48 Hours a Day

The bee messengers buzzed their transparent wings, swarming into all directions of the city as they left their massive hive. About an hour later, the Messenger Bees began to return. The first two dozen returnees lined up, quickly forming a bunch of crooked characters on the ground.

“What does it say?” the bald man asked impatiently.

The waiter stood aside and continued to act as the interpreter. “Uhh… these Messenger bees found Ms. Cat. She said, damn, where are all these bees coming from?!”

“That’s it?”

“No, but I guess she might have fainted since insects terrified her since childhood.”

“Well, next…”

“The next one is Cowboy Daddy. He said, uh… ‘these crooks are all so dedicated now! I’m not interested in online dating or buying tea leaves!!! If you dare look for me again, I will tear off your wings and stuff them into your mouth. You will get a taste of ultimate regret!”

“That old man is still grumpy as always. Well, next one.”

“Rocket Man, I’m not home, or to be precise, I’m not on Earth. Leave a message if you have something urgent to discuss with me.”

“…Next, next…”

“Dessert King, I want to contribute to justice, but my stomach hasn’t been well recently. It’s suddenly acted up again! I may not be able to join you guys.”

“…Next, next, next!”

“Candy Baby says, I’m taking care of the Dessert King at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. So I can’t go as well.”

“Wait, when did they get together? I didn’t know that?!”

“Probably last summer. Something wasn’t right after they came back from Chimelong Paradise. They stuck to each other like glue every single day. What’s wrong with them?” The waiter then gasped with raised eyebrows. “Oh! I remember now! Didn’t you have a bitter past with Candy Baby?”

“No! Ridiculous! Complete nonsense. I never bought her chocolates on Valentine’s Day, nor did I send her Sophie on Women’s Day. Nexxt.”

“Well, the Ocean King. Oh, I like him. I heard that the Little Sun Painting and Calligraphy Class that he worked for got closed down. After that, he taught himself programming and worked for a gaming company. I haven’t contacted him since then. After that, their company implemented 996, and sometimes 997. Anyway, I couldn’t contact him after that. Let me see what he said…”

“…ugh… you still have time to play with bees?! If you can’t finish typing these ten thousand lines of coding, don’t even think about getting off work today. Do it right away! Do it now!!! Even if it’s the end of the world, you’ll have to f*cking submit the code to me today! Hold on. This doesn’t sound like Ocean King. Messenger, can the voice of others be recorded as well? The bee Messenger will record all sound within a square meter. Okay… guys, I think the Ocean King won’t be joining us as well.” The waiter raised his head and looked at the bald man, “Gathering the rest of the master builders don’t seem to be going well. Any backup plans?”

“We can’t give up hope. Although the road is long and bumpy, the future is always bright,” the bald man replied. “Well, no. No, I don’t have a backup plan.”

“So we are in a deadlock now… I don’t know if we should hang on to it. With the five of us alone, we can’t possibly fight the Evil Scientist. Maybe I should go back to the bar too. There should be a lot of customers there now, and it’s a great opportunity to sell more imported alcohol…” Then, the waiter hesitated, saying, “The Messenger also wants to find a new apartment where she can raise pigeons on the roof.”

Mei Nan winked at Zhang Heng, and the two walked aside, “My quest’s progress stopped here last time. As of now, we can talk to anyone and see if we can learn their Lego assembling skills. You could theoretically learn from all three of them, but our time is limited. As they said, each one has a particular specialty. These skills are not easy to master, and you’ll only learn the basic skills at best during your early stages. Only after you master the basics can you continue to learn the more advanced stuff.

“I personally recommend learning from the Mobile Arsenal because if… if we can get to the end of this quest and confront the Evil Scientist, a battle would definitely break out. The creations of the Messenger are all non-combat units. The Butcher, created by Demon Butcher, is undoubtedly the strongest among all the other master builders. Still, you’ve heard him saying how the Butcher is uncontrollable, and the difficulty of creating it is also the highest among the three. So, just take my advice. Learning from Mobile Arsenal would be a much better proposition. He can create all sorts of weapons – from pistols to sniper rifles, even howitzer cannons. You don’t need to learn all of them; just choose a few you like.”

Although Mei Nan had no hope of completing this quest after seeing Zhang Heng’s less than stellar LEGO assembling, she remained very patient. She explained everything to Zhang Heng in detail, even helping him analyze who he should learn from.

“But remember, you only have one night to learn the LEGO assembly skills. We will leave here before dawn.”

“Why?”

“Because a third test will be conducted at dawn. I can’t pass this level with my current skills, and I don’t know how he did it. Evil Scientist’s men will find this place and surround us. This is going to be different from the afternoon’s battle. This time, they will go all out, and if we stay, the possibility of us escaping is zero. If we leave before dawn, Demon Butcher will build a Butcher to help the Messenger and Mobile Arsenal escape this place. But he would surely die in the end.”

Zhang Heng nodded, “When is the battle going to happen? I mean the exact time.”

17:15 or 7:20? Between that time.”

Zhang Heng glanced at his watch and pondered for a moment. “We will stay,” he said after a while.

“Huh?” Mei Nan man raised her eyebrows, wondering why Zhang Heng suggested what would be certain death for him. She had explained it clearly before, and she believed he understood what she said very well.

“We will stay.” Zhang Heng repeated it again, not explaining his decision at all.

“You accompanied me in the previous quest, so I will accompany you this time. You have the final say,” Mei Nan shrugged. “Although I can’t convince them to leave this waste recycling station, we can make some preparations in advance to beef up our defense. It should buy us some time, and I don’t think they will go against this too. Besides, I can also make two box guns. It’s is the only weapon that I know how to make.”

“Thanks for your hard work. I’ll start brushing up my LEGO assembly skills from them,” Zhang Heng said.