Yu Guo's drowsiness was shattered by the cruel and twisted reality before him. After a brief pause, he sprinted toward the first floor.
Tongguan and Fang Shenyan also realized the situation had collapsed on a massive scale. Their expressions changed drastically.
Fang Shenyan followed Yu Guo's lead, rushing toward the first floor in an attempt to save the workers who had not yet broken their necks.
They hoped to preserve a final spark of life before the six-hour mark, buying just a little more time.
Only Tongguan and Chang Nian remained motionless, standing silently at the stairwell as if what unfolded before them had nothing to do with them. Their minds were elsewhere.
"What do you feel?"
Tongguan took out the hotel-issued phone and opened the notepad. On the screen was a list of names in black text.
It was the record of all the workers' basic information.
Chang Nian frowned, reluctant to speak, but after a long pause she said, "It doesn't add up. Everything that's happened since we entered the mission feels absurd."
Tongguan nodded. He felt the same. "There hadn't been a single casualty on the first floor until now. It was as if the ghost was targeting Ji Li alone. I even personally tried to draw it out, and nothing happened.
"But now, with a whole hour left before the mission ends, the ghost suddenly acts all at once, instantly killing more than twenty workers?"
Chang Nian turned, her clear eyes reflecting Tongguan's tall figure. She whispered, "At this point, the ghost's killing pattern seems clear.
"First kill all the workers. Then kill all the staffs.
"However, this pattern does not yield a solution."
Tongguan drew in a long breath. The sound of bones snapping echoed painfully in his ears, and he slowly closed his eyes.
"Perhaps there are still unanswered questions. For instance, why were the workers safe until now, only to be attacked together in the fifth hour?
"If it was random, then why were the earlier deaths all centered around us?
"This might be closely tied to the real mission content."
Chang Nian was persuaded. She followed his line of thought further.
"We need to uncover the true mission content. And to do that, we return to the original question…"
Tongguan turned his head toward the nearest surveillance camera. He knew a pair of eyes was watching from the other side.
His lips moved silently, shaping four words:
"Where is the ghost?"
...
"Where is the ghost?"
Ji Li's face looked deathly pale under the glow of the monitor. He slowly moved his gaze from the screen to his hand.
Everything was proceeding just as he had feared from the start. He hated it, but it was inevitable.
Ji Li knew Li Xing was a special figure in this mission, made so because the hotel had set a precedent for him.
A newcomer had reported late—three whole minutes late.
What had happened during those three minutes?
In the corner of the monitoring room, Li Xing sat leaning against both walls, tucked into a blind spot that gave him a sense of safety.
He had overheard Ji Li and Tongguan's suspicions, but his mind was elsewhere.
Since hearing the doubts about the mission's authenticity, he felt as if he had forgotten something vital.
But where, and why, he could not recall.
Until—
Ji Li fully turned around. As Li Xing opened his mouth to speak, he saw that chilling, ice-cold face.
"Man… Manager…"
Ji Li saw his reaction. Truthfully, he did not want to believe that such a timid man could be the ghost.
So his thoughts leaned toward another possibility: Li Xing was not the ghost itself, but its vessel.
"Take off all your clothes."
The massacre on the first floor continued, but the workers were not yet completely dead. Ji Li understood clearly.
Even with the situation collapsing, he still had a few minutes. Until every workers was gone, he was safe.
Ji Li believed Li Xing must be hiding some secret, perhaps even one Li Xing himself was unaware of.
Li Xing froze, confused by the sudden command.
"Manager, why?"
Ji Li's tone was cold. "Have you noticed anything strange about your body?"
Li Xing scratched his head and thought carefully. "I don't feel anything unusual… Manager, what do you mean?"
"No strange details at all? Haven't you wondered why someone as ordinary as you would be treated differently by the hotel? You were three minutes late. In those three minutes, what were you doing?"
Ji Li's questions came like a barrage, leaving Li Xing breathless.
"I… I just urgently needed the restroom. But the ones in the building were full, so I kept looking on different floors. Then I was suddenly brought into the hotel. To me, that transmission was over in the blink of an eye.
But… I feel like I've forgotten something…"
Li Xing replayed his entry into the hotel from start to finish, then finally voiced the strangeness he had always felt.
Ji Li raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Li Xing flushed red, unable to explain. After a long pause, he said:
"It never happened before. But ever since you and Tongguan started talking about the mission's authenticity, my mind suddenly flashes with images.
Whenever I try to focus on them, I can't grasp anything.
I'm sure they're there, in my head, but…"
Ji Li's eyes shifted. The memories in his mind—what exactly had Li Xing seen in those three minutes?
That was the key.
"Interesting."
Ji Li was certain: before entering the hotel, Li Xing must have seen something—possibly the ghost itself.
And through him, the ghost had entered as well.
Perhaps the ghost was powerful, or perhaps this was a deliberate arrangement by the hotel.
Using the ghost's peculiarity, the hotel had designed an extraordinary mission.
All of it must have happened inside the hotel. The ghost erased Li Xing's memory, but because its powers were weakened within the hotel, fragments lingered—triggering Li Xing's instinctive sensitivity to the mission's truth.
Li Xing had become the breakthrough. Ji Li felt a surge of excitement.
Looking at Li Xing's increasingly bewildered face, Ji Li saw how his memory was locked away, sealed tightly like a prison.
All it needed was a key—not even to fit into the lock, but simply to appear—and it would shatter the cage.
Ji Li fell into a dilemma. He turned toward the large screen.
Fang and Yu's rescue attempt had not only failed, but the moment they touched the staff, their deaths accelerated.
In less than two minutes, the entire building would hold no survivors except the staffs and the missing Xiao Qi.
Then the ghost would likely target the staffs next.
The key was the ghost. Its appearance could break open Li Xing's sealed memories in the most direct and brutal way, revealing the truth of the mission.
But the ghost might not strike the staffs first. It could just as easily go after the only survivor in the building—Xiao Qi.
If Xiao Qi died first, Ji Li would lose his backup plan. If Li Xing yielded nothing, his chances of turning the situation around would vanish.
His fist clenched until it cracked, but Ji Li remained convinced: Li Xing was the key.
He was closer than ever to the truth—closer to survival.
Now the question was: would the ghost follow the false mission's demand and kill Xiao Qi first…
Or would it follow the hotel's pattern and strike at Ji Li, who was closest to the way out?
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.