The Hand of Confession – Chapter 127
by Little PandaVolume 5: Days of Applying Makeup to Corpses
Opening the Door
Who opened this door?
Shen Maomao’s gaze instantly turned sharp.
She tugged at Lou Jingmo, taking a small step back to fall half a step behind the crowd, and whispered almost against her ear: “Lou-jie, is he the extra one?”
Lou Jingmo: “…How would I know.”
The reason for calling him a boy rather than a man was because he looked about the same age as Golden Retriever, still carrying that unworldly innocence of someone living in an ivory tower.
He looked at the truck, his eyes showing reluctance: “The person is already dead, we can’t just leave him exposed in the wilderness, can we?”
San Huang picked up the conversation: “You make sense. Let’s follow the funeral home’s procedures and give him a proper burial.” He looked around the circle: “Does anyone here understand funeral rites? What should we do next?”
Another man said: “I don’t know much else, but the NPC’s face is completely ruined. Shouldn’t we restore it first?”
San Huang: “Who’s the mortuary makeup artist?”
Suddenly called out, Shen Maomao said: “Wait? Isn’t it inappropriate to just randomly handle a corpse?”
Gong Lian said with a pale face: “I… I don’t want to do his makeup, I’m scared…”
Xiaoqiao said gently: “Besides, we’re all girls. If something dangerous happens, we won’t be able to escape…”
San Huang ruthlessly retorted: “Isn’t that perfect? This is a game world – there’s no such thing as truly delicate flowers here. There’s a limit to playing weak. Do you really think you’re some pure white lotus rising untainted from the mud?”
Gong Lian’s expression soured, while Xiaoqiao’s smile instantly froze. She clenched her fists and squeezed words through gritted teeth: “You lonely fat b*stard… someday…”
Her voice grew increasingly quieter until even Gong Lian, who stood close by, couldn’t make out the words.
She looked at Xiaoqiao almost fearfully, though one didn’t need to guess what the unfinished sentence meant.
Shen Maomao just wanted to congratulate San Huang on successfully earning the disgust of three women.
The atmosphere grew tense again, and just as another argument seemed imminent, Lou Jingmo stepped forward and said: “If you don’t want to go, then patrol for me. Xiaoshen and I will do his makeup. The NPC’s body can’t stay outside any longer, or things might get worse.”
Thoughts flickered through Xiaoqiao’s mind as her eyes rolled in their sockets, and with some unknown scheme, she actually changed her tune: “How could we do that? It’s better if we handle our own professional duties.”
Lou Jingmo’s lips quirked up slightly, and she said nothing more.
With the next steps decided, everyone bustled into action.
Shen Maomao followed the crowd, counting again and again, but still couldn’t identify who the extra person was. It was as if someone had smeared paste over her mind, making her vision blur automatically when looking at people, making everyone look like a ghost.
The group noisily entered the funeral home building, and someone led them purposefully straight to the opposite side of the payment counter, opening one of the rooms.
Shen Maomao frowned, feeling something wasn’t quite right.
Lou Jingmo sensed it too but remained silent for now. After everyone crowded into the room and placed the NPC’s body on the center table, she suddenly asked: “Who opened this door?”
Xiaokong said: “Wasn’t it San Huang? Didn’t he lead the way?”
San Huang patted his pockets and said: “It wasn’t me, I don’t even have any keys!”
Everyone looked at each other, bewildered.
“Wait… why did we come straight here?”
“Who actually opened the door? Why don’t we all check our pockets?”
The search proved futile, as none of the fourteen people present had any keys.
Dao Ba seemed to suddenly remember something and pointed accusingly at Lou Jingmo: “Didn’t you say all the rooms couldn’t be opened?”
Lou Jingmo gave a cold laugh: “Heh.”
Shen Maomao immediately understood that Lou-jie couldn’t be bothered to talk to them anymore, so she quickly stepped forward to act as Lou Jingmo’s spokesperson: “We explored the rooms together, and at that time, none of them could be opened. But we explored in the morning – whatever happened in the afternoon was beyond our control. Besides, it’s just one room. Why would we lie about something so trivial?”
The middle-aged auntie said: “Listen to yourselves, investigating these useless things. What does it matter who led the way or who opened the door? If you ask me, let’s just hurry up and bury this NPC and be done with it.”
San Huang deliberately contradicted her: “Long hair, short wisdom. Whoever can open this door might be able to open others too. We all know there might be clues behind the doors. If someone got the keys but didn’t tell us, planning to investigate secretly alone, that would be too selfish.”
The auntie glared at him, but his words had hit their mark, and she fell silent.
Guan Qiwen circled the corpse three times before suddenly saying: “I haven’t touched the body, but look – isn’t there something in his pockets?”
San Huang stepped forward, boldly reaching into the NPC’s pants pocket, and pulled out a small bunch of blood-stained keys.
Shen Maomao clapped her hands: “Great, case solved! He opened the door himself!”
Nobody except Lou Jingmo appreciated her dark humor.
Everyone thought it wasn’t funny at all, and the middle-aged auntie even pulled Xiaoqiao and Gong Lian two steps away from the corpse: “This body is really strange…”
San Huang clutched the keys tightly in his palm, his gaze sweeping over the corpse before moving to the other side, where he pulled out a brick-sized mobile phone [ๅคงๅฅๅคง | dร gฤdร | old-style large mobile phone from the 90s] from another pocket.
He held the phone in his hand, showing no intention of letting others see it, and commanded: “Alright, everyone who’s not involved should leave now. Let these three fix up the body.”
Gong Lian’s eyes were red: “I… I’m scared…”
San Huang sneered: “Do what you want.” With that, he left the room with the keys and phone.
Lou Jingmo also followed the main group out, but before leaving, she whispered in Shen Maomao’s earโ
“There’s another one again.”
Shen Maomao: “??!!”
What? What’s going on?? Where did another person come from??
But before she could ask more, Lou Jingmo had already heartlessly abandoned her, leaving her alone with those two complicated women, Xiaoqiao and Gong Lian.
Shen Maomao felt a bit timid, because she found Xiaoqiao strange.
The small room became less crowded, with three women and one cold, breathless corpse, yet only Gong Lian showed fear.
Come to think of it… wasn’t she herself acting strange too?
Shen Maomao couldn’t help overthinking.
Meanwhile, Gong Lian maintained her timid expression, practically trying to glue herself to Xiaoqiao while keeping as far from the corpse as possible: “I don’t want to touch the corpse… could you two jiejie take care of a newcomer… give me some time to adjust?”
Xiaoqiao’s smile became stiff.
Shen Maomao confronted her directly: “Hey hey hey, how old are you this year? I’m only eighteen – who are you calling jiejie?”
Gong Lian weakly replied: “Sorry… I couldn’t tell you were only eighteen.”
Although Shen Maomao wasn’t actually eighteen, what woman could tolerate others mocking her age?
This Gong Lian might appear gentle and weak, but who knew how much poison lurked inside her. Shen Maomao cracked her knuckles, feeling the urge to hit someone.
“Do you know what I do for a living?” she asked.
Gong Lian thought she was being threatened and shrunk further behind Xiaoqiao: “What… what do you do?”
Shen Maomao gave a cold laugh: “I sell human organs.”
Xiaoqiao: “??”
Gong Lian: “???”
Before they could react, Shen Maomao continued: “Have you no shame?”
Gong Lian: “?”
After a while, she finally realized Shen Maomao was calling her shameless, and her expression immediately soured.
Xiaoqiao stepped in as the peacemaker: “Alright, alright, stop arguing. It’s too early for this. Besides, we don’t have any proper tools – how are we supposed to do his makeup?”
Hearing this, Shen Maomao began rummaging through the room.
Since whatever mysterious force had led them here, there must be tools nearby for doing mortuary makeup.
Sure enough, after a brief search, they found a large collection of cosmetics and some tools whose purposes weren’t immediately clear.
She hauled everything out and placed them heavily on the shelf by the bed, saying: “Here are the tools. How do we start?”
Taking this chance, she examined the corpse’s condition.
This NPC called Huang Hongxing had died quite brutally. Glass shards still stuck in his head, with large patches of skin torn open, exposing raw red flesh beneath – a truly horrifying sight.
Shen Maomao felt her personal growth had been exponential, from initially being startled at the sight of corpses to now viewing them with complete detachment, even calmly considering how to make this corpse look normal again. She wasn’t sure if this transformation was good or bad.
Xiaoqiao sighed, walked to Shen Maomao’s side, took out a brush, and said glumly: “I’ve only ever done makeup on living people.”
Gong Lian huddled in the corner, tears streaming down: “It’s too scary… I want to go home… I can’t do this…”
Xiaoqiao said helplessly to Shen Maomao: “Let’s not have her help, she’ll probably just cause trouble. How about just the two of us, each taking half?”
What are you dividing, bread?
Shen Maomao didn’t quite trust Xiaoqiao, feeling that every word she said contained some hidden trap.
After thinking it over and unable to come up with a better idea, she could only agree: “Alright, but I’m not very experienced. Could you guide me through it?”
Xiaoqiao readily agreed.
The two began their mortuary makeup work, and the room fell silent except for Xiaoqiao’s low voiceโ
“First, let’s clean the wounds on the body, wipe away the blood…”
“Perhaps we should remove the decayed flesh and fill the wounds…”
“The complexion looks bad, should we add some powder?” “Hmm… better add some blush to make the complexion look more natural. Just apply it like you would do your own makeup.”
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