The Hand of Confession – Chapter 209

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

Three Long, Two Short¹

What time is it?

Speaking of which, the players in this instance hadn’t really gathered properly even once. Most of the time, everyone acted on their own, only concerned with collecting information for themselves, not even knowing each other’s names.

While going downstairs, the tall guy started to introduce himself: “My name is San Mu², I guess you could say I’m a veteran player.”

The boy next to him said: “My name is Xia Tian³, veteran player.”

The man with the mustache also said: “My name is Tang Song⁴, and this next to me is my roommate. He says his name is Fan Gao⁵. We’re all veteran players.”

Shen Maomao thought of Lou Jingmo’s words and couldn’t help but glance at this Fan Gao. The online alias he’d given himself was truly fitting.

A genius madman, worthy of the name.

She just didn’t know if he would be able to restrain himself from making a move on Mustache Tang Song.

The elevator arrived. The three men walked towards the washroom, and Shen Maomao began to introduce herself: “My name is Rabbit, this is Golden Retriever, and that one…”

Lou Jingmo cut in: “My name is Xiao Tu⁶.”

Shen Maomao: “…En… Xiao Tu and we are also pretty much veteran players.” It really is quite ‘tu’⁷, she thought.

When Golden Retriever was mentioned, the four of them collectively glanced at Golden Retriever’s head, seemingly a bit curious as to why a redhead would be called Golden Retriever.

It seemed there were no newcomers in this instance. This point alone was enough to prove its difficulty and level.

There were only three sinks in the restroom, so the seven of them had to take turns washing up in four groups.

Adhering to the “ladies first” principle, they let the two girls, Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo, wash up first. The remaining men gathered together to discuss the plot.

Shen Maomao brushed her teeth while pricking up her ears to listen to their conversation.

The tall guy, San Mu, said: “The missing girl lived with the guy who didn’t show up. Counting her, all the players who have gone missing so far are girls. I suspect this instance might not be very friendly to girls.”

The man with the mustache beside him said: “If it really comes down to it, let’s ask the front desk if we can switch to a few four-person family rooms. There are exactly eight of us left. There’s strength in numbers, and it would be safer.”

San Mu thought for a moment: “It’s best not to. Let’s not even mention whether Hong-jie would agree. We don’t know what floor the four-person rooms are on, and I always feel that the right sides of the second and third floors are very dangerous.”

Mustache said: “It was my oversight.”

He recounted the incident with the hair appearing in the room, then asked, “What about you guys? Any strange occurrences?”

San Mu: “I don’t think so…”

Xia Tian, leaning against the wall with an “I’m so cool” expression, spoke up: “Yesterday at twelve, the TV turned on. There were no channels, just flashing static. I cut the power directly.”

Shen Maomao mumbled indistinctly, “Holy crap!”

Golden Retriever chimed in: “The Midnight Bell⁸, oh my god?!”

San Mu was surprised: “I actually didn’t know?”

Xia Tian glanced at him: “You were sleeping too soundly.”

San Mu felt a wave of embarrassment.

Mustache Tang Song added: “During the day, we went to the astronomical research center on the rooftop. We searched the entire mountaintop but didn’t find any staff. It seems there weren’t many clues either.”

Lou Jingmo, having wiped her face, made way for others. “We didn’t go up the mountain. Halfway up, we found this.” She draped the small towel over her shoulder and took out the extra mobile phone.

To prevent confusion about whose phone was whose, the three of them had used small stones to mark their own phone screens. The one with the intact screen now was the extra one.

San Mu said: “Sure enough, our phones are all the same.”

Shen Maomao also finished wiping her face and made room for others: “It’s not just the phones; our fingerprints should all be the same. Have you guys tried? Your fingerprints can unlock other people’s phones.”

Hearing this, the four men were all stunned. They exchanged phones to test it and found it was indeed true.

Mustache Tang Song and the square-faced Fan Gao went up to wash their faces. Golden Retriever, disregarding the cold water, plunged his head into the water again, trying to wash off the eye-offending red color.

After washing for a while, he looked up at the mirror and suddenly let out a dejected wail: “My hair… my face…”

Shen Maomao wanted to laugh but held back for the sake of camaraderie.

Golden Retriever dried his hair and managed to look on the bright side: “Forget it. As long as I can get out of here alive, my hair and face will return to normal.”

San Mu stroked his chin, starting to ponder what the fingerprints represented, but couldn’t come up with anything after thinking for a long time.

The men washed up much faster than the women. In a short while, all five men were done.

After washing up, they went to the toilet in a group. Nothing happened during that time. Everyone left the second floor safely, wished each other to take care, and then returned to their respective rooms.

Shen Maomao drew the curtains. Golden Retriever wanted to use the cabinet to block the door but was stopped by Lou Jingmo, who reasoned that if something happened inside the room, it would be difficult to escape.

Before eleven o’clock, their room lights were out. Shen Maomao couldn’t quite fall asleep, so she curled up in bed playing on her phone.

Around twelve o’clock, as she was getting drowsy, she plugged her phone in to charge. Just as she lay down in her quilt, she suddenly heard a series of knocks coming from outside.

“Thump—Thump—Thump—”

Not their room, it seemed to be the one next door…

A few seconds later, two quick knocks followed—

“Thump-thump.”

Three long, two short. No matter how one heard it, it sounded inauspicious.

The room next door seemed unoccupied, so naturally, there would be no response.

The knocker stood at the door for a while, then started moving with a rustling sound.

The footsteps were heavy, blending together, like an elderly person with bad legs shuffling forward, or perhaps not like footsteps at all, but like someone wriggling on the carpet, inching closer and closer in their direction.

In the darkness, Shen Maomao’s eyes widened, meeting Lou Jingmo’s, who had also opened her eyes at the same time.

Beside them, Golden Retriever’s breathing was heavy; he was clearly still meeting Duke Zhou in his dreams⁹.

Lou Jingmo gently raised her hand and put a finger to her lips in a “shhh” gesture.

“Thump—”

A single knock sounded. Shen Maomao shivered silently.

She heard it very clearly—the person outside was knocking on the lower part of the door.

“Thump—Thump—” followed by the second and third knocks, then two extremely short “thump-thumps.” Then, everything returned to silence. The person waited quietly outside the door, expecting a response from within.

At this moment of dead silence, a beautiful mobile phone ringtone suddenly blared, its loud sound shattering the night’s stillness. Simultaneously, the person outside began to knock more violently, each strike seeming as if it would smash the door down.

Golden Retriever shot up straight with a start, staring blankly ahead: “What’s wrong?!”

“F#ck!” Shen Maomao was also startled by this sudden turn of events and couldn’t help but ask frantically, “What do we do, Lou-jie!!”

Lou Jingmo got up directly, picked up the incessantly ringing phone from the tabletop, climbed onto the table, opened the window, and without a word, threw the phone out from the third floor.

The phone landed with a crisp crack, and the ringtone stopped abruptly. The knocking outside also paused and then gradually ceased. A series of friction sounds quickly receded; the thing outside seemed to have given up on them.

Lou Jingmo closed the window with a backhand motion.

Shen Maomao breathed a sigh of relief: “Whose phone was that? Scared me to death…”

Lou Jingmo looked around: “It was the one we found.”

Shen Maomao said with conviction: “That phone harbored ill intentions; serves it right to be smashed to death!”

Golden Retriever was still in a sleepwalking state. Hearing that the commotion had stopped, he fell straight back onto the bed, and a moment later, soft snores could be heard.

Lou Jingmo reached out to pull the curtains. Just as she raised her arm, a ferociously contorted face, baring its teeth and grinning hideously, suddenly magnified before her eyes, startling her into taking a step back.

Seeing this, Shen Maomao quickly asked: “What’s wrong?!”

Lou Jingmo was silent for a second, then used her body to block Shen Maomao’s view and swiftly pulled the curtains shut: “Nothing, something ugly just got to me.”

Shen Maomao craned her neck cheekily to peek outside: “What thing? How ugly could it be? Let me see, let me see!”

Lou Jingmo deliberately got off the table, rolled her eyes at her, then swung her onto the bed and tucked her in tightly with the quilt: “Sleep.”

“Oh.” Shen Maomao closed her eyes and started to feign snoring.

Lou Jingmo also lay down on the bed, but she didn’t get under the covers. Instead, she pressed down on Shen Maomao, quilt and all, with her arm, a very reassuring posture…

In this comforting atmosphere, Shen Maomao quickly fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

When she opened her eyes, she thought she had only slept for three hours because the room was dim and gray, looking as if dawn hadn’t broken yet.

She was sprawled across the middle of the bed, with Lou-jie squeezed into a tiny corner, her body curled up, looking both pitiful and miserable.

Shen Maomao’s face turned red. She stealthily climbed out of bed, pretending nothing had happened, and went to get her phone from the table.

Only when she pressed the screen to light it up did she realize it was already past nine o’clock.

She ran to the window and yanked open the curtains.

A vast expanse of thick-looking dark clouds covered the sky, with a light drizzle falling. The windowpane was covered in distorted water streaks, like tiny snakes slithering across it.

It was impossible to tell how long this rain had been falling, but though light, it had already formed small puddles on the ground, deepening the colors of the surrounding scenery.

As she looked, Shen Maomao rubbed her eyes.

Just now, for a fleeting moment, did she see—the sky reflected in the puddles was azure blue?

She looked down at the puddles, then up at the sky, and found that both the sky and its reflection in the water were a dull, somber gray, with nothing unusual.

The phone Lou Jingmo had thrown downstairs yesterday was gone; she didn’t see its remains on the ground. And Lou Jingmo must have seen something outside the window later but didn’t say anything to avoid scaring her. Now, there was no sign of that thing either.

The light brightened somewhat after she opened the curtains. After a good while, Lou Jingmo turned over, sat up with a blank expression, looked at her coldly, and asked: “What time is it?”

Shen Maomao looked at her phone, opened her mouth, and was just about to answer when her heart suddenly skipped a beat. She looked up sharply.

Lou Jingmo watched her quietly, seemingly waiting for her to give a definite answer.

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