Ever since Jangxia Tongzhi showed up, the number of clients at the detective agency had noticeably increased.
...Unfortunately, most of the jobs were about tracking down missing cats and dogs, or spying on mistresses.
Jangxia, despite Amuro Toru's earlier suggestion to hand off cases like these, stubbornly held onto them. He wanted to build his reputation and network.
So, he delegated the pet-finding gigs to his delinquent friends instead.
These so-called "bad boys" looked like tough guys, but in reality, they were just bored.
There's only so much racing and arcade games one can do before life starts feeling empty. Most of their "gang activities" boiled down to wandering around with scary faces, loitering for a while, and going home when the clock said so.
But now, thanks to the novelty of chasing cats and dogs, their usual street-wandering suddenly had purpose.
Plus, the pay was decent.
Money's money, after all. Motorbikes break down, perms need touching up, and arcade owners don't let you mooch off the machines forever… So yeah, they were pretty enthusiastic.
That said, Jangxia was careful not to have the pets delivered to the detective agency.
He still remembered the nonsense he spouted during his job interview—something about being a former gang cadre or whatever.
So if one day, a few innocent bad boys showed up at the agency with a cat in hand, and Amuro misunderstood it as an attack on the shop… That would be bad. Very bad.
To avoid that mess, recovered pets were always sent to Jangxia's apartment. From there, he personally brought them to the office.
The pet requests were easy to solve.
As for the mistress-stalking ones, Jangxia didn't outsource those—too much risk of privacy violations. He handled those himself.
Thankfully, he'd been pretty busy lately.
And hey, wandering the streets might just land him in a murder case.
That morning, Jangxia strolled into the office carrying a cat and called the client to come pick it up.
Once the cat was safely handed off, Jangxia waited for his next ghost-delivering customer to appear.
No luck.
More pet-finding requests rolled in.
Jangxia stared at the growing pile of glossy cat-and-dog photos with a sigh.
Maybe the bad boys were too efficient at finding pets... Word-of-mouth must be spreading.
With no juicy cases in sight, Jangxia picked up a client form and considered heading out to snap some secret photos of a mistress.
But before he could leave, Amuro Toru messaged him.
The message said that the overworked boss was too busy today, and asked Jangxia to fill in for his part-time job—delivering packages.
A boss's job is still a job.
Maintaining relationships and mutual usefulness is key to a stable tool-person dynamic.
Jangxia closed the office, hung a little appointment sign on the door, and looked at back solemnly.
"You're a mature book now. You have to learn to attract murderous guests on your own."
A gust of wind blew by. The book flapped open, then closed again with a thunk.
Jangxia nodded.
Following Amuro's instructions, Jangxia arrived at the logistics company. They handed him a delivery route, a cargo list, and a van.
He spent hours making deliveries, one stop after another.
The job wasn't hard.
But his mood kept getting worse.
Every single customer who signed for a parcel was painfully normal.
No murder intent. No ghosts. No threats to their lives.
How disappointing.
By evening, Jangxia slumped behind the wheel after dropping off the last package. He was just about to return to the office when the sleepy ghost baby on his shoulder suddenly perked up and excitedly poked him.
Startled, Jangxia jumped out of the van and followed the ghost baby's invisible pointing. He turned a few corners...
And found himself in front of a run-down bungalow.
The place was gloomy and creepy—two stories, a big yard, but clearly abandoned.
The yard was choked with weeds. Vines clawed up the walls. The entire house looked like it had been brooding for years.
And the weather wasn't helping. It was one of those cold, overcast days where even the light felt suspicious.
In a word: haunted house.
Jangxia approached the rusty iron fence and peered in.
Two kids were sprawled in the grass, unmoving.
They didn't look dead—just unconscious.
One of them resembled a rice ball. The other was built like a broomstick.
This weird pairing sparked a strong sense of déjà vu.
Jangxia quickly recognized them: Kojima Genta and Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko, Conan's classmates.
Add Yoshida Ayumi and the headstrong Conan, and you had the full set—the Young Detective Boys from Teitan Elementary.
Seeing Genta and Mitsuhiko out cold here could only mean one thing.
Today must be their first group event:
Haunted House Adventure.
The house was well-known in the neighborhood for its eerie, howling wind sounds.
But it wasn't actually haunted.
The truth was more depressing than spooky: a mother and her son were hiding inside.
Five years ago, the son had beaten his father to death after being scolded.
The mother, upon discovering this, faked a robbery scene, then dragged her son into hiding in the basement—planning to lay low until the statute of limitations ran out.
Later, the son broke down and wanted to turn himself in. The mother refused.
She locked him in a dungeon instead, insisting they wait it out.
The "howling wind" that neighbors heard? That was just the son screaming from underground.
Jangxia figured the kids' ghost hunt was nearing its tragic conclusion.
Genta and Mitsuhiko: already knocked out.
Conan and Ayumi: probably still inside, trying not to die.
Jangxia took out his phone and called the police like a seasoned pro.
Then he casually vaulted over the fence.
He glanced at the two unconscious boys lying in the weeds and walked right past them.
He had ghosts to catch. Carrying kids would just slow him down. The police could handle them.
Jangxia circled around to the side door of the house.
He remembered: this was where the Detective Boys had entered earlier.
He reached for the handle—but it was locked.
Hmm… looks like the lady of the house got nervous after throwing out two bear children.
As a former organization member, this would be the perfect time to pull out a lockpicking kit and do something cool.
Unfortunately, that wasn't his strong suit.
And besides, a psychic had to act like a psychic.
So Jangxia stepped back half a pace.
Two paper shikigami fluttered out from under his feet and slipped silently through the door crack.
Inside, they fused and swelled into a pale, Nendoroid-style puppet.
This puppet had no will of its own—completely controlled by Jangxia.
He could toss a ghost into it and make a hyper-realistic human puppet, but...
For now, all it needed to do was unlock the door.
Jangxia focused on the puppet's position.
A few seconds later, "Xiao Bai" reached up, groped for the door latch, and—click.
Mission complete. Xiao Bai promptly disintegrated.
The paper shikigami zipped back into Jangxia's pattern space.
Jangxia reached for the door again.
This time, it opened smoothly.