Of course, there was another way to resolve the situation…
Within two minutes, he could take Li Xing and find Xiao Qi, bringing the three of them together. But that was far easier said than done.
Ji Li had long suspected there was a thread connecting three events: Old Xue's strange death, Xiao Qi's disappearance, and the *text-message man* knowing about the ghost's existence.
Those three must be linked. Now, with the two men dead, only the missing Xiao Qi remained.
Yet even now Ji Li had no clue where that person was hiding.
On the monitors, the horror on the first floor grew worse. Fang and Yu had completely lost control of the situation.
Ji Li glanced at Tongguan and Chang Nian, who seemed ready to rush upstairs. He pressed his lips together, then with a cold glint in his eyes, grabbed Li Xing's arm and pulled him out of the monitoring room.
There was no time left to hesitate. Only minutes remained.
So many had already died in vain. The mission details were wrong; their deaths held no value.
Only Old Xue's death mattered.
Ji Li had sensed from the beginning that the events on the fifth floor were abnormal. The man had died for no reason before anyone had arrived.
There could be only one explanation—he was silenced by the ghost.
The text-message man and Old Xue must have discovered something crucial, perhaps a real clue to survival, maybe even part of the true mission. That was why they were killed so early.
Now those two were gone. Xiao Qi was the last possible witness.
But even as Ji Li ran, he had no confidence.
If Xiao Qi truly knew something, were they still alive?
"What exactly did I experience? Where did I lose the memory of it?"
Li Xing clutched his head in agony. It felt like a worm was burrowing through his brain, feeding on what little reason he had left.
Some external force was invading his thoughts, clinging to him like maggots to bone, and he was powerless to resist.
Ji Li kept an eye on him while rushing downstairs. At one glance, he saw Li Xing's fear-twisted face contort into something demonic.
The sight made Ji Li's heart tighten. He was bound so closely to Li Xing now—only a fist's distance apart.
If Li Xing was the ghost, or possessed by it, there would be no escape.
"Have I been deceived by him…"
The question echoed in Ji Li's mind. He wasn't even sure Xiao Qi was still alive.
His safest route to survival was to use the ghost itself to shatter Li Xing's memory seal, forcing out the truth of the mission.
But… was Li Xing's story really true?
Was he not the ghost, but only someone with his memory locked away?
And if this normal demeanor was only a disguise, then as the ghost itself, what was he waiting for?
*Ding-dong, ding-dong!*
Suddenly, a sharp ringtone jolted Ji Li's body.
He carried two phones—one from the hotel, and another he had taken from Old Xue. Ji Li himself had never needed one.
It was Old Xue's phone that was ringing.
When Ji Li pulled it out, his brows rose. The screen buzzed with an incoming call.
The name displayed: **Xiao Qi**.
"Who's calling?"
Just as Ji Li hesitated, Li Xing seemed to recover from his dazed state.
His face looked ordinary again, but his tone and manner had shifted subtly.
Li Xing had never dared to speak to Ji Li like this before.
Ji Li narrowed his eyes, his mind racing.
Xiao Qi was alive. But why?
According to the text-message man's intel, Xiao Qi should have been near Old Xue. If Old Xue was killed by the ghost, why had Xiao Qi been spared?
The phone kept buzzing in his hand. Ji Li didn't answer. He discreetly stole a glance at Li Xing.
If Xiao Qi really carried a survival clue, there was no reason they should still be alive. As staff, they should have died alongside the others.
But they hadn't. Which meant there was some reason the ghost couldn't touch them.
*Could Xiao Qi also be special in this mission?*
The long-silent third persona whispered in his mind:
*Li Xing—we don't know if he's human or ghost. But I sense this: the moment we learn Xiao Qi's location, the ghost will strike immediately.*
*My advice—don't let Li Xing and Xiao Qi meet. If he's the ghost, Xiao Qi will be silenced instantly, and with that, the mission's secret—and the truth of the real task—will be lost forever.*
Listening to the third persona's analysis, Ji Li gritted his teeth, torn between two choices.
One path was to find Xiao Qi and uncover the secret hidden among those three people.
The other was to trust Li Xing's words about his forgotten memories, bring him to Xiao Qi, and use the ghost's presence to break through the seal in his mind.
But…
These two options could not coexist.
If Li Xing had been lying all along—only wanting Ji Li to lead him to Xiao Qi so he could silence them—then everything would be lost.
The two possibilities circled in Ji Li's mind. After a moment, his brow relaxed. He hung up Xiao Qi's call and turned to Li Xing:
"Tongguan and the others are about to arrive. Go find them first and report our situation."
Li Xing listened quietly, his face unchanged, his eyes like stagnant water with only the faintest ripple.
As Ji Li spoke, he slowly put distance between them. If Li Xing was normal, he would follow the instructions.
But if he insisted on trailing Ji Li to Xiao Qi, then something was wrong.
Ji Li felt uncertain. He didn't know what Li Xing would choose. And if Li Xing truly was the ghost, Ji Li had no idea how to fight back.
All he could hope was that the workers downstairs would die a little slower, buying him more time.
"Alright."
To Ji Li's surprise, after a brief silence, Li Xing agreed and quickly ran downstairs.
Ji Li had been prepared for confrontation, but the speed of Li Xing's compliance unsettled him.
He stared at Li Xing's fading figure in confusion. The ease of it all only deepened his suspicion.
A moment later, Ji Li drew a dagger from behind his waist, gripping it tightly, and chose a different staircase.
What he didn't know was that the hotel phone in his left pocket had begun to flicker with a red glow, as though something on the edge of awakening.
But hidden beneath the fabric, he never saw it.
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.