The Hand of Confession – Chapter 114

Volume 4: Days of Making Mischief at School

Fei Li

So mother will leave together with you.

Shen Maomao: “……” This idea seemed somewhat impractical.

“Does she have to become an empty-nester?!”

Lou Jingmo: “……” Can’t understand what’s going on in this rabbit’s head.

Not noticing Lou Jingmo’s speechlessness, Shen Maomao thought for a moment and asked: “What if she throws a fit and forces us to stay?”

Lou Jingmo smiled: “That’s simple enough…”

Shen Maomao felt a glimmer of hope.

Lou Jingmo: “She’ll only make you stay.”

Shen Maomao: “……” Damn, Lou Jingmo, you old b*tch! [LP: lmao]

She looked at the two ghosts before her. Chen Meihan wore an expression of someone enjoying the show, while Mother Shen stubbornly stared at her, waiting for her answer.

This is difficult.

With extreme reluctance, she looked at Mother Shen and said with difficulty: “Mama, I don’t belong here. I need to return to my own home. If I stay here, I’ll die! Actually, I’m really afraid of death…”

Mother Shen’s face darkened a shade.

Shen Maomao hurriedly added: “I really want to take you with me too, but I can’t!”

“Really?” Mother Shen asked.

Shen Maomao nodded; she truly liked Mother Shen.

Mother Shen walked toward her step by step, her expression as dark as if she was planning to silence her permanently.

Yet Shen Maomao didn’t move. She stood her ground without retreating, looking seriously into Mother Shen’s eyes.

Because Mother Shen was a good mother, and she believed she wouldn’t harm her daughter.

Sure enough, Mother Shen just walked up to her and reached out her right hand to touch her cheek.

Her hand was still ice-cold, but Shen Maomao wasn’t afraid; instead, she affectionately nuzzled against her hand.

Lou Jingmo consciously made way for the mother-daughter pair, not wanting to be a light bulb [電燈泡 | diàndēngpào | meaning someone who interrupts an intimate moment].

Mother Shen sighed, seeming both gratified and resigned: “Maomao, you’re mama’s favorite daughter, so mama doesn’t want you to die here either.”

Shen Maomao: “??!” That’s a lot to process.

What does she mean by — favorite daughter? Does she have other daughters?

Mother Shen knelt down before her and continued: “These seven days with you have been delightful. You’re a good child, and a kind child, so—”

She paused, and suddenly her body emitted an icy blue light: “So mama will leave with you.”

This light wasn’t warm; rather, it was intensely cold, as if capable of freezing everything in existence.

Lou Jingmo and Chen Meihan simultaneously retreated to the farthest corner. Chen Meihan, who was slightly slower, even had frost forming on her body.

Yet Shen Maomao, standing at the light’s epicenter, remained completely unharmed. She maintained her dumbfounded state as she watched the blue light lift Mother Shen into the air, then the light intensified until Mother Shen’s figure disappeared completely.

White snowflakes danced in the air, and pale blue frost spread outward from the center of the floor, quickly covering the entire room and beginning to climb up the walls.

The human and ghost had retreated to another room, while Shen Maomao stood in the room’s center, reaching out to catch a stream of light flying toward her.

The light gradually materialized in her hand, transforming into a rectangular card. The card depicted a woman surrounded by snowflakes and frost, her eyelids lowered, appearing to carry countless worries yet having no one to confide in.

—This card looks kind of like a Clow Card [庫洛牌 | Kù luò pái | reference to Cardcaptor Sakura anime/manga].

This was Shen Maomao’s first thought.

—This woman looks kind of like Mother Shen…

This was her second thought.

Lou Jingmo slipped across the ice out of the room. She wrapped her coat tightly around herself and urged: “Quick, let’s go. It’s freezing to death here.”

Shen Maomao gripped the card tightly and waved goodbye to Chen Meihan.

Chen Meihan good-naturedly bid them farewell, saying: “Goodbye! If we meet again, you must tell me how things went with your best friend!”

Shen Maomao: “……” Even as a ghost, she’s such a gossip!

“If you live until then, that is.” After leaving these words, Lou Jingmo grabbed Shen Maomao’s hand, and together they walked through the exit, vanishing from the instance.

After they disappeared, Chen Meihan approached the white light and gently extended her small hand to touch it. With a “crack”, her wrist twisted into several sections in different directions, as if about to perform a demonstration of flesh separating from bone.

She quickly withdrew her hand and laughed nervously at the exit, saying: “I’ll try my best…”

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Both people in the room opened their eyes simultaneously.

Shen Maomao looked down and found herself clutching a card.

She held the card up to her face and said in disbelief: “Th-th-th-th-th-this…” Isn’t this the Mother Shen card?!

Lou Jingmo glanced at her sideways, about to make a sarcastic comment, when a voice came from the phone in front of her—

“Sister Xiaolou! Sister Rabbit! You’re back too?!”

It was their overseas video call of seven days – Golden Retriever was smiling at them from across the ocean.

Shen Maomao suppressed her excitement and quietly tucked away the card.

Lou Jingmo picked up the phone and said to Golden Retriever: “Get your ass back here. I’m hanging up. Call if anything comes up.” With that, she ended the video call despite Golden Retriever’s protests.

The next second, she turned to Shen Maomao and said: “You’re quite clever now, knowing to be cautious of others.”

“You know…” Shen Maomao’s heart was pounding. She took out the card again, holding it at eye level, examining it over and over, touching it repeatedly, “For something this big, you’re the only one I trust.”

Lou Jingmo’s heart skipped a beat, and she awkwardly changed the subject: “If she can feel anything, what you’re doing now would be harassment.”

Shen Maomao immediately apologized to the card: “I’m sorry! I was wrong!”

Though after leaving the game and returning to being an adult, she found it hard to call out “Mama” anymore, considering Mother Shen was only five or six years older than her.

Lou Jingmo laughed: “Are you crazy? She can’t sense anything anymore.”

Lou Jingmo’s laugh had always been gentle – even when laughing out loud, she wouldn’t honk like a goose as Shen Maomao did, but rather emitted a refined, ladylike breath, though full of mockery.

Shen Maomao didn’t care about this slight mockery at all. She felt like she’d been hit on the head with five million – the kind made up of coins, almost giving her a concussion.

Since no items except the twelve cards could be brought into reality, this card could only be!!

Shen Maomao laughed like a goose.

Lou Jingmo said with disdain: “How undignified.”

Shen Maomao pressed the card to her heart, covering it with her hand while grinning foolishly: “So she was a card all along, no wonder she was so special hahaha, does this mean I’ve gained her approval?”

“What kind of dumb luck is this.” Lou Jingmo was amused, and explained, “This is Fei Li, one of the twelve cards, with the ability of Eternal Ice.”

Shen Maomao completely missed the point: “So her name is Fei Li?!”

Lou Jingmo: “……”

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Since Golden Retriever wasn’t there, the two didn’t discuss the plot much, to avoid having to repeat it when he returned. What Lou Jingmo was more concerned about now was the matter of Ren Yue.

At the mention of Ren Yue, Shen Maomao felt a double pain in her heart.

One layer physical, one layer emotional.

Lou Jingmo gently patted her shoulder twice: “If you want to cry, you can borrow my shoulder.”

Shen Maomao, the ultimate straight girl, sniffled, found she didn’t actually feel like crying, just felt completely lost, and so rejected Lou Jingmo’s rare offer of a kind embrace.

Lou Jingmo: “……”

Shen Maomao was completely unaware of what she’d missed. She listlessly took out her phone and stared at Ren Yue’s chat window in the social media app.

Their last conversation in reality was when she told Ren Yue she’d be staying out for a day, and Ren Yue replied telling her to be careful.

The irony was palpable.

The person who warned her to be careful had swung a blade at her, aiming straight for her heart – a fatal strike.

Shen Maomao clicked on the screen, and a popup window appeared from Ren Yue’s profile—

Block temporary conversations and stop receiving messages from this person.

Delete friend.

Cancel.

Her finger slowly moved, hovering over the bright red “Delete friend” button, and pressed down hard.

After doing this, she let go as if breaking free, letting the phone fall onto the sofa. A wave of heartache rushed to her nose, and she finally lost control, bursting into tears with a “wa”.

“Trash Ren Yue, wuwuwu…”

“Wuwuwu, you player!!”

“I’m such a failure, wa—”

Lou Jingmo felt angry, amused, and heartbroken all at once. She still offered that previously rejected embrace to Shen Maomao.

She pulled Shen Maomao into her arms, letting her head rest on her shoulder, wearing an expression of surprising gentleness even to herself, though her words weren’t as kind: “Didn’t I tell you to be careful of Ren Yue? Who told you not to listen? Serves you right.”

Shen Maomao immediately cried even louder, wiping her tears and snot on Lou Jingmo’s clothes while sobbing and shouting: “I’m already so miserable! Yet you’re still mocking me! Wa— I don’t want to live anymore!”

Lou Jingmo looked at the suspicious wet patch on her clothes, her temple twitching twice, but she endured it.

Never mind, mainly because this stupid rabbit was quite pitiful today.

After crying for most of the day, Shen Maomao successfully made her voice hoarse.

Now she sat on the sofa, holding a tissue while softly sobbing, her nose red from wiping, looking truly like a little rabbit.

Lou Jingmo sat beside her, fingers fidgeting before finally tucking them into her jacket pocket: “No need to think about it anymore, I probably know which prop she used.”

Shen Maomao blew her nose: “Wu… which one?”

Lou Jingmo: “It’s one of the twelve cards, one I don’t have.”

As she said this, a bloodthirsty smile appeared at the corners of her mouth, making Shen Maomao’s heart skip in fear, even forgetting to cry.

She weakly raised one hand and said softly: “Sister Lou… murder is illegal…”

Lou Jingmo smiled: “I never said I was going to kill her.”

Shen Maomao: “……” But your expression looks like you want to cut her into pieces.

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The author has something to say:

Reading Little Shimeng’s comment completely hit my funny bone, I forgot to say yesterday—

Maomao returning home: “Mom and Dad, this is my new mom I brought back, please get along well~”

Probably ended up as stir-fried bamboo shoots with meat [竹筍炒肉 | zhúsǔn chǎo ròu | idiom implying a messy situation].

And what’s with “Luanluan” hahaha???

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