Chapter 49 (1/2)

Chapter 49: Tokyo Drift XIX

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Zhang Heng finally saw Takeda Tetsuya ten minutes before the race started.

He was standing next to the short man on the side of the highway, looking grim. Zhang Heng also saw Ameko in the blue Toyota Voxy, her wrists and legs bound and her mouth sealed with tape. When she saw him, she began to struggle but the doors were quickly slammed shut!

“Mr. Yosuke, I’ve allowed you to see your daughter as you have requested. We can start now, can we?” The short man asked.

Yosuke Tsuchiya said nothing as he entered the Dodge Viper.

The short man broke into a smile at this. After that, he came up to Zhang Heng and said, “You asked me how many people will be joining the race tonight, where it’s held and what the rules are—I’ll tell you now—tonight, the three of us will be racing here on this highway! Death racing rules! Considering you may be unfamiliar with what happened 22 years ago, I will give you a brief explanation. The three of us will be driving against traffic on this highway. The person who reaches the finis.h.i.+ng point first wins. Of course, it would be boring if it was just that, so I’ve decided to add a small restriction. The winds.h.i.+elds on all three cars have been frosted, and the windows cannot be wound down.”

The short man took out a wrench and smashed the front of the Nissan 180SX!

“I’ve always thought that the lights on cars are useless. Better just get rid of it!” As soon as he said that, his men broke the lights on the L300 and the Viper as well. Then, the short man opened the car door and grinned at Zhang Heng. “One last thing… if you want to use the toilet, you better go now. The doors will be welded shut, and it’ll only be opened when you reach the destination.”

Zhang Heng had already figured out back in the factory, that something like that was going to happen. Now that it was in front of him, he could not help but think that the man had lost his mind—especially when he sat in the driver’s seat of the L300 and saw the blurry winds.h.i.+eld in front of him. He could not even make out a silhouette from 2 meters away.

Outside, people were already working on welding the car doors shut, even on the Nissan 180SX that the short man was driving. His voice spoke from the intercom in front of the pa.s.senger seat. “So? Does it bring back happy memories, Mr. Yosuke?”

Yosuke Tsuchiya did not answer. But from the sound of his breathing, Zhang Heng could tell that he was not as calm as he appeared to be. After a while, Takeda Tetsuya spoke, “Follow closely behind me.”

Zhang Heng knew that that was meant for him. In a situation like this, the person driving in front was at the highest risk. On top of that, the set-up now was even scarier than it was 22 years ago. Takeda Tetsuya had not touched the steering wheel for over 20 years—he was not in the best shape.

In fact, at only 3 minutes into the race, Takeda Tetsuya nearly ran into an oncoming Buick! Good thing he had a firm handle on the steering wheel, which kept the Viper from toppling over. Less than half a minute later, however, he nearly hit the divider at a curve!

The short man’s laughter crackled over the intercom. “What is it, Mr. Yosuke? That’s the best you can do? We’re not even a tenth of the way into the race yet!”

Takeda Tetsuya kept quiet. Right now, he could barely even talk. Beads of sweat were dripping down the tip of his nose onto his jeans.

The visibility was abysmal, to say the least. It was in the middle of the night, their cars had no headlights, and the view through the frosted windows was all but a murky blur. Owing to this, they could only use the lights from oncoming cars to determine their position. It was extremely exhausting, and his eyes and mind were already stretched to their limit.

Takeda Tetsuya did not know how much longer he could keep this up. Just as his breathing became more frenzied, the L300 that was behind him suddenly accelerated and overtook him.

Zhang Heng’s voice came from the intercom, “My turn to take the lead! You rest for a little while. We’ll swap places after 4 minutes.”

Takeda Tetsuya wanted to refuse the offer, but he was already overexerting himself, and Zhang Heng’s calm voice sounded particularly trustworthy in this loony race.