The Hand of Confession – Chapter 98
by Little PandaVolume 4: Days of Making Mischief at School
Maomao
The Missing Player
The plan to find Lou Jingmo fell through, as mother and daughter huddled together all night while the woman from the third floor kept knocking on their door.
Until dawn the next day, when a rooster crowed, the death-beckoning knocks that had lasted all night finally ceased.
Mother Shen put the drowsy Shen Maomao on the bed, then went to check the door herself, confirming the woman had left.
She turned around, looking at Father Shen who was staring intently at her, her left corner of her mouth curling up slightly in disdain, making a soft “tsk” sound.
Father Shen’s eyes slowly became bloodshot, turning a dark red.
She acted as if she hadn’t noticed, walking straight into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for her daughter.
The aroma of food wafted into the master bedroom. Shen Maomao rubbed her eyes as she got up, walking groggily into the kitchen, asking: “Mama, has Liu Ayi left?”
Mother Shen handed her a cup of freshly mixed soy milk, letting her hold it herself: “She should be gone. Be careful, it’s hot.”
Shen Maomao blew on the soy milk and took a small sip. The warm sensation traveled from her throat to her stomach, making her whole body feel cozy.
The food was placed on the tea table, and mother and daughter ate their hearty breakfast around Father Shen’s decaying corpse.
Shen Maomao was extremely disgusted, trying her best not to look at the corpse. Though she couldn’t taste the food, at least she filled her stomach – she would need the energy to run if ghosts chased her later.
After eating, Mother Shen said: “Maomao, why don’t you skip school today and get some good sleep at home? You barely slept last night.”
Shen Maomao immediately refused: “No, Mama! Good children shouldn’t take casual leave. I can sleep during the noon break!”
Mother Shen worriedly asked: “Won’t you fall asleep during class?”
“I won’t!” As soon as she said this, she let out a huge yawn, making her words completely unconvincing.
After breakfast, Mother Shen took the ready-to-go Shen Maomao out. Just as they opened the security door, Shen Maomao noticed scratch marks all over it.
The scratches were deep, curling the metal edges, indicating just how strong Liu Ayi must have been.
Beside the scratches were bloody handprints, densely covering the entire door.
Shen Maomao took one look and felt her trypophobia [fear of clustered patterns] acting up, quickly averting her gaze.
Mother Shen calmly took out a tissue, placed it on the door handle to lock the door, then led Shen Maomao downstairs.
The lower floors had completely transformed. Several apartment doors stood open, with long trails of blood extending from their doorways down the stairs.
Along the way, nearly half the apartments in the building had blood traces at their entrances.
Shen Maomao covered her nose, carrying her small backpack, carefully avoiding the blood trails, walking extremely slowly.
Mother Shen glanced at her watch and said helplessly: “Maomao, you’re going to be late.” Then she picked her up, saying: “Let Mama carry you.”
Outside the building entrance, the blood trails continued to stretch into the distance. Similar scenes appeared at the entrances of other building units, not just their own.
Countless blood trails converged at one locationโin front of the large garbage bin at Building 16.
Flies swarmed around the garbage bin, and a putrid smell filled the air. Shen Maomao could guess what was inside without looking.
It wasn’t until she saw the school gates that Shen Maomao belatedly felt nervous.
Mother Shen set her down and turned to leave. With a grave expression, Shen Maomao walked step by step toward the teaching building.
Today was a rare sunny day, with sunlight shining on her, just like the day she first entered the instance.
Unfortunately, even the brightest sun couldn’t dispel the tense atmosphere in the school yard. The water in the middle of the playground had dried up, but the police tape was still there, just like Chen Meihua’s empty seat these past few days, making it impossible for her to pretend today was like the first day.
She gradually walked into the teaching building, arriving at Class 1-1’s door.
The classroom was silent, without any sound. Being too short, she couldn’t see inside through the glass panel on the door.
Shen Maomao took a deep breath and pulled open the classroom door.
Empty.
With less than half an hour until class started, not a single student from Class 1-1 had arrived.
Shen Maomao couldn’t stay calm anymore.
Where was Lou Jingmo? Where was Golden Retriever? And… where was Ren Yue?
No… at least Lou Jingmo wouldn’t be in trouble. If something had happened to Sister, she wouldn’t be able to stand here safely.
She threw her backpack on her seat and rushed towards the classroom door, colliding with Yue Changping who was walking in.
Yue Changping only stepped back slightly, while Shen Maomao landed on her bottom.
“Shen Maomao?” Yue Changping pushed his glasses, hiding the mysterious glint in his eyes, and deliberately blocked her path, “Where are you rushing off to?”
The hot-tempered Shen Maomao couldn’t maintain her elementary student act anymore. She got up, dusted off her pants, and said coldly: “Get lost!” Yue Changping smiled: “Who gave you permission to speak to a teacher like that?”
“A good dog doesn’t block the way!”
Yue Changping’s expression darkened: “You think having Xiaolou protecting you means you can do whatever you want? She can barely protect herself now, let alone you…”
Shen Maomao snorted dismissively: “Cleaners can’t randomly kill players. I haven’t broken any taboos, how can you touch me?”
Yue Changping looked at her sinisterly: “There are still two days left in the game. Can you guarantee you’ll never break any taboos?”
Shen Maomao replied indifferently: “But you can’t touch me today. Hurry up and move, I’m in a rush to buy your coffin.”
“Pfft…” Yue Changping laughed nervously, “No wonder you’re friends with Xiaolou, you both speak just as rudely…”
He laughed manically twice, then very gentlemanly bowed and stepped aside: “If you’re so eager to die, be my guest.”
Shen Maomao rushed out like a gust of wind, only catching her breath after running out of the teaching building.
This Cleaner was really easy to fool.
She had no idea about any of the death conditions – the fact that Cleaners couldn’t kill randomly was just her guess based on Yue Changping’s behavior and Lou Jingmo’s descriptions. Who knew she could successfully trick Yue Changping with just those few vague words!
She could brag about this for a year!
While searching up and down, she thought to herself: It seemed Yue Changping clearly knew about the taboos in this instance, and might even know if someone had broken themโor was he actively leading players to their doom?
Compared to the players, the instance seemed to favor the Cleaners. Could the Cleaners know more about the so-called ใConfession Gameใ and its creators?
Perhaps she could share these theories with Lou Jingmo when she found her…
With these thoughts, she searched several rounds through every corner, even pretending to look for someone while wandering through the teachers’ office.
Their school was just five stories tall, barely the size of a palm. She searched everywhere inside and out but couldn’t find the people she was looking for.
Lou Jingmo and Golden Retriever had vanished into thin air.
When the class bell rang, Shen Maomao returned to the classroom with an unusually dejected mood.
She was the only one left in Class 2-1, and the other teachers had disappeared too, never appearing in the classroom again. She sat alone at her desk, feeling particularly lonely.
This was the fifth day of the game, and she had lost contact with Lou Jingmo. But she was certain Lou Jingmo was still alive, just didn’t know where she was.
Shen Maomao lay on her desk, staring irritably at the bright sunlight outside the window.
Something must have gone wrong last night when Lou Jingmo and the others went to explore the school at night and didn’t return. If only she had gone with them.
Shen Maomao’s mind was in chaos, not knowing what to do.
The classroom was exceptionally quiet, nothing like the bustling atmosphere of her first day. The teachers seemed to have silently accepted Class 2-1’s disappearance and dissolution, with no one checking on the class all morning.
She even began to doubt the reality of her current time and space.
After wasting the entire morning, Shen Maomao decided she couldn’t just wait for death and began searching for clues on her own.
This time, she snuck outside the school during lunch break, searching around the school grounds for half a day, but still found nothing.
How could such big people just vanish without a trace?
Could they have found the exit and escaped without her?
Shen Maomao fell into an indescribable panic, but immediately rejected this unreliable speculationโSister wouldn’t abandon her.
If an exit had appeared with such commotion, she couldn’t have been completely unaware, and besides, Yue Changping hadn’t left yet, which surely meant the others were fine.
After wandering all day, Shen Maomao tiredly returned to the empty classroom.
It was lunch break time, and the whole school had fallen into silence, like a quiet and oppressive graveyard.
This silence made Shen Maomao very anxious. She desperately wanted to make some noise to prove she was still alive, but in the end, she remained quiet, slumping onto her desk, facing Lou Jingmo’s desk, as if staring at it would make Lou Jingmo appear.
As she stared, she seemed to hear a faint “crack” sound near her ear.
At first, Shen Maomao thought it was her imagination, because the sound was so close, almost as if it was coming from inside her ear.
She lifted her head, and the sound grew fainter, almost disappearing. It turned out the sound wasn’t coming from her ear, but from her desk surface!!
She opened her eyes wide to look at the desk surface, and saw that a small scratch had appeared on the originally smooth desk!
The scratch kept growing, first a downward stroke, then an upward flick, as if writing a character.
After the upward flick came a vertical stroke with a hook, and before the character was even complete, Shen Maomao had already guessed what it was writingโ
It was “ๅฏ”, the “mao” from Shen Maomao.
She jumped up immediately and rushed to the office to borrow a knife.
In the second-grade teachers’ office, there was only one teacher, who was sound asleep at their desk.
She couldn’t worry about taking without asking, and grabbed a small knife from a teacher’s pencil holder, then quickly ran back to the classroom.
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