This Unit 4 building, which on the surface seemed full of ordinary life, had already seen two deaths—yet none of the other residents stirred.
Ji Li's eyes were still that shade of gray; the situation was finally beginning to settle.
The raincoat man had only spent two minutes outside Room 702 earlier. By his reckoning, he had about three minutes left before he had to return.
Ji Li tilted his head back, gazing upward through the layers of railings. The floors above were silent.
It felt as if, with Cao Yuan dead and the sixth person revealed, the ghost's attacks had reached a pause.
For the hotel staffs, the heavy weight pressing on their hearts finally loosened. From every angle, it seemed they had found their path to survival.
Now, all they needed to do was stay by the raincoat man's side until dawn.
Yu Guo leaned against the wall, panting with barely suppressed excitement, muttering under his breath:
"Ghosts… they really exist! After all these years, I finally found one!"
As the tension eased, their nerves slowly steadied. Ji Li glanced at the ecstatic Yu Guo.
He couldn't shake the feeling that this seemingly plain man valued his obsession with ghosts far more than he did human life.
By normal standards, after witnessing the deaths of Ding Miaoxin and Cao Yuan, such excitement was far from normal.
But what drew Ji Li's true scrutiny was Fang Shenyan.
From their very first meeting, Ji Li had sensed the aura of death around him.
It wasn't something picked up or stained—it radiated from within.
Hard to explain, almost mystical—but Ji Li, who knew death better than anyone, could tell.
Fang Shenyan had definitely brushed against death itself.
Perhaps not fully, but he had stood at the very edge.
That was why he treated life with such indifference.
Even the plan for Cao Yuan's sacrifice—though it appeared Ji Li's scheme—had its spark in Fang Shenyan's decisive strike.
Now, with the world quiet again, Fang Shenyan returned to his taciturn state, a stark contrast to his earlier analytical eloquence.
Ji Li silently studied both men, then reached a single conclusion:
"No one who excels in these hotel tasks and survives… is normal."
"So what you're saying is, even if I live through tonight, the rest of my life will always be haunted by ghosts?"
The raincoat man finally spoke, unable to hold back.
He was the most innocent of them all—targeted by a deranged woman for no reason, bound even after she became a ghost.
That had been the starting point of this task.
Hearing him speak, Ji Li finally fixed his gaze on this *special* man.
He didn't answer. He just watched quietly.
Truth be told, he saw nothing remarkable about this man.
Why had the ghost been so *partial* to him, unable even to harm him?
One doubt still stuck in Ji Li's throat.
Ghosts had no human complexities of feeling.
So why had the raincoat man been singled out, treated differently?
"Let's go back to 702. Time's almost up," Fang Shenyan reminded, glancing at his watch.
The raincoat man shivered, suddenly remembering the time limit. Without waiting for the others, he hurried upstairs.
Ji Li frowned at his back.
"What is it?" Fang Shenyan asked.
Ji Li shook his head without answering.
But as the raincoat man approached 702, an ominous unease flashed through Ji Li's heart.
He couldn't explain it—perhaps that unanswered doubt, perhaps instinct from surviving so many tasks.
After a moment's hesitation, he followed anyway.
"Where do you think the ghost is now?" Yu Guo piped up with a sly grin.
Fang Shenyan shot him a glance, lips pressed tight, offering no reply.
Ji Li also stayed silent—for his right eyelid was twitching, the sense of wrongness growing so strong it made him physically ill.
The raincoat man's back, just ahead, wrapped in that dark raincoat, blurred before his eyes…
As though something obscured it, preventing him from seeing clearly.
Ji Li's heart clenched. At that same moment, the third persona's suspicious voice echoed in his mind:
"That back…"
"Stop! Don't go any further!"
Ji Li's sudden cry drew everyone's eyes to him.
Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo turned in confusion—only to see Ji Li's paper-pale profile clouded with dread.
Following his gaze, the raincoat man slowly turned his head. His movements were sluggish, as though bound by something unseen.
Sweat had broken out across his face, mingling with the blood and making his features look grotesque.
But when his body fully turned, Ji Li and the others felt their eyes nearly split apart.
From beneath the raincoat man's chest, pale as death, a human face was pressing outward!
Thick black hair clung to his skin. The swollen, ghastly features bulged against the thin raincoat, threatening to burst through.
Through the blur, it became clear—the raincoat man's body was tightly bound by the ghost's limbs.
And yet, he hadn't noticed a thing.
If Ji Li hadn't seen his back looking bulkier than before, he never would have realized the man had already been possessed.
"What's… wrong with you all?"
The raincoat man still sensed nothing.
But no one could answer. No one had foreseen such a sudden turn.
Fang Shenyan quietly stepped back half a pace and whispered into Ji Li's ear:
"We were wrong. The escape path was false."
No explanation was needed. Ji Li and Yu Guo, seeing the ghost clinging to the raincoat man, understood instantly.
The raincoat man too was under attack.
He wasn't special at all.
Sweat dripped down Yu Guo's brow. He couldn't stand still, couldn't run. Their mistaken judgment had frozen his mind, and all he could do was look to Ji Li.
Ji Li's face remained calm, but inside his thoughts stormed.
*Damn it—we said from the start, ghosts don't have complex emotions!*
*We let ourselves be blinded by what we saw. The raincoat man's repeated survival tricked us into thinking he was different.*
*But we forgot—he's a staff too!*
*How special could he really be?*
The second persona was already on the edge of madness—because now, the odds of turning this around had dropped to almost nothing.
You can read Eerie Overseer chapters 20–36 ad-free and for free at htt ps://ravenarchives. com/book/chapter/eerie-overseer/chapter-20]. Bulk uploads are a bit tricky, so updates here might be irregular, but they'll keep coming.