Players, Please Board the Train-Chapter 23: The Statue

"Why did you deliberately provoke that NPC?" Huang Junjie asked as they returned to their accommodations.
"Pure curiosity," Xu Huo replied. "He didn't seem mentally confused—I thought we might actually get some useful information from him."
"Instead we got nothing and made an enemy," Wan Zhikang said with a disdainful glance. "Can't even play a game with some basic intelligence."
"We're going to search the mountain villa and look for some food. Want to come with us?" Du Lanlan extended the invitation, mainly to Huang Junjie.
Xu Huo had no intention of joining them and left first with Yuan Yao.
The mountain villa was large, but there were only a few places they could search: rooms, the dining hall, and the storage warehouse. Beyond these areas, dense greenery surrounded the entire property, making it difficult to move through smoothly.
Xu Huo roughly estimated the distance between the mountain villa and the wooden cabin, then went to inspect the area outside Huang Junjie's courtyard. Aside from fresh footprints left by players who had come to investigate earlier, there were no other traces.
Returning to the front hall, he picked up a handwritten guest register from behind the counter and flipped through it from beginning to end.
"Brother Xu, what's the point of looking through that register? It's just full of names we don't recognize," Yuan Yao said, disappointed after failing to power up an old computer. "I was hoping to check if there was any news on the computer. If we could bring our phones in, maybe we could find some information."
"Even if phones were allowed, there'd be no signal. The game won't let players exploit loopholes like that," Xu Huo said, putting down the register and heading toward the storage warehouse. Earlier, Wang Wei had mentioned that it was filled with trash left behind by guests.
Specifically, clothes, shoes, and other worthless belongings of deceased guests—due to the peculiar nature of the cases, some personal items had no one to claim them and were simply piled in the warehouse.
The warehouse had been thoroughly ransacked. Books, notebooks, and any other written materials that might contain useful information had already been flipped through by players and were now scattered messily across the floor.
In one corner was a pile of moldy newspapers. Xu Huo headed straight for them and began sifting through.
Yuan Yao joined him for a while but couldn't stand the smell and soon moved on to sorting through the leftovers from other players' searches.
"Hey, there's a diary here," Yuan Yao said, holding up a green notebook. After flipping through a few pages, he was about to toss it aside. "It's all incoherent rambling. No idea what any of it means."
"Let me see," Xu Huo said, looking up.
Yuan Yao quickly handed it over.
The diary started off normally enough. Its writer was a relative of the mountain villa's current owner and had just started working there, full of ambition and eager to make a name for themselves. But as the Headhunter Demon began appearing, those aspirations were completely shattered.
The following entries mostly described the gruesome aftermath of each murder and the writer's growing fear that they, too, would eventually fall victim to the curse. Later pages were filled with chaotic, frantic writing—curses, killings, death—clearly indicating the writer's deteriorating mental state.
"Find me any newspapers with s about the Headhunter Demon," Xu Huo said.
"That's like fifty years' worth of newspapers. How are we supposed to go through all of—" Yuan Yao paused, surprised. "Huh. There really aren't that many about the Headhunter Demon."
"The mountain villa was renovated after a fire a few years ago. The newspapers here are all from after that," Xu Huo explained.
The bundled newspapers had been delivered but never read, simply left to pile up here.
While the newspaper articles couldn't provide detailed descriptions, some of the information matched what was written in the diary.
"Brother Xu, what exactly are you looking for?" Yuan Yao couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer.
Xu Huo replied, "Some of the Headhunter Demon's victims were only missing their heads, while others had their limbs torn off. There seems to be a pattern based on the timeline."
"What does that mean?" Yuan Yao's expression suddenly changed. Slapping his thigh, he exclaimed, "The Headhunter Demon doesn't... eat people, does it?"
Xu Huo glanced at him. Yuan Yao chuckled awkwardly. "Right, right. You keep working."
Xu Huo picked up a pen and, imitating the diary writer's handwriting, added a few lines between the entries.
"Anyone who touches the statue will die..." Yuan Yao watched him write the additional words, puzzled. "Why are you doing that?"
"Double insurance," Xu Huo said, tucking the diary under his arm. "Come on, let's go find the Headhunter Demon's statue."
In the dining hall, the other players were taking a break.
They had spent half the day combing through every possible hiding spot inside and outside the mountain villa, even checking mirrors and wardrobes in the rooms to confirm there were no secret passages or hidden chambers.
"Thankfully there's a small supermarket in the dining area, otherwise we'd have nothing to eat," Liu Yuanyuan said, slurping up noodles. "We think the Headhunter Demon is probably hiding in the woods outside."
"I agree," Abel said, gripping a cross. "We'll head into the woods later."
"You go ahead. I'm not going," Wan Zhikang said, patting his full stomach. "The Headhunter Demon's killed so many people without getting caught—there's no way an ordinary person can deal with it. The game just asks us to survive five days. Why take unnecessary risks?"
"That's true," Wang Wei said, pointing outside at the fog. "Even in broad daylight, it looks like night out there. What if we run into the Headhunter Demon?"
"What's there to be afraid of?" Zhang Xiong slammed the table. "There are over a dozen of us. You think we can't take down one Headhunter Demon?"
"Evolution is one thing, but you saw it yourself—this Headhunter Demon scenario involves supernatural forces. If it were really that easy to fight the Headhunter Demon, the game wouldn't have given us a survival mission," Wang Wei countered, then turned to Du Lanlan and Xia Guo. "It's not safe for you two female players to stay alone. Don't mind Wan Zhikang—tonight, it's better if we all stay together."
"Who are you calling out?" Wan Zhikang sat up abruptly. "I'm not the one who has to babysit two women. You think you can walk all over me? I don't have time to drag dead weight around... Isn't there some elite guy here? Let him handle it."
Huang Junjie's expression darkened. "We're all in the same boat. Do you have to make things so difficult?"
"Bullshit!" Wan Zhikang's anger flared. "Who's in the same boat as you? The Headhunter Demon's coming for you first—must be some curse you triggered. You, and those two bitches, stay the hell away from me!"
Just as tensions were about to boil over, the dining hall doors suddenly swung open. Xu Huo walked in, carrying a large bluish-gray stone.
"What are you doing, bringing rocks in here for no reason?" Wan Zhikang, already in a foul mood, lashed out immediately.
"That's no ordinary rock," Xia Guo said as soon as the stone was set down. She wiped away some moss. "Looks like... a statue!"
"A statue?" The players gathered around. Though headless, the clothing patterns were visible on the front, and an axe hung at its feet.
A heavy silence fell over the group. Then Wan Zhikang burst out, "Is this that cursed headless statue?!"
"Where did you find it?"
"Why the hell did you bring it here?!"
Xu Huo, who had just lit a cigarette, exhaled slowly. "It was at the entrance we came through yesterday. At first glance, it just looked like a stone block."
"Oh, and I found this diary too," he added, flipping it open. "It says anyone who touches the statue will die."