The Hand of Confession – Chapter 146

Volume 5: Days of Applying Makeup to Corpses

Flying Head Monster¹

Surveillance footage

According to his account, the memorial service began shortly after they left, and the subsequent series of tragedies occurred during the time they were fleeing.

Guan Qiwen: “I don’t know where everyone else ran off to, but they probably haven’t left the funeral home premises.”

He glanced at the two of them and asked, “What about you? Where did you go?”

Shen Maomao answered truthfully, “We went outside to play a game of life and death.”

Guan Qiwen: “?”

“The fog is full of corpses, including the dead, the living, and us.”

Guan Qiwen: “???”

Shen Maomao explained expressionlessly, “You’re awake? We’re actually all dead.”

Guan Qiwen, his face full of disbelief, pinched his own cheek and came to his senses again: “Impossible. I can still feel pain. I’m still alive!”

Lou Jingmo: “We’re not dead now, but if we can’t find an exit, we’re undoubtedly doomed.”

Guan Qiwen naturally understood this as well, so he scratched his head and asked, “So what’s the situation outside?”

Shen Maomao: “I don’t know.”

He asked again, “Then do you have any clues?” He was asking both of them, but looking at Lou Jingmo, clearly not taking Shen Maomao seriously.

However, Lou Jingmo intentionally wanted to train Shen Maomao’s ability to organize the plot, so she turned to her and asked, “What do you think?”

Shen Maomao said hesitantly, “This… this funeral home, it should have started being haunted since National Day². Several people inside have died. Only one leader who watched the surveillance footage discovered something, ran away early, and now it’s uncertain whether he’s alive or dead.”

“And then… we arrived. After we arrived, there were inexplicably many people, and the meals were sometimes edible and sometimes not. According to Lou-jie’s idea, the tasteless food is what we should eat. Based on the behavior of other ghosts, I think it seems like we’re eating two kinds of food, but they’re essentially the same—the tastelessness is because the flavor has been extracted for the next meal, which is why this situation occurs. Ghosts absorb essence³, humans eat to fill their stomachs. If I’m not mistaken, those delicacies can only satisfy cravings, they can’t actually satiate hunger.”

Lou Jingmo showed an expression of approval, giving Shen Maomao enough courage. She took a deep breath and continued, “Then there’s this Hundred Ghosts Picture. I think there’s something strange about this picture. Perhaps the way to get out is to start with it, but I can’t say exactly what’s strange about it. And that surveillance room, I think we need to find it.”

“Now the main group has dispersed, and most of the people are dead. From now on, we can’t trust anyone we meet. It’s better to rely on ourselves than to form alliances. By the way, we can also see if we can find that leader.”

Finally, she concluded, “So we’d better find the surveillance first, and then make other decisions. That’s about it, I can’t think of anything else for now.”

Lou Jingmo took over the conversation: “That’s already very good. There are still some rooms we haven’t been able to open. We need to find keys to get in.”

As for where the keys are, based on how they obtained the previous keys, she speculated that they would be on the corpses.

Shen Maomao suddenly remembered something, slapped her hands together, looked at Guan Qiwen, and said, “Right! Where did you put Gong Lian?!”

Guan Qiwen said helplessly, “I searched Gong Lian’s body. There was nothing.”

“Nothing?” Shen Maomao didn’t believe that Lou Jingmo’s deduction could be wrong.

Guan Qiwen: “Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that someone took it.”

After all, not all the veteran players are useless. What they can think of, others can naturally think of as well.

Lou Jingmo thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s go check the incinerator. Maybe we’ll find something.”

That’s right, besides Gong Lian, there was another corpse, San Huang, who jumped into the incinerator himself.

While everyone was in the main building, the three of them quietly slipped into the cremation room.

Behind the incinerator, there’s usually a box that serves as a collection container. The ashes and bone fragments after the cremation are automatically swept into the box, making it easier for the staff to grind the bones that couldn’t be completely burned.

The box was covered with a layer of dust, and there were four fresh fingerprints on it, probably belonging to the middle-aged woman.

“Looking at it this way…” Shen Maomao said softly, “We should be late, I’m afraid the key…”

As she spoke, she pulled out the drawer-like box, and a flash of silver light suddenly caught her eye.

The second half of the sentence naturally couldn’t be uttered. Shen Maomao pinched her sleeve and carefully picked up the key from a pile of unidentified ashes, shaking it twice: “So who didn’t take the key this morning?”

The possibility was too small. Only a fool would leave an important prop behind.

Lou Jingmo said lightly, “Maybe it’s San Huang thanking you for your efforts to save him earlier.”

She would believe it if it was said that Gong Lian was thanking her, but San Huang—

Shen Maomao suddenly felt that the key in her hand was burning hot. Could San Huang be plotting against her?

Lou Jingmo extended her hand to her: “Give me the key.”

Shen Maomao tossed the key over. Lou Jingmo caught it, flipped her wrist, and pinched only the end of one of the keys, handing the head of the key to them to see.

A piece of white paper was stuck on this key, and the words “Surveillance” were written on it in blue pen.

Shen Maomao was deeply suspicious: “It’s this smooth? I seriously suspect that San Huang is trying to mess with us!!”

Guan Qiwen said, “It’s not necessarily San Huang. These keys don’t belong to the deceased; they just appeared on them after they died.”

Shen Maomao vowed, “Then it’s the game that’s trying to mess with us!”

Lou Jingmo curled her lips: “Hasn’t the game messed with us enough? Since the key has been delivered, let’s go and see what the game wants us to know.”

“I understand the logic,” Shen Maomao said, “but where is the surveillance room?”

Lou Jingmo: “…”

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The sun rose higher and higher, and the accumulated water from the morning showed signs of drying up. The family members who had finished gnawing on the corpses continued the funeral. Funeral music⁴ flowed out from the half-open door of the main hall, but the person being mourned had already changed.

They finally found the location of the surveillance room, in a small yellow building next to the main building.

Lou Jingmo used the key to open the door of the surveillance room, started the computer, and found the surveillance footage neatly arranged by surveillance point and time in my computer. She double-clicked the mouse and first opened the video from October 2nd, fast-forwarding to the part mentioned in the diary where the vase shattered.

In the black-and-white surveillance footage, in the empty hall, a person-tall vase moved without any wind, and after a few violent shakes, it crashed to the ground, turning into a pile of fragments.

And in the middle of the fragments, a ball of hair, about the size of a human head and seemingly made of tangled hair, bounced out. The hairball bounced twice, jumped onto the face of a middle-aged man who happened to be passing by, and instantly wrapped the man’s entire head. The man was completely unaware, continued to walk forward, and even stood in front of the broken vase for a while, then walked out of the building.

Shen Maomao: “What the hell is that?!”

Guan Qiwen took out his Hundred Ghosts Picture, and flipped through it rapidly: “This is called a Flying Head Monster, a kind of ghost that likes to attach itself to other people’s heads. The head of the possessed person will fly away from the body during sleep, scaring and causing trouble everywhere. This kind of ghost is also called a Long-Necked Monster⁵, and they like to move in groups. After nightfall, their necks will stretch, and then their entire head, along with the neck, will fly out to strangle people who are sleeping.”

Shen Maomao: “What a disgusting ghost.”

Lou Jingmo watched the screen intently, manually fast-forwarding the surveillance until figures reappeared on the footage.

The first to enter the surveillance range was a girl who looked reluctant, followed by two men. More and more people arrived, standing in a row in front of the broken vase, as if waiting for something.

After a short while, the man with a head full of hair appeared in the video. He stood in front of everyone, with his hands behind his back, and said something, but the camera couldn’t capture sound, so they couldn’t know what he said.

This group of people talked for a while, then began to walk towards the depths of the corridor, quickly moving out of the surveillance range.

Shen Maomao understood in her heart that the destination of these people was the surveillance room where they were.

“So the person whose head was targeted by the Flying Head Monster is that manager? But he’s not bald.”

Guan Qiwen: “…Is your focus a little off?”

Lou Jingmo: “It seems he also saw this surveillance footage, which is why he panicked and took leave.”

She dragged the progress bar back, back to the beginning when the man first appeared, and zoomed in on the image on the surveillance little by little. The man’s appearance finally became clear before their eyes.

“Huang Hongxing?!” Shen Maomao exclaimed his name in surprise.

She recalled the corpses with their heads detached that she had seen in the fog before, and asked uncertainly, “So those people were killed by Huang Hongxing? Isn’t he already dead? His body is still in the hands of the Yaksha, and why did he commit suicide in the first place? How many Huang Hongxings have we seen?”

Lou Jingmo said, “There’s only one. The real body is outside, the soul is inside the funeral home.”

If that’s the case, then Huang Hongxing is a ghost, but he can live inside the funeral home that prevents Yaksha from entering—to be precise, the inside of the funeral home should be full of ghosts.

Lou Jingmo added, “Actually, there are two folk sayings about Yaksha. One is that they are extremely fierce ghosts, and the other is that they are underworld messengers⁶.”

Two completely opposite sayings refer to the same creature. It was also difficult for Lou Jingmo to decide which saying was correct.

Guan Qiwen said, “Whether it’s a ghost or a Yaksha, it’s in opposition to us. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have attacked us as soon as we went out.”

Shen Maomao vaguely felt that something was wrong, so she followed her intuition and reminded Lou Jingmo, “Lou-jie, look for the most recent surveillance footage!”

Lou Jingmo said, “You’re making things difficult for me.” As she spoke, she opened various disks and searched in the upper right corner according to the naming format of the previous videos.

After a short waiting period, a large number of similarly named MP4 format videos appeared below. Lou Jingmo sorted them in chronological order and then opened the one at the top.

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The author has something to say:

Many comments were blocked by the system because they weren’t reviewed (:з」∠) I don’t know what you said either. Recently, I’ve been busy with the “Four Enters, Four Faiths”⁷ thesis, and I don’t have much time to reply to comments. I’ll find time to reply later -3-

Please don’t overthink the novel qaq. The disadvantage of not having an outline is that better ideas only come while writing. I want to make major changes to this instance, but I don’t have much energy right now qwq. Don’t think too much, just listen to me, ok!!

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