The Hand of Confession – Chapter 213

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

A Book

The Inner World and the Real World

God knows what Lou Jingmo went through.

Time rewound to an hour ago. One moment Lou Jingmo walked into the bathroom stall and closed the door, the next she found the atmosphere inside a bit strange.

She didn’t panic. Instead, she bent her index finger and knocked on the door. As expected, she received no reply from Shen Maomao. Afterwards, she quietly climbed onto the water tank, poked her head over the top, and expressionlessly surveyed the situation outside.

With a “creak—,” the main bathroom door was pulled open from the outside, but from her angle, she couldn’t see anything there.

Footsteps, one after another, reached her ears, seemingly intended to instill a sense of fear.

Lou Jingmo’s lips curved into a cold arc. With a flick of her wrist, a dagger flew out through the gap in the stall door, then froze in mid-air.

A drop of blood fell to the ground, followed by a second, then a third…

She wasn’t surprised by this. Instead, she threw out several more daggers one after another, all of them embedding into the body of that transparent thing.

Something crashed to the ground, gradually revealing the shape of a body.

This thing had no head, no hands, only an upper body and two legs. At this moment, several daggers were stuck in its body, and its heaving chest soon stopped moving.

Afraid it wasn’t completely dead, Lou Jingmo pulled out a few more daggers and threw them all at once, forcefully turning the poor ghost into a pincushion.

After confirming this thing was truly motionless, she squeezed out directly through the relatively spacious gap at the top—as for getting stuck by the chest in the middle, we won’t go into excessive detail here.

In short, Lou Jingmo jumped down from the top of the stall door cleanly and efficiently, walked step by step towards the corpse, first confirmed its characteristics, then pulled out her daggers, and pushed open the main bathroom door.

The moment the main door opened, the hotel transformed into another world…

…

Speaking up to this point, Lou Jingmo paused for a moment before continuing, “I roughly know the plot of the story, but I don’t know how to leave, so I found a way to come back.”

Shen Maomao cooperatively asked, “So what kind of story is this instance exactly?”

“It’s a book,” Lou Jingmo said. “Or rather, calling it a book might be a bit inappropriate. It’s more like a fantasy playing out in the mind of a mental patient.”

And all of them were characters imagined by the author, living in the theater of his mind.

Shen Maomao was dumbfounded. “What the heck? Am I the female lead then?”

Lou Jingmo: “Is there something wrong with your focus?”

Shen Maomao said, as if it were a matter of course, “Only the male and female leads get to live until the end, okay? Whether I’m the female lead or not determines if I can survive!”

Lou Jingmo said helplessly, “After I left the bathroom, I arrived in the real world and became the author himself. Perhaps he could no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality, so for those few hours, I occupied his body.”

Shen Maomao: “??”

“Simply put, I’m like one of his personalities now. Because I escaped from the toilet—perhaps also because the author was in the toilet at the time—I replaced him and was taken by a group of nurses for a walk, to take medicine, and get injections. During that time, I observed the real world but didn’t find a way to leave. Later, I saw his manuscript, and what was written in it was exactly what we experienced yesterday.”

Golden Retriever said, “So we’re in the Inner World now?”

Lou Jingmo nodded. “Yes. Before, Rabbit said she saw the words ‘Soul Harbor’ on the moon when looking from the observatory. That’s because the name of this sanatorium is Soul Harbor Sanatorium.”

Shen Maomao then asked, “Then Lou-jie, how did you escape?”

Lou Jingmo said, “I didn’t escape. At two in the afternoon, I was injected with a sleeping drug. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that bathroom. And then, well, you know the rest.”

Shen Maomao gave a thumbs up. “Lou-jie, you’re badass! With the way you burst through that door, if Golden Retriever and I hadn’t run fast, today next year would have been our death anniversary.”

Lou Jingmo: “…”

She gave a dry cough and awkwardly changed the subject. “What happened in the real world isn’t much help to us in the Inner World. Besides, we currently don’t have a reliable way to replace the original author, so let’s not consider that for now. The original author is a madman, so the things in his mind might not follow any pattern, but perhaps we can try to think from his perspective…”

“The key is, if we can think clearly like him, wouldn’t that make us madmen just like him?” Golden Retriever asked, puzzled.

Lou Jingmo thought for a moment, then said, “That Van Gogh… I think he might be very useful.”

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The chef’s death meant they lost their daily fixed supply of food. When the three of them went downstairs, the lobby was sparsely populated. Everyone had chosen to go out and find a way to survive, unwilling to stay in the hotel and wait for death. The receptionist, Xiao Fu, was slumped over as if boneless, leisurely fanning herself with a small fan in her right hand. Strands of her hair swayed with the gentle breeze from the fan, making her look exceptionally languid.

Seeing them come down, Xiao Fu straightened up and said, “The chef is dead. If you want to eat, cook it yourselves. We only provide ingredients and tools.”

Shen Maomao nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

Xiao Fu paused for a moment, then a strange smile appeared on her face. She drawled to her, “You’re welcome~”

The way she drew out the last syllable was quite soul-stirring.

Among the three, Golden Retriever was a young master, and Lou Jingmo was even less likely to be the type to serve others, so Shen Maomao was the only one left to do the cooking.

To prevent anyone from being caught alone, the three of them headed to the kitchen together. As soon as they stepped inside, they saw a pot discarded on the floor, presumably the one the chef had used to cook himself earlier.

Shen Maomao walked over, her expression unchanged, washed the vegetables, rinsed the rice, and cooked. After she was done, she checked the time; it was already almost noon. The group quickly ate their brunch and then set out to find clues.

The drizzle that had started in the morning hadn’t stopped, continuing to fall even now. The sky hung very low, a despairing shade of gray that made one feel exceptionally oppressed.

The hotel didn’t provide any rain gear for its guests, and they hadn’t brought umbrellas, so they had no choice but to venture out in the rain.

The three of them planned to go to the Astronomical Research Institute at the mountaintop to take a look. Although others said there were no clues there, there was no need for the game to create a completely useless location. Perhaps there were still some hidden clues that hadn’t been triggered.

Due to the rain, the mountain path had become exceptionally muddy. Shen Maomao’s shoe soles were caked with mud, forcing her to stop every few steps to scrape them clean, otherwise she could easily slip and fall.

The moisture content in the air was very high. They hadn’t been outside for even half an hour before their clothes and hair were soaked. Every step they took felt exceptionally heavy.

However, unlike the day Hong-jie led the way, when they had walked for several hours, this time they reached the mountaintop surprisingly quickly.

The main gate of the Astronomical Research Institute was wide open. Just like the first day, there were no security guards or staff. Today, there weren’t even any players or visiting NPCs.

Shen Maomao dashed ahead and ran under the eaves to shelter from the rain. Lou Jingmo and Golden Retriever followed closely behind her, afraid she might run off and get lost.

The three of them walked into the main hall of the Astronomical Research Institute together. The starry sky projection in the hall had been turned off at some point. Now, only ghastly white walls were visible, so white they were a bit glaring.

Lou Jingmo shook the water from her hair, frowning slightly. “Stick together, don’t get separated.”

Daring to be alone at a time like this was purely courting death. The two “leg pendants” had no objections, and Shen Maomao, without any hesitation, took Lou Jingmo’s hand.

Lou Jingmo glanced at her, her thoughts unknown, but she didn’t let go.

Shen Maomao was ecstatic, almost forgetting what she was there for.

Golden Retriever: “…” Clearly… Ah, forget it.

Everyone had probably already found the obvious things. The three of them focused on searching the building for any secret rooms, hidden passages, or similar places, specifically checking inconspicuous nooks and crannies.

After searching aimlessly like this for two or three hours, they had scoured the Astronomical Research Institute from top to bottom but still couldn’t find what they were looking for.

There were only two differences in the Astronomical Research Institute compared to before: first, the projection was gone, and second, the rooftop terrace where the incredibly expensive-looking¹ astronomical telescope was located had been covered with a large glass enclosure, and they didn’t know who had done it.

The three of them were resting in the glass enclosure when, in the distance, they suddenly saw the pitch-black tops of several heads appear on the small path leading up the mountain.

Shen Maomao’s expression turned serious. She quietly called to the other two, “Look! Someone’s coming!”

Hearing this, Golden Retriever also walked to the window and glanced out, then said, “It’s Wang Xiaobao’s family…”

Lou Jingmo frowned. “Get back, don’t let them see you.”

Although the two were puzzled, they didn’t question Lou Jingmo’s decision and quickly retreated from the glass.

Shen Maomao tiptoed to peek outside, muttering, “What’s his family doing here?” And on such a rainy day, isn’t Mrs. Wang afraid of danger?

Outside, Xiaobao’s mom was carrying Xiaobao, walking up step by step. Shen Maomao squinted, continuing to watch, and said strangely, “Why is it only Xiaobao’s mom? Where’s Xiaobao’s dad??”

Lou Jingmo thought for a moment and said, “Let’s hide first. Don’t let her find us.”

The three of them left the rooftop. After some thought, they ran directly to the surveillance room and locked the door from the inside.

The computers in the surveillance room had blank screens. Lou Jingmo pressed the power button on all of them. Dozens of surveillance cameras activated simultaneously, and images began to appear on the screens. The equipment was still functional.

Shen Maomao stared intently at the screen showing the entrance.

Soon, Xiaobao’s mom appeared on the screen. She was carrying a bulging backpack, holding Xiaobao as she pushed open the main gate. Then she put Xiaobao down on the ground, squatted, and said something to him. Because the sound was too faint, they couldn’t hear clearly, only catching the word “ball” or something similar. Maybe she was talking to him about his rubber ball?

The mother and son chatted for a while. Then, Xiaobao’s mom took Xiaobao’s hand and led him into the elevator.

The three pairs of eyes followed the elevator, watching as the mother and son went directly to the third floor, to the spot beside the astronomical telescope where they had just been.

Xiaobao happily put his eye to the eyepiece, while Xiaobao’s mom opened her backpack and took out Xiaobao’s blue and yellow rubber ball.

The next second, she placed both hands on her own head, gave a gentle lift, and with a “kachak,” she lifted her head right off.

Shen Maomao: “Holy sh#t…”

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