Chapter 33: Confrontation

“You're slandering me!” Wang Wei roared in a fit of rage. “If that’s how you want to play it, I could just as easily say you killed Zhang Xiong! There are four of you—wouldn't it be easy for you to kill someone?”

“Are you out of your mind? If we were in league with the Decapitator, would Brother Xu have been injured?” Yuan Yao retorted.

“Who knows if you two are just putting on a show?” Wang Wei stepped closer to Liu Yuanyuan. “Now that the two of us are being sidelined, do you believe them or do you believe me?”

Liu Yuanyuan looked back and forth between them. After a few seconds, she stepped back to distance herself from everyone. “I don't know who is telling the truth and who is lying. I only want to survive until the mission ends.”

A sinister glint flashed in Wang Wei's eyes, but when he turned around, his face was filled with indignation. “I refuse to stay here with a bunch of murderers like you!”

Just as he was about to leave, Xu Huo, who had been crouching beside Zhang Xiong's corpse, bent over and stood up. His voice was raspy as he said, “If you think you can clear the stage simply by sitting back and reaping the benefits, you are dead wrong.”

“The two who died in the main hall—you killed them, didn't you, Liu Yuanyuan?”

In an instant, everyone present turned their gaze toward Liu Yuanyuan.

Liu Yuanyuan looked pitiful, her eyes brimming with tears. “What do you mean? I don't understand...”

“While everyone else was distracted by the Decapitator, you teamed up with that rich kid, Li Zheng, to kill Wan Zhikang. It just so happened that Wang Wei wasn't around. After Wan Zhikang died, you ambushed Li Zheng, then came to us claiming the Decapitator did it.” Xu Huo walked up to her, scrutinizing her from above. “You put on a very good act, Red Player.”

The shimmering tears in Liu Yuanyuan's eyes vanished. She brushed her hair back and said with a beaming smile, “Li Zheng was right; you're much better than that half-baked amateur, Huang Junjie.”

“When Du Lanlan and Xia Guo died yesterday, Li Zheng said you suspected one of us was the culprit. He also said you didn't just suspect players were killing each other, but that you believed the Decapitator was among the players. I didn't believe it at first, but I didn't expect you to actually have some real skill.”

“You're the Decapitator?!” Seeing her walking toward him, Wang Wei hurriedly backed away.

Liu Yuanyuan let out a sneer, shedding her previous coquettish persona. She swayed her hips, spun around charmingly, blew a kiss to the crowd, and then slowly pulled the warehouse door shut.

“To be honest, when Li Zheng told me yesterday that the Decapitator was a player, we were planning to kill all the other players. After all, since the Decapitator is among us, there's no point in guessing one by one.”

“Unfortunately, I felt that instead of sharing the dungeon rewards with others, it would be better to keep them all for myself.”

“Are you saying you're not the Decapitator, nor an accomplice?” Huang Junjie's prideful judgment had failed him once again. “How do you prove it?”

“What proof do I need?” Liu Yuanyuan looked at Xu Huo as if she had heard a joke. “If you don't believe me, ask him.”

“Wait, wait!” Yuan Yao made a stopping gesture. “What are you talking about? Didn't we see the Decapitator with our own eyes? Why all this circling around? How did the Decapitator become a player?”

“There is only one Decapitator. The most direct proof is that he has never been present at the same time as all of us players.” Xu Huo had just lit a cigarette; feeling a discomfort in his throat, he casually tossed it to the ground and crushed it.

“That's not right. When he appeared just now, we were all there.” Yuan Yao's eyes bulged. “Could someone be playing dead?”

Huang Junjie slapped his forehead. “When the Decapitator appeared just now, he was missing something.”

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

“Exactly.” Xu Huo nodded. “There should be someone under the Decapitator's cloak, but after being hit by Zhang Xiong, its movement pattern was closer to an empty cloak. That cloak used a prop to enter, extinguished the lights, and left, all for the purpose of scattering the players.”

“As for the prop,” he pointed to the bloodstain on his neck, “it should be something like thin steel wire or a piano string. It's not very flexible, so it can't move like a real person.”

“The prop used to retrieve the axe after Huang Junjie was attacked was also this kind of item.”

“That might prove the Decapitator is a player, but it doesn't prove the other players aren't accomplices.” Huang Junjie's brow furrowed deeply.

“There's no need to identify the other players,” Xu Huo said with a smile. “In the game's background, the villa owner has put a bounty on the Decapitator. As long as you catch the Decapitator, you can end the mission early.”

“Then who is the Decapitator?” Yuan Yao swallowed nervously.

Xu Huo's eyes shifted, and just as he was about to speak, Liu Yuanyuan suddenly cut him off. “Wait a minute. Tell me first, what did you mean by what you just said?”

“I'm not sure how you concluded that I killed Wan Zhikang and Li Zheng, but why can't I clear the stage by killing all the players? If all the players are dead, it means the Decapitator is also dead. I should clear the mission.”

“The woodcutter over by the log cabin is a player,” Xu Huo said indifferently.

Huang Junjie looked as if he had been struck by lightning. “He's a player?!”

“He is a player who failed to clear previous dungeon games and remained behind.” Xu Huo summarized the information he had gathered. “He successfully survived until the end of the game but failed to clear it. In his subsequent games, there have even been players who survived alone until the end, yet still failed to clear the mission.”

“So that's how it is.” Liu Yuanyuan's eyes flickered. “So you are certain that even if we kill all the other players, it's impossible to clear the stage.”

As she spoke, she suddenly burst into laughter. “And here I thought you were some kind of good person. If killing people allowed you to clear the stage, you probably would have done it long ago.”

Xu Huo looked at her coldly. “You kill people because you lack the brains to do anything else.”

The laughter stopped abruptly. Liu Yuanyuan's face turned cold. “You're quite clever, aren't you? Then why don't you tell us who the Decapitator is? Once I kill him, I'll come for you!”

Xu Huo turned to Huang Junjie and the others. “See? She just incriminated herself.”

Huang Junjie gave a complicated look to the trembling, furious Liu Yuanyuan. Although she had essentially confessed, there was no need to be so blatant about drawing hostility.

“Ha!” After a long silence, Wang Wei suddenly let out a laugh, staring at them with a chilling gaze. “After all that talk, you're all suspecting me.”

“That's right.” Xu Huo looked at him, paused, and then asked, “Before the other players arrived, you had already entered the villa, hadn't you?”

Huang Junjie and the others were bewildered. Wang Wei narrowed his eyes. “I was indeed the first person to arrive at the villa. For the first player to arrive at the Hot Spring Villa, the game mission changes, and the Decapitator's prop is placed at the main gate.”

“To think you could even guess that. It seems the first person I should have killed wasn't Huang Junjie, but you.”

Huang Junjie's face turned ashen at being singled out. Old and new grudges surged up at once, and a bamboo knife appeared in his hand. “Why bother talking to him? For a murderer like this, just kill him and be done with it!”

Wang Wei's expression was mocking. “Du Lanlan, Xia Guo, Jia Xuyang, Zhang Xiong—I have already obtained the traits and props of four players. Do you really think you can win against me?”