The Hand of Confession – Chapter 156

Volume 6: Days of Being Zapped in the Lab

White Coats

Number Tag

The fear brought to her by that split second just now was enough to rival the several times she had died before. Shen Maomao seriously suspected that if she hadn’t quickly withdrawn her hand just then, she would have died right here, but she had no proof.

Leaving the cage without permission was probably one of the trigger conditions for death. It seemed she couldn’t go looking for Lou Jingmo for the time being.

She sat on the bed and rested for a while, feeling much better.

Anyway, she couldn’t get out now, and just sitting there wasting time wasn’t a wise move. So, Shen Maomao climbed off the bed and continued to study this small room.

The room had three walls, one wide and the other two narrow, forming a rectangle overall. The bed was placed vertically against the narrow wall on the left. The wall tiles were generally grayish-white, interspersed with large patches of emerald green moss.

Besides the moss, there seemed to be some words written on the wall.

She mustered her courage and wiped at it with her hand. Although it made her hand sticky and greasy, she also made out the words on it—rows upon rows of densely packed, neatly arranged “正”¹ characters had been carved into the wall surface, the kind that would make someone with trypophobia want to hit someone. It seemed like the person who previously lived in this room used this method to record time. She counted them; there were exactly 100 “正” characters, no more, no less.

If one stroke represented one day, then the previous owner of this cage had stayed here for at least 500 days, almost a year and a half.

Yes, cage.

In Shen Maomao’s eyes, these rooms were all cages, and they were little birds trapped within them. Even if the owner proactively opened the cage door wide, they wouldn’t dare to spread their wings and soar to the clouds.

There was also a small table in the cage. Not far from the table was a toilet. It looked like the person in charge of the prison intended for them to take care of eating, drinking, and excreting² all in one place.

Shen Maomao felt this probably wasn’t a prison. After all, they could already use flush toilets and electric lights; surely they could afford to install an iron door?

The layout of the entire cage was pretty much like this: bed, table, toilet; sleep, eat, excrete. There was a quilt³ on the bed, a bowl on the table. As for toiletries, there were none, let alone the mobile phone and WiFi she wished she had.

To prevent there being writing on the other two walls as well, Shen Maomao picked up a stone from the ground and scraped off all the moss, but she didn’t find any marks.

However, it wasn’t entirely fruitless—she discovered a very small surveillance camera, fixed to the wall directly above the bed, its head tilted to encompass the entire cage within its monitoring range, including the yellowish toilet. The camera blinked with a red light, proving it was still operating, and it had recorded all her actions just now.

Shen Maomao fell silent for a second, then silently climbed back onto the bed, shrinking herself into the corner of the wall, trying her best to let the camera not see her.

Some time had passed since she entered the game, but still no NPC had appeared to guide her, nor had anyone come to tell her what she should be doing now.

She touched the back of her neck. Although she couldn’t feel anything with her hand, she knew there was a beautiful pattern there, exactly the same as the one she had previously discovered on Lou Jingmo’s neck, so she wasn’t too panicked.

Time passed minute by minute, second by second. She felt a bit drowsy but didn’t want to lie down, so she buried her head in her knees and gently closed her eyes.

“Ah—!!”

Not long after closing her eyes, a scream suddenly shattered the silence.

Shen Maomao shivered, suddenly lifting her head, her occiput [the back of the head or skull] hitting the wall, causing a wave of dizziness.

The sound came from a man, a man in extreme fear or pain.

Beyond that, she couldn’t discern any more information from the sound.

The screaming continued, even more miserable than Huang Hongxing, who had been torn apart by the mourners that day. Shen Maomao couldn’t quite bear it, so she covered her ears, trembling as she huddled in the corner, planning to cover her ears and steal the bell⁴.

After a while longer, the screaming gradually faded, changing into a kind of “hulu”⁵ sound, like the breathing of a large beast.

Perhaps because of preconceived notions, she always felt this sound carried a hint of satiety⁶ after having eaten its fill.

She didn’t know if this man who was presumably eaten was a player or an NPC, or what taboo he had broken to be dragged off and fed to a beast.

The hulu sound also stopped before long, and the whole world fell silent again. Shen Maomao waited for a long time, but apart from hearing the toilet flush across the way, she couldn’t hear any other movement.

Someone lived opposite too, but she wasn’t sure who.

In this situation, she didn’t rashly make a sound, but quietly kept her eyes open, staring at a point in the void.

After enduring another period of time, Shen Maomao let out a big yawn. Halfway through the yawn, her tightly closed eyelids suddenly sensed a brightening of light. She immediately opened her eyes and found that the lights in the corridor had been turned on by someone.

The small space was completely illuminated. She saw the opposite side clearly; it was an identical cage to hers. A young man sat on the bed in the cage, currently also looking at her with wide eyes.

And besides the cage opposite, the two sides next to the man were also the same iron bars, allowing her to roughly guess what kind of environment they were currently in.

An endless corridor, countless bars, imprisoning who knows how many pairs of despairing eyes.

A sound of footsteps approached from far away, accompanied by some people’s whispers. Shen Maomao pricked up her ears and listened for a long time, faintly hearing only things like “Number 128” and “died.”

After just a couple of sentences, these people shut their mouths. Only the increasingly close, hurried footsteps remained, drifting over like a life-hastening talisman⁷.

Four people wearing white coats and green masks walked through the middle looking straight ahead, bringing a gust of wind filled with the smell of disinfectant.

Shen Maomao’s gaze followed them from right to left until they disappeared from her line of sight, then she lowered her eyes again.

People in white coats could be doctors or nurses, but this place didn’t look like a hospital ward no matter how she looked at it. That left only one other possibility—perhaps this was some kind of laboratory, and those people were researchers in the lab.

She just didn’t know what they were researching.

The lights were still on, the footsteps grew more distant. The man opposite stood up, walked step by step to the bars, and waved at her: “Hello?”

His voice was very soft, so soft Shen Maomao almost didn’t hear it.

Shen Maomao’s gaze swept over him, then shifted to the wall of his room, discovering a similarly blinking red dot directly above his bed.

She retracted her gaze, buried her head in her knees, not intending to respond to him.

The man wasn’t annoyed either and started trying to chat up the people on either side of her, though still, nobody paid him any attention.

After all, in such an environment, only someone with brain problems would respond to a complete stranger.

After the man’s several unsuccessful attempts to strike up conversation, the lights in the middle also went out at this time. So, he could only silently shrink back to his original spot, hiding himself in the darkness.

Shen Maomao didn’t open her eyes again, closing them to rest her mind for a while. As she rested, she lost consciousness.

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She was woken up by a piercing bell sound.

The bell was extremely ear-splitting, like it was ringing right beside her ear, making her head buzz.

She covered her ears, moved her stiff neck, climbed off the bed, and ran to the bars to observe the situation.

Amidst such a piercing bell sound, people in other cages opened their main doors and walked out with wooden faces, purposefully moving collectively in one direction, making no sound other than footsteps.

It was only then that Shen Maomao discovered that all these people had three-digit numbers carved on their backs, mostly non-repeating numbers starting with one.

Presumably, she would have such a number on her back too?

Shen Maomao hesitated slightly, unsure whether she should push the door open and go out now, or observe the situation a bit more.

“Creak—” With a sound, the man from the opposite door also pushed his door open and blended into the crowd. Shen Maomao clearly saw the number on his back: 290.

Inferring from the position, her number probably wouldn’t be too far from 290.

She hadn’t watched for long when she saw a familiar face mixed in the crowd, walking forward unhurriedly, observing the surroundings while walking. Among these identical numb expressions, that similarly stern face was exceptionally vivid, making Shen Maomao’s eyes light up with a “shua”⁸.

There was no need to hesitate any longer. She directly pulled open the main door, broke through the thorns and brambles⁹, squeezed her way to that person’s side, and her anxious heart settled back into her stomach.

As long as Lou-jie was here, it seemed like she didn’t need to fear any difficulty anymore.

Lou Jingmo glanced at her back, said nothing, nor showed any other expression; Shen Maomao deliberately fell one step behind her and clearly saw the number on Lou Jingmo’s back—287.

She secretly kept these three numbers in her heart, wondering if they might be useful later.

The crowd advanced a long distance, passing cage after identical cage. The narrow corridor seemed endless. They had no destination, could only advance, couldn’t turn back, step by step being led into a bottomless abyss¹⁰.

Shen Maomao’s hand underneath grasped Lou Jingmo’s hand.

Lou Jingmo withdrew her gaze from observing the surroundings, raised an eyebrow at her, as if asking what was the matter.

Shen Maomao gently shook her head, smiling at her placatingly.

Lou Jingmo nonchalantly retracted her gaze again, and didn’t specifically pull away the hand she was holding.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the view ahead finally opened up suddenly. Shen Maomao first closed her eyes to adapt to the light for a moment, then opened them.

What met her eyes was a very spacious metallic-colored room.

Compared to the small, shabby cages they lived in, the room’s area was very large, square-shaped, with two doors, one front and one back, and no windows.

Both doors had surveillance cameras flashing red lights, and a combination lock fixed to the door, currently in an active state. The surrounding walls seemed to be made of some kind of alloy, silvery-white overall, clean enough to reflect a person’s shadow.

There were some futuristic-looking instruments in the room, lights flashing on their dials that Shen Maomao couldn’t understand.

Many people were gathered in this small room, currently lining up at a machine in front, receiving something.

Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo naturally stood at the end of the crowd as well, then quietly observed these people.

Each person received a tag. After receiving the tag, they would leave this room through the other door, heading towards an unknown distance.

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