The Hand of Confession – Chapter 154

Volume 6: Days of Being Zapped in the Lab

Three-Party Talks

Money Makes the Mare Go¹

After coming out of the Instance, Lou Jingmo had become exceptionally cold, and Shen Maomao couldn’t help but feel somewhat lost and disappointed².

However, during this time, she had to prepare her graduation materials and thesis, and hadn’t found the time to talk with Lou Jingmo again.

Before she knew it, a week had passed. It wasn’t until Golden Retriever³ showed up at her door that Shen Maomao suddenly realized she hadn’t thought about the Instance matters for a long time.

The day Golden Retriever came, she was racking her brains over her thesis content to the point of breakdown. When the doorbell rang, the train of thought she had finally managed to sort out was instantly disrupted, making her so angry she flung the pen in her hand.

Barefoot on the carpet, she walked the few steps to the door and furiously answered the video call, wanting to see who had disturbed her train of thought.

The first thing bursting into the camera view was a head of brilliant blond hair, followed by a face magnified by the video feed. Golden Retriever’s energetic voice reached her ears: “Rabbit Sis! I’m here!!”

Shen Maomao didn’t open the door for him, instead showing him a sweet smile: “Oh, you’re here?”

Golden Retriever inexplicably felt a chill down his spine⁴ and asked aggrievedly at the camera: “What did I do wrong again? Eh? Why did I use again?”

The frustration Shen Maomao had pent up from a whole day of failing to come up with a thesis topic inexplicably dissipated. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud, opening the door to let him in.

After a short while, Golden Retriever came up in the elevator. As soon as he pulled the door open, Shen Maomao discovered he had a little tag-along⁵ behind him.

Shen Maomao got a pair of slippers each for the big kid and the little kid, closed the door properly, and asked Golden Retriever: “Who’s this? Your son??”

“What son!! This is my nephew!!” Golden Retriever gave the little boy wearing a small suit vest a gentle push, “Quick, Xixi⁶, call her Jiejie.”

Shen Maomao slapped Golden Retriever on the back of the head: “What Jiejie, call me Xiao Yi⁷.”

Watching the interaction between the two, the little boy suddenly said: “Are you my Xiao Jiuma⁸?”

“Cough cough—” Shen Maomao nearly choked on her own saliva, “Little friend, don’t misunderstand. Your Xiao Jiu is my little brother.”

Little Xixi’s eyes lit up: “Does that mean you’re a big sister boss of society⁹?”

Shen Maomao couldn’t help but chuckle: “What on earth is inside that little head¹⁰ of yours? I’m a good, law-abiding¹¹ citizen.”

Xixi lowered his head in disappointment.

Golden Retriever said: “He’s my sister’s kid, named Xu Jianxi¹². They’re going through a divorce recently, and there’s no one to look after the kid, so I had to bring him along.”

Shen Maomao: “Oh. So, what did you come here for?”

Golden Retriever looked aggrieved: “I went to help Xiaolou-jie investigate that school matter!”

This was serious business. Shen Maomao’s expression turned serious: “How did it go?”

Golden Retriever: “There’s a real-world parallel, but…”

“Wait a second!” Shen Maomao suddenly interrupted him. “Let me call our brains of the operation¹³. Also, little Xixi, the adults need to talk business now. Could you go upstairs and play the game console by yourself?”

Two little stars seemed to sparkle in Xixi’s eyes. Deng deng deng, he scrambled upstairs. Shen Maomao followed behind him, saw him into her room, turned on the game console for him, then closed the door and left.

She knocked on Lou Jingmo’s study door: “Lou-jie? Stop your creative work for a bit, Golden Retriever’s here.”

Lou Jingmo answered, and a few minutes later, opened the door and went downstairs with her.

Three-party talks. They finally had some time to properly sort through the details of these two Instances.

The previous Instance was the school, the main boss was Chen Meihan, and it was in that ‘Instance’ that Shen Maomao obtained the Feili Mama Card.

During this period, Golden Retriever had mobilized his connections and finally dug up that story buried deep in time.

In reality, there wasn’t so much talk of gods and ghosts¹⁴; people who died were truly dead, and couldn’t possibly inflict any further punishment on the living.

Ghosts and spirits were useless, but the law was useful. The incident caused a huge stir at the time. Chen Meihan died after jumping from a building, Zhao Zhuyu was arrested and imprisoned, sentenced to life¹⁵, never able to get out of prison in this lifetime.

And Zhao Chunhua was also forced to resign after Zhao Zhuyu left, moving the entire family away from the area to start over in a place where nobody knew them.

The bad people received their punishment, yet Shen Maomao always felt it wasn’t enough. For that kind of scum, spending a lifetime in prison seemed far too easy.

If the purpose of the 《Confession Game》 really is to punish the guilty, then someone like Zhao Zhuyu should probably spend the rest of his life in endless fear, right?

“I was originally thinking if I could do something for them, but the main victim¹⁶ is already dead, Chen Meihan’s parents have a new child, and Zhao Chunhua’s family also has a completely new life.” Golden Retriever smiled, but his smile was filled with bitterness. “However, I feel like none of them need me to do anything.”

The living are all moving forward; only the dead remain trapped in the long river of time. Tiny little Chen Meihan, struck by a huge wave, wouldn’t struggle for long before sinking ‘glug glug’ into the river, never to surface again.

“I also inquired about Zhao Zhuyu. He’s already served¹⁷ five years in prison. Now it seems he’s having some mental problems. I suspect he’s been pulled into the Game.”

Shen Maomao breathed a slight sigh of relief. She wasn’t a malicious person, but at this moment, she couldn’t help but sincerely wish he could enter that school Instance, letting Chen Meihan decide for herself whether to take revenge.

Golden Retriever continued: “Also, about those stranded players, I drew all the ones I could remember and asked friends with relevant connections to look for them. But because the age range is too wide, I’m afraid there won’t be much progress in the short term.”

Shen Maomao praised him: “You drew them? Didn’t realize you were actually a master artist¹⁸?”

Golden Retriever: “No, no, I was just a specialty student¹⁹. My grades were really terrible, so I had to learn a special skill to rely on, that sort of thing.”

With the Instance before last clarified, Shen Maomao planned to discuss the last Instance with Lou Jingmo: “Lou-jie, did you get a clear picture of what was going on in the last Instance?”

Lou Jingmo: “I could guess a little. The one with independent consciousness in the Instance should be Wutong. Huang Hongxing was an accident.”

“An accident?” Shen Maomao rephrased her question, “Was he a bug²⁰?”

Lou Jingmo: “Not exactly. Just an NPC who somehow gained independent consciousness.”

The protective shield above the funeral home instantly disintegrated after Huang Hongxing died. Even if he wasn’t the one who set it up, it must have been inextricably linked²¹ to him.

Huang Hongxing had lied. He appeared to be wholeheartedly seeking death²², but in reality, he had become aware of his NPC status. That’s why he proactively sought them out, faked his death to attach himself to Shen Maomao, likely planning to come to the real world with them.

This speculation arose because after being caught by the mourning family members, Huang Hongxing had yelled out in breakdown, “I was about to succeed!” Succeed at what? Judging from the situation at the time, Lou Jingmo’s guess was the most plausible.

But how could data possibly come to reality? If his family members hadn’t dragged him out, the result of this approach would have simply been dragging Shen Maomao down to die with him.

Beyond this, Lou Jingmo couldn’t think of any better angle to explain Huang Hongxing’s actions.

As for those family members who came to the funeral—she felt her deduction was correct: they came to attend Huang Hongxing’s funeral, but not to mourn; rather, they were enemies coming to send Huang Hongxing on his way²³.

As for the specific grievances between them and Huang Hongxing, perhaps only the deceased Huang Hongxing himself knew.

Besides Huang Hongxing, another person who was also complicated for Shen Maomao was Guan Qiwen.

Guan Qiwen was a shrewd businessman. Shen Maomao could believe him saying he was afraid Lou Jingmo would refuse to bring him along. But when he said he forgot to tell Lou Jingmo the truth because he was too busy, Shen Maomao didn’t believe it one bit.

Telling Lou Jingmo in advance would have allowed her to be better prepared, increasing their chances of surviving the Instance. How could someone as calculating as Guan Qiwen possibly forget such a crucial matter just like that?

Also, how did he obtain the important prop, the 《Hundred Ghosts Picture》? They had never asked for details about this, and Guan Qiwen hadn’t explained either. At the time, Guan Qiwen’s explanation was “someone stuffed it into my arms, so I just took it and looked at it.” Shen Maomao had actually fallen for his nonsense.

—Why was it stuffed specifically into Guan Qiwen’s arms, and not theirs? Was Guan Qiwen a moron²⁴? Daring to accept anything someone hands him?

“So what exactly is Guan Qiwen trying to do?” she asked Lou Jingmo.

Golden Retriever: “F%ck²⁵? Guan Qiwen?? Which Guan Qiwen? The one from Qixing Group?”

Shen Maomao nodded.

Golden Retriever nearly jumped up: “F%ck²⁶! What did that son of a b%tch²⁷ do? Heaven really does have eyes²⁸!!”

Shen Maomao: “You have a grudge against him?”

Golden Retriever: “No, he’s the ‘other family’s kid’²⁹, always the most outstanding since childhood. Took over Qixing Group at twenty, nearly doubled the Guan family’s assets in a few years… My mom told me every single day to learn from him, annoying me so much I wished I could tear him apart with my bare hands! I knew he couldn’t possibly be as outstanding as he seemed on the surface! What on earth did he do?”

“Don’t know,” Shen Maomao said truthfully.

Lou Jingmo said: “He was likely targeting me.”

Shen Maomao: “Hm?”

Lou Jingmo: “I’m not clear on his specific plan either. This Instance was probably meant to test my abilities.”

There was another point Lou Jingmo didn’t mention: things like Cards can ‘drop’³⁰, just like equipment drops from defeated monsters in games—no matter where a person stores their Cards, upon their death, the Cards will immediately drop nearby, available for anyone to pick up.

She said she wasn’t sure about Guan Qiwen’s intentions, but she actually already had a rough guess in mind: Guan Qiwen was very likely aiming for her Cards, but simply hadn’t found an opportunity during this Instance.

Shen Maomao still didn’t understand the twists and turns³¹ in Guan Qiwen’s mind, and could only attribute it all to Guan Qiwen being a toxic³² person.

She said: “Lou-jie, let’s not accept any more tasks from him in the future!”

Lou Jingmo said indifferently: “Since he’s proactively sending money my way, why wouldn’t I accept it?”

Shen Maomao: “…” Fine then. In the face of absolute strength, all tricks are just paper tigers³³.

Golden Retriever lazily flopped onto the sofa and sighed: “I won’t leave for the next few days. I feel like my next Instance is coming soon. Xiaolou-jie, you have to save me.”

Lou Jingmo: “Just pay.”

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