Headless

However, the lodge wasn't as Xu Huo had imagined. The first blackout had been caused by a tripped breaker. Every player except Xu Huo had come out of their room. The scream had come from Liu Yuanyuan, who'd stepped on an iron nail that Wan Zhikang had missed while rummaging through the place. The two sides had nearly come to blows over it.

Huang Junjie had thought that either the Headless Demon or the person disguised as a player would show up, but all the players were safe and sound. No one had been attacked.

"Don't be so paranoid. No one's maintained this place in ages. It's normal for the wiring to be old."

Once the lights came back on, the players gradually returned to their original rooms.

Since that afternoon, Zhang Xiong had stopped going around with Huang Junjie. He'd gone to Wan Zhikang and Abel's room, while Huang Junjie and Yuan Yao had returned to the room they'd stayed in the day before.

"Why did it turn out like this?" Huang Junjie said, his face full of disappointment. "The power outage was such a good opportunity, and there are fewer players in the lodge now, yet they still didn't make a move."

Yuan Yao kept a safe distance from him. He waited until Huang Junjie had muttered to himself for a while before saying, "Let's go find Xu."

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

"No."

"Then why do you trust him so much?" Huang Junjie asked in disbelief. A lot of Xu Huo's behavior seemed inexplicable. To be honest, the man himself was just as strange—wearing a short-sleeved shirt and baggy shorts, with hair that long. He didn't look normal at all.

Yuan Yao was at a loss for words.

"It's not safe to go out now. I'm not going out again." Huang Junjie lay down to rest.

Yuan Yao paced around the room a few times, then sat down too.

Just as the two were growing drowsy, the lights suddenly began to flicker and crackle. After blinking twice, they went out completely.

After a brief silence, Zhang Xiong came out of the opposite room, cursing as he slammed the door. "Tripped again! Can't you people use a few fewer lights at night? Always making trouble for no reason!"

Doors opened and footsteps sounded one after another. They waited a while, but the lights still didn't come on. Huang Junjie shot to his feet. "Something's wrong!"

The breaker box was in a small storeroom on the way to the warehouse. When Huang Junjie and Yuan Yao rushed over, Zhang Xiong and the rich second-generation were standing in front of the box, looking grim.

"What happened?" Abel asked as he arrived.

A few more people came over. Huang Junjie fixed his eyes on them. "Someone cut the wires. Who went out just now?"

"What are you implying? That we did it?" Wan Zhikang shot back. "You should make sure your own hands are clean first. How can you prove you didn't do it?"

The veins in Huang Junjie's forehead throbbed. "Zhang Xiong and the others saw me come from the direction of my room."

"There was plenty of time after the power went out for you to run out and back. The guilty party always accuses someone else." Wan Zhikang crossed his arms and sneered.

"Could it have been the Headless Demon?" the college student asked. "Why would a player cut the wires?"

"If the Headless Demon did it, that's a pretty low-level trick." Liu Yuanyuan pursed her lips.

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

Everyone looked around. A few seconds later, Wang Wei spoke up. "Du Lanlan and Xia Guo haven't come out!"

"Shit! Could the Headless Demon have killed them?" Yuan Yao blurted out.

As soon as he'd finished speaking, footsteps suddenly sounded outside.

The footsteps were heavier than a woman's and were heading toward the storeroom. They were accompanied by the sound of something being dragged and scraping across the ground.

As the footsteps drew closer, the players couldn't help swallowing nervously. The rich second-generation and Wang Wei each grabbed a mop and felt their way to either side of the doorway.

They held their breath for three seconds. As the sounds drew closer to the door, the two were about to swing their mops when a powerful beam of light shone in first. The people inside nearly went blind. Then the person at the door asked, "Why are you all here?"

"Where are Du Lanlan and Xia Guo?"

The others recognized Xu Huo's voice and first felt relieved. But then came the sound of furniture crashing over by Du Lanlan and Xia Guo's room!

The flashlight beam swung around and quickly lit up the area outside. The players hurried after him. At the doorway, they nearly tripped. They held up their lighters and saw a plum branch, long and twisted like a grapevine. When they kicked it, it caught on their shoes.

"What a lunatic!"

Several players cursed in unison.

Xu Huo, who was at the front, had already broken down the door. The room's floor-to-ceiling window stood wide open. As soon as the air began to circulate, the stench of blood hit them.

There was no one in the room, so the group rushed out into the courtyard. The flashlight revealed two people lying beside the pool. Judging by their clothes, they were Du Lanlan and Xia Guo. They lay facedown by the edge, their heads and shoulders hidden behind a stone. Blood trickled down their bodies and into the hot spring.

Huang Junjie and the others went over one after another, but after a single glance, they quickly looked away, their expressions shaken.

Knowing the Headless Demon existed was one thing. Seeing two headless corpses right in front of them, blood pouring from the severed necks, was another. They didn't even have the courage to go closer.

"It was the Headless Demon! It had to be the Headless Demon!" The college student stared at the hot spring water turning red and backed away in fear, shouting, "It killed two players in the blink of an eye! We're no match for it. We're all going to die!"

Huang Junjie turned and slapped him. "Calm down! The Headless Demon only dares to strike during a blackout. That means it isn't confident it can take all of us on at once!"

His words brought the other players, still reeling from the shock, back to reality. Wan Zhikang forced himself to calm down. "That's right. We heard Du Lanlan and the others just now. If the Headless Demon wasn't afraid of us, it wouldn't have run away!"

Xu Huo glanced at him. "It might not have been the Headless Demon."

The players all turned to stare at him. Huang Junjie signaled with his eyes for him not to say it, but Xu Huo ignored him and said plainly, "There's someone else in the lodge besides the Headless Demon."

"Right!" Zhang Xiong suddenly remembered. "Isn't there someone staying by the wooden cabin?"

"Didn't Huang Junjie say that person hanged himself again tonight?" Wang Wei asked uncertainly. "Did he come back to life?"

"It wasn't him." Xu Huo crouched on a rock beside the bodies, lit a cigarette, and took in all the players' faces through the smoke. "I killed him."

He pointed to the mud on his shoes. "I buried him. There's no way he could've come back to life."

Perhaps his expression was too matter-of-fact, as though he hadn't just been through a fight for his life. The other players felt uneasy, and they no longer looked at him with the same contempt as before.

"Besides the woodcutter and the Headless Demon, aren't there plenty of players in the lodge?" Xu Huo took a deep drag from his cigarette. "What were you all doing before and after the power went out?"