Chapter 27: Headless

However, things at the villa didn't go as Xu Huo had imagined. The first power outage was due to a tripped circuit, and all players appeared except for Xu Huo. The scream came from Liu Yuanyuan, who was injured by a nail that Wan Zhikang had left out while rummaging through things. It almost led to a fight between them.

Huang Junjie had thought either the Beheading Demon or the disguised player would show up, but all the players were safe and sound, with no one attacked.

"Don't be overanxious, it's normal for the circuits to age and fail when they haven't been maintained for a long time," someone said.

Once the lighting was restored, the players returned to their own rooms.

Zhang Xiong had stopped associating with Huang Junjie since the afternoon and gone to the room of Wan Zhikang and Abel, while Huang Junjie went back to yesterday's room with Yuan Yao.

"Why is this happening?" Huang Junjie said with a look of disappointment, "The power outage was an excellent opportunity, and with a few players missing from the villa, yet the other party didn't make a move."

Yuan Yao kept a safe distance and after letting him talk to himself for a while, said, "Let's go find Brother Xu."

"You knew each other before?" Huang Junjie looked up at him.

"No."

"Then why do you trust him so much?" Huang Junjie couldn't believe it. Xu Huo's actions seemed very strange. To be honest, dressed in shorts and a tank top with such long hair, he didn't look like a normal person.

Yuan Yao was at a loss for words.

"It's not safe to go out now, I don't plan on going out anymore." Huang Junjie lay down to rest directly.

Yuan Yao walked around the room for a few laps before finally sitting down too.

Just as the two were dozing off, the electric lights suddenly started to flicker erratically, blinking twice before plunging into complete darkness.

After a silent wait, Zhang Xiong from the opposite room came out cursing and slamming the door, "The power's out again, can't they turn off a few lights at night, always creating unnecessary trouble!"

There were sounds of doors opening and footsteps, and after a while, when the lights still didn't come on, Huang Junjie sat up abruptly, "Not good!"

The circuit breaker was in a small storage room on the way to the warehouse. When Huang Junjie and Yuan Yao rushed over, Zhang Xiong and the wealthy heir were standing in front of the circuit breaker with ugly expressions on their faces.

"What's going on?" Abel, who arrived later, asked.

Several others came over, and Huang Junjie stared at them, "The wires have been cut. Who came out just now?"

"What are you suggesting? Are you suspecting us?" Wan Zhikang retorted sarcastically, "Then you should clean up your own mess first. How can you prove you didn't do this?"

Huang Junjie's forehead vein throbbed furiously, "Zhang Xiong and the others saw me coming from the direction of my room with their own eyes."

"There was enough time after the power went out for you to run out and back in, playing the thief crying 'stop thief'," Wan Zhikang said with crossed arms and a sneer.

"Could it be the Beheading Demon?" The college student asked, "Why would a player want to cut the wires?"

"If it were the Beheading Demon, such a tactic would be too low," Liu Yuanyuan said with a pout.

Huang Junjie suddenly came to his senses, "Who's missing?"

Everyone looked around, and a few seconds later Wang Wei said, "Du Lanlan and Xia Guo haven't come out!"

"Fuck! They couldn't have been killed by the Beheading Demon, could they?" Yuan Yao blurted out.

Before his voice had faded, sudden footsteps echoed from outside.

Distinctly heavier than those of a woman, the footsteps were approaching the storage room, accompanied by the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

As the sounds grew nearer, the players inadvertently swallowed hard. The rich second generation and Wang Wei each grabbed a mop and fumbled toward the doorway to the left and right.

Holding their breath for three seconds, and just as the footsteps neared the door and they were about to strike, a beam of bright light shone in first--blinding everyone in the room. Then they heard the person at the door ask, "Why are you all here?"

"Where are Du Lanlan and Xia Guo?"

Everyone, recognizing it was Xu Huo's voice, first sighed in relief, but then they were startled by the sound of furniture toppling over from the direction of Du and Xia's room!

The flashlight beam quickly swung toward the outside, and the players hurried out after it. As they reached the door, they nearly tripped over something. They lit it with a lighter to see, and it turned out to be a branch of plums, looking as plump as grapes, and one kick even got a shoe stuck on it.

"Fucking nuts!"

Several players cursed in unison.

Xu Huo, leading the way, had violently broken open the door. The room's French windows were wide open allowing the wind to blow in a heavy stench of blood.

There was no one in the room. The group rushed straight to the yard outside, and with the flashlight's illumination, they saw two people lying by the pool, dressed like Du Lanlan and Xia Guo. They were lying facedown at the edge, their shoulders and everything above completely obscured by a stone, and blood was flowing down their bodies into the hot spring pool.

Huang Junjie and a few others walked over one after another, but after only a glance, they rapidly diverted their gaze, their expressions collapsing.

Knowing the existence of the Beheading Demon was one thing, but witnessing two headless corpses before their eyes, with blood still spurting from the cuts, was quite another. They didn't even have the courage to approach.

"It's the Beheading Demon! It must be the Beheading Demon!" The university student stared at the blood-tinted hot spring water and retreated in horror, exclaiming, "In the blink of an eye, two players are dead. We're no match for it—we're all going to die!"

Huang Junjie turned and slapped him across the face, "Calm down! The Beheading Demon only dares to strike when the power is out. That means he's not sure about taking on all of us at the same time!"

His words pulled the other shocked players back to reality. Wan Zhikang forced himself to stay calm and said, "That's right, we just heard Du Lanlan and the others' voices. If the Beheading Demon weren't afraid of us, it wouldn't have run away!"

Xu Huo glanced at him, "It's not necessarily the work of the Beheading Demon."

The other players turned to look at him, and Huang Junjie signaled with his eyes not to spill it out, but Xu Huo pretended not to see and said directly, "Apart from the Beheading Demon, there are other people in the villa."

"Right, right!" Zhang Xiong suddenly remembered, "Isn't there someone else living in that cabin?"

"Didn't Huang Junjie say that person hung himself again tonight?" Wang Wei hesitated, "Is he alive again?"

"Not him." Xu Huo squatted on the stone next to the bodies, lighting a cigarette for himself. Through the smoke, he scrutinized the faces of all the players, "I killed him."

The players' complexions drastically changed. Before they could ask further, Xu Huo explained, "When he came back to life, he thought I was alone and tried to attack me, so I simply sent him on his way."

He pointed to the mud on his shoe, "I buried him. There's no way he can come back to life again."

Perhaps it was his matter-of-fact expression, which didn't seem like one who had just fought a life or death battle, that made the other players somewhat uncomfortable, and the way they looked at him was no longer filled with the contempt they had before.

"Besides The Woodcutter and the Beheading Demon, isn't the villa filled with so many players?" Xu Huo took a deep drag of his cigarette, "What were you all doing before and after the power cut?"