Confrontation

Confrontation

"You're making a baseless accusation!" Wang Wei roared furiously. "By that logic, I could say you killed Zhang Xiong. There are four of you. Killing someone would be a piece of cake, wouldn't it?"

"Are you out of your mind? If we were working with the Head Chopper Demon, would Xu Huo still be injured?" Yuan Yao retorted.

"Who knows? Maybe you staged the whole thing." Wang Wei edged closer to Liu Yuanyuan. "Now the two of us are being ostracized. Do you believe them, or me?"

Liu Yuanyuan looked from one side to the other. After a few seconds, she stepped back, distancing herself from everyone. "I don't know which of you is telling the truth and which is lying. I just want to survive until the mission ends."

A vicious glint flashed in Wang Wei's eyes, but when he turned around, his face was full of indignation. "I won't stay with a bunch of murderers like you!"

He was about to leave when Xu Huo, who had been crouching beside Zhang Xiong's corpse, rose to his feet. His voice was hoarse. "If you think you can coast through the mission and reap the benefits, you're sorely mistaken."

"You killed those two in the hall, didn't you, Liu Yuanyuan?"

Everyone present looked at Liu Yuanyuan.

Tears glimmered in Liu Yuanyuan's eyes as she looked pitifully at him. "What do you mean? I don't understand..."

"While everyone else was distracted by the Head Chopper Demon, you teamed up with Li Zheng, that rich second-generation heir, to kill Wan Zhikang. Wang Wei happened to be away. After Wan Zhikang died, you ambushed Li Zheng, then came to us and pretended the Head Chopper Demon was responsible." Xu Huo walked up to her and looked down at her. "You put on a good act, Cannibal Player."

The tears in Liu Yuanyuan's eyes vanished. She ran a hand through her hair and smiled. "Li Zheng was right. You're much better than Huang Junjie, that half-baked detective."

"When Du Lanlan and Xia Guo died yesterday, Li Zheng said you suspected one of us was responsible. He also said you didn't think the players were killing one another, but that the Head Chopper Demon was among us. I didn't believe him at first, but you really do have some skills."

"You're the Head Chopper Demon?!" Seeing her walk toward him, Wang Wei hurriedly backed away.

Liu Yuanyuan scoffed, abandoning her earlier spoiled demeanor. She swayed her slender waist, spun around seductively, blew everyone a kiss, then slowly pulled the warehouse door shut.

"To be honest, when Li Zheng told me yesterday that the Head Chopper Demon was a player, we planned to kill all the other players. Since the Head Chopper Demon was one of them, there was no point in guessing one by one."

"But I figured it'd be better to keep the dungeon rewards to myself than share them with others."

"You mean you're not the Head Chopper Demon, and you're not an accomplice either?" Huang Junjie's vaunted judgment had failed him again. "How can you prove it?"

"Why should I have to prove anything?" Liu Yuanyuan looked as if she'd heard a joke, then glanced at Xu Huo. "If you don't believe me, ask him."

"Wait, wait!" Yuan Yao made a stop gesture. "What are you talking about? Didn't we all see the Head Chopper Demon with our own eyes? Why does it keep coming back to the players?"

"There's only one Head Chopper Demon. The clearest proof is that it was never together with all of us players at the same time." Xu Huo had just lit a cigarette, but his throat felt uncomfortable after one drag, so he tossed it to the ground and ground it out.

"That can't be right. We were all here when it appeared just now." Yuan Yao's eyes widened. "Was someone pretending to be dead?"

Huang Junjie slapped his forehead. "When the Head Chopper Demon appeared just now, it was missing something."

Yuan Yao was confused, but Abel suddenly understood. "The axe!"

"Exactly." Xu Huo nodded. "There should have been someone under the Head Chopper Demon's cloak, but after Zhang Xiong hit it, and from the way it moved, it was more like an empty cloak. The cloak used an item to enter, put out the lights, and leave. Its purpose was to scatter the players."

"As for the item," he said, pointing to the bloody mark on his neck, "it was probably something like a fine steel wire or strings. It wasn't very flexible and couldn't move like a real person."

"The same item was used to retrieve the axe after Huang Junjie was attacked."

"That does prove the Head Chopper Demon is a player, but it doesn't prove the other players aren't accomplices." Huang Junjie furrowed his brow.

"There's no need to figure out who the other players are." Xu Huo smiled. "In the game's backstory, the Mountain Villa owner offered a reward for capturing the Head Chopper Demon. Catch it, and the mission ends early."

"Then who is the Head Chopper Demon?" Yuan Yao nervously swallowed.

Xu Huo's gaze shifted as he was about to speak, but Liu Yuanyuan cut him off. "Wait. First, tell me what you meant by that."

"I don't know how you decided I killed Wan Zhikang and Li Zheng, but why wouldn't killing all the players let me clear the mission? If all the players are dead, that means the Head Chopper Demon is dead too. I should be able to clear it."

"The woodcutter by the Wooden Cabin is a player," Xu Huo said flatly.

Huang Junjie looked as if he'd been struck by lightning. "He's a player?!"

"He's a player left behind after failing to clear previous dungeons." Xu Huo summarized what he'd learned from questioning him. "He managed to survive until the game ended, but he didn't clear it. In one of his later games, a player even survived alone until the game ended and still failed to clear it."

"I see." Liu Yuanyuan's gaze shifted. "So you're certain that even if I kill all the other players, I still can't clear the mission."

She suddenly burst out laughing. "I thought you were some kind of good person. If killing people let you clear the mission, you would've done it long ago."

Xu Huo looked at her coldly. "You kill people because you're not smart enough to do anything else."

Her laughter stopped abruptly, and Liu Yuanyuan's expression turned cold. "You're pretty clever. Then tell me, who's the Head Chopper Demon? Once I kill him, I'll deal with you!"

Xu Huo turned to Huang Junjie and the other two. "See? She just proved it herself."

Huang Junjie glanced at Liu Yuanyuan, who was trembling with rage, his expression complicated. She had admitted it without meaning to, but there was no need to provoke her so bluntly.

"Ha!" Wang Wei, who had been silent for a long while, suddenly laughed. His gaze was icy as he stared at them. "So after all that, you suspect me."

"That's right." Xu Huo looked at him, paused, then asked, "You'd already been to the Mountain Villa before the other players arrived, hadn't you?"

Huang Junjie and the others were completely lost. Wang Wei narrowed his eyes. "I was the first to arrive at the Mountain Villa. The mission changes for the first player to reach Hot Spring Villa. The Head Chopper Demon's item was placed right at the entrance."

"You even figured that out. Looks like I should've killed you before Huang Junjie."

Huang Junjie, the one who'd been named, turned livid. His old and new grudges surged up at once, and a Bamboo Knife appeared in his hand. "Why waste your breath on him? Just kill this murderous lunatic!"

Wang Wei looked contemptuous. "Du Lanlan, Xia Guo, Jia Xuyang, Zhang Xiong—I've already taken the abilities and items of four players. Do you really think you can beat me?"