48 Hours a Day

Ten minutes into the class, tubby was on the verge of crying, not even bothered to pick up his pen cap when it dropped on the floor. This time, someone reacted worse than him. And that person was Anthony. Ever since he received the learning material, he kept wiping the sweat off his brow.

The knowledgeable middle-aged adult passed a piece of paper to Anthony. However, he did not take it from him. Instead, both his eyes were starting the level-three rocket structure in his book. He looked absolutely lost. He wasn’t the only one, though, as the high-school kid was no longer Mr-know-it-all, scratching his head and grabbing his hair in silence during the lesson. As for the girl beside Zhang Heng, she had closed her book and was leaning lazily on her seat. Then, she started complaining about the whole thing.

“Psst. All these English jargon... and no translations in the book! Who the hell can understand them?!”

Those who were bold enough to venture on single-player mode were usually multi-lingual and had a good foundation in various languages. With English being the most widely used language around the world, it was naturally everyone’s first choice to master. However, each individual had varying language proficiency. Although using English to communicate wasn’t a problem for most of them, a situation like this would undoubtedly put their vocabulary to the test.

The high-school kid’s English was audibly better than most, and seeing that he was an aerospace enthusiast as well, he could recognize most of the technical terms used during the lesson. However, he still found it hard to absorb everything that Professor Steve was pouring out of his mouth. On the other hand, Anthony was already a state of total confusion. The knowledgeable middle-aged man seemed to be indifferent; the look on his face unchanged since the start.

Nonetheless, the player that surprised Zhang Heng the most was the listless young man. Among the seven, he was the one who had paid full attention, busily jotting down the professor’s teachings as he went on.

The girl beside Zhang Heng noticed him staring at the young man. Out of curiosity, she too turned to look at the man sitting in front of her. Professor Steve was talking about the pressure in the J2 engine’s chamber and the consumption speed of oxidizing agents. When the girl leaned forward to get a better look, her breasts accidentally brushed Zhang Heng’s shoulder, her warm breath on his neck, causing a tingle on his skin.

“Is he serious right now, or is he putting on a show? Perhaps he’s silently cursing on his notebook.”

The listless young man heard what she said. Unexpectedly, he turned around and smiled frivolously at her, leaving her in an abashed shock. She quickly looked back at Zhang Heng. After a while, she whispered into his ears.

“I don’t like him. I don’t think he’s a good person in the real world. And that uncle over there? I have seen people like him at work. These may look gentile and polite on the surface, but I know of the evil intention reeking within them, just waiting to burst out.”

Zhang Heng kept staring at the blackboard, not responding to the girl. “I can see that you are different from them. Though you might look fierce on the outside, I know you’re actually a good person...” “You sure about that? Unfortunately, I have killed many people. There were young kids, elderly, young soldiers with wives waiting for them to come home, and even hard-working fishermen that toil away on the shores. To be honest, I’ve forgotten how many died in my hands. They are both soaked in blood. I’m now numb, and I don’t really care anymore.”

“All these things happened in the game, right? You only did it to survive, I suppose. In the real world, however...”

“You have no idea what I look like and who I am in the real world. Vice versa, I don’t know what kind of person you are in the real world as well. But, I know what you want from me.

“The only thing I can tell you right now is that you chose the wrong target. If I were you, I would stop wasting time on me. One more thing, can you please keep quiet if you don’t mind. I know that you don’t care about this lesson, but it doesn’t mean that others are not interested.”

Once Zhang Heng finished, Professor Steve turned around and grabbed his messy hair.

“Erm... so, this is what you need to know for the J2 engine. You can compare it to the F1 engine behind you. Next, we will take a look at the inter-stage rings. It has eight small rocket thrusters. Its function is to separate itself from the second stage of the rocket. It is considered one of the most important sections of the Saturn V launch vehicle...”

In that hour, Zhang Heng finally got to enjoy the silence that he longed for. It seemed like his warning worked on the girl, and she no longer whispered to him, nor did she grace him with any subtle touches of her body. He could finally focus on the complicated subject at hand. It was already 6.20 p.m when Professor Steve finished his first lesson, dragging them on for a good 22 minutes before finally releasing the lot.

“That’s all for today.”

At that point, everyone simply wished that he would just close his book and leave them. Thankfully, the professor said no more, opened the door, and stylishly left the room. Immediately, every player in the room breathed a massive sigh of relief. The grueling ordeal was over for now. Even the young man who had been paying his full attention for two hours found that he reached a saturation point. Sitting through two hours of nonstop physics was tiresome, to say the least.

Anthony stood up from his seat and stretched in exasperation like an exhausted cat. Suddenly, a short, bald man walked into the room and wiped off the notes of rocket thrust physics from the blackboard. He then picked up the chalk and quickly wrote ‘aerospace engineering theory’ on the blackboard. “Hello, everyone. I know we are on a tight schedule, so I’ll skip the introductions. Welcome to aerospace engineering class.”

“Hold on. Did you enter the wrong class?” asked the listless young man.

“Oh. There are seven minutes left. There much to cover, and I think we can start covering the basics first.”

“Problem is, we haven’t had dinner,” groaned the middle-aged man with a bitter smile.

The moment he said that, a meal cart was being pushed into the classroom.

“Don’t worry about it. You can eat while listening.”