"Impossible… how could this happen…"
Li Xing was completely shaken by the scene before him. A chill shot up from the soles of his feet to his brain, and he staggered, falling to the ground.
He raised his arm, pointing at the worker just a step away—the one about to snap his own neck.
"How can they all be dead! How could six people die at the same time!"
Li Xing roared his question, and Ji Li was pondering the same thing.
The last light from the window brushed his shoulders, but his whole being seemed swallowed by darkness.
Everything happening before him, unstoppable, was a cruel, absurd terror.
Ji Li couldn't understand what could make every worker fall victim at once.
He suddenly turned toward another corpse beside him—the man who had sent the messages. He was the source of all this…
With his death, it was as if a curse had spread to every worker Ji Li had brought—none had been spared.
He stared blankly at his own hands. The strange stiffness was gone, but they still looked bruised and bluish-black.
"The curse… is spreading."
That thought spun in Ji Li's mind. From the current situation, the *isolation* theory was nonsense. The reason no one had died on the first floor was simply luck.
The ghost's killing pattern wasn't isolation at all—it was a curse that spread.
Then what was the source of the curse?
Ji Li slowly lifted his head, his empty eyes meeting the starlit sky beyond the window.
The rain outside was beginning to ease, but the conflict inside the building was only growing fiercer.
*Did they see someone possessed, killing themselves?*
The second persona, silent for a long time, finally spoke, its voice tired.
*No.*, the third persona countered softly. *At the start, it wasn't just us—many on the first floor saw Xiao Liu kill himself in the stairwell. Yet they're still fine.*
Then, with a more daring guess, the third persona continued:
*Maybe we're the source of the curse.*
Ji Li pondered the words but didn't speak.
The third persona went on:
*From the beginning, we've known every victim died—or was about to—while a staff was present.*
*That wasn't hard to guess, but we focused on isolation and protection, ignoring it.*
*Look at the man who sent the messages: once targeted by the ghost, we had no way to save him.*
*After everything, Ji Li, you've witnessed more than three cases of possession-driven suicides. The curse has already spread through you, even affecting the five staff members you brought.*
*Who would have thought? The mission kept telling us to protect the workers, but the real dead end was staying close to them.*
Ji Li stayed silent, listening to the analysis.
The idea that the staff were the source of the curse wasn't impossible, but it felt hasty.
"You're right—some parts fit.
But… where's the ghost?"
That was the key question. Up until now, they hadn't seen the ghost's shadow, not once. Even after killing the man who sent the messages, the five staff members were struck down—yet no ghost appeared.
*If we're the source of the curse, maybe the ghost is inside us…*
The third persona's tone was faint, as if unsure itself.
Ji Li wasn't convinced. Could the theory hold? Maybe.
The ghost could dwell within the staff, spreading its suicide curse to the workers nearby.
That fit most of what had happened so far.
But one thing didn't add up.
Old Xue's death—and the strange actions of the man with the messages.
Ji Li wasn't a coroner, but after witnessing so many deaths, he could roughly gauge Old Xue's time of death.
It definitely wasn't when they reached the fifth floor.
He hadn't been there, yet Old Xue died earlier. That contradicted the idea that the ghost rode inside the staff.
And then there was the message man himself. He knew Ji Li, and he'd said, "There's a ghost in the building." Clearly, he understood what was happening.
But during the first search, no one found him.
That meant he'd kept a perfectly safe distance from the staff. According to the third persona's theory, he shouldn't have known about the ghost at all.
Even if he'd seen a possessed corpse, he wouldn't immediately think a ghost was killing people.
Two major doubts—really one mystery.
Old Xue, the man who sent the messages, and perhaps Xiao Qi, who had never been found…
The three of them had uncovered a huge secret about this mission.
Only by finding that secret could they truly understand the ghost's killing pattern—and discover a way to survive.
In the corridor on the eighteenth floor, only Ji Li and Li Xing remained alive. Ji Li slowly turned his gaze to the man, who sat trembling in silence.
Bringing him along wasn't just to use him as a potential sacrifice; Ji Li also suspected him.
During missions, special figures often became the key breakthrough.
For example, in the previous mission with the peeping ghost, the man in the raincoat had been the key to survival.
But why had Li Xing entered the hotel three minutes later than Tongguan's two men?
Ji Li had never mentioned it, but he'd kept that detail in mind. Even though Li Xing's behavior so far had been completely ordinary, Ji Li, out of caution, kept him close.
Lighting a cigarette, Ji Li rose slowly. He was about to rouse the dazed Li Xing when a faint squeaking sound reached his ears.
He frowned and looked up. At that moment, the lights above the corridor flicked on one after another.
Darkness vanished in an instant, replaced by a blinding wash of cold fluorescent light that filled the entire building.
Under the lamps, Ji Li's face looked even paler, echoing the lifelessness of the six stiff corpses around him.
"The lights…"
Li Xing shuddered violently, then sprang up from the floor.
"Manager! The power's back!"
Light always gave people a little more courage in the face of fear, and Li Xing was especially excited.
Ji Li, too, felt a faint sense of relief.
But what he was thinking about was that the surveillance cameras would finally work.
This had been part of his backup plan from the start, but nearly half the mission had passed before he could use it.
A spark of determination returned to Ji Li's face. Holding his cigarette, he strode forward and spoke to the third persona in his mind:
"I don't agree with your theory, but with the surveillance room now available, we can at least give it a try."
You can read Eerie Overseer ahead by 60+ chapters ad-free and for free at htt ps://ravenarchives. com/book/eerie-overseer]. Bulk uploads are a bit tricky, so updates here might be irregular, but they'll keep coming.