The Hand of Confession – Chapter 100

Volume 4: Days of Making Mischief at School

Sudden Change

Don’t come to school at night

As the sun set in the west, the school was bathed in golden twilight, with distant mountains draped in golden clouds, and the sky filled with patches of evening glow.

Did a rain of blood take away countless lives? The puddles on the playground slowly seeped into the soil, leaving behind corpses on the ground, bleached white from soaking.

No one dealt with the corpses, no one notified the parents. All teachers and students turned a blind eye to these corpses. In the entire school, it seemed only Shen Maomao could see them, like an outsider.

She sat in the empty classroom, counting the hands on the clock face until 4:30, when the dismissal bell rang right on time.

September weather was like a child’s face—changing without warning. After the rain at noon, the afternoon returned to sunny, with sunset light penetrating through the windows, shining on every child inside the classroom and on the playground.

On this rare sunny day, parents didn’t need umbrellas, so no black umbrellas would appear, unlike yesterday’s visually shocking dismissal scene.

Some parents silently collected their children’s corpses from the playground, without wailing to heaven and earth [meaning: crying hysterically], and without demanding explanations from the school. It was as if what died were just cats and dogs, not their children.

Only one parent came to Class 2-1—Mother Shen.

Mother Shen was startled when she saw her: “Maomao?! Are you hurt?!”

Shen Maomao explained: “No, mama, I just went out to play when the red rain was falling.”

Mother Shen furrowed her brows: “Why are you so mischievous?”

Then she picked up her schoolbag and said: “Don’t do this again next time, the rain is dirty and dangerous.” After saying this, she took her hand to lead her home.

Shen Maomao stood at the classroom doorway without moving, looking at her with big eyes.

Mother Shen turned back and asked: “What’s wrong, Maomao?”

“Mama, I…” Shen Maomao hesitated, then said: “I don’t want to go home today.”

Mother Shen, puzzled, crouched down to look at her: “Why?”

Shen Maomao made up a random excuse: “Because I… I don’t like the auntie on the third floor, she looks scary, she’ll definitely sneak into our home and eat me.”

After she said this with a serious face, Mother Shen didn’t think she was talking nonsense, but instead her expression became very grave, and she stroked Shen Maomao’s head lovingly: “Then shall we stay at a hotel today?”

Shen Maomao shook her head: “I don’t want to, I want to stay at school.”

Mother Shen helplessly tried to reason with her: “No one can stay at school at night, and how would you stay here? There’s no bed, no blankets, it’ll be cold at night, Maomao will catch a cold.”

Shen Maomao deployed her ultimate technique of acting cute and coquettish: “Mama… can we stay at school today and play hide-and-seek with the security uncle? Please? Please please please?”

After saying this, Shen Maomao felt like an idiot. If her daughter had made such a fuss about staying at school, she would definitely give her a big slap to teach her what cruelty means.

However, Mother Shen was a democratic and merciful mama. Instead of being cruel, she continued to reason with her helplessly: “Maomao, it’ll be cold at night, and once we want to leave, we won’t be able to get out. The security uncle will lock the school gates.”

“Mama, can we just try it? Please agree, mama?” Shen Maomao pursed her lips and blinked at her.

She had no choice, she had to stay to find out where Lou Jingmo and Golden Retriever had gone.

If she went home with Mother Shen now, let alone whether she’d be allowed to leave once home, just that Liu Ayi on the third floor would definitely not let her off easily.

Shen Maomao felt she couldn’t delay any longer, even if Mother Shen began to suspect her, she had to stay.

If worst came to worst, she’d just hug the teacher’s desk and not let go. Mother Shen was just a delicate woman, surely she couldn’t forcibly take away her struggling troublesome child… right?

—Maybe she’d get an ice pick gift package or something.

Fortunately, Mother Shen hadn’t yet thought about killing the child she had worked so hard to protect. She struggled for a few seconds, then compromised: “We’ll wait in the classroom for a while, but if someone tries to chase us out, you have to be good and come home with me.”

The joy came so suddenly that Shen Maomao happily gave Mother Shen a one-sided high-five: “Thank you, mama! Mama is the best!”

Mother Shen rolled her eyes: “Now you know your mama is good.”

Shen Maomao just giggled.

Mother and daughter sat in the classroom, watching the shadows slowly move across the room, until all voices faded away and the classroom door was locked from outside with a click, with no one discovering the two people hiding inside.

The security guard didn’t even glance inside when locking the door.

Mother Shen became anxious and was about to speak when Shen Maomao grabbed her arm.

Shen Maomao pointed at the window, gesturing for her to stay calm.

Mother Shen helplessly pinched her little nose.

After the elderly security locked the door and left, having survived the first step, Shen Maomao let out a small sigh of relief. She and Mother Shen exchanged smiles, sharing a sense of complicity like partners in crime.

The sun gradually disappeared at the horizon, the moon climbed to the treetops, casting hazy tree shadows into the classroom.

Mother Shen took off her jacket, intending to put it around Shen Maomao, when the strange change suddenly occurred—

The classroom suddenly underwent a transformation, starting from the blackboard and gradually transitioning toward the back of the room. The once-new blackboard became covered in rust; the neatly arranged desks and chairs became completely disordered; the clean and tidy floor became covered with a thick layer of dust.

Shen Maomao suddenly stood up, and Mother Shen’s hand holding the jacket froze in mid-air.

This boundary between new and old spread backward at a steady pace, quickly passing over the two of them, past this classroom, extending toward more distant places.

In the blink of an eye, the classroom had completely transformed.

Mother Shen said in confusion: “This is…”

Shen Maomao’s ears twitched twice, seemingly hearing something unusual from outside. She put her finger to her lips, softly made a “shh—” sound, then walked to the cracked door and peered through the gap.

Outside came the sound of hurried footsteps. From Shen Maomao’s low position, she could only see two pairs of small feet quickly flash past, followed by a pair of unhurried red high heels. Though the steps weren’t large, they moved quickly, closely following the two children ahead.

Shen Maomao held her breath, not daring to make a sound.

“Maomao?” Mother Shen suddenly said.

Shen Maomao’s heart skipped a beat as she watched the high heels that had left her view suddenly reappear at the edge of her vision, with the toe pointing in her direction!

She quickly pressed herself against the white wall, frantically shaking her head at Mother Shen.

Mother Shen hadn’t received her signal and kept asking: “What’s wrong? What’s out there?”

Shen Maomao didn’t dare answer, standing there trembling with fear for what felt like ages, but nothing happened.

Her eyes rolled slightly as she continued making shushing gestures at Mother Shen while crouching down to look through the crack again.

Then she saw bloodshot eyes magnified before her, with tiny black pupils that kept trembling…

She let out a short scream and fell backward onto her bottom, her voice cutting off abruptly as she began breathing heavily, unable to control herself.

An overwhelming sense of fear engulfed her. Her legs were so weak she could barely move, everything around her had disappeared from her vision except those blood-red eyes and that black pupil…

“Maomao?” Mother Shen’s hand rested on her shoulder, then lifted her up from the ground, “What did you see?”

That overwhelming fear disappeared in an instant, and she could only feel Mother Shen’s warm embrace and a comforting fragrance.

She took two quick breaths, her small arms wrapping around her neck, and tattled to her cheap mother: “Mama, there’s a scary auntie outside, she glared at me, I almost got a heart attack.”

Mother Shen furrowed her brows, carried Shen Maomao forward, and kicked open the classroom’s decrepit door.

The aged wood easily shattered into pieces with the kick. Mother Shen pressed her daughter’s head against her shoulder, like a tigress whose cub had been stolen, looking left and right, but after searching for a while, couldn’t find any trace of anyone.

Mother Shen didn’t doubt her female goose [meaning: daughter] was lying, but instead stroked the back of her head and said: “Don’t be afraid, Maomao, there’s no one here now. Next time if we see that auntie, mama will definitely help you beat her up.”

Shen Maomao carefully raised her head, looked around, and also found nothing.

That woman seemed to have vanished from their sight in an instant.

Shen Maomao looked around at the completely transformed school.

The corridor walls were covered with gray handprints and messy writing. Some places had suspicious dark red marks that made one involuntarily wonder if they were dried bloodstains. Boston ivy had grown in through the broken windows, covering the entire corridor ceiling, patches of green and red splitting the moonlight and casting mottled shadows on the ground.

Shen Maomao patted Mother Shen’s shoulder and said in a milky voice: “Mama, you can put me down now, I’m not scared anymore.”

Mother Shen set her down as requested and comfortingly patted her little head.

Shen Maomao walked on her short legs to the corridor wall and carefully examined the writing.

The writing was both old and new – some parts were blurred beyond recognition, while others were clear, as if written recently.

March 14, 2019

Today is the fifth day of being hunted. My sense of time seems to be gradually fading. When will this endless hiding finally stop?

December 25, 2019

Let me out… let me out… let me out… 【illegible】

September 8, 2019

I don’t want to die yet… I know I was wrong… February 19, 2019

Sorry sorry sorry 【illegible】

…

These writings had different years and different handwriting styles. Some recorded monsters, some were confessing mistakes, and some simply noted down a time and name…

Shen Maomao felt her heart pounding as she read, wondering what they had all been through. Moreover, all the dates on the wall exceeded the game instance’s time period, all uniformly from 2019!

She suddenly remembered the two small feet that had hurriedly fled from her sight, and then recalled the writing on her desk—

Could Lou Jingmo be trapped here?

Thinking of this, she quickly rushed back to the classroom and found a desk near her seat. She looked at its surface.

There was a fresh set of scratches that clearly read—”Shen Maomao, don’t come to school at night—Xiaolou.”

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