The Special Grade Cursed Spirit That Existed Here

No expression could be seen on anyone's face. They all stared blankly at their computer screens as if every last trace of emotion had been stripped from them, looking like a bunch of madmen.

These people did not care whether it was time to get off work. They just kept working without pause. Although this was what Lin Ran saw, he could clearly sense the heavy resentment clinging to them.

They clearly did not want to work overtime, yet they were frantically doing so. It made them mentally loathe overtime to the extreme, but their instincts kept driving them to work and work overtime without stopping.

It sounded contradictory, but that was the truth. These people seemed to have had their minds taken over, leaving their bodies and minds at odds with each other.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" A calm voice sounded. Lin Ran turned his head and saw a neatly dressed man in square-framed glasses smiling at him.

"Oh, no. I'm just here to look around." Lin Ran smiled. He had already noticed the badge hanging around the glasses man's neck. It read: XX Department Manager. Apparently, he was management.

The glasses manager looked Lin Ran over and said with a smile, "You must be a recent university graduate, right? You could come intern at our company. Look at what a wonderful atmosphere we have here."

The manager pointed at the people desperately working overtime, his face full of pride.

But seeing the man smile made Lin Ran's skin crawl. He felt that not a single person here was normal.

"No need. I'm just looking around. You can get back to your work." Lin Ran politely declined with a smile. Given how tall he was, it was no wonder people mistook him for a university student, but that did not matter. What mattered was that there really was something wrong with this company.

"Alright. You can look around for as long as you like. If you change your mind, you can come find me anytime." The glasses manager was not displeased. Instead, he smiled and nodded before leaving.

Lin Ran found a lounge area where he could observe the employees at work. It was called a lounge, yet no one had ever rested there. Even people who came over for water were few and far between.

Lin Ran watched as time ticked by. The sky outside had gone completely dark. From six-thirty until eight o'clock, only three or four people had left work to go home. The other dozens of employees were still working overtime with all their might.

This was only one department. Lin Ran figured the other areas were probably much the same, with nearly everyone working overtime.

At that moment, a middle-aged man who did not look well mentally walked into the lounge. Lin Ran thought he had come to rest before heading home, but after drinking a cup of water, the man immediately prepared to return to work overtime.

"Wait!" Lin Ran called out. The middle-aged employee suddenly snapped awake, and life returned to his eyes.

"I don't want to work overtime anymore! I need to get out of here! I never want to work overtime again!" Once awake, the middle-aged employee's face filled with terror.

"What happened?" Lin Ran had long realized that this was not simply voluntary overtime, but he had not expected it to be like this.

Making someone work themselves into such a state—could that still be called work? They were nothing more than slaves to their jobs, risking their lives to make money for the Boss.

"I need to get out of here. Quickly, quickly, get out..." The middle-aged employee stammered, terror written all over his face. He did not listen to Lin Ran and simply ran out of the lounge.

However, something that surprised Lin Ran happened. The instant the man left the lounge, his gaze turned vacant again. Swaying as he walked, he returned to his desk and began another round of overtime.

At the same time, Lin Ran sensed the aura of a curse. A layer of purple-black energy continuously coiled around the middle-aged man's body.

"Looks like I might get something out of tonight." Lin Ran did not disturb the middle-aged man again. Instead, he remained seated in the lounge and watched what was happening over there.

Time passed quickly. It was already past ten at night. Compared to eight o'clock, another third of the people here had left.

The remaining two-thirds were all at least over thirty, and none of them seemed to be in good mental condition.

As time passed, the resentment within this environment grew stronger and denser.

By midnight, only a third of the people remained in the office area. Their resentment and malice were the heaviest, practically at their peak.

Lin Ran no longer knew what to say. Working overtime until midnight was no longer merely overtime—it was risking their lives.

In a prominent spot on the wall of the work area hung a green sign that read: "Voluntary Overtime." How ironic those words seemed now.

"It's here?" Lin Ran's eyes shifted. He stood up as a faint, indistinct Blue Body appeared beside the employees working overtime.

Each time it passed an employee who was working overtime, it opened its mouth and sucked away their resentment and vitality. Finally, one of those being drained could no longer hold on and collapsed face-first onto his desk.

His eyes were wide open, his cheeks sunken, and his unfocused pupils were filled with terror and unwillingness. He lay silently across the keyboard, completely motionless.

He was no different from the employees who had died here before. Even if a coroner examined him, the cause of death would be ruled as death from overwork, with no suspicion directed elsewhere.

Just as the Blue Shadow was about to leave, Lin Ran stepped out. "A curse that feeds on a company's resentment is truly detestable. There are so many employees in this company. If you drain them all once a day, how much resentment and vitality must you absorb?"

"You can see me?" The Blue Shadow became clearer, while its color changed to purple. It was a human-shaped cursed spirit, but it had no eyes, nose, or ears—only a mouth that looked as though it had been sewn together.

Its body was exceptionally muscular, its muscles sharply defined and its eight-pack abs clearly visible. With a different head and skin color, it would have been nothing short of a miracle in the bodybuilding world.

Compared with the overtime workers beside it, this physique was like heaven and earth apart, as though they were creatures from two different worlds.

"A Jujutsu Sorcerer?" The Purple Cursed Spirit looked calmly at Lin Ran and said clearly, "Quite a few have come before. But ever since they all disappeared, fewer and fewer Jujutsu Sorcerers have come. After two months, you're the first."

Lin Ran's brows were tightly furrowed. The cursed spirit before him gave off an incredibly oppressive presence. This was definitely not a Grade 1 cursed spirit, but the powerful aura of a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.

"No wonder. This company has been here for so long and has thousands of employees. If you feed on resentment and vitality every day, there's practically no limit to how much you can grow. It seems it's not that no one came to deal with you, but that no one was able to."

Lin Ran had thought he could gain something by coming here, but now it seemed unlikely. At first, he had assumed a Grade 2 or Grade 1 cursed spirit was behind this. Who would have thought it was a Special Grade Cursed Spirit?

Such a powerful cursed spirit existed here, yet no powerful Jujutsu Sorcerer had come to exorcise it. Several people from the company died every month. What were they thinking?

Still, dealing with a cursed spirit like this would require at least three or four Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerers, or a Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer.

But as things stood, there were not many Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerers publicly known. Everyone had their own matters to attend to, and they could not cover everything.

In any case, such a powerful existence had to be exorcised as soon as possible. Otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.