The Hand of Confession, Slightly Trembling

The Hand of Confession – Chapter 407

by Little Panda

Volume 12: Former Boss Reduced To A Garlic-Peeling Little Sister

Old acquaintance

Faye

After the meeting, Dingdang followed Shen Maomao, complaining, “What do you think Director Liu meant by that? Was she implying only two people can leave? Isn’t she just trying to force everyone to turn on us?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shen Maomao said.

Only three combat-capable people were left now. Whether it was a one-on-one fight or a group brawl, she had no problem.

Hearing this, Dingdang felt she could relax. “So, what’s our next move?”

“We’re getting out tonight,” Shen Maomao said.

Dingdang cried, “That fast?!”

Shen Maomao glanced at her. “Too fast for you?” As she said it, the words felt familiar. She seemed to recall saying the exact same thing to Lou Jingmo once.

“No, no, I’m fine with it! The faster, the better!” Dingdang said. After a couple of seconds, she couldn’t help but ask, “Great god,¹ what did you figure out? How can we leave tonight?”

A memory surfaced, and Shen Maomao lost the desire to speak. She simply spat out a single word: “Trouble.” Then she yanked open the office door and walked straight inside.

“…” Fine, Dingdang thought.

The morning classes began soon after.

For Shen Maomao, Wednesday had the fewest classes, making it the best day to make a move.

Once the first two periods were over, Shen Maomao prepared to head to the dormitory to find the umbrella.

But before that, there was one more thing to take care of.

She looked down at the two children blocking her path. “You should be heading to your morning exercises.”

Chen Meihan was holding the hand of the little boy who was the leader of Class Two. “He’s the boss of Class Two,” she said. “I did what I promised! Now it’s your turn to help us!”

Shen Maomao leaned against the wall, her arms crossed. “So how do we leave after getting the good review?”

Chen Meihan still held the most important leverage, so she didn’t mind sharing this small piece of information. “The exit is on the rooftop of your building, but you can only get up there after dark.”

“Fine,” Shen Maomao said. “Wait for me.”

She started to walk away, but Chen Meihan grabbed her sleeve. “Wait!”

Shen Maomao looked back.

“That gray building was never supposed to be here,” Chen Meihan said. “Before you go, can you blow it up like you did before?”

Shen Maomao froze for a second.

She dredged up the memory from the depths of her mind with almost no effort.

Some things she thought she had forgotten were actually like a loose thread. With the slightest tug, a whole tangled mess of yarn would come undone.

Back then, she had cleared an instance with Lou Jingmo and Golden Retriever. At night, they entered the instance’s Inner world,² and Golden Retriever, who had more money than sense, used an item to blow up a building in the Inner world.

Of the four people involved, Ren Yue was dead, Golden Retriever was dead, and even Lou Jingmo was…

She was the only one left.

But she didn’t stay lost in thought for long. She quickly came back to her senses and said, “I can’t.”

Chen Meihan’s face fell. “You really can’t?”

Shen Maomao just raised an eyebrow.

Chen Meihan didn’t press the issue. She said solemnly, “I don’t know what the situation is like on the second floor. Be careful. We’ll be waiting for news of your success.”

Shen Maomao gave them a wave and turned toward the Little Gray Building.

If conditions allowed, she wanted to take care of that thing this afternoon.

According to Chen Meihan, the Black umbrella was powerful enough to fight the current boss in a you die, I live³ struggle, but it was an inanimate object. It couldn’t move on its own and needed someone to wield it.

She had already searched all the rooms on the left side, leaving only the less dangerous right side. Hopefully, the Black umbrella would be considerate enough to bring another rainstorm to cover her sounds.

Soon, Shen Maomao entered the Little Gray Building. She first went to her own dormitory to grab an umbrella, then pushed the door open to peek inside.

The door was unlocked, and Gong Heng was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t run far, though, so Shen Maomao didn’t bother with him and headed for the main staircase to pick the lock.

No sooner had she started up the stairs than the sky outside the window began to darken. By the time she reached a dormitory door, a clap of thunder boomed.

Shen Maomao used a hairpin to open the door, slipped inside, and searched the room, but found nothing.

She used the cover of the thunder to search several other rooms, and even checked the last side staircase, but still found no trace of the Black umbrella.

Finally, she leaned against the staircase railing and spoke to the red rain pattering against the window. “Don’t tell me you’re in the boss’s room.”

A deafening clap of thunder exploded right next to her ear, as if in affirmation.

Shen Maomao said, “…”

This job is not going to be easy.

She had never seen the boss and had no idea how strong it was, but Chen Meihan had said it was in its egg-laying period. Some of the eggs might hatch in the next few days, and the thought of a teeming sea of insects made Shen Maomao’s scalp go numb.⁴

It wasn’t that she was afraid—she wasn’t scared of bugs anymore—but she still found them disgusting, unsettling… and she had a case of trypophobia⁵ that wasn’t easy to treat.

But she had already made her promise, and she cared about the reputation of “Xiao Lou.” She had no choice but to brace herself⁶ and head over.

She pulled out a dagger and walked toward room 206, one step at a time.

Amid the thunder and rain, she pressed her ear to the door.

It was completely silent inside. No heartbeat, no crawling sounds, no rustling of torn books.

Is the monster asleep… or is it not even here?

Shen Maomao inserted the hairpin into the keyhole and gently turned it.

With a click, the door slowly swung open, revealing the boss’s lair in its entirety.

The boss was indeed gone, but the room was filled with translucent, circular insect eggs, each one as large as Shen Maomao’s head. Curled up inside each one was a creature she couldn’t see clearly—they had plump tails, looking a bit like cicadas, but their upper bodies had two arm-like appendages that hugged their bodies, forming a round ball.

These insect eggs weren’t just placed on the floor; they covered the entire room. The walls and ceiling were all haphazardly plastered with them. Only a large patch of floor was clear, probably for the boss to move around.

Shen Maomao scanned the room and, behind a row of eggs, found the Black umbrella stuck to the wall.

As the Number One item from an instance a few years ago, the Black umbrella no longer held the power to scare Shen Maomao into farting and rolling, pissing and flowing.⁷

Looking at the eggs, Shen Maomao considered the possibility of destroying them all.

Retrieving the umbrella would require breaking the eggs, and the boss wouldn’t have left them here if it couldn’t return in an instant. So Shen Maomao didn’t act rashly. She stood her ground and started planning her strategy, taking stock of her items.

The moment she opened her Item bar,⁸ she was nearly blinded by a flashing white light.

It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust before she found the main culprit, original perpetrator⁹—it was Faye.¹⁰

In a sense, this instance was Faye’s home. Had she sensed her home and was now eager to come out and see it?

Shen Maomao took the constantly flashing Faye out of her Item bar.

The instant it hit the fresh air, the Faye card in her hand transformed into a streak of light, which then coalesced into a human figure before her.

Shen Maomao couldn’t help but clench her fists, her eyes fixed on the white light.

To her, Faye was undoubtedly special.

She was Shen Maomao’s first card, and in all these years, the only card she had ever seen with its own consciousness. Other Faye cards looked identical to the one she held, but they would just lie quietly in the Item bar, never coming out on their own, let alone taking human form.

For various reasons, Shen Maomao had never been willing to use this card.

She never expected to encounter this instance again, nor did she expect a scene like this to unfold.

The white light slowly solidified, revealing not the familiar “Mother Shen” but a woman dressed exactly as she was on the card.

She floated in mid-air, surrounded by tiny ice crystals. She slowly opened her eyes to look at Shen Maomao, her gaze filled with a tenderness that made Shen Maomao’s eyes sting.

“Maomao has grown up…” Faye said softly, her lips parting.

For a moment, Shen Maomao almost lost control of her emotions. Fortunately, she’d had years of practice and wasn’t about to completely break her composure over a single sentence.

Faye opened her arms and floated forward, wrapping Shen Maomao in an embrace. “Don’t be afraid. Mommy is here to protect you.”

The embrace was icy cold but also deeply reassuring.

It was a feeling of security she hadn’t felt since Lou Jingmo had left.

For a moment, she desperately wished Lou Jingmo was here too. Then she could introduce her lover to this woman who was like an elder to her.

The real Mother Shen knew nothing about the game. Shen Maomao couldn’t share her sorrow and pain with her, because even if she spoke of game-related matters, they would be transformed into something completely unrelated by the time they reached a non-player’s ears. But Faye knew everything. She could tell her anything, without having to keep it bottled up inside…

But now was clearly not the time to reminisce about old times.

Shen Maomao gently pushed Faye away. “You should know… I’m not your real daughter…”

Faye shook her head. “No. The moment I picked you up from school, I gained my own consciousness. My purpose for existing is to be your mother.”

“But… I have a mother in the real world,” Shen Maomao said.

Faye smiled. “Is there a problem with that?”

“…” I guess there’s no problem, Shen Maomao thought. It’s not like my mom will ever find out.

“I still had some awareness while in the Item bar, but it wasn’t enough to wake me up. But when you stepped into this instance, I felt my consciousness slowly returning. Just now, I finally became able to move on my own.”

Faye’s awakening had happened long before Chen Meihan’s. She had known she was a card for a long time, and now she could even accurately state that this place was an instance. She was practically a bug in the game.

Shen Maomao had reason to suspect there was something special about this instance, and Faye’s next words confirmed it.

“I feel like something here is calling to me…” Faye said.

Shen Maomao looked at her, confused.

“I don’t know where it is… but I can feel it. It’s not far from me.”

Shen Maomao’s intuition told her that thing was very important, but the most pressing matter of the moment was to figure out how to get the umbrella, then let the instance’s old and new bosses fight it out. Whoever won would be the top dog.

Faye stood quietly by her side, like a sturdy fortress, offering her eternal, gentle protection.

Shen Maomao felt like there was nothing left to fear. She took out several daggers and threw them at the insect eggs holding the Black umbrella in place.

Splish…

Splish, splish…

The insect eggs burst open, splattering translucent fluid. The creatures inside, curled into balls, fell out and bounced twice on the floor like plump rubber balls.

The Black umbrella, having lost its support, fell straight down and was caught by Faye.

At the same time, a piercing shriek came from downstairs. The floor began to tremble and bulge upward in a large arc.

“Run!” Shen Maomao yelled.

Faye reacted instantly, running for the door with Shen Maomao.

The moment they got out, the floor was completely pushed up. It shattered into pieces, sending debris and dust flying. A large, yellow-and-black insect covered in bristles burrowed up from below and shrieked as it charged at Shen Maomao.

Shen Maomao glanced back, her scalp tingling with fear. She dove to the side, rolled, and quickly scrambled to her feet, shouting at Faye, “Throw the umbrella!”

Faye immediately complied, raising her hand and tossing the umbrella.

The umbrella flew in an arc and struck the monster’s head, then fell to the floor with a thud.

For a moment, there was silence.

Only the thunder outside grew more violent, as if it wanted to strike her dead.

“Fuck,” Shen Maomao swore, a rare occurrence for her.

I should have opened the umbrella before throwing it!

The boss, enraged by their actions, rumbled toward Faye. Its massive mouthparts opened slightly, spraying a stream of unnaturally colored venom.

“Watch out!” Shen Maomao had just shouted when she saw Faye raise a hand slightly. The stream of liquid instantly turned into an icicle, which fell to the ground under the pull of gravity and shattered into pieces of various sizes.

The boss had now fully emerged, making the small hallway even more cramped. Only now could she see the thing in its entirety.

Its upper body resembled an oversized caterpillar, but its lower half had two human arms. The arms were short but had five human fingers, like the hands of a seven- or eight-year-old child. Its tail was pitch-black, ending in a small, round black ball that looked… a bit like a human head.

Its intelligence was high. As if knowing the Black umbrella was a threat, it kept the umbrella clutched in the hand near its tail.

Faye was locked in a struggle with it. She was a card and could only use magic, so she tried to keep her distance, occasionally summoning a barrage of ice crystals to smash against its body. But the monster’s hide was exceptionally tough. The sharp ice crystals only left white marks on it, unable to harm it in the slightest.

Shen Maomao fixed her gaze on the Black umbrella, drew her dagger, and attacked its tail, intending to chop off its hand and get the umbrella back.

But who would have thought that while its head was still focused on Faye, showing no sign of turning, its tail seemed to sense her movement and whipped backward.

“Hee hee hee—”

A child’s laughter came from the ball at the end of its tail, like a rattlesnake luring its prey. Then the tail lifted, revealing the face of a little boy, carved from powder and polished from jade.¹¹ The boy was still smiling at her, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth.

Shen Maomao’s SAN value¹² plummeted. She aimed a dagger right at its eye and threw.

The tail was far more agile than the head. It even knew how to use the tool in its hand, occasionally trying to poke her with the umbrella. Shen Maomao tried several times but couldn’t get close to it at all.

As for the dagger—like Faye’s ice crystals, it was completely unable to harm the creature.

For a time, the three were locked in a stalemate.

The tail had a mind of its own, toying with Shen Maomao like a cat, and the umbrella was its cat teaser.

Shen Maomao wasn’t made of iron. She leaned against the wall, panting, her eyes scanning the boss, searching for a weakness.

What does it like?

Or rather, what can I use to attract its attention?

As she thought, Shen Maomao’s gaze suddenly fell on the door to the next room.

I don’t know if this will work, but it’s the only thing I can try.

She gave up on the boss’s tail that was toying with her, turned, and kicked open the door to the next room, rushing inside.

The tail paused for a moment, reaching out to grab her, but it was held back by the heavier head and could barely move an inch.

Shen Maomao had already rushed into the next dorm room. She pulled a pile of gnawed books and papers from a desk drawer, then turned and rushed back out.

“Hey—!” she shouted, flinging the items into the air.

The scattered papers fluttered to the ground. The boss seemed to catch a scent, its massive body twisting with surprising agility. Its huge mouthparts bit down on the papers on the floor, and it began to eat them with a crunch, crunch.

Faye was freed, and the two of them focused their efforts on the tail.

The tail, furious with the head, began to wail loudly. Its cries sounded like a newborn infant one moment and a cat in heat the next. The sharp, piercing sound, combined with the thunder outside, truly threatened to rupture Shen Maomao’s eardrums.

But she couldn’t worry about that now.

She attacked with her dagger to draw the tail’s attention, directing Faye to find an opportunity to grab the umbrella.

Even with its heaven-defying abilities, it soon began to lose ground, thanks to its head persistently dragging the back leg.¹³

Shen Maomao saw her chance and plunged her dagger into its eye.

Gray-green blood spurted out, causing a burning pain in her right hand.

The tail cried out in pain, dropping the umbrella to grab at her with both hands. Its head also sensed something was wrong and finally broke free from the lure of food, turning back to attack Shen Maomao.

“Now!” Shen Maomao shouted.

Faye immediately grabbed the umbrella, opened it, and threw it toward Shen Maomao.

Shen Maomao turned and ran to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

Rumble—

The thunder roared like a frantic drumbeat. The Black umbrella floated above the boss and began to spin, growing several times larger in the blink of an eye. It even pierced through the walls, carving two large holes in them.

The boss sensed danger and quickly retreated into the room, but the Black umbrella sliced through a section of the roof and pursued it, catching up no matter how fast it fled.

The entire Little Gray Building trembled gently. Shen Maomao’s heart was trembling and her gallbladder shaking,¹⁴ terrified the building would collapse. If it did, they would never reach the rooftop and would be trapped here forever.

When the Black umbrella had grown to about the same size as the boss, it finally made its move. It swooped down, completely covering the large insect with its canopy, and then closed.

Two different shrieks came from inside the umbrella. The surface of the waterproof fabric bulged with one shape after another, but it held firm and was not torn open.

“Help me, wuwuwu—”

“Big Sister, save me!”

“It hurts so much, wuwuwuwu…”

“I know I was wrong! I’ll never do it again!”

A child’s cries came from inside the umbrella, heart-wrenching to hear.

Unfortunately for it, the two people before it both had a heart of iron and stone.¹⁵ No matter how pitifully it cried, they remained completely unmoved. Only when the bulges on the umbrella had completely disappeared and it had returned to its normal size did they step forward to investigate.

The thunder stopped, the bloody rain gradually subsided, and sunlight pierced through the dark clouds, streaming in through the missing roof.

The Black umbrella lay on the ground, as inanimate as any other object. Faye stepped forward, picked it up, and held the handle firmly.

Clink— Something fell out of the umbrella and bounced twice on the floor.

Shen Maomao walked over and saw that it was a coin.

She picked up the coin. It was heavy. The front had the Arabic numeral 1, but she didn’t recognize any of the other text—she had no idea what language it was. The back was stamped with the portrait of a person she didn’t recognize either.

She tossed the coin in her hand a couple of times. “Now we just have to wait for nightfall to find the exit.”

Faye stared at the coin in her hand.

Shen Maomao held it out to her. “For you.”

Faye recoiled a step. “Mommy doesn’t want it. Maomao, put your toy away quickly.”

Shen Maomao still had her doubts, but she trusted that Faye wouldn’t harm her, so she did as she was told and stuffed the coin into her pants pocket.

They walked out side by side. Just as they reached the top of the stairs, Shen Maomao suddenly stopped. She pricked up her ears to listen. “Do you hear something?”

Faye listened with her. “It sounds like… the sound of a bouncing ball?”

Thump—

The sound was continuous, one beat after another, and it was getting closer.

Shen Maomao looked back at the hallway behind them, a bad feeling rising in her heart. “Don’t tell me…”

The words had barely left her mouth when a swarm of white, spherical objects came rolling toward them from behind. As they rolled, the outer shells of the eggs cracked open, and miniature versions of the boss squirmed out, crawling toward them in a dense, writhing mass.

Shen Maomao found this scene even more terrifying than facing the big one. She urged Faye, “Open the umbrella!”

Faye immediately complied. The umbrella opened, but it had no reaction to the current scene.

Shen Maomao wanted to curse again. “Run!”

Footnotes

Hanzi: 大神 | Pinyin: dàshén | Context: Slang for an expert or master, especially in gaming.
Hanzi: 里世界 | Pinyin: lǐ shìjiè | Context: Literally: ‘Inner world’ or ‘Reverse side world’. A common trope in games/fiction referring to a darker, alternate version of a location.
Hanzi: 你死我活 | Pinyin: nǐ sǐ wǒ huó | Context: An idiom describing a life-or-death struggle.
Hanzi: 头皮发麻 | Pinyin: tóupí fāmá | Context: An idiom describing a physical sensation of fear, horror, or disgust.
Hanzi: 密集恐惧症 | Pinyin: mìjí kǒngjù zhèng | Context: Literally: ‘Dense-cluster phobia’. The fear of closely packed holes or bumps.
Hanzi: 硬着头皮 | Pinyin: yìngzhe tóupí | Context: Literally: ‘Hardening the scalp’. An idiom meaning to brace oneself and do something difficult against one’s will.
Hanzi: 屁滚尿流 | Pinyin: pìgǔnniàoliú | Context: A vulgar idiom for being scared shitless.
Hanzi: 道具栏 | Pinyin: dàojù lán | Context: The inventory slot where a player holds their items.
Hanzi: 罪魁祸首 | Pinyin: zuìkuí-huòshǒu | Context: An idiom for the primary person responsible for a crime or disaster.
LP: Forgot to say, I translated this as “Feili” previously… teehee~
Hanzi: 粉雕玉琢 | Pinyin: fěndiāo-yùzhuó | Context: An idiom describing a child’s delicate and beautiful features.
Hanzi: san值 | Pinyin: san zhí | Context: From the Call of Cthulhu RPG, refers to a character’s sanity points. “Losing SAN” means going insane.
Hanzi: 拖后腿 | Pinyin: tuō hòutuǐ | Context: An idiom for being a burden or holding someone back from making progress.
Hanzi: 心惊胆战 | Pinyin: xīnjīng-dǎnzhàn | Context: An idiom for being terrified or panic-stricken.
Hanzi: 铁石心肠 | Pinyin: tiěshí-xīncháng | Context: An idiom for being hard-hearted or unfeeling.

Volume 12: Former Boss Reduced To A Garlic-Peeling Little Sister

Footnotes

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