Three "Living People"

"W-What... what happened? What happened to me?!"

After lying there for a moment, Li Xing suddenly sprang up from the floor. He knew perfectly well what he was asking.

In truth, he remembered everything that had just happened with perfect clarity. His back was already drenched in cold sweat!

The middle-aged man watched Li Xing gradually approach and staggered backward in terror.

"What kind of monsters are you people..."

Ji Li ignored the others' squabbling and began examining the corpse of the bloated man.

Without a doubt, this manner of death matched suicide by ghost possession.

And judging by his condition, he had been dead for quite some time. That meant the banging on the door earlier definitely had not come from him.

Then who had been banging on the door?

Ji Li suddenly thought of a possibility. Could it have been a ghost?

It was not impossible!

There had only been banging, no footsteps. Perhaps that better matched the operating rules of ghosts.

Ji Li looked toward the door in the distance. Perhaps the ghost was no longer here.

They had still arrived too late. This man could no longer be used to test Isolation Theory.

Just as he was about to leave, the phone screen beside the corpse's head suddenly lit up with a blinding glow.

A VX message appeared on the screen.

"Lao Xue, how are things over there?"

It was a short message, but Ji Li saw that there were another seven unread messages above it!

Things were becoming more and more chaotic.

Ji Li picked up the phone and tried to check the unread messages, but it prompted him to enter a password.

His headache was getting worse. The owner of this message definitely belonged to one of the remaining employees.

He desperately needed the other isolated people to test the killing rule. Of the three, one had already died, leaving only two.

Ji Li tried several times but could not unlock the phone. Just as he was at his wits' end—

Another message lit up on the screen.

"Lao Xue, if you can still see this message, quickly bring Xiao Qi to the rooftop of the Eighteenth Floor to meet me!"

Ji Li let out a long breath upon seeing that. It seemed this corpse was Lao Xue.

The remaining three employees knew each other: Lao Xue, Xiao Qi, and the person sending the messages.

It seemed the sender had learned something about the situation inside the building, and perhaps had already encountered a ghost.

Ji Li waved to the others and headed for the Eighteenth Floor.

As for Xiao Qi, who should have been with Lao Xue, there was no need to look for her right now.

After all, in Ji Li's plan, one isolated person was enough for the experiment.

Still, he remained unsure what exactly the thing that had banged on the door without making footsteps was...

The employees' footsteps faded into the distance as they headed for the Eighteenth Floor, leaving the office completely empty.

The view shifted to a medium-sized cardboard box in the corner. It sat there inconspicuously.

But now, a trembling sound gradually came from inside. Bang! A hand burst out of the box!

Yet Ji Li and the others missed this scene entirely.

"This could count as our second operation.

"If we can save the person who sent the messages, perhaps we can discover a way to avoid ghost attacks through the pattern."

The Third Personality analyzed the situation in Ji Li's mind.

The current situation was not complicated. The ghost's killing rule could roughly be inferred.

It hunted isolated staff members near store clerks.

Ji Li's trip had two purposes: first, to determine exactly how many people counted as isolated; second, to find a way to save them.

But that method was not much of a problem. Suicide by possession seemed cruel and unsolvable, but its weakness was obvious.

As long as he could make the victim lose both hands, perhaps this manner of death could be completely avoided.

18th Floor drew closer, and Ji Li's expression gradually turned solemn.

By the faint light in the stairwell, he watched the steps pass one after another. Something felt wrong, yet he could not find the source of it.

With that strange feeling lingering, he and the remaining six people arrived at the Eighteenth Floor!

The moment they entered the corridor, Ji Li abruptly raised a hand to stop those behind him. He placed his index finger against his lips and whispered:

"I'll go ahead alone. Li Xing, guard the stairwell with the others. Don't let him run away."

If Li Xing had not known their mission was to protect the staff, he would have thought Ji Li meant to finish the job and silence the man for good.

Ji Li ignored him, straightened his clothes, and walked directly into the silent corridor.

Among the disorderly arrangement of rooms, he looked from side to side, listening for disturbances from every corner. Even the exceptionally alert Third Personality was helping him search.

"The building lost power, yet he has never appeared in our sight. That means he has not only seen the ghost, but also seen us restraining the staff."

The Third Personality explained in his mind while searching.

Ji Li nodded and said softly:

"He is cautious enough. Right now, he must be hiding in some corner, waiting to meet up with Lao Xue."

"But he still doesn't know Lao Xue is dead, and that the phone is in our hands. Once he hears footsteps, he must also be wondering whether the person coming is Lao Xue!"

Ji Li understood that things were very likely as the Third Personality had analyzed. He took out Lao Xue's phone, but there were still no new messages on it.

That further confirmed that the man had definitely realized someone was coming.

Ji Li frowned. How could he make that man believe he was Lao Xue and willingly show himself...

Suddenly, his brows relaxed. In addition to his footsteps, he began to whistle!

The tune he whistled was the same melodious, sorrowful opera tune he had heard in the office earlier.

The man knew Lao Xue, and Lao Xue had continued playing that tune from a power bank even after the blackout. That showed Lao Xue loved opera to the extreme.

The sender could not possibly be unaware of it. Only by using this tune could he identify Lao Xue across the vast Eighteenth Floor!

"To the right!"

At the same time, the Third Personality immediately responded. Almost the instant Ji Li began whistling, a burst of violent footsteps came from the passage to the right around the corner ahead.

They were low and hurried, filled with urgency!

Ji Li's eyes shifted. Without pausing, he pulled the gun from behind his waist and burst forward at full speed toward the corner ahead.

"Lao Xue! There's a ghost in the building!"

Ji Li had just raised his arm when he drove it straight into someone's chest, forcibly cutting off the man's words!

In the dim Light Source, he saw the man's pale, sweat-covered face, twisted with utter terror.

"Y-You... you're that murderer!"

The man let out a wail and turned to flee. Ji Li reacted just as quickly, immediately reaching for his shoulder with one hand.

But...

Some things were several times faster than both of them.

The moment the man turned, both his hands shot upward, exactly matching the warning signs before everyone else's deaths.

The terror had not even faded from his face, yet his head had already begun twisting uncontrollably to the left!

Ji Li's expression changed drastically!