48 Hours a Day

Although Dadatis did not tell Zhang Heng where he hid the gift, it wasn’t difficult figuring out the answer. Dadatis was a very cautious person. The two usually met at night, and they had only been to a couple of places. All he needed to do was go to each of those places and cross them out one by one.

After sending Dadatis off, Zhang Heng went to a small bathhouse, which was very close to where he lived. Considering it was only open during the day, Dadatis selected it as their temporary training ground at night. After making some deductions, Zhang Heng figured Dadatis would have most likely hidden the present here.

Zhang Heng was very familiar with this place. He climbed over the wall and bypassed the place where the guard slept. The bathhouse was not that big, but there were still heaps of places for Dadatis to hide the gift. Considering the fact that he might not be able to find it immediately, the gift would not be hidden in a place the ordinary person would accidentally come across. Hence, Zhang Heng eliminated the spots where the ordinary customers would go to.

After that, the first place that he thought of was the locker area. Usually, the customers would store their clothes in the locker. At most, they could store their belongings there for a day. When the bathhouse closed for the day, they had to clear out all their stuff. However, the regular affluent customers would rent a long-term locker for themselves.

Zhang Heng then walked to where those long-term lockers were and checked the names written on them. Unexpectedly, he could not find Dadatis or his own name on them. To be safe, he opened the lockers and checked one by one. It was confirmed that Dadatis’s gift was not placed here.

So Zhang Heng could only continue to consider other possibilities. He circled the bathing area, and when he walked to the cold-water zone, he noticed the twelve pillars there. Eight of them were supporting the roof, and the other four pillars served as a decorative piece.

He moved around and found a crack on the top of a decorative pillar.

“Did Dadatis think that he is still young and strong?”

Zhang Heng tried the firmness of the pillar, and he used his hands and feet together to climb up the pillar. He then put his hand into the crack. The next moment, he heard a system notification,

[Game item found—Heart of Kreis (unidentified)]

Zhang Heng took the game item and slid it down the pillar. After that, he took a good look at the fingernail-sized sapphire in his palm. Although it had not been identified yet, he could figure out the item’s function when he back on the ground. He noticed that his senses had become sharper, and his landing much lighter than before, his breathing almost inaudible.

If he was right, this item allowed its user to conceal the sounds the user made while on the move or hiding. Kreis was supposed to be the God of Assassins, and this was the perfect item for Zhang Heng, who had just started to work as an assassin. After that, Zhang Heng unfolded the little papyrus wrapping the Heart of Kreis.

Only one sentence was on the paper. “Now you, believe me, right?”

Zhang Heng smiled. After playing so many games, he had become more and more aware of the nature of those gods. Instead of saying that God created humankind, it was more like humankind created those gods to satisfy their needs. In the early days, when productivity wasn’t that developed yet, many worshipped gods to strengthen their reign, or because they were afraid of death and disease. They had to make sure that the stability of the social structure was upheld.

The existence of gods could explain many unknown phenomena. With the improvement of productivity and the spread of popular culture, more and more things that looked mysterious in the past could now be explained by science. And humans no longer relied on their prayers to win battles or reap good harvests. Hence, the group of ancient gods began to weaken. And the new gods started to surface. For example, Zhang Heng suspected that he encountered the God of Technology in the Apollo quest and the God of Lego in the Lego World.

However, Zhang Heng did not expect that Kreis would be selected to become one of the gods because she was not as popular. It seemed there were more assassins in Rome than Zhang Heng thought.

After that, Zhang Heng put away Dadatis’s gift and left the bathhouse.

…..

The patrol team was still working on the integration of the bottom forces.

Simultaneously, the anti-patrol alliance on the other side was in its full force while Soap took the time out to deal with his gang’s internal affair. During this time, the small forces in this area began to choose a side actively and passively. As a result, the situation on the street worsened. Sometimes, two different gangs would just randomly fight on the street.

However, Zhang Heng had no intention to stop them from having conflict. Instead, he wanted to make use of the conflict to eliminate some of the unstable forces. With that, his people would have better control over their forces.

His plan had been going on smoothly and faster than he expected. Unfortunately, an accident still happened in the second week.

When Zhang Heng and Marcus were patrolling the street, they were told that a patrol member on his off day had been blocked by a group of masked men while buying a loaf of bread in a bakery. However, the member was no longer a sack of potatoes to be kicked around. When he saw the masked men, he threw away his bread immediately and drew out the weapon he carried.

Despite his brave performance, the enemies still had the absolute advantage in numbers.

Several people rushed up at him and snatched his weapon, and started to beat up the patrol member. Zhang Heng and Marcus quickly put aside whatever they were doing when they got the news and ran to where the patrol member was.

When the incident happened, Zhang Heng and Marcus found out that onlookers had surrounded the bakery.

Marcus was standing in front of the crowd, and Zhang Heng got into the crowd from behind, trying to squeeze forward. At this moment, a dagger quietly pierced into Zhang Heng’s heart. Surrounded by so many people, his body was in close proximity to them, not to mention how noisy the surroundings were. Logically, there was no way Zhang Heng could guard against this fatal blow.

The assassin was obviously very satisfied with his silent attack. To him, Zhang Heng was surely dead by now. He had worked as an assassin for so many years, and he had never missed his targets. He was confident in his strength, and he initially wanted to attack Zhang Heng head-on. However, his employer had repeatedly emphasized that he should be careful of Zhang Heng. Hence, he finally came up with this plan.

It could be said that he had perfect control over the environment and his target’s mental state.

However, he did not expect that his perfect strike would fail in the end.

A second ago, Zhang Heng was still in front of him. And the next second, he had lost sight of him. After that, he felt a stink on his wrist, and now the dagger had gone to Zhang Heng’s hand.

“Who is your teacher? Didn’t he teach you not to keep staring at your target before you assassinate him? I can see through your plan now. Besides, your heart beats too fast when you wanted to attack me.”