"Back off!!!"
As Bruce and Kent were contemplating the past and present, a shout erupted from behind them. Instinctively, they both dodged to the sides. In that brief moment of turning around, they saw the agent with his gun raised, level with his shoulders, slightly tilting his head to aim.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Two shots to the body, one to the head. Due to the close range and the large caliber of the handgun, the impact of the bullets made the corpse that had just sat up fall back down with a "thud".
Bruce turned around to look at the agent. Although he had known the agent possessed a gun, for some reason, Bruce felt that this moment, when he fired, was the agent's true self. It was hard to say if those three shots carried the anger towards the lengthy dialogues that couldn't be skipped since the game began.
But the disturbances did not end there. This attack seemed to have angered the evil spirit controlling the body. It began to rise in a way that completely defied physics: the center of its body suddenly lifted upward, with its limbs wildly flailing in the air, producing a deep, hoarse roar from its throat.
Simultaneously, as the anomaly occurred, the sky over the small town suddenly darkened. The already dim light in the warehouse became even darker, almost pitch black. This rendered any kind of ranged weapon ineffective, as they didn't have night vision goggles. In this visibility, which was less than two meters, it was impossible to aim accurately.
The agent, however, let out a cold snort. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter, lit it, and tossed it in a certain direction.
Kent was still puzzled, but Bruce remembered: that was the place where the pile of fabric from the outer tent was stored. From the state of dust accumulation in the warehouse and the condition of the corpse, it was clear how dry it was. The fabric had been there for so long, all the moisture had evaporated, making it highly flammable.
First, a small flame appeared, then it spread across the entire fabric mass like wildfire. As the fire grew fiercer, the wooden structures supporting the tent were also ignited. The entire cluttered area was consumed by a raging fire.
The three of them quickly retreated, intending to leave through the warehouse door. But as expected, with a "bang", the warehouse door slammed shut, tightly sealed. The previously fragile, rotten wood had become harder than any alloy. The strongest, Kent, tried to break it, but it was of no use.
"Through the window," the agent said.
On the right rear side, where the fire was the fiercest, there was a window long deprived of its glass. The flames had ignited the wooden strips sealing the window, burning through one side, creating a hole in the wall just large enough for a person to pass through. The agent rushed over first. Just as he was about to leap out, Bruce shouted, "Watch out!!!!"
"Creak—Boom!!!"
The upper structure of the wooden building appeared to have decayed to the extreme, a massive beam crashed down in front of the agent. If it hadn't been for Bruce's warning, the agent would probably have been crushed underneath.
The agent cursed angrily but quickly turned and dashed towards another window. By this time, Bruce and Kent had also arrived, with the flames completely blocking their retreat. Thick smoke began to rise, the entire wooden house swaying precariously.
"Over here," a voice called from behind the window.
With a "bang", the wooden slats sealing the window were completely shattered. The agent saw the figure of the hunter. Just as he was about to charge forward, a dark silhouette wobbled and blocked the window—it was the Joker's corpse, which had suddenly stood up.
The agent took a deep breath, is this denying me the way out?!
Before he could act, the hunter outside suddenly leaned in halfway, his arm tightly clenching the Joker's neck, dragging him backward, directly pulling him out through the window.
The Joker clawed desperately at the window frame, not wanting to go out. But it should be noted, the more frail the morbid, the stronger it becomes. The hunter was already wounded, bleeding, and feverish, with his strength peaking. Even controlling himself not to use so much force, dragging a corpse was no problem for him.
The corpse, like a victim from a horror movie, was forcibly dragged away by an unknown force from beyond the window. The agent seized this opportunity to leap out. Bruce and Kent followed closely behind, but as Kent was the last to leave, he noticed something dropped by the Joker. He instinctively bent down to pick it up, only to see: it was a small wooden mallet.
The two emerged from the burning warehouse. Looking back, the entire warehouse vanished into the roaring flames. The wooden structure completely collapsed. After this fire, there would probably be nothing left.
Kent pulled out what he had just picked up. Bruce glanced at it and said, "That's used in a clown act. In a clown act, the performer takes out a jack-in-the-box, pretends to be scared by it, and then uses this to knock on the head of the doll inside the box..."
"How do you know?"
"I've seen similar acts before," Bruce gave him a look. The Joker performed for him eight hundred times a day, how else would he know?
Bruce took the wooden mallet from his hand. Originally intending to inspect the details, but the moment he touched the mallet, a flashback of memory suddenly appeared.
"Little Amy, look what Dad brought you? Your favorite bunny doll! The one you had was old, so I bought you a new one."
A man's voice echoed in his ears. In his vision, a little girl of about three or four years old ran over with quick steps, screamed, and then said, "Oh my gosh, really? I have new toys?! Dad, you're amazing!!!"
"Dad is going on tour again next month. While I'm not home, you have to help Mom take care of your brother and sister, okay?" The man patted the little girl's head.
The little girl looked up at him obediently, but soon pouted and said, "Why are you leaving again? You just got back. Can you not go this time?"
"I'm afraid that's not possible." The man said patiently, "This time we're going on tour to the East Coast, visiting many big cities. By then, Dad will buy a lot of new toys for Little Amy, okay?"
"Alright, then it's a deal!" The little girl laughed and threw herself into the man's arms.
In the man's vision, a bedroom door at the end of the living room slowly opened a crack, revealing darkness so thick it couldn't be dispersed.
Bruce snapped back to reality. Kent looked at him with some concern and asked, "What's wrong with you? Are you okay?"
"No, I'm fine." Bruce shook his head and said, "I seem to have just seen the Joker's memory."
"Memory?!" Kent said in surprise, "So there really are ghosts?!"
Bruce nodded. He turned back to the burning warehouse and briefly told Kent what he saw in the illusion, then said, "That little girl looked unfamiliar, not like anyone we've ever met. If this circus went out of business in the last century, what we saw might be the memory of someone from a long time ago."
"I have a question," Kent said, "The man told his daughter to help look after her brother and sister, but you said the little girl was probably only three or four years old. Did her mother have three children in three years?"
"Perhaps the last one was twins," Bruce said, "Two births in three years is medically possible, and three in four years isn't entirely unachievable, though it would be very taxing on the mother's health."
"Oh my, having three children in four years, does that mean she was either pregnant or giving birth all the time?" Kent pursed his lips, showing a look of pity, and said, "And the man was a circus performer, rarely home, so it was the mother taking care of herself?"
"Perhaps her mother had other relatives," Bruce said, "We should find a place to settle for now; there are too few clues, and we still have to investigate."
On the other side, after the dried corpse was dragged out of the house by the hunter, it seemed to have lost its strength and lay there motionless, like an ordinary corpse.
The agent felt around the corpse, found nothing, then opened the clothing to begin examining the cause of death.
Strangely, the corpse had no external injuries, meaning it wasn't killed by external force; the spine wasn't dislocated, and there were no signs of struggle, so it likely wasn't asphyxiation; there were no signs of drowning, so it didn't seem like it drowned either.
"Could it be poisoning?" The agent examined it carefully. However, due to the extended passage of time, the organs of this dried corpse were long gone, and the skin was withered and dry, making it really hard to discern anything.
If we tentatively say it was poisoning, who poisoned him? Surely it wasn't Batman?
Although he got nothing, the agent did not get discouraged. After all, at least this incident confirmed that this replica indeed had paranormal phenomena, and it wasn't just someone pretending to be a ghost.
This situation is both good and bad. If it were people pretending to be ghosts, it would be easier to solve with force, but unraveling the complex secrets behind it would be more challenging, as people's minds are hard to fathom, and anyone could do this for any motivation, making it difficult to investigate.
If it's ghosts, though, while resisting them with force is tough, the motives and clues will be much simpler. Ghosts in this world fall into two categories: those with purposeful revenge and those who kill indiscriminately. You just need to find out how this ghost was formed and what it wants to do, and the secret can be unraveled.
After searching the corpse and finding nothing, the two Shillers chose to immediately return to Aunt Cain's house. As soon as they walked in, they saw Peter and Kate sitting silently by the dining table.
"What's wrong with you two?" the agent asked.
Both shook their heads simultaneously. Peter opened his mouth but didn't say anything. He sighed and said, "There's no hospital in this town, and besides, my wound doesn't hurt much. Let's eat first."
Kate didn't argue any further. They got up from the table and walked to the kitchen. The agent whispered to the hunter, "Go rest for a while, I'll call you when the food is ready."
The hunter nodded. From his reaction, it was clear that his previous actions hadn't deducted any health. This indicated that he hadn't used forces extremely beyond the norm. In other words, when he was dragging that dried corpse out, it wasn't too much effort.
This indirectly confirmed that the dried corpse definitely wasn't a real evil spirit; otherwise, normal power wouldn't be able to directly contend with it. But still, what kind of role does this man who died in the warehouse play in this series of events?
While he was thinking, he suddenly saw a figure standing at the back door. When he looked up, he discovered it was Linda, holding something that looked like a fishing rod. So he walked over and said, "You finished so quickly?"
Linda said nothing and turned to lead him toward the garage. The agent followed her, and they went all the way into the workshop.