Chapter 23 The Statue

"Why did you deliberately anger that NPC?" Huang Junjie asked on their way back to their lodging.

"Out of pure curiosity," Xu Huo replied, "He seemed clear-headed enough, maybe we could really get something out of him."

"But we ended up not getting anything, and we offended him instead." Wan Zhikang glanced at him disdainfully, "Playing games without using your brain."

"We're going to search the villa for food, want to tag along?" Du Lanlan came over to invite them, mainly asking Huang Junjie.

Xu Huo didn't plan on joining them and left first with Yuan Yao.

The villa wasn't small, but the places they could search were limited: rooms, dining hall, and warehouse. Apart from these three locations, the surroundings were filled with dense greenery, making it hard for anyone to move through smoothly.

Xu Huo gauged the distance from the villa to the cabin and then went to check outside Huang Junjie's courtyard, finding nothing but fresh footprints left by players who had come to investigate earlier.

Returning to the front lobby, he picked up a handwritten guest registry from behind the counter and flipped through it from beginning to end.

"Brother Xu, what's so interesting about a registry filled with unrecognizable names?" Yuan Yao, disappointed that he couldn't turn on the old computer, said, "I was hoping to find some news on the computer. If only we could bring mobile phones in, maybe we could dig up some information."

"Even if you brought your mobile phone, it wouldn't have service. The game won't let players exploit loopholes." Xu Huo put down the registry and walked towards the warehouse, recalling Wang Wei mentioned earlier that it was filled with trash left behind by guests.

In reality, it contained the worthless belongings of deceased guests—clothes, shoes, and such. Because of the peculiar nature of the cases, these personal items had no one to claim them and were hence piled up in the warehouse.

The warehouse was a complete mess, with any potentially informative items like books and notebooks that contained writing already having been sifted through by players and now strewn about on the floor.

In a corner of the warehouse was a pile of moldy newspapers. Xu Huo made a beeline for them and began searching through them.

Yuan Yao joined in the search but couldn't stand the smell after a while and turned to pick over the leftovers from other players.

"There's actually a diary here." Yuan Yao held up a green notebook and flipped through a few pages before he was ready to toss it aside, "It doesn't make any sense; I don't even know what it's talking about."

"Let me have a look," Xu Huo called out.

Yuan Yao hastily passed the diary over.

The beginning of the diary was fairly normal. The person who wrote the diary was related to the current owner of the villa. They started the job full of hope and ambition, eager to achieve something. But as the Beheading Demon started to appear, all those beautiful dreams were shattered.

The following content was mostly about the horrific deaths each time someone died, and her worries that sooner or later, she too would be cursed and murdered. Eventually, the diary was filled with words of curses, murder, death; it was chaotic, showing signs that the diary's owner was mentally unstable.

"Find the newspapers that reported on the Beheading Demon," Xu Huo said.

"There are fifty years-worth of newspapers before and after; there's no way to go through all of that..." Yuan Yao's voice trailed off, surprised, "There really aren't many about the Beheading Demon, though."

"The villa was renovated a few years ago because of a fire; all the newspapers on the floor are from after that," Xu Huo said.

And the bundles of newspapers that were delivered weren't read and were thrown away here.

The details in the newspapers could not be very elaborate, but some information matched the content of the diary.

"Brother Xu, what exactly are you looking for?" Yuan Yao asked impatiently.

Xu Huo replied, "The people killed by the Beheading Demon, some of them just lost their heads, while others were dismembered. Looking at the timeline, there seems to be a certain pattern."

"What does this mean?" Yuan Yao's face abruptly changed, and he slapped his thigh, "The Beheading Demon isn't still eating people, is it!"

Xu Huo gave him a look, and Yuan Yao sheepishly said, "You're busy, keep at it."

Xu Huo picked up a pen and imitated the diary owner's handwriting to add a few sentences in between the lines.

"Everyone who has touched the statue will die..." Yuan Yao watched as he added words to the diary, surprisedly asking, "Why would you do that?"

"Just taking extra precautions." Xu Huo said, holding the diary, "Let's go, let's look for the Beheading Demon's statue."

In the cafeteria, the other players were resting.

They had spent the half-day turning over every possible hiding spot inside and outside the villa, checking even the mirrors and wardrobes in the rooms to ensure there were no secret passages or hidden rooms before stopping.

"Luckily there's a small supermarket near the restaurant, or we wouldn't even have food to eat," Liu Yuanyuan slurped her vermicelli, "Our guess is that the Beheading Demon is most likely hiding out in the woods outside."

"I think so too," Abel said, clutching a cross, "We'll head into the woods later."

"If you want to go, then go. I'm not going." Wan Zhikang said, patting his full belly after eating his fill, "The Beheading Demon has killed so many people without being caught; it must be something ordinary people can't deal with. Anyway, the game only requires players to survive five days, so why take the risk?"

"That's true," Wang Wei pointed outside at the fog, "It looks the same in broad daylight as at night. What if we run into the Beheading Demon?"

"Afraid of nothing!" Zhang Xiong slapped the table, "There are over ten of us; surely we can beat one Beheading Demon?"

"Evolution is one thing, but didn't you see? In the Beheading Demon Copy, there are supernatural forces at play. If it were so simple to confront the Beheading Demon, the game wouldn't assign us a survival task," Wang Wei explained and then turned to Du Lanlan and Xia Guo, "It's not safe for two female players to stay alone. Don't take it personally with Wan, it's better for all of us to stick together tonight."

"Can't you speak properly?" Wan Zhikang suddenly sat up, "I'm not picking on two women. You want to push your luck? I couldn't care less about babysitting two deadweights... Isn't there an elite among us? Let him step up then."

Huang Junjie said with a stern face, "A grasshopper of the same line, why make it so stiff?"

"Pah!" Wan Zhikang burst with anger, "Who's a grasshopper of the same line as you? The Beheading Demon is going to kill you first, you definitely touched some taboo and got cursed. You, and those two women, don't even think about staying in the same room as me!"

Just as the argument was about to escalate, the restaurant doors suddenly pushed open from the outside, and Xu Huo walked in carrying a big bluestone.

"You're looking for trouble when there's none, and what's with carrying the stone?" Wan Zhikang, annoyed with everyone, launched into a harangue as soon as he opened his mouth.

"This isn't an ordinary stone." Xia Guo, who was close, approached as soon as the stone was set down and scraped off the moss, "It looks like a statue!"

"A statue?" The players crowded over, and indeed, despite lacking a head, the front showed discernible clothing patterns, and at the statue's feet was an axe.

Everyone present fell silent, then Wan Zhikang was the first to exclaim, "This isn't the cursed Headless Statue, is it!"

"Where did you find this?"

"Why bring this thing here!"

Having just lit a cigarette, Xu Huo spoke leisurely, "At the entrance where we came in yesterday, it was just there, almost looked like a stone stump to me."

"Right, I also found a diary," he opened the diary book, "It says that anyone who touched the statue would die."