Now life was easier for Rana, no fixed time to get up for work, so he did not need an alarm clock to wake him up. After waking up the natural way, he felt extremely refreshed. He got out of bed, made himself breakfast while reading up on the latest chapter releases. After eating, he made himself a nice tea. Feeling relaxed he took his laptop out and started it up.

The first thing he did was to delegate any work that he was not needed for. After working for a few hours, he checked his messages and e-mails. One message caught his eye, it was from his bank notifying him that he had received a transfer. “Strange”, he thought, “it is not payday yet”.

He immediately checked his bank statement, and was shocked by the huge amount of money on it. He double-checked, apparently the company had transferred a major sum to him. Rana quickly went trough the mails he had not checked yet. There was one mail from his boss that congratulating informed him about the bonus. Apparently originally it was not supposed to be that big of a reward, but the information that he had given was of major importance saving the company a huge amount of money as such the reward had been increased accordingly.

Rana could not believe it, with this sum he would be able to buy the villa without having to take to large of a credit. Rejoiced he immediately called the old man from the property agency. The man was surprised to get a call from Rana once again. They made an appointment to take a look at the place at 16:00. Rana looked at the time he still had three hours left till then. First he called Hana, she was surprised to hear so fast from him again:

— Did something happen to you again?

— Not really, I just receive a huge bonus from work, and I am going to take a look at a place that I’d like to buy at 16:00 maybe you have time to come take a look with me? And we can go for dinner together afterwards?

— Sure, I am still at work, but with my brother having such a huge thing going on, how could I not come?

— Okay. I‘ll send you the contact over let‘s meet fifteen minutes early.

— See you later then!

Then he also called Robert, who also agreed to come. After inviting his closest friends to come along, he took his time and started to make himself dinner. He took out a bunch of vegetables and a piece of steak, cut the vegetables into pieces and fried them with the piece of meat in a pan.

After eating up and doing the dishes, he dressed up and went out. Since the sun was shining, and he still had time he decided to walk over. On the way he strolled through the park listening to the singing of the birds. Arriving at the villa it was still a bit to early, so he took a walk around the place. The villa was in the middle of the park on top of a small hill, surrounding it was a high black smithed metal fence that was extremely well-made with a lot of details worked into it.

Walking around the fence took Rana longer than expected, and when he arrived at the front gate he was late and his friends were already waiting for him there.

Rana went over to them waiving his hand “Sorry for being late!”. The both of them stared at him in silence. The first to talk was Robert “Are you pulling a prank on us, this thing must cost a fortune even with the biggest of bonuses you should not be able to afford that thing…”

Before Rana could answer Hana exclaimed “The price should actually not be the problem, this place is infamous for being a haunted house, everyone who tried to move in died a mysterious death. So the price should actually not be too high. Did you guys not know about this?”

That was when the old man came walking along “Not everyone who moved in here actually died young women. But indeed the price has been dropping since I can’t find anyone who wants to buy the place.”

The old man walked to the get and unlocked it. “Visiting is actually safe, so come I will show you young ones around. No need to be scared.”

Rana followed unfazed, Hana was actually excited to visit it. She had read a lot of crazy stories about the place when she was a kid and had always wanted to take a look. As for Robert he stood there with a pale face hesitating, he seemed scared to death but ended up following.

The manor was built in the style of the city but instead of the red brick outside walls, it had a big relief containing different patterns of sacred and mystical animals such as dragons, urus or phoenixes and some flowers with a vivid blue background. The whole thing was made out of glazed bricks and was very impressive. It had a total of 3 floors, the windows were big and a few of them had balconies.

The old man opened the big entrance door, it was made out of carved wood with a beautiful interweaving flower pattern, each wing of the big door also had a big raven embedded. Two pillars shaped in the form of two wolves framed the huge door. The left wing of the door swung open without a noise, and they were invited in.

As they entered, they came into a hall that was two floors high. It had a staircase to the floor above. The old man showed them around the other rooms. The first room in the east wing was a big library, apart from big empty shelves against the walls it did not contain anything. Next was a room, that laid south of the library that seemed to have been a living room, followed by an old style kitchen in the middle and a big west living room spanning all the way from south to north. Every room was completely empty, well lit through huge windows. The two living rooms and the kitchen in the south were connected to a big orangery. The whole interior was made out of carved wooden pillars and panels and was beautiful to behold. The first floor was made up of big living quarters with what would have been smaller personal living rooms or studies and four big sleeping rooms in the corners. The top floor seemed to have been for servants as it was made up by smaller bedrooms with smaller windows and no balconies, above that there was an attic where they only took a short peek before going back down. Finally, the old man showed them the cellar. It was spacious with lots of rooms but quite cold, so they left as soon as they could.

“Well that's it the old man” said the old man after showing them around, “I‘ll let you take a look on your own, come and find me in the orangery. I will be there enjoying the view.” After the old man left, Rana looked at his friends “So what do you guys think? Would you like to move in here with me?”

Robert laughed with a nervous undertone “Living together here, would be nice indeed. But what about the legends, I am still too young to die…” Then Rana looked at Hana with an inquiring look. “I think we should give it a try I mean living in the place would feel like being royalty” she said with an excited voice, “and maybe we can solve the mystery behind this place?”

“So its decided” said Rana, “I will go talk to the old man to clear up the details. And then lets feast!”

Rana joined the old men in the orangery. Standing on the hill over the park, the view from the house was beautiful to behold indeed, one could look at the whole park and parts of the red blue city from here. The old man looked up at him “So have you decide?” he asked him. “I would like to buy it but could we talk about the price?” Rana replied.

The old man laughed “It is so low already and you are still trying to haggle with me. Ha ha ha good, let‘s make a bet then. If you are able to stay alive while living here for a whole week then I‘ll take off ⅓ of the price but if you cannot I will get ⅓ of the money, do you dare?” while holding his right hand out to Rana.

Rana hesitated, but he was tempted and so shook the old man’s hand “Deal!” he said.

After a few more pleasantries they decide that Rana would move in next week on Monday for the period of the bet. Then Rana left with his friends. They went to one of the best restaurants in town. When Rana ended up back home, he was heavily drunk. He lay into bed dreaming about the future and fell asleep.