Chapter 27: Headless

However, things in the villa were not as Xu Huo had imagined. The first power outage was caused by a tripped circuit breaker. Aside from Xu Huo, all the players had appeared. The scream had come from Liu Yuanyuan, caused by Wan Zhikang accidentally leaving a nail exposed while rummaging through crates, which Liu Yuanyuan stepped on while walking in the dark. The two sides had nearly come to blows over the incident.

Huang Junjie had originally thought that at least one of either the Beheader or a disguised player would appear, but all the players were safe and unattacked.

"Don't be so neurotic. This place hasn't been maintained for a long time; it's normal for the wiring to be old."

Once the lights were restored, the players returned to their respective rooms one after another.

Zhang Xiong had stopped hanging around with Huang Junjie since the afternoon; he had gone to Wan Zhikang and Abel's room, while Huang Junjie returned to yesterday's room with Yuan Yao.

"Why is this happening?" Huang Junjie said, his face full of disappointment. "With such a perfect opportunity during the blackout, and several players missing from the villa, the opponent actually didn't make a move."

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

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

"No."

"Why do you trust him so much?" Huang Junjie asked in disbelief. Much of Xu Huo's behavior seemed inexplicable; to be honest, he was just like himself—wearing short sleeves and baggy shorts with such long hair that he didn't look like a normal person.

Yuan Yao was momentarily speechless.

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

Yuan Yao paced the room for a few laps before finally sitting down.

Just as the two were drifting into drowsiness, the electric lights suddenly began to flicker and buzz. After two flashes, they plunged into total darkness.

After a period of silence, Zhang Xiong came stomping out of the opposite room, cursing loudly, "Tripped again! Can we please turn off a few less lights at night? Dammit, just looking for trouble!"

The sounds of doors opening and footsteps followed. After waiting a while without the lights coming back on, Huang Junjie sat up abruptly. "Not good!"

The circuit breaker box was located in a small storage room on the way to the warehouse. When Huang Junjie and Yuan Yao ran there, Zhang Xiong and the Rich Kid were standing in front of the box with grim expressions.

"What happened?" Abel asked as he arrived.

Several more people approached. Huang Junjie's eyes scanned them intently. "The wires were cut. Who was out here just now?"

"What do you mean? You suspect us?" Wan Zhikang retorted. "Then you'd better wipe your own ass first. How can you prove it wasn't you?"

The veins on Huang Junjie's forehead throbbed. "Zhang Xiong and the others saw me coming from the direction of the rooms with their own eyes."

"There was a long gap after the power went out. Plenty of time for you to run out and run back just to play the hero," Wan Zhikang sneered, crossing his arms.

"Could it be the Beheader?" the college student asked. "Why would a player cut the wires?"

"If it's the Beheader, that's a pretty low-class move," Liu Yuanyuan curled her lip.

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

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

"Holy crap! They couldn't have been killed by the Beheader!" Yuan Yao cried out.

As his voice fell, footsteps suddenly sounded from outside.

Heavier footsteps, sounding more like a woman's, were approaching the storage room, accompanied by the sound of something being dragged across the ground.

As the sound grew closer, the players couldn't help but swallow hard. The Rich Kid and Wang Wei each grabbed a mop and crept toward the door from both sides.

Holding their breath for three seconds, they heard the sound approaching the door. Just as they were about to strike, a beam of intense light shone in first—the people in the room were nearly blinded. They heard the person at the door ask, "Why are you all here?"

"Where are Du Lanlan and Xia Guo?"

When the group realized it was Xu Huo's voice, they first breathed a sigh of relief, but then the sound of collapsing furniture erupted from the direction of Du and Xia's rooms!

A flashlight beam swung quickly toward the outside. The players rushed out after him, nearly tripping at the doorway. Holding up a lighter, they saw it was actually a branch of plum trees, growing so lushly they looked like grapes; even a kick would get it stuck in your shoe.

"Crazy!"

Several players cursed in unison.

Leading the way, Xu Huo violently forced open a door. The floor-to-ceiling window in the room was wide open, and as soon as the air circulated, a heavy scent of blood rushed toward them.

The room was empty. The group rushed straight to the courtyard outside. When the flashlight beam hit the area, they saw two people slumped by the pool. Judging by their clothes, they were indeed Du Lanlan and Xia Guo. They were lying face down, their bodies from the shoulders up completely obscured by rocks, with blood flowing from their bodies into the hot spring pool.

Huang Junjie and the others walked over one by one, but they quickly averted their eyes after a single glance, looking somewhat broken.

Knowing about the Beheader was one thing; seeing two headless corpses before your eyes with blood streaming from the wounds was another. They didn't even have the courage to approach.

"It's the Beheader! It must be the Beheader!" The college student stared at the blood-reddened spring water and backed away in terror, shouting, "He killed two players in the blink of an eye! We're no match for him, we're all going to die!"

Huang Junjie turned and slapped him. "Calm down! The Beheader only dares to strike during a blackout, which means he isn't confident enough to deal with all of us at once!"

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 he wasn't afraid of us, the Beheader wouldn't have run!"

Xu Huo glanced at him. "It might not be the Beheader's doing."

The players all turned to stare at him. Huang Junjie signaled with his eyes for him not to say more, but Xu Huo ignored him and said directly, "Besides the Beheader, there are others in the villa."

"Right, right!" Zhang Xiong suddenly remembered. "Wasn't there someone staying in the wooden cabin?"

"Didn't Huang Junjie say that person hanged themselves again tonight?" Wang Wei asked hesitantly. "He's alive again?"

"It wasn't him." Xu Huo crouched on a rock beside the corpses and lit a cigarette for himself. Through the smoke, he took in the faces of all the players. "I killed him."

The players' expressions changed instantly. Before they could press him, Xu Huo explained, "When he came back to life, he saw I was alone and tried to attack me. I sent him on his way while I was at it."

He pointed to the mud on his shoe. "He's been buried. There's no way he's coming back to life again."

Perhaps because his expression was so matter-of-fact, as if he hadn't just experienced a life-and-death struggle, the other players felt a sense of unease. The looks they gave him were no longer filled with the same contempt as before.

"Besides the woodcutter and the Beheader, aren't there many other players in the villa?" Xu Huo took a deep drag of his cigarette. "What were you all doing before and after the power went out?"