Statue

Chapter 23: The Statue

"Why did you deliberately provoke that NPC?" Huang Junjie asked on the way back to their lodgings.

"Pure curiosity," Xu Huo said. "I figured his head wasn't completely muddled; maybe I could actually get something out of him."

"In the end, you got nothing and made an enemy of him." Wan Zhikang shot him a disdainful glance. "Playing the game without using your brain."

"We're going to search the villa and grab some food while we're at it. Want to come along?" Du Lanlan came over to invite them, her question mainly directed at Huang Junjie.

Xu Huo had no intention of joining them and left with Yuan Yao first.

The villa was sizable, but the areas they could search were limited: the rooms, the dining hall, and the warehouse. Beyond these three places, the surroundings were thick with dense greenery, making it difficult for anyone to move through smoothly.

Xu Huo roughly measured the distance from the villa to the wooden cabin, then went to check outside Huang Junjie's courtyard. Aside from the fresh footprints left by players who had come and gone to investigate, there were no other traces.

Circling back to the main hall, he picked up a handwritten guest registry from behind the counter and flipped through it from start to finish.

"Brother Xu, what's so interesting about the registry? They're all names I don't recognize." Yuan Yao, disappointed after failing to turn on the old computer, said, "I was hoping to find some news on it. If we could bring our phones in, maybe we could dig up some info."

"Even if you brought your phone in, there'd be no signal. The game won't let players exploit loopholes." Xu Huo put down the registry and headed for the warehouse. Earlier, when Wang Wei had come back from there, he mentioned it was piled with junk the guests hadn't taken with them.

It was basically worthless items—clothes and shoes left behind by deceased guests. Due to the peculiar nature of the cases, no one had claimed their personal effects, so they were just stacked in the warehouse.

The warehouse had been ransacked. Any books, notebooks, or written materials that might contain useful information had all been gone through by the players and were now scattered haphazardly on the floor.

In a corner of the warehouse was a pile of moldy newspapers. Xu Huo made a beeline for it and started digging through them.

Yuan Yao followed and tried searching for a while, but the smell was too much for him. He switched to picking through the leftovers other players had discarded.

"There's a diary here." Yuan Yao held up a green notebook, flipped through a few pages, and was about to toss it away. "It's incoherent. No idea what it's saying."

"Let me see it." Xu Huo looked up.

Yuan Yao quickly handed the diary over.

The beginning of the diary was relatively normal. The person who wrote it was related to the current owner of the villa. She had started her job full of ambition, eager to make a mark, but after the Head Chopper Demon appeared, her hopes were completely shattered.

The rest of the entries mostly described the gruesome state of each victim and her fear that she too would one day be cursed and killed. Toward the end, the pages were filled with words like "curse," "kill," and "death." The content was chaotic, clearly showing that the diary's owner was mentally unstable.

"Find the newspapers with reports on the Head Chopper Demon," Xu Huo said.

"Fifty years' worth of papers, how are we supposed to go through all that..." Yuan Yao's voice trailed off as he remarked in surprise, "There really aren't that many about the Head Chopper Demon."

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

Besides, the bundled newspapers had been dumped here without anyone reading them.

The newspaper reports couldn't go into too much detail, but some of the information matched the diary's content.

"Brother Xu, what exactly are you looking for?" Yuan Yao couldn't hold back anymore.

Xu Huo said, "Among the people killed by the Head Chopper Demon, some only lost their heads, while others had missing limbs. Looking at the timeline, there's a certain pattern."

"What does that mean?" Yuan Yao's face changed abruptly, and he slapped his thigh. "The Head Chopper Demon doesn't eat people, does it!"

Xu Huo glanced at him. Yuan Yao gave an awkward smile. "You go ahead, you go ahead."

Xu Huo picked up a pen and, mimicking the diary owner's handwriting, added a few sentences into the text.

"Anyone who touches the statue will die..." Yuan Yao watched him write in the diary and asked in surprise, "Why are you doing that?"

"An extra layer of insurance." Xu Huo tucked the diary under his arm. "Come on, let's go find the Head Chopper Demon's statue."

In the cafeteria, the other players were resting.

They had spent half a day turning the villa inside out, searching every possible hiding spot. They had even checked the mirrors and wardrobes in the rooms to confirm there were no secret passages or hidden chambers.

"Good thing there's a small supermarket near the dining hall, or we wouldn't have anything to eat." Liu Yuanyuan slurped her vermicelli. "I bet the Head Chopper Demon is hiding in the woods outside."

"I think so too." Abel clutched his cross. "Let's head into the woods later."

"You go if you want. I'm not going." Wan Zhikang patted his belly, full and satisfied. "The Head Chopper Demon has killed so many people and never been caught. He's definitely not someone ordinary people can handle. The game only asks us to survive five days, so why take the risk?"

"That's true." Wang Wei pointed at the fog outside. "It looks as dark as night even in broad daylight. What if we run into the Head Chopper Demon?"

"Scared of what!" Zhang Xiong slammed the table. "There are over a dozen of us. You think we can't take down one Head Chopper Demon?"

"Evolution is one thing, but you've seen it yourself—the Head Chopper Demon's instance has supernatural elements. If it were really that simple to fight him, the game wouldn't have given us a survival mission." Wang Wei turned to Du Lanlan and Xia Guo. "It's not safe for the two female players to stay alone. Don't mind Wan Zhikang. It's better if we all stick together tonight."

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Wan Zhikang sat up abruptly. "I'm not going to bother with two women, and you think you can get pushy? I don't have the time to babysit dead weight... Isn't there some elite here? If he's so capable, let him handle it."

Huang Junjie's face darkened. "We're all in the same boat. Do you have to make things this tense?"

"Pah!" Wan Zhikang's anger flared. "Who's in the same boat as you? The Head Chopper Demon will come for you first. You must have touched something forbidden and gotten cursed. You, and those two bitches—don't even think about sharing a room with me!"

Just as an argument was about to break out, the cafeteria door suddenly swung open from the outside, and Xu Huo walked in carrying a large slab of bluestone.

"You've got nothing better to do, hauling rocks around?" Wan Zhikang was in a foul mood and started lashing out at everyone.

"This isn't an ordinary stone." Xia Guo, who was closest, stepped forward as soon as the stone was set down and brushed away the moss. "It looks like a statue!"

"A statue?" The players crowded around. Sure enough, though it had no head, the front showed carved patterns on its clothing, and an axe hung by its feet.

Everyone fell silent for a moment before Wan Zhikang shouted, "This isn't that cursed headless statue, is it!"

"Where did you find it?"

"Why did you bring that thing here!"

Xu Huo had just lit a cigarette and said slowly, "It was sitting right at the intersection we came through yesterday. At first glance, it looked like a stone post."

"Oh, and I found a diary too." He opened the notebook. "It says anyone who touches the statue will die."