48 Hours a Day

Bai Qing’s words made her parents fall into silence again. They didn’t even notice Zhang Heng walking away for a short time. When he hung up the phone and returned to Bai Qing, her mother had finally gotten up from the ground. However, she wasn’t willing to get close to her husband no matter what.

The middle-aged man stood there looking solemn, making Bai Qing seem a little helpless.

The middle-aged man snorted, “Keep an eye on your mother. I’ll bring the car here.”

“No, I don’t want to go to the hospital!” Bai Qing’s mother shouted hysterically.

The way she acted made Bai Qing believe that she must have just endured something traumatizing.

“Should we go home first?” Bai Qing hesitated.

“No, I won’t go home! I don’t want to stay with your dad again!” Bai Qing’s mother insisted, “He is no longer the person he used to be. I can feel it.”

“You are in a mess right now, and you need treatment,” the middle-aged man said with no emotions. “When your treatment is complete, I will take you back.”

As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed Bai Qing’s mother by her hand.

But the next moment, a hand stopped his arm.

“It’s better that you two calm down first,” Zhang Heng said. “As you said, she is mentally unstable now. It’s not good to force her to stay outside. It’s better to let her stay in a hotel for a few days. You should talk to her again after she calms down.”

“You haven’t left yet?!” The middle-aged man glared at Zhang Heng. He tried to shake off Zhang Heng’s arm with his other hand, but it was futile. The boy was a lot stronger than he thought, and in frustration, he shoved Zhang Heng.

Zhang Heng, however, easily managed to stop him from doing that.

“Stop… Fighting.” At that moment, Bai Qing had become most anxious. After seeing what happened to her parents, she almost broke into tears. Then, before she could even figure out how the sporadic skirmish between her parents broke out, Zhang Heng had almost started a fight with her father.

But then, before anybody could react, a faint siren could be heard wailing in the distance.

The middle-aged man’s face changed drastically, and he looked at Zhang Heng viciously. “Did you call the police?”

“It’s not me,” Zhang Heng shook his head, “I just called my friend to tell him not to wait for me and go home first.”

In contrast to the now panicked middle-aged man, Bai Qing’s mother was elated when she heard the siren. “The police… are the police finally here?”

A patrol car stopped in front of them after a while, and two policemen exited the vehicle.

The chubby officer on duty asked, “Who was the one that called the police just now?”

“Me! Me! Me!” Bai Qing’s mother instantly answered.

“What the hell is going on? You didn’t tell us anything on the phone just now. All you told us was the address.” The chubby officer wiped the sweat off his brow.

“It’s my husband. He wants to hurt me. I’m so relieved that you guys came here in time!” Bai Qing’s mother gushed with a solemn expression while holding the chubby policeman’s hand.

The chubby policeman was left dumbfounded when he heard what she said. “Did you just say that your husband wants to harm you?”

“Sorry, my wife is a little mentally unstable,” the middle-aged man quickly blurted. At the same time, he reached out his hand and took a cigarette out of his pocket. “I’m so sorry that you guys came here for nothing.”

The chubby policeman waved his hands. “I don’t smoke during duty. We have a body cam on us.” He then looked at Bai Qing’s mother again. “Ma’am, what’s the matter? You can tell me everything.”

“My husband has been a bit abnormal lately. It’s as if he’s become a complete stranger,” Bai Qing’s mother went on. “Not only does he look at me like a stranger, but he also speaks like someone that I don’t know. And he doesn’t return home at the time he used to. He even changed the clock on the bedroom wall out of the blue.”

“Uh, is there any problem with changing a clock?” the chubby policeman asked.

“I didn’t think it was a problem at first, but when I took it down and cleaned it today, I found something wrong with it.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

When she talked about it, Bai Qing’s mother seemed to recall the horror she experienced when she checked on the clock. The expression on her face became tense again, and then she whispered nervously, “There… is a hidden camera within it.”

“A hidden camera? You mean…”

“Yes, it’s one of those pinhole cameras usually found in small hotels or an Airbnb.”

The plump officer and his partner glanced at each other.

“You mean your husband installed a pinhole camera in his bedroom?”

“Yes, then I found pinhole cameras in the living room, study room, and toilets…” Bai Qing’s mother covered her mouth. “I realized that my every move has been monitored!”

“Why would your husband want to spy on you?” the chubby officer asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know. As I said, we’ve been married 20 years, and he’s never been like this. He came home late today, and I wanted to ask him about the cameras. I didn’t expect him to look so angry, and the moment he closed the door, he glared at me, pushed me to the ground, strangled me, grabbed my hair, and dragged me out of the house!” Bai Qing’s mother lamented in agony.

The chubby officer saw that the middle-aged man’s gaze had changed suddenly.

“How can you do that to your wife? No matter what happens, it would help if you’d just speak amicably. Never resort to violence!”

After hearing that, the middle-aged man did not say a word. He just stood there, staring at his wife coldly.

There was no emotion in his eyes, and he looked a little panicked in the dark.

The chubby policeman then said again, “So nothing serious actually happened here… but a family dispute?”

“What do you mean by nothing serious? He strangled me, and I almost suffocated!” Bai Qing’s mother insisted while showing the marks on her neck to the officers, “I used all my strength to kick him before I could open the door and save myself. Please, you can’t let him get near me anymore.”

“But he is your husband,” said the chubby policeman. “You said that you have been married for 20 years. Lady, there are ups and downs in a marriage. Look at your son and daughter. They are all grown-ups. Divorce is not worth it.”

“I don’t have such a good son.” The middle-aged man glanced at Zhang Heng and snorted coldly.

“Then you are?”

“I am their daughter’s classmate,” Zhang Heng said.

“Do you live here too?”

“No, I live in Yibei District.”

“Wait a minute. Why are you here?”

“He’s here to send me home.” Bai Qing, on the other side, blushed.

“So you guys are together now,” the officer continued. He then turned to Bai Qing’s mother again, “Lady, I think you should communicate better with your husband. If you can’t solve the dispute, you can seek help from the neighbourhood committee. We’ll leave first if there are no other problems. Many bad things happened today. A group of drunkards got into a fight, and one of their heads got smashed in.”