The Hand of Confession – Chapter 174

Volume 6: Days of Being Zapped in the Lab

Gather

I can’t leave. I can never leave here again.

The path to the fourth floor was right before them. Lou Jingmo had already started walking up. Shen Maomao followed her up two steps, then suddenly stopped and turned back to look at the empty corridor, asking, “Do you want to come out with us?”

For a long moment, there was no sound.

Lou Jingmo had already reached the door and started studying how to open the main gate.

Shen Maomao wasn’t anxious either; she just stood quietly on the stairs, waiting for his answer.

After a while, a small figure appeared at the end of the corridor, accompanied by words like a sigh: “I can’t go up anymore…”

Shen Maomao’s eyes widened.

Little Ancestor walked over step by step, finally stopping before the stairs. He stretched out a hand, touching the air above the staircase. His arm stopped at the last step, unable to advance even an inch.

Lou Jingmo, at the top of the stairs, said grimly, “He has become the boss of the fifth floor.”

Shen Maomao: “?!!”

Little Ancestor retracted his hand. “I can’t leave. I can never leave here again.”

Shen Maomao’s eyes stung, feeling an inexplicable ache for him.

“You should go quickly,” Little Ancestor said. “Hurry up and go. I have a feeling that once the door opens, I won’t be able to control myself.”

Shen Maomao gave him a deep look. “You… take care…”

Little Ancestor waved his hand. “Goodbye.”

“Lou-jie, wait for me a second!” Shen Maomao seemed to remember something. She bounded down the stairs in a few leaps, rushing in front of the somewhat surprised Little Ancestor, bent down, and suddenly lifted him up.

Little Ancestor’s two red eyes went wide, clearly startled by her action.

Shen Maomao held him and spun around three times, then treated him to a session of being lifted high.

Little Ancestor finally relaxed and burst out laughing loudly.

After the lifting was over, Shen Maomao held him in her arms, lowered her head slightly, and kissed one of his closed eyes before putting him back on the ground.

Little Ancestor’s face flushed crimson, so red it looked like it might burn. “You’re a girl, how can you just kiss boys like that…”

Shen Maomao: “So stingy, what’s wrong with just one kiss?”

Little Ancestor covered his face, stammering, “Anyway… you just can’t!”

Shen Maomao: “Alright then, I won’t argue with you. We’re leaving.” With that, she turned and ran up the stairs, reaching Lou Jingmo’s side in a few steps.

“Creaaak—” The large door covered in handprints was swiped open by Lou Jingmo with a card, emitting a grating sound that set one’s teeth on edge.

Shen Maomao looked back. Little Ancestor, standing below the stairs, finally opened his thirteenth eye, his small body collapsing onto the ground.

The skin on his back pulsed continuously, as if something was about to burst out, bringing devastating destruction to everything around…

Lou Jingmo said in a low voice, “Get inside, quickly!”

Shen Maomao dodged sideways and rushed through the door, Lou Jingmo close behind.

At the same time, eight slender legs pierced through Little Ancestor’s skin, extending with a shua sound, then carried the broken body charging towards the stairs.

Lou Jingmo locked the door behind her.

With a loud “Boom!”, the door didn’t move an inch¹, not even a scratch left on it.

Then, everything returned to calm. No monsters, no players, nor anything else.

Shen Maomao wiped away a tear.

Lou Jingmo seemed a bit helpless. She caught Shen Maomao’s hand as she wiped her tears and asked, somewhat disdainfully, “What are you crying for?”

Though her words sounded disdainful, the hand using her sleeve to wipe away the tears was very gentle.

“I…” Shen Maomao choked out, “I feel like I let him down, that I couldn’t bring him out with us…”

Lou Jingmo sighed. “And after bringing him out? Could you bring him into the real world? Do you think everyone is a card?”

Shen Maomao lowered her head. “I know.”

That was why she had said her final goodbye to him.

Little Ancestor’s state… did it count as living, or did it count as dead?

Lou Jingmo added, “As of now, this instance has already evolved into a repeatable instance.”

Shen Maomao’s attention was indeed caught: “A repeatable instance?”

The surrounding cages were all empty; the players had vanished somewhere. Lou Jingmo pulled her forward. “Judging from the current plot, it seems the researchers used the IM Virus for experiments, creating all sorts of monsters. Then they abandoned the test subjects and fled themselves. The lab has five floors in total, and each floor produces a boss from among the test subjects…”

They might have been the first players in this instance.

Shen Maomao was confused. “So what does the virus have to do with homosexuals? Does this virus only occur in homosexuals? But wait, I’m straight, aren’t I?” Besides, someone Little Ancestor’s size, let alone being homosexual, might not even know how to say ‘mama’ or ‘dada’.

Lou Jingmo: “I haven’t figured it out either.” This meant the information they had gathered wasn’t sufficient yet.

The two walked out of the cage area, heading towards the elevator to the third floor under Lou Jingmo’s guidance.

There were no figures in the corridor, nor any sign of monsters. Shen Maomao looked left and right as they walked, unable to resist whispering, “Where are the other players? Did they all go to the next floor?”

Lou Jingmo took out a card and said, “Unless the fourth-floor elevator has other key cards, they couldn’t have left.”

Shen Maomao hesitated for a moment, then asked her, “Lou-jie, would it be convenient for us to look for other players?”

Lou Jingmo gave her a deep look.

Shen Maomao quickly added, “If the situation doesn’t allow it, let’s just go directly. Your safety is the top priority, of course.”

Lou Jingmo suddenly reached out and pinched her cheek hard, almost squeezing tears out of her eyes.

Shen Maomao grimaced, not daring to cry out too loudly, only glaring fiercely at her and mumbling indistinctly, “Wha’ are ‘ou doing! Le’ go, le’ go!”

Lou Jingmo nonchalantly released her hand. “Let’s go.”

Shen Maomao, no longer caring about the pain in her face, chased after her asking, “Where are we going?”

Lou Jingmo: “To fix the circuits first.”

Shen Maomao: “?”

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She somewhat couldn’t keep up with Lou Jingmo’s train of thought, but since she said they were going to fix the circuits, then heading for the main electrical control room was the way to go, no doubt².

The underground environment was mostly the same. Shen Maomao was completely lost, relying entirely on Lou Jingmo to lead the way. They turned left and right so many times that she didn’t remember the route at all, finally seeing the door to the control room.

The journey had been very safe, so safe that Shen Maomao couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive.

Lou Jingmo turned to study the door, while Shen Maomao stood with her back to her, scanning the surroundings.

Ever since leaving the cages, she had felt like something was watching her, but when she looked around, she couldn’t see who was monitoring her.

Could those invisible surveillance devices still be operating? But they hadn’t given her this feeling of having thorns on her back³ before.

She stared blankly for a few minutes, and the feeling of being watched dissipated considerably.

“Screech—” A sound of metal scraping came from behind her.

Shen Maomao jumped, turning around to see that Lou Jingmo, having failed to figure out the door, was preparing to break it open by force.

Perhaps to prevent the already mutated test subjects from escaping, these iron doors were tougher than the last. Haven’t you seen how the main gate connecting the fourth and fifth floors only deformed despite suffering so many attacks, without breaking?

So, this also caused Lou Jingmo’s door-breaking operation to consume a lot of tools—every time she cut a slit in the door with a dagger, the dagger’s edge would curl and become useless.

Four slits, four daggers, dealt with clearly and plainly.

A panel was removed from the door, and the two squeezed through one after the other.

Inside the control room were two rows of generators, one large and one small. At this moment, the large one was completely silent, while the small one was still humming, maintaining the operation of the elevators between the upper and lower floors.

Lou Jingmo walked towards the large machine, going behind it.

A sheet of skin, which had clearly been waiting there for a long time, instantly spread out, trying to cover Lou Jingmo’s face.

Lou Jingmo immediately raised her dagger in front of her to block. The face crashed into the dagger’s sharp edge, slicing itself in half.

It all happened in an instant, so fast that Shen Maomao hadn’t even reacted before the fight was over.

Shen Maomao: “…Was it trying to commit suicide?”

Lou Jingmo: “…Perhaps.”

This thing looked scary, but why did it seem like such a dim-witted way??

Shen Maomao stepped around the face, now in two pieces on the floor, and walked to Lou Jingmo’s side. “Did you figure it out? Can you restore the power supply?”

Lou Jingmo stated matter-of-factly, “Didn’t figure it out.”

Shen Maomao: “…??” If you didn’t figure it out, what did we come here for?

Lou Jingmo: “To try our luck.”

Saying that, she pulled down the main switch on the control panel. After two zaps of electricity, the entire control room lit up.

The sudden light made Shen Maomao unable to open her eyes. She shielded her face with her hand, and only after adjusting for a moment did she reopen her eyes and look around.

The first thing she noticed was that the face that had been split in two earlier had disappeared sometime.

Lou Jingmo also saw the empty floor and said nonchalantly, “Let it run off, don’t worry about it.”

The large machine also started humming. Some of the light tubes above their heads lit up, while the rest continuously sparked, looking very dangerous.

Shen Maomao looked at Lou Jingmo. “What do we do next?”

Lou Jingmo: “The broadcast room.”

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Lou Jingmo really thought of everything!

Shen Maomao thought as she started up the equipment in the broadcast room.

There were so many players, but only two of them; searching would take who knows how long. It was better to do the opposite, let the surviving players come find them. That would save more trouble.

The computer was successfully turned on, and there was no password on it—probably because the computer in the broadcast room held no confidential information, making a lock unnecessary.

Lou Jingmo plugged in the microphone, fiddled with the settings randomly, then handed the mic to Shen Maomao, gesturing for her to speak.

“Ahem—” Shen Maomao cleared her throat.

The sound of her coughing echoed outside, accompanied by a “shh-shh” static sound, but as long as it worked, that was all that mattered.

She organized her thoughts internally, then said, “Newcomers who want to leave this place, please gather at the elevator entrance going to the third floor within one hour. We have the elevator card. Friendly reminder: there are two elevators on this floor, one goes up, one goes down. Please don’t go to the wrong elevator.”

Lou Jingmo held up her time-recording device in front of her. Shen Maomao glanced at it and continued, “It is now 2:43 PM. See you at 3:43 PM. We will wait for no one past the deadline!”

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The author has something to say:

I have betrayed the readers’ trust. Little Ancestor is not a card, but the boss of a repeatable instance.

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LP: Little Ancestor

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