Ji Li was already a battle-hardened veteran. Through countless missions of guiding souls, he had developed an acute sensitivity to the presence of ghosts and the stench of death.
Normally, wherever ghosts lingered, there was always a chilling cold that could not be ignored.
But just now, when Xiao Liu died, he had sensed nothing at all.
It wasn't until the commotion of the crowd broke out that he realized a ghost had appeared.
Ji Li's hair fluttered behind him as his brows furrowed tightly.
If it wasn't because this ghost had some unusual way of manifesting, then it meant his own perception had been weakened.
"Third, before Xiao Liu died, did you notice anything?"
Ji Li could only place his hopes on the third persona. Based on the last two missions, the third's perception and insight were the sharpest.
As though expecting the question, the third persona quickly answered:
"Less than ten seconds after we finished speaking with Xiao Liu, he was attacked by the ghost.
But I truly didn't sense any supernatural force surrounding us.
I suspect this ghost is extraordinarily powerful.
So much so, it left us no chance to even notice its presence!"
Hearing this, Ji Li fell silent. He had thought the same.
The difficulty of the missions was clearly escalating. The last one had already been tough, and this one would surely be worse.
The deadliest part was that the ghost aimed to kill all 43 workers within six hours.
That number might not seem large, but for six staffs, it was overwhelming.
And if they couldn't detect the ghost's movements, there was no way to stop death from coming.
In Ji Li's mind, he was already convinced that many people were fated to die.
Without deaths, there would be no pattern to the killings—and without a pattern, no path to survival.
Realizing this, Ji Li grew even more determined to take control of the monitoring room. It was the key to identifying the ghost's targets.
The seventh floor soon came into view as Ji Li sprinted upward.
With a headlamp strapped on and the hotel phone in his palm, he searched room by room until finally, at the end of a hallway, he found a large door. The sign read: Maintenance Department.
He shoved it open. The door was unlocked.
But inside, the room was empty.
Ji Li pursed his lips. Perhaps the electricians had already gone to restore the power.
Just then, the hotel phone in his hand buzzed. The screen lit up—it was Fang Shenyan calling.
Generally, the staffs used only the hotel-issued phones to communicate. They never lost power, and they always had signal.
"This is Ji Li."
"Yu Guo and I just brought the remaining workers from the tenth floor and above down to the lobby. Now I'm in the first basement level. There's a dead body here."
Fang Shenyan's voice was cool and concise, reporting the situation without embellishment.
Ji Li frowned. Strange—another death?
"What happened?"
"I discovered several electricians in the basement, fixing the power."
While we were waiting, one of them suddenly dropped dead—snapping his own neck with his bare hands.
This time, the ghost killed by possession, forcing suicide."
That explained Ji Li's earlier puzzle. The empty maintenance room upstairs was simply because the workers had rushed straight to the basement to fix the power.
What unsettled him, though, was that the ghost seemed to be killing at the same time in different places.
"Do you know the exact time that worker died?"
Fang Shenyan replied almost instantly: "10:13:50."
Ji Li glanced at his watch, and his frown deepened.
"I'm at the door of the seventh-floor maintenance room. On my way up, another person died. Judging from the time…
That death happened almost simultaneously with yours in the basement!"
"Simultaneous deaths?" Fang Shenyan's voice carried a trace of disbelief.
"There were four electricians here, including the one who just died. They said there should be seven in total.
But three others are missing."
Ji Li's expression darkened, his voice dropping to a low murmur:
"I'm on the seventh floor. I'll look for the missing three."
He hung up and immediately dialed another group—Tongguan.
The moment the line connected, both Tongguan and Ji Li spoke almost in unison.
"A corpse has appeared on my side."
"Do you have one there too?"
Tongguan froze, then realized something. He asked Ji Li, "You have a corpse as well?"
Ji Li let out a long breath, as though confirming a suspicion, but he still pressed, "Roughly what time did the death occur on your side?"
"10:13:50!"
"Same here."
Ji Li ended the call, standing in place with a dark, shifting expression.
Then the third persona quietly spoke in his mind, revealing a dreadful truth.
"This ghost… has the ability to split itself."
Killing simultaneously in multiple places—there might already be more corpses they hadn't discovered yet.
Ji Li faintly understood now why he had sensed nothing. Perhaps none of the killers so far were the true body at all.
This was far worse than anything they had imagined.
With 43 workers as potential victims and six hours on the clock, they had thought they could study the pattern of deaths and rules to find a way out.
After all, as staffs, they had always been fated to be attacked last.
But everything had changed too quickly. Barely twenty minutes had passed, and three people were already dead—not counting those not yet found.
If the ghost had multiple bodies, then slaughtering everyone in a short span was no challenge at all.
The thought made Ji Li's head pound.
*Bang, bang, bang!*
"Is anyone there?"
Suddenly, muffled thuds echoed from the end of the corridor.
The elevator.
Ji Li's eyelids twitched. He immediately understood—when the power cut, someone had been trapped inside.
"Troublesome…" he muttered, pulling a steel knife from his bag as he walked toward the elevator doors.
"Is someone out there? Please, hurry and open the door!"
Perhaps they had heard him earlier opening doors, because the people inside began shouting desperately, clinging to hope.
Otherwise, Ji Li might have missed them entirely.
He gripped the dagger in one hand, wedging its tip into the seam of the door. Using his arm strength, he pried at the sealed elevator doors.
Bit by bit, the gap widened. The beam of his headlamp cut through the darkness inside.
*Boom!*
At last, Ji Li forced the doors open, dripping with sweat, about to speak.
But the sight before him made even this fear-hardened manager's scalp tingle with terror.
The elevator car was stuck between the sixth and seventh floors. From where he stood, Ji Li could only see half of the cabin.
And in that half stood three figures, all facing him.
Yet their heads were twisted one hundred and eighty degrees backward.
Their bodies faced forward—while their skulls were turned to the rear.
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.