From the slogans and posters on the walls, it was easy to figure out what kind of place this was.
Bruce swept his flashlight around, inspecting the surroundings. Soon, he noticed something unusual.
"No, Harrison. This is a haunted house with a psychiatric hospital theme!"
At that moment, more and more agents and enforcers arrived outside, completely surrounding the building.
Nearly one hundred people piled out of vehicles. The enforcers were stationed around the perimeter to make sure Kaitō Kid couldn't escape.
"Harrison, I've already deployed the enforcers on perimeter watch!"
"Kaitō Kid must still be inside this building!"
Harrison glanced toward the end of the hallway, his brow furrowed. Then he changed Bruce's plan.
This psychiatric hospital wasn't just one building.
This was the largest of them—eight stories tall. Even the first floor alone had dozens of rooms.
Surrounding this main structure were four smaller buildings.
Just because Kaitō Kid's off-road motorbike was parked here didn't mean he was still inside this one.
"Bruce, send people to search the other buildings first. We'll focus on this one last. Be cautious."
"If everyone concentrates on just this main building, the manpower and effort it takes would be massive."
"If Kaitō Kid's actually in one of the others, we won't have time to react."
Bruce let out a low grunt in agreement. He was just too fired up—the chance to catch Kaitō Kid was right in front of him.
Once the other agents were reassigned, Bruce and Harrison began searching the building.
Bruce casually pushed open one of the doors, and a blood-soaked hand slapped out toward him.
Both Bruce and Harrison were trained agents. While startled, their reflexes were sharp, and they managed to dodge just in time.
The bloody hand hit the door with a dull thud, the sound echoing down the hallway.
Bruce and Harrison exchanged glances, then both chuckled.
"Harrison, looks like some of the haunted house props still work. We better brace ourselves."
Bruce gave a wry smile.
The door had a tripwire that triggered the fake hand to swing toward the entrance—similar to the trap Zhang Yang had triggered earlier.
At that moment, Zhang Yang was making his way toward the main control room of the building, hoping to restart the haunted house systems.
With that many enforcers outside, he'd need some serious chaos to make a clean getaway.
Following the location marked by the monocle, Zhang Yang quickly found the control room on the second floor.
There was no electricity flowing through the building anymore, but Zhang Yang spotted a generator in the corner—half a tank of fuel still inside.
"Let's hope this gas still works."
Zhang Yang pulled the starter cord. After a few weak sputters, the generator roared to life.
Instantly, lights flickered on and electrical systems across the building started humming. Though some had decayed with time and didn't respond at all.
Bang...
Bang bang...
Just as Zhang Yang was celebrating, bursts of gunfire echoed through the building.
"Come on, was that really necessary?"
"The game's only just begun."
Zhang Yang grinned wickedly. He didn't even need to guess where the gunshots came from.
Now that part of the haunted house was up and running, someone had clearly been spooked and fired in panic.
And once the first gunshot rang out, they didn't stop.
Some agents even emptied their mags on the haunted house props.
After the first wave of "intense firefights," they finally realized what they'd been shooting at.
Bruce, annoyed by the chaos, grabbed his radio and barked in frustration.
"You bunch of idiots, those are just haunted house props!"
"For god's sake, wait until you actually see Kaitō Kid before you open fire, will you?"
A few minutes later, some of the lights inside the building flickered on. Dim yellow bulbs and a greenish glow filled the space, creating an intensely eerie atmosphere.
Add to that the old, half-broken speakers randomly blaring ghostly wails and static—chilling to the bone.
"Shit! This freaky place still works?"
"Bruce, this has to be Kaitō Kid's doing. He's still here!"
Harrison's logic was sharp.
There was no way these busted-up systems would come online by themselves. It had to be Kaitō Kid.
Bruce had just walked past a cabinet when a pair of hands shot out from a shattered glass frame and grabbed his shoulders.
"Shit!"
Bruce flinched instinctively, then realized what it was and smacked the arms away.
"Kaitō Kid's trying to stall us? Does he have backup coming?"
Bruce was still thinking like a field agent, assuming Zhang Yang must have reinforcements. With the current situation, he couldn't believe Kaitō Kid could escape on his own.
But Harrison immediately shook his head.
"No, no way anyone's coming to help him."
"Kaitō Kid always works alone. Stay sharp. We need to find him fast."
Harrison took a deep breath. Every door, every room, every cabinet—they were all booby-trapped.
Some had ghost faces popping out, others flung bloody heads, and some even released props of deranged patients with messy hair and terrifying expressions.
Even though they were clearly just props, the sudden jumps still startled them.
Bruce was quickly losing patience. He was sick of being toyed with.
"Harrison, I can't take this anymore!"
"Fuck! Kaitō Kid is just messing with us at this point!"
"He may not have backup, but we can call for reinforcements!"
He pulled out his phone as he spoke.
If he had to search this entire building room by room, Bruce was going to lose his mind.
After contacting FBI headquarters, Bruce put away the phone and forced himself to continue the search, barely holding back his rage.
Of course, he still kept getting startled by the pop-up props. By now, the thrill of catching Kaitō Kid had completely worn off.
As the other agents finished sweeping the smaller buildings, they gradually joined in the main building search.
Zhang Yang clearly overheard Bruce's call for reinforcements and the sounds of more agents entering the building.
"I need to find a way out of here. Fast."
If Bruce's backup arrived, slipping away would be way harder.
The hallways were crumbling. Spiderwebs stretched everywhere, and the doors and bookshelves were thick with dust.
This level of real decay gave off an atmosphere far better than any staged haunted house could.
"A place this big—if they reopened it, I bet it'd be packed!"
Zhang Yang shook his head with a sigh, then pulled out his phone and took a few photos for keepsake.
He had disguised himself as an FBI agent and, in the hallway on the third floor, bumped right into Bruce and Harrison.
At this point, the two of them looked completely disheveled. Their heads were covered in cobwebs, and under the dim yellow and greenish lights, they looked both miserable and absurd.