The Hand of Confession – Chapter 210

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

Right Arm

What the hell kind of standard-issue, trashy horror movie¹ **plot is this?

Shen Maomao gave a sheepish smile. “Isn’t this a bit inconvenient, Lou-jie?”

Lou Jingmo also smiled. “What’s inconvenient about it?”

This smile, brimming with malice, finally stirred up all the sense of incongruity in Shen Maomao’s heart.

This wasn’t Lou Jingmo.

Her brain clearly relayed this message to her.

So, what was the situation now? Where was she? Where was Lou Jingmo? And was the one lying in the bed the real Golden Retriever?

Her mind went blank. Her eyes furtively darted towards the door, secretly calculating her chances of escaping.

“Have you forgotten?” she heard herself say. “I can’t even count!”

“Lou Jingmo”: “…”

On the other bed, Golden Retriever sat up ramrod straight. His shock of red hair resembled menacing flames, threatening to burn anyone who got too close.

He rubbed his eyes and looked drowsily at Shen Maomao. “Sister Rabbit, what time is it?”

The last “ah” unexpectedly generated countless echoes, reverberating in her mind, circle after circle. At the same time, “Lou Jingmo” also began to speak, two extremely familiar voices repeating one after the other—

“What time is it?”

“What time is it?”

It was like a demonic sound piercing her ears, or like Elder Tang’s

²

rendition of “Only You,” or even more like her own singing of “Little Leaping Frog”—in short, the kind of sound that made you want to bash your head against the ground.

Golden Retriever, like a robot with stiff joints, rigidly walked to the door, guarding it to prevent her from leaving. Meanwhile, the other Lou Jingmo pressed closer step by step, until Shen Maomao’s back was against the table, unable to retreat another half-step.

This thing wearing Lou Jingmo’s face kept asking her, “What time is it? What time is it? What time is it?” Its eyes strangely reflected four Arabic numerals: 09 in the left eye, 27 in the right, as if luring her to say these four numbers.

Shen Maomao trembled all over, her gaze momentarily unfocused. But she quickly shook her head, closed her eyes, and pushed with all her might, shoving the figure away forcefully. Then, she turned, climbed onto the table, opened the window, and started to crawl out.

An icy hand grabbed her ankle from behind. Shen Maomao kicked back. In her peripheral vision, she saw Golden Retriever at the door also walking stiffly towards the window. A sense of urgency welled up in her heart.

She tried to summon her prop backpack, but it was as if it had been sealed; there was no response.

“F#ck, what kind of fake and shoddy backpack is this!!!” Why did it have to fail at a time like this?!

Seeing Golden Retriever about to reach the “battlefield,” she silently apologized in her heart, lifted one foot, and kicked hard at Lou-jie’s face. Then, she desperately stomped on the other hand that was gripping her ankle.

After stomping three times in a row, the monster let out a wail and finally loosened its grip due to the pain. Shen Maomao quickly moved the rest of her body out the window, preparing to step on the air conditioner unit to see if she could reach the neighboring windowsill.

The two things inside squeezed against the window, baring their fangs and brandishing their claws, trying to grab her. Shen Maomao carefully edged sideways, focusing intently on the air conditioner unit, gauging whether it could support her weight.

If only her props were usable… she would have landed safely by now!!

Thinking this, Shen Maomao tentatively lifted her foot, just about to step onto the unit. Who would have thought that a large, ghostly face would suddenly pop out from under the air conditioner unit! It scared her so much she screamed, her foot slipped, and she fell sideways.

F#ck!!

A strong sensation of falling overwhelmed her. Shen Maomao’s face turned pale, her hands flailing wildly in the air.

Was she going to fall to her death here?!

Before she could utter any last words, a sharp pain shot through her back. Her vision blurred, and she saw the ceiling of their room, which seemed a notch higher than normal.

Shen Maomao: “??”

She jolted upright. Sitting up with her was Golden Retriever from the next bed. “Was that an earthquake?!”

Shen Maomao sat on the floor beside the bed, ‘clueless’ written on her left cheek and ‘confounded’ on her right³.

So, she had just had a nightmare?

Lou Jingmo sat up from the edge of her bed, let out a small sneeze, and said through gritted teeth, “Shen Maomao, are you practicing martial arts in your sleep at night??”

Shen Maomao scrambled up, rushed to the table, and pulled open the curtains. Her eyes met a gloomy sky, distorted water stains on the glass, and small puddles on the ground that looked like countless eyes.

She quickly picked up her phone and pressed the screen to light it up. The time displayed was 9:22, only five minutes away from 9:27.

Golden Retriever rubbed his sleepy eyes, and a sentence blurted out: “What time is it?!”

Shen Maomao’s heart rate shot straight to 180. “F#ck, again?!”

But in the next second, she saw Lou Jingmo extend her arm and slap Golden Retriever on the head. “Stop asking what time it is!”

Golden Retriever clutched his head, all sleepiness vanishing in an instant. He said aggrievedly, “I was muddle-headed from sleep. Why is it so dark? Is it overcast?”

Shen Maomao gripped her phone tightly and mentally opened her spatial backpack. Inside, she found a pile of chicken-rib⁴ props that were better than nothing.

She instantly heaved a sigh of relief and threw herself into Lou Jingmo’s embrace, wailing.

The warm body crashing into her stunned Lou Jingmo.

She let Shen Maomao clutch her waist and gently patted her back. “What’s wrong?”

Shen Maomao howled, “I had a terrifying dream T_T! I thought I was going to die!”

And she almost thought it was a series of dreams within dreams, even mentally complaining about what the hell kind of standard-issue, trashy horror movie plot this was.

Lou Jingmo soothed her by patting her back while saying, “A dream scared you this much? How embarrassing.”

Golden Retriever’s sharp eyes spotted something. He suddenly said, “Sister Rabbit, did someone grab your ankle in your dream?”

Shen Maomao’s expression immediately sobered. She looked at him with a sharp gaze, questioning with her eyes how he knew.

Golden Retriever pointed to her left ankle.

The two women looked down together and immediately saw five dark, bruised fingermarks on Shen Maomao’s ankle.

Shen Maomao said with dawning horror, “F#ck, so it wasn’t a dream??”

After saying that, she looked at Golden Retriever with a resentful expression. “It didn’t hurt until you told me! Now it hurts so much!”

Golden Retriever: “…” My fault?

Lou Jingmo frowned slightly and said, “Wait here.”

With that, she opened her backpack, took something out, and was about to leave.

Shen Maomao reached out with an Erkang hand⁵. “Wait, Lou-jie! Where are you going?!”

Lou Jingmo glanced back at her. “Stay put, and be good.”

Shen Maomao didn’t dare to make another sound. The two younger ones huddled on their respective beds, looking at each other, neither knowing what to do next.

About ten minutes later, Lou Jingmo pushed open the door carrying a small basin steaming with hot water.

Shen Maomao: “??”

She placed the basin on the table, then fished out a white towel from it, wrung it out loosely, and then knelt on one knee beside Shen Maomao’s bed. She reached for her injured ankle and directly applied the hot towel to it.

“Hiss—” Shen Maomao shivered from the heat, uncomfortably curling her toes.

Lou Jingmo’s expression was very focused, her movements as gentle as if she were holding some priceless treasure.

And… this posture was so f#cking much like a marriage proposal!!!

Shen Maomao’s mind was currently filled with excited squawks—

I’m willing!! I can!! I’m so ready!!

Then, an immense pain shot up from her leg. Lou Jingmo pressed hard on her wound and said with a smile, “Wipe your drool.”

Shen Maomao’s face contorted in pain, and she cursed Lou Jingmo over and over in her heart—

Old dog f#cker! I can’t! I’m not willing!

It definitely didn’t take more than two minutes to go from “I can” to “I can’t.”

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Today was the third day. Three players had gone missing, all female, which made Shen Maomao involuntarily a little panicked.

As for Lou Jingmo—your Lou-jie never panicked.

The water on the third floor was still red. They didn’t rashly go down to the second floor. Instead, they first knocked on the doors of the four players who had gone downstairs with them yesterday, asking if they wanted to go down to wash up together.

The mustached Tang Song and the square-faced Van Gogh’s room was 304, right next to the bathroom. The tall San Mu and his roommate were in 302, opposite Hong-jie’s room. Golden Retriever, the only boy in their team, took on this task. He knocked on 304 first, then 302, and found that everyone had inexplicably overslept.

The group grabbed their toothbrushes, face wash, and towels, and trooped downstairs.

In the elevator, they briefly recounted yesterday’s situation. It turned out that only Shen Maomao had experienced that kind of pseudo-serial dream.

Several people lined up to inspect the bruise on Shen Maomao’s calf. Tang Song summarized, “It seems everyone needs to be careful about what they say in their dreams. It’s best not to speak if possible.”

Shen Maomao said helplessly, “It’s useless. Didn’t this one impersonate my teammate? You can’t possibly not communicate even with your teammates, right?”

The seven of them exited the elevator one after another. San Mu said as he walked, “Then can we only rely on intuition to tell the real from the fake? You and Xiao Tu are acquaintances, so you could sense something was wrong. We’re all temporary teams; it’s hard for us to do what you did.”

Shen Maomao thought for a moment and said uncertainly, “I don’t know if this is a common situation—I couldn’t open my prop bar in the dream.”

The mustached man said, “Alright then, when in doubt, open the prop bar first.”

As they spoke, the group had already reached the entrance to the bathroom. Tang Song, at the front, yanked open the door. A crimson, bloody, and mangled object fell from the sky, aiming straight for his face.

“F#ck!” Tang Song reacted quickly, sidestepping to give way.

Thud. An elongated object fell to the floor, splattering some bright red liquid around.

Shen Maomao’s face turned white, and she also took several steps back, turning her head away to avoid looking at the thing.

Van Gogh, his expression unchanged, stepped forward and picked up the object with his bare hands. He examined it from all angles, then brought his red-stained fingers to his nose and sniffed, drawing a conclusion: “It’s a male’s right arm, severed at the shoulder and wrist. The cuts are quite neat, and the bone surfaces are very smooth. The person who cut off this arm must be very strong.”

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