Very soon, Saturday ca. Banai and Chitanda also arrived early at the agreed eting spot, waiting for Duanmu Huai to show up.
Only, the two of them were still totally puzzled.
"Ai Liu, how do you think Xiao Ai is going to take us to City N?"
"Probably by car, right? I an, Xiao Ai is an entertainer, she’s pretty famous, so it’s not weird if she has a private car."
"But she said she’d be the one Driving... But Xiao Ai shouldn’t be able to get a car license yet, right?"
"Yeah, you can only take the test at eighteen."
Chitanda nodded, also agreeing with Banai’s question.
"Don’t tell Xiao Ai is secretly Driving? That’s illegal, you know."
"She probably wouldn’t go that far......"
Even though they said that, their expressions were clearly uneasy. After all, with what they knew about Duanmu Huai, this girl was the type who feared neither heaven nor earth. Unlicensed Driving for her... didn’t sound impossible at all.
"Beep beeep———!"
Just as the two were nervously waiting, a horn blared not far behind them. Banai and Chitanda turned around—and then completely froze.
What appeared before them was a rather large motorcycle, but unlike the two-wheeled bikes they had in mind, this motorcycle had three wheels!
And its shape was really bizarre. The front was like a Harley, with a long control bar and a big wheel, and the driver’s seat was like the coachman’s seat on an old horse-drawn carriage—only instead of holding reins to control a horse, this vehicle turned by using the control bar.
As for the back half, it looked more like an ordinary car. Simply put, at first glance it was like soone had chopped off half a car, then grafted the front half of a motorcycle onto the back half of a car cabin......
"Well? Aweso, right?"
Seeing the two of them standing there slack-jawed, Duanmu Huai burst out laughing. This bike counted as one of his just-for-fun projects. He’d really had it with the laws of Japan: the law says girls can get married at 16, get a Driving license at 18, and drink at 20. When Duanmu Huai first heard that, he thought, what kind of bullshit law is this? So drinking is sohow more serious than getting married or Driving?
Given Duanmu Huai’s age, he wasn’t yet eighteen, so he couldn’t get a car license and could only get a motorcycle license.
But Duanmu Huai didn’t want to ride so ordinary motorcycle, so what then?
If money can solve it, then it’s not a problem.
As it happened, Duanmu Huai had found out that abroad there was this kind of custom vehicle that looked like a cross between a motorcycle and a car. It used a car chassis with a rear engine and rear-wheel drive, but had a motorcycle front fork, and you didn’t have to straddle it like a regular bike—you could sit comfortably in a proper seat like in a car, except that what your hands were gripping wasn’t a steering wheel but a Harley-style extra-long control bar.
It looked seriously badass and imposing.
Of course, stripped of the fancy talk, it was basically a luxury tricked-out version of a three-wheeled farm cart.
Duanmu Huai still rembered that when he drove this thing to get it registered, the clerk stared at this hand-tractor-style trike for ages, completely unsure whether to file it as a motorcycle. To that, Duanmu Huai said, hey, it’s exactly that—one wheel in front, two in back, plus a Harley long control bar. How does that not scream "motorcycle" to you?
In the end, what else could they do? They just bit the bullet and processed it.
"This is really a motorcycle? It’s actually street-legal?"
After staring for a while, Banai still couldn’t help voicing her doubts.
"Of course. If it weren’t, I’d have been arrested ages ago."
Duanmu Huai opened the door and showed them the interior. Even though it was a hand-tractor-style trike, the inside was actually quite luxurious. It was basically a micro RV setup: four seats on the left and right, plus a fridge and a TV. It looked super comfy and high-end, leaving the two girls utterly stunned.
"Uwaaah, Xiao Ai, this is so amazing! Can I take pictures and post them on INS?"
"Go ahead, go ahead."
Duanmu Huai naturally wouldn’t refuse Banai’s request. Are you kidding? This thing existed to be shown off. Otherwise, why would Duanmu Huai go out of her way to get such an oddball ride? Say what you will, but when you drive this thing down the street, it’s top-tier at grabbing everyone’s attention.
And Duanmu Huai had even had it painted in girly pink, all warm and cutesy—how adorable!
Oh, and by the way, he also didn’t forget to stick a tal emblem of a skull and a War Hamr on the rear hatch.
Gotta stay true to your roots, right?
Just imagine it: a Harley luxury sedan hybrid, decked out in pink girly hues and tal skulls. How overwhelmingly cool is that?
Duanmu Huai felt his sense of aesthetics was pretty solid. For the bike’s front cover and windshield, he’d specifically had them modified into skull-and-Double-Headed Eagle motifs. After all, as a Judge, you needed so personal flair. Even the control bar was carved with skull patterns. It had cost quite a bit, but as far as Duanmu Huai was concerned, anything solvable with money wasn’t a problem.
"Okay, get in. Let’s roll!"
At Duanmu Huai’s shout, Banai quickly posted her burst of photos online in a flurry of excitent, then climbed into the back compartnt together with Chitanda. Duanmu Huai twisted the throttle, and with a roaring blast, the tal Behemoths howled onto the road, surging forward.
"Uwaaah, this is so cool so cool so cool!"
Sitting inside, Banai looked here, touched there, snapping away, practically buzzing with excitent.
"Ai Liu, have you ever seen a car like this?"
"I haven’t either."
Although Chitanda said her family were rich farrs too, this thing really exceeded her understanding—and this thing was actually a motorcycle?
She had to admit, the speed of this "bike" was indeed very fast, but sitting inside it didn’t feel much different from a regular car.
If you didn’t take into account Duanmu Huai up front who was "driving."
As a luxury edition of a handlebar tractor three-wheeler, Duanmu Huai’s custom ride had cost quite a bit, but money can’t buy the joy of Grandpa; just seeing the staff’s troubled faces, looking like they had no idea what to do with it, made Duanmu Huai feel the money was well spent.
Of course, it did look a bit dangerous with only one wheel at the front, but the tire was a thickened double-layer, which could offset part of the risk. As for the rest... Duanmu Huai couldn’t be bothered.
Anyway, even if there was a crash, the one dying wouldn’t be him.
This was what they called "the more skilled, the bolder."
Not only were Banai and the others hyped, Duanmu Huai was quite pleased with himself too. In fact, on the highway, Duanmu Huai had more than once seen traffic cops tailing him, only to quietly turn around after a mont. He could even guess what they were thinking—since this thing had plates, that ant it was allowed on the road, so best not to stick their noses in and ask for trouble.
Ironically, if Duanmu Huai were driving a normal car, even if he had a license, the cops would probably stop him for questioning—after all, Duanmu Huai’s appearance didn’t look eighteen at all. But precisely because he swaggered around in such a bizarre contraption, people would instead convince themselves this had to be legit.
Otherwise they’d be the ones acting crazy.
Going to N City didn’t take very long. All Duanmu Huai had to do was floor the gas and occasionally adjust the steering.
Just like playing Need for Speed, nothing hard about it.
After only an hour or two, the three of them reached their destination.
"Hmm... should be here."
Duanmu Huai stopped the vehicle and looked at the Western-style House in front of them, while Banai and Chitanda also got out.
"Huaaah... we’re already here? So fast?"
Looking at the forest around them and the Western-style House ahead, Banai was a little surprised.
"I thought it’d take forever to get here."
"It’s actually about the sa as a regular car. You were just busy texting the whole way, right?"
Duanmu Huai glanced at the phone in Banai’s hand. She chuckled sheepishly and put it away. Just as Duanmu Huai had guessed, after Banai posted that weird motorcycle of his on her account, tons of people started asking questions, it even hit the trending list, scaring her into deleting the photo. She only replied privately to so friends, then chatted with Chitanda about what the ride felt like.
To be honest, it was pretty smooth—if Duanmu Huai hadn’t stopped, they barely would’ve noticed.
"Alright, don’t forget what we’re here to do next."
"Of course, of course."
Banai also put her phone away, then raised her head to look at the Western-style House before them.
The origins of this Western-style House were all over the internet. According to online info, it had originally belonged to a foreigner. He was a businessman who ca to Japan to do trade and then built this Western-style House here.
It should’ve been around the iji Restoration.
The story went that afterwards, children from the nearby village started disappearing on a regular basis. The villagers decided this Westerner was an Evil Spirit that ate kids, so they stord his ho, dragged his whole family out, and burned them alive.
If this were a movie or so kind of "artistic story," then the truth in the end would be that the Westerner had been trying to save the children with his advanced dical skills, but the ignorant villagers couldn’t understand modern foreign dicine, thus causing the tragedy.
However, the reality was that the villagers apparently really did find a dungeon under the Western-style House and the corpses of imprisoned children—yeah, aning that Western devil family didn’t exactly die unjustly.
After that, the Western-style House was abandoned for a while, then bought up by the local governnt and converted into a ntal Hospital.
No one knew exactly what had happened in the ntal Hospital. All they knew was that there was a big fire, and when the local authorities rushed over, all they found were the corpses of the psychiatric patients and the dical staff. Based on the cri scene, they seed to have killed one another.
After that, the place was completely abandoned, and the locals started calling it the Demon House, never letting anyone go near it.
The third ti this Western-style House re-entered public sight was when an explorer ca here on a trip. His companion waited nearby, but after he went in, he never ca out, and his phone couldn’t be reached. The companion got scared and ran away.
After that, similar stories cropped up one after another. Either people disappeared mid-visit, or relatives and friends said they were going there to explore and then completely vanished afterward.
So now, the Demon House had beco a pretty famous online ghost story destination, especially among urban explorers.
At the mont, most of the Western-style House still retained its original look. A mass of ivy and vines coiled up the walls, to the point where you could barely make out its overall shape. The yard was overgrown with weeds, the rusted iron gate hung half open and wasn’t even locked—probably left that way by previous explorers who never bothered to close it.
"But it doesn’t look like there are any burn marks here."
Chitanda carefully inspected the Western-style House in front of them and spoke in confusion.
"Maybe they’re covered up by the vines."
Duanmu Huai stretched out his hand and pointed to the west side of the building.
"Look, the roof over there has collapsed. Maybe that’s where the fire brought it down. As for the details, we’ll know once we go inside."
The two of them had no objections to what Duanmu Huai said.
After all, this was exactly what they’d co here for, right?
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