart would now be forever imprinted in her mind.

Although Fan Meinan did not witness the battle, she experienced a greater shock than Han Lu since she knew exactly how powerful the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse was. They were different from those so-called gods that had lost most of their supernatural powers over time. The world had not forgotten the existence of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. Looking at the flu that had affected the entire city, one could witness just how mighty these demigods were.

It would be nothing less but an incredible feat if a mortal killed one of them, even if it was a sneak attack.