"The source of the curse seems to have been found—it's a photo of a bloodied hand.
But something about it feels strange…"
Ji Li moved along the staircase toward the eighteenth floor. Around him, only the sound of his own footsteps echoed, along with the analysis of his third persona in his mind.
"It's strange. Before, we guessed the curse's source was near our staff.
But looking at the current situation, there are still too many uncertainties about how the ghost kills.
Perhaps once we find Xiao Li's phone, the moment we see that photo, many things will become clear."
At this point, Ji Li was no longer anxious.
He understood that the events were unfolding almost exactly as he had anticipated. Sure enough, Xiao Qi's existence had become the key to reaching the ultimate truth.
Now, he was only one step away from the true source of the task.
"Second, why have you been asleep?"
Beyond the questions about the task, Ji Li's greatest confusion was his own changes.
Since the last mission, his second persona had seemed to weaken, often dormant and lacking energy when awake.
And the *Ji Li* in the black robe with gray pupils he had just observed had given him a natural sense of dread.
Although he didn't understand who that person was or how he had entered his body, he realized a subtle fusion was occurring between them.
Ji Li instinctively felt that the person had been inside him for a long time and possessed extraordinary power.
Perhaps his *resurrection* ability stemmed from that individual.
Yet Ji Li was still afraid.
He had never been so frightened—not even of ghosts. His fear was that, before completing his mission, he might lose himself entirely.
He sensed that once he fully merged with that person, he would no longer be himself.
And all secrets of his own being, and of the Tianhai Hotel, would be lost.
"I don't know. I just feel that lately, my senses are weakening, like I'm falling gravely ill.
My strength… is so little…"
The second persona had always represented temper and passion.
Though Ji Li disliked that temperament, he had to admit that having this side allowed him to survive in this hellish ordeal.
After all, Ji Li himself was usually lethargic and lifeless.
*Gray represents the person within you.*
*But the red light… what is that?*
The third persona returned to the matter at hand. Xiao Qi had remarked about the red light and gray in Ji Li's eyes when leaving.
Gray was explainable—but the red?
Ji Li glanced at the approaching eighteenth-floor marker and said quietly:
"When I first reached the fifth floor, I felt an unprecedented sense of crisis.
At that moment, my head throbbed with pain as some external force began invading my body."
He fell silent, stopping in his tracks, then suddenly tilted his head back as if realizing something.
He spoke urgently: "Could this cold external force… be a ghost?"
A ghost invading a living body…
It matched the method of killing in this mission: possession leading to suicide.
The third persona, prompted by this thought, suddenly realized:
*That's it*
*When you reached the fifth floor, the ghost from this mission must have tried to possess you. That red light represents the ghost!*
*It entered your body, which in turn activated the gray soul within you.*
*The gray soul resisted the invading red-light ghost!*
*It seems it succeeded; otherwise, you would have already died by suicide.*
Ji Li nodded repeatedly. This explanation made everything clear.
Gray was the hidden soul within him, possessing incomprehensible power.
Red light was the mission ghost—earlier, Ji Li had unknowingly triggered a dead-end, and the ghost was about to strike, but the gray soul blocked it.
"But if the gray soul is protecting me, why didn't it appear the previous times I died?"
Ji Li sensed things weren't that simple. He still believed the gray soul's intervention was triggered only when he reached a certain critical point.
And that protection was not necessarily benevolent. Perhaps the entity within had deeper secrets, and its actions had a purpose.
If those secrets were exposed, Ji Li would face utter ruin.
"How did the ghost find you…"
Ji Li shook his head, sensing that the ghost had always been hiding close to him.
But in what form or manner it existed, he still had no clue.
He swept his stray hair back and fixed his gaze intensely on a specific direction—the site of the final clue.
This journey would determine the fate of all the current staff.
Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo were monitoring the first floor, Tongguan and Chang Nian were negotiating with Li Xing on the lower floors, leaving Ji Li as the only free person—the one closest to the truth.
"As long as I find that photo, I can unravel the entire truth!"
He drew a deep breath and, abandoning a walking pace, sprinted along the remembered route toward the scene of the incident.
Xiao Li's body, as well as the corpses of the five staff members from before, should still be in their original places.
But…
When Ji Li reached the familiar corner, he saw the five rigid, cold skeletons on either side of the corridor.
Yet one was missing—the most crucial one.
Xiao Li's body!
Ji Li's expression darkened sharply. He had anticipated this on the way—if Old Xue's body had vanished, then Xiao Li's body…
He spun around and looked toward a room on the eighteenth floor.
Only one position remained—the place where Xiao Li had sent Old Xue a message about Elder Xu's death.
Now, both Old Xue's and Xiao Li's bodies were gone. Among the three who had known about the ghost, only Elder Xu remained.
*Ji Li!*
*I have a bad feeling. Elder Xu is the last key figure, but everything now seems like a trap!*
*The ghost is deliberately luring us there!*
Indeed, the bodies at the other two death sites had disappeared; only the last one remained.
The situation was glaringly obvious. Having faced multiple crises before, Ji Li immediately recognized this possibility.
But he had no choice—he had to go!
His expression was grim. With only one step left, even if it was a trap, he had to leap forward.
His figure moved swiftly toward the far end of the eighteenth floor, with neither hesitation nor doubt.
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.