Zhang Heng discovered a month ago that his day had gained an extra twenty-four hours.
The first thing to change was his watch. It was a Seastar Automatic III Mechanical Watch made by Tissot, a gift from his parents, who were far away in Iceland, for his eighteenth birthday.
They had carelessly placed the order on Taobao, the seller had shipped it out, and they had even entered the wrong class in the address field.
Zhang Heng could not even be bothered to complain about those two anymore. Before he had even finished elementary school, those two immortals had eagerly packed up and flown to Europe to begin their new lives.
They had met at an academic exchange conference. Both were theologians—experts who studied religious myths and the like. In their great homeland, where materialism reigned supreme, that was naturally not an easy profession to survive in.
But unlike those charlatans who swindled people under the guise of religion, Zhang Heng's parents truly had the credentials. One had graduated from Oxford University, specializing in Norse and Greek Mythology, while the other was a master's student at Durham University, researching Christian Mythology. They had published several papers and were supposedly fairly influential in the field.
And yet, after returning to China, neither of them could make a living.
Just then, Zhang's Father's mentor took on a major project and was short-handed. After discussing it, the two dumped Zhang Heng with his maternal grandfather, then dusted off their hands and began a research life of roaming the world.
After that, they basically only came home once a year, so Zhang Heng spent his childhood with his grandfather.
Perhaps out of guilt, those two immortals had never been stingy with money for the old man and the child.
Excluding tuition and accommodation, Zhang Heng's annual living expenses in college came to a full thirty thousand yuan. It was nowhere near what those rich second-generation kids with sports cars spent, but among ordinary students, it was already quite good.
Back to the point.
The watch was pretty bizarre. When Zhang Heng woke up and instinctively checked the time, he discovered that its dial had changed from twelve markers to twenty-four.
Zhang Heng froze for a moment, then calmly put the watch back where it had been, pulled the blanket over himself, and went back to sleep.
An hour and a half later, the guy in the opposite bunk texted him with the regrettable news that his name had been called in Advanced Mathematics.
So it was not a dream?
Zhang Heng spent ten minutes washing up, then sat at the desk beneath his bed and turned on his computer.
He first logged onto Taobao and searched for "double-marker watch, prank." The search results read: "Sorry, no related products found."
So Zhang Heng deleted "prank" from the search.
There were still no matching results.
So it was not a prank?
Zhang Heng stroked his chin. Setting aside the inexplicable extra twelve markers, the time on the watch matched the time on his computer. After carefully examining it, he finally confirmed that this twenty-four-marker watch was the same Seastar he had always worn.
That included the scratches on the back case and the creases in the strap. No one but its original owner could possibly know those details.
Of course, it was not impossible that some hardcore enthusiast had reproduced every detail perfectly from the real thing. But who would be so bored that they would go that far for a prank? With that kind of skill and dedication, would it not be better to restore antiques at the Forbidden City?
All things considered, Zhang Heng knew something had happened to him.
An ordinary person would probably have been scared shitless by this kind of supernatural phenomenon, but Zhang Heng was not ordinary. For that, he had to thank his immortal parents.
Other parents told bedtime stories about little rabbits and squirrels. Those two, however, made full use of their professional knowledge. Zhang Heng had fallen asleep to stories from Norse Mythology and the Bible as a child.
Although he had ultimately not betrayed nine years of compulsory education and had become a proud materialist, the foundation laid in his childhood remained.
Zhang Heng was far more accepting of such things than ordinary people.
To put it in terms from the popular tabletop game "Call of Cthulhu," his character's SAN value dropped very slowly.
Rather than fear, he felt an intense fascination with what was happening to him.
A normal watch had twelve markers, and when the hour hand made two rotations, a day had passed. But now, with his globally limited exclusive twenty-four-marker Seastar, one rotation was enough to complete a day.
Looking at it that way, it did not seem like such a big deal. Once he got used to it, it even felt a little exciting.
But Zhang Heng believed that whoever had done all this definitely would not be satisfied with merely giving him a new watch face.
His intuition told him that the truly interesting part would probably only happen once the hour hand completed a full rotation.
There were still around fifteen hours until the end of the day. Naturally, Zhang Heng had no intention of sitting around idle during that time.
There was no need to attend the morning Advanced Mathematics class. His name had already been called, and according to the professor's rules, five points would automatically be deducted from his final exam score.
This one could not be saved anymore.
So Zhang Heng simply went to the track and made up for the morning run he had missed.
Whenever his classmates talked about Zhang Heng, they all thought he was pretty unusual. After starting college, no one liked getting up early, yet he alone still kept up his morning runs. But he never signed up for the sports meet, rarely participated in other group activities, and especially disliked gatherings. Still, once you got to know him, you found that he was not as aloof as he looked. On the contrary, he was actually quite interesting.
Among the girls, rumors had long circulated that Zhang Heng was talented in many fields. Someone had returned to school early during a break and claimed to have seen him alone in the piano room playing Paganini's Grand Étude "La Campanella." It was a piano solo adapted by Liszt from the theme of Italian violinist Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor. Famous for its difficulty, it was written in rondo form, with the theme appearing each time in a new playing technique, making it an extreme test of a pianist's skill.
Others said they had run into him training at an archery range off campus. According to private reports from the boys who shared a dorm with Zhang Heng, he also seemed to be a member of some climbing club.
All of that was true, but none of it was really true.
Zhang Heng was not actually as extraordinary as people made him out to be. His morning runs had been forced on him by his grandfather, and after they became a habit, he never stopped. But his speed and endurance were only slightly better than average, nowhere near those specially recruited athletic students.
He had only recently taken up archery on a whim. He had attended just three lessons and could barely be considered a beginner. As for climbing, he had lost interest shortly after registering and getting his membership card, and they had parted ways peacefully.
The only thing he had truly practiced since childhood was piano, but his level was only around amateur grades eight or nine. He had saved Paganini's Grand Étude "La Campanella" on his phone and played it in the piano room for himself to listen to. He had never expected it to cause this kind of misunderstanding.
So Zhang Heng, who was not ordinary, was not actually all that extraordinary either.
He was interested in many things around him, but unfortunately, time was fair to everyone.
Whether you cherished it or not, whether you intended to make every minute count or just wanted to lie in bed like a salted fish, everyone only had twenty-four hours a day to allocate.
Not one minute more, not one second less.
Before you continue