48 Hours a Day

It was a world devoid of life.

When Zhang Heng first saw it, he thought he had returned to the Moon. Other than the bumpy surface, there was nothing else save for a deathly stillness and desolation.

Whether it was soil or rocks, they were all dark red. It was as if someone had deliberately painted them with fuel. Furthermore, when Zhang Heng tried to cut off a piece of rock with the Hidden Scabbard, he noticed a viscous red liquid flowing out from the bottom of the cut. It was as if blood was flowing through his blood vessels.

There were lots of these red rocks on the island. Scattered all over the place, they were covered with red pebbles. However, these pebbles were generally larger than normal pebbles, they looked fuller, but they actually looked more like… eggs.

Zhang Heng picked one up and hit it against the Red Rock. In the end, a corner of the rock was knocked off, but the egg-shaped pebble was unscathed.

So Zhang Heng used the Hidden Scabbard again. This time, it took a bit of effort to cut open the red pebble, revealing what was inside.

It was a newly formed snake embryo, and surprisingly, it was still alive. At least, when Zhang Heng cut open the pebble, it was still alive. Its body twisted a few times, but it was clearly not mature enough to break out of its shell. Because it was released early, it could no longer absorb nutrients from the egg. It struggled on the ground as if trying to crawl back into the cut red pebble, but Zhang Heng stepped on its tail the next moment.

Zhang Heng wanted to see what the little snake in the red pebble was capable of, but in the end, the little snake’s struggle became slower and slower. After less than a minute, it lay on the ground and stopped moving.

After that, Zhang Heng tried to kick the little snake with the tip of his foot, but the latter did not respond. Considering its age, he basically ruled out the possibility of faking its death. Therefore, Zhang Heng stabbed the tip of his Hidden Scabbard into the little snake’s abdomen. From there, he went all the way up until he cut open its upper jaw.

Zhang Heng squatted down and examined the snake’s body. He found that other than living inside the incredibly hard red pebble, its physiology did not seem to be different from that of an ordinary snake.

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This came as good news to Zhang Heng.

There were many Red Rocks on the island, and there were countless red pebbles around the rocks. If each pebble contained a small snake, and these small snakes had some kind of special attack method, then when they broke out of their shells, even with the T-148 in his hands, Zhang Heng’s only option was to jump into the sea and escape.

However, at least it seemed that this worry would not happen. The other dead snake reminded Zhang Heng of something. He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He put the Hidden Scabbard back on his waist and continued to walk toward the center of the island.

Zhang Heng had a feeling that something was waiting for him there.

…..

Inside the station.

Even though Fan Meinan had no choice but to agree to Zhang Heng’s request and stay up there, she didn’t intend to just sit and wait. Even if this station wasn’t the home of the Nightmare Gad, it was still its important place of activity. Fan Meinan still hoped to find some clues to deal with the Nightmare Gad.

The gods and creatures that appeared in Norse mythology were probably the most human-like of all the myths. Almost every one of them had all kinds of emotions, jealousy and anger. At the same time, they also had weaknesses. Just like humans, and some seemingly powerful gods or creatures even had instant death weaknesses.

The most famous one was probably Bader, whom Mistletoe had killed. One day, Bader, the god of Light, dreamt that he died. His mother was terrified when she found out, so she asked everything in the world to swear to her: never Hurt Bader. Weapons, stones, even diseases, and flowers had all sworn to her.

Mistletoe, however, was too weak and was not required to swear. This matter was later found out by Loki. So Loki, who felt that the matter was not big enough, urged the god of darkness, Hodel, who had always had a conflict with the God of Light, to throw a mistletoe at Bader. In the end, the God of Light, Bader, was pierced through the chest and died, and Loki was also expelled and punished by the gods because of this matter. In the end, he became enemies with the gods. But these were all things that would come later.

In short, this story seemed to imply that the Nordic gods each had their own Achilles Heel.

Fan Meinan recalled the Norse myths related to Jemengard, finding the latter’s weakness while checking the station. Ma Lu also wanted to help but was rejected by Fan Meinan. The main reason was that even if the latter joined in, he did not know what to investigate.

However, Fan Meinan also found some work for a bored Ma Lu. She made him rummage through the snake corpses and see if he could find long enough snake corpses to climb down the pit.

Thus, the two of them began to move separately.

Ma Lu rummaged through the snake corpses on the second floor while Fan Meinan returned to the first floor. She held her flashlight and swept through every corner of the station bit by bit, not letting go of any traces. In the end, her web-like search really paid off.

Fan Meinan found a mark behind a load-bearing pillar. At first, she didn’t pay much attention to that mark, thinking that it was just normal wear and tear during the construction process, but fan Meinan noticed the pattern contained in those marks when she took a second look.

These marks were not caused by accident but were deliberately left by someone. Fan Meinan tried to wipe away the accumulated dust on the pillar, revealing a line of crooked handwriting below.

—it’s there. It’s dangerous!

It’s there, it’s dangerous?

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Fan Meinan did not expect to see other people’s handwriting here. Considering that this place had been abandoned for more than 50 years and had been completely turned into a snakepit, this line could probably be traced back to more than 50 years ago when it was still under construction.

Who could its owner be, some construction worker back then? Fan Meinan remembered the missing worker in the story of Ma Lu. He wondered if this line of words was left behind by him as a warning to future generations.

However, this sentence was a bit too vague. He didn’t know who it was referring to. Was It Yemengadde? And he didn’t know where it was in the second half of the sentence.

But Fan Meinan read from this sentence that someone had been here before them, and the last dangerous word was carved very hard. It could be seen that the person who left this sentence was nervous at the time. It was as if something terrible was about to happen to him.

While Fan Meinan was squatting there studying the words on the load-bearing column, a pair of eyes was quietly sizing her up in the tunnel on the other side of the platform.