Chapter 22: The Curse

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The hunched figure looked much shorter than the corpse that had been hanging there yesterday, but it was undeniably the same face—the face with its tongue stuffed back into its mouth. The bluish pallor was gone, and his complexion now looked no different from an ordinary person's.

He had a heartbeat and was breathing. He was alive.

The noose still lay discarded to one side, and the lock on the wooden door had been broken.

Even Xu Huo found it difficult to believe. He had examined the man yesterday; there was no doubt that he had been dead. Yet after one night, he had somehow come back to life.

The woodcutter paid them no attention. He turned away and continued chopping wood.

“Is he a human or a ghost?” Abel raised his cross.

“A human, I think. He has a shadow.” Wan Zhikang spoke hesitantly.

“I say he’s the Head-Chopping Demon from last night. Damn it, he even dares to play tricks on us!” Zhang Xiong clenched his fists and was about to charge over, but Huang Junjie frowned and stopped him, studying the woodcutter carefully.

The rich heir let out a cold laugh, picked up a piece of firewood, and weighed it in his hand. He exchanged a glance with Liu Yuanyuan, and the two of them began walking toward the woodcutter’s back.

“Old brother, how long have you lived here?”

Xu Huo suddenly cut in from the side, interrupting them before they could speak to the woodcutter.

The woodcutter turned around. Seeing Xu Huo offer him a cigarette, he hesitated before accepting it. He then used Xu Huo’s lighter to light up and sat on a tree stump. After taking two puffs, he said, “Many years. I’ve been here since the resort was built.”

“The resort looks quite old, and no one lives here anymore. It must be boring living here alone. Have you never thought of going out and seeing the world?” Xu Huo sat down beside him.

“What would I go out for? I never went anywhere even when my family was still with me. Now I’m sick enough to die, and I don’t have the strength.”

Xu Huo glanced at his neck. “Medical technology is advanced these days. Even terminal illnesses can be cured.”

The woodcutter pointed toward a new grave not far away. “My daughter went to the hospital, but she still died. My whole family is buried here. Sooner or later, I’ll be buried here too.”

“The most important thing is that the whole family stays together.” Xu Huo nodded. “I’ll be staying here for a few days. If you die, I’ll bury you.”

The woodcutter stared at him expressionlessly. Two seconds later, he continued, “You came here to explore too, didn’t you? I advise you to leave as soon as possible.”

“Old sir, do you know the legends about this resort?” Xia Guo came over. “I heard there’s a Head-Chopping Demon here. Aren’t you afraid?”

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“Someone who’s about to die has nothing to fear.” The woodcutter shook his head. “You young people are the brave ones. You’ll do anything for a thrill. I’m telling you, this resort is cursed. Anyone who comes here looking for the Head-Chopping Demon will die.”

“I remember several young people came here not long ago. In the end, their bodies were taken away by the crematorium workers.”

Two audible gulps sounded from the group. Xia Guo pressed on, “Did no one take responsibility? Why were the bodies sent straight to the crematorium?”

The woodcutter’s eyelids drooped. “They couldn’t even find the heads. Where else could they have gone?”

“You’ve lived here long enough to know quite a few stories about the Head-Chopping Demon. Why don’t you tell us some?” Xu Huo beckoned Yuan Yao over and stuffed the half-pack of cigarettes hidden on him into the woodcutter’s hands.

The woodcutter reluctantly accepted it. As though he had not noticed the players’ wary gazes, he slowly began recounting the legends surrounding the Head-Chopping Demon.

Fifty years ago, before this place was developed, several families still lived here. By then, the mountain had already been purchased by the resort’s former owner, who planned to build a holiday retreat. The residents refused to leave and clashed with the workers who had come to cut down the trees. No one knew exactly what happened, but one of them somehow fell onto an axe, which severed his head and neck together.

After compensation had been agreed upon, the construction project, which had been suspended for some time, resumed. Yet strange incidents began occurring one after another. Workers and designers involved in the project, along with the woman who cooked for them and the driver who delivered vegetables, reportedly saw a headless figure carrying an axe appearing in the vicinity. More than a dozen people saw it in all.

The former owner invited an expert to perform an exorcism and spent a fortune erecting a stone statue to suppress the mountain’s evil influence. Unexpectedly, a worker died on the very day the ritual was completed. He happened to be one of the workers who had quarreled with the dead man. His body was found collapsed beside a tree stump, but his head had vanished.

Then a second person died, followed by a third. They all died in the same manner: their bodies were left behind while their heads mysteriously disappeared. When the authorities searched the mountain for the missing heads, they once saw a black shadow carrying an axe and placing a rotten head upon its shoulder. But the mountain was shrouded in thick fog; the shadow vanished in a flash, and only a few heads were recovered. The rumor that the resort had been cursed by the Head-Chopping Demon spread far and wide.

The investigation eventually came to nothing. The expert hired by the former owner claimed that the dead man kept killing because he was still searching for his head, which meant he was dissatisfied with all the other heads. In a desperate stroke of inspiration, the former owner had a mask carved for the statue. Once the faceless statue with a head was put in place, the killings truly ceased.

Later, the former owner’s business failed, and he sold the resort to its current owner.

During renovations, the new owner accidentally knocked the head off the Head-Chopping Demon statue. Not long afterward, a visitor died in the hot spring. The pool filled with blood, but the visitor’s head was nowhere to be found.

After learning the whole story, the new owner went looking for the statue’s head, but it had disappeared without a trace. From then on, people began dying at the resort from time to time—first guests, then exorcists who came to drive away the evil, followed by detectives and police officers investigating the truth.

Thus the rumor arose that anyone who entered the resort would be cursed by the Head-Chopping Demon. The matter became the talk of the town, and no one dared come here anymore. Even the staff resigned. The owner simply shut down the resort, never imagining that doing so would instead attract thrill-seekers who had no fear of death.

“Did you see those bodies?” Xu Huo touched his neck. “Were they really headless?”

The woodcutter fixed him with a grim stare. “Not only were they headless. Some of them were missing parts of their bodies as well.”

“How terrifying!” Du Lanlan hugged herself, then said to Huang Junjie, “You’re really lucky.”

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The players all agreed wholeheartedly.

With this story, the missing background of the Head-Chopping Demon instance in the game’s introduction had finally been filled in. Since everything had begun fifty years ago, it proved that human involvement was highly unlikely. Some supernatural force must be interfering.

As for the woodcutter, although he looked old, he would have been only a child fifty years ago. Even if he had lived at the resort all this time, he could not possibly be the Head-Chopping Demon.

On the contrary, his inexplicable resurrection served as further proof that supernatural forces existed.

If he had nothing to do with the Head-Chopping Demon, then there was no reason to kill him.

The players exchanged glances and prepared to leave.

“I saw you hanging yourself yesterday,” Xu Huo suddenly said.

The players, along with the woodcutter, all turned to stare at him.

Xu Huo extinguished his cigarette with a grin. “Aren’t you curious about how you ended up locked inside the wooden house?”

“Someone who was clearly dead came back to life. How did you do it?”

The players present admired his audacity while also watching the woodcutter with keen curiosity. Perhaps the NPC’s resurrection was the key to dealing with the Head-Chopping Demon.

The woodcutter suddenly flew into a rage. “Nonsense! What do you mean, a dead man coming back to life? I was sleeping peacefully. How was I supposed to know I’d been locked inside the house? It was you bastards! Get out of here!”

“Don’t get so worked up, you’re sick.” Xu Huo rose to his feet and spoke lazily. “It would be a terrible waste to die of anger.”

The woodcutter raised his axe. “Get out!”

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