The Hand of Confession – Chapter 214

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

Blizzard Mountain Villa¹

It’s… actually snowing?

Shen Maomao was dumbfounded, so stunned her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

This was taking ‘doting on a child’ to a whole new f#cking level!

Mrs. Wang’s head was severed cleanly at the shoulders, with no blood flowing out. She handed her head to Xiaobao, who happily exchanged a rubber ball for it. Then, he lifted his foot and kicked his mother’s noggin more than two meters away.

“Xiaobao, you’re amazing!” Mrs. Wang’s head praised the child, while her body placed the small rubber ball onto its neck stump. Then, it wiggled the ball, as if adjusting to its new head.

Golden Retriever was also dumbstruck and couldn’t help but ask, “What… what’s she after?”

Did she have nothing better to do, so she took off her head for her son to play with? Is she nuts? Wang Xiaobao was also pretty badass; he wasn’t scared at all.

Lou Jingmo said, “Let’s observe a bit longer. This isn’t a good time to go downstairs.”

The three of them watched for a long time. Wang Xiaobao finally lost interest in his mom’s head and turned to look at the astronomical telescope. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wang’s new head had transformed back into her original appearance, while the one she had just taken off gradually decayed, eventually turning into a ghastly white skull.

Xiaobao played for a little while longer. When he turned back, he realized his ball had changed and quickly said, “Mommy, the ball is gone!”

Mrs. Wang frowned and gently hugged him. “Then Mommy will take you back, and we’ll find a new ball, okay?”

A chill ran down Shen Maomao’s neck; she almost instantly understood what “ball” she was referring to.

Xiaobao was satisfied. “Then let’s go find a ball right now?!”

Mrs. Wang helplessly pinched his nose. “You, always so capricious².”

Xiaobao smiled coquettishly. “Mommy is the best~”

It was truly a picture of a benevolent mother and a filial son—if this mother and son weren’t busy figuring out how to pluck off someone’s noggin to kick around like a ball…

The mother and son started walking back. Shen Maomao and the others followed their path with their eyes. When they reached the main entrance, Mrs. Wang suddenly looked up and gave a ferocious grin at the surveillance camera, the malice in her eyes almost piercing through the screen.

Shen Maomao’s heart skipped a beat, and she involuntarily took a step back.

Lou Jingmo, who was not far behind her, darted forward and steadied her by the shoulders, saying in a low voice, “We’ve been discovered.”

However, Mrs. Wang didn’t chase after them to take their heads. Instead, with a beaming smile, she opened the door, carried her child, and went down the mountain.

Shen Maomao asked strangely, “What on earth do that mother and son want?”

Lou Jingmo said expressionlessly, “How would I know?”

Shen Maomao: “…”

The figures of the mother and son gradually disappeared over the mountaintop, allowing Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever to breathe a sigh of relief.

Lou Jingmo thought for a moment and said, “Let’s go. To the rooftop terrace.”

Shen Maomao’s scalp tingled. “But that skull is still up there…”

Lou Jingmo said, “That’s exactly what we’re going to find.”

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The skull was a real skull. It didn’t move, didn’t speak, and certainly didn’t bite. While Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever stared dumbfounded, Lou Jingmo picked up the skull, fiddled with it for a moment, then gently placed it back in its original spot. “This is a man’s head.”

Shen Maomao: “Huh?”

Lou Jingmo didn’t explain, merely took a photo of the skull with her phone and said, “Let’s try. Maybe that Van Gogh will know whose head this is.”

Shen Maomao swallowed hard and said dryly, “He’s not a medical student. How could he possibly know about human skeletons?”

Lou Jingmo smiled faintly. “Just because someone isn’t a medical student doesn’t mean they can’t understand human anatomy?”

How would one understand human anatomy? The dismemberment kind? Shen Maomao shivered.

Golden Retriever said, “So, do you guys know how to clear this instance now?”

Shen Maomao shook her head, indicating she was just a good-for-nothing waiting for death.

Lou Jingmo also shook her head. After shaking her head, she added, “This instance can’t be deduced through conventional means. The conceiver of this novel is a mental patient. We only know he’s writing a novel, but we don’t know why he’s writing it, or what kind of novel he wants it to be.”

An idea struck Shen Maomao, and she clapped her hands suddenly. “Wait a minute! We’re living in a novel world inside the author’s head, so the novel must have a protagonist, right? The current situation at the hotel is clearly a Blizzard Mountain Villa scenario. We’re trapped in a place with no signal, can’t call the police, and can’t leave. Deaths started occurring on the very first day we checked in… Isn’t this your old specialty?!!”

Lou Jingmo looked at her with a somber gaze. “There are no ghosts in my novels.”

Shen Maomao waved her hand dismissively. “Whether there are ghosts or not is secondary. I think we first need to find the protagonist. At the very least, we need to know who the core character of this novel is. The protagonist will have a protagonist halo³. There are still over twenty of us left, right? Over twenty? Anyway, among these people, the most prominent one must be the protagonist.”

Golden Retriever said, “Then it must be that old traditional Chinese medicine doctor… I think he really knows how to make himself stand out.”

Lou Jingmo: “…Starting to guess the protagonist already? Your deduction isn’t necessarily correct.”

Shen Maomao: “Well, there are no other theories right now, so let’s just go with this for the time being.”

Indeed, right now, they could only clutch at straws⁴.

Having gained nothing, the three prepared to go down the mountain. Before leaving, Shen Maomao suggested taking another look through the telescope, and the other two had no objections.

Since she made the request, she naturally had to carry it out herself. Shen Maomao cautiously brought her eye to the telescope and took a look. As a result, she saw a green sign floating in the sky, with the words “Safety Exit” written on it, along with an arrow pointing to the right.

Shen Maomao: “?? “

She had the other two come over to look. This time, everyone saw the sign standing in the air and couldn’t help but look at each other in dismay.

Finally, Shen Maomao weakly said, “Does this… mean it wants us to ascend to heaven?”

Golden Retriever was silent for a few seconds, then said uncertainly, “It probably means it wants us to go to the right to find clues, right?”

Lou Jingmo: “It could also be pointing to an identical sign.”

The three of them exchanged their views as they walked out. Just as they stepped out of the astronomical research institute’s main gate, Shen Maomao suddenly felt a chill on the tip of her nose, making her shiver slightly. She looked up at the sky and only then realized that scattered white snowflakes were leisurely drifting down, quickly turning into water upon landing on the ground and on people.

“It’s… actually snowing?” She extended her right hand, palm up, catching a snowflake, and then watched it disappear in her hand.

She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and long jeans and didn’t feel cold at the moment. Yet, under these circumstances, the snowflakes actually managed to form…

Golden Retriever lamented, “Snow in June means a great injustice⁵.”

The light rain seemed to turn into light snow in an instant. The group walked back along the slippery mountain path. Snowflakes landed on Shen Maomao’s exposed skin, seemingly drawing away her body heat bit by bit, causing her to shiver four or five times in succession.

But she still wasn’t cold; the shivering was just a natural reaction of her body suddenly coming into contact with a low-temperature object.

Lou Jingmo raised an eyebrow, lifted her arm, and draped it over Shen Maomao’s shoulder. Then, she pulled Shen Maomao forcefully towards herself, half-embracing her.

Shen Maomao: “???”

Lou Jingmo said expressionlessly, “Blocking the wind for you.”

Shen Maomao said weakly, “Um… I’m not cold…”

Lou Jingmo’s face darkened. “No, you’re cold.”

Shen Maomao: “…Right, I’m a little cold.”

Golden Retriever: “Stop arguing, I’m cold!”

Shen Maomao: “Get lost, get lost. Adults are talking, children shouldn’t interrupt.”

Golden Retriever rolled his eyes, strode ahead of the two, and avoided looking at that damned couple⁶, trying to save his own eyes.

It was around three in the afternoon when they returned to the hotel. Surprisingly, apart from the three of them, most of the remaining people in the hotel—including Xi Tian, Qu Jing, Xiaobao’s family, and the male NPC who had been hiding in his room and rarely came downstairs—were sitting in the lobby, as if waiting for them.

Shen Maomao did a rough count and realized that about five people seemed to be missing.

As soon as she saw them, Hong-jie excitedly came up to them. “Aiya! I thought you all had gone missing too!”

Shen Maomao asked, “What happened? Why are you all here?”

Hong-jie said, “What else? Someone else had an accident! Five of them gone, just like that. Perfectly fine people, gone in an instant, just like this weather, changing on a whim.”

“How did they go missing? Maybe they just went somewhere we don’t know about.”

Hong-jie scratched her head and pointed in a direction. “That, I don’t know. This young man said it.”

Shen Maomao followed her gaze and saw a man surrounded by the crowd, clutching a water cup and shivering.

The man wore an expensive-looking watch on his wrist, and his clothes looked much more high-end than theirs. He was probably a rich man.

Shen Maomao recognized him. In the morning, at the restroom entrance, it was this wealthy man who had helped them call the other NPCs.

The wealthy man took another sip of hot water, an unhealthy flush appearing on his face. “They committed suicide in front of me.”

Shen Maomao: “Suicide??”

“Yes, suicide,” the wealthy man said. “I don’t know what happened either. We had agreed to go to the foot of the mountain together to find a signal and call the police. Halfway there, they suddenly started talking about whether they had anyone they had wronged. As they talked, they went crazy… We were walking along a muddy path. After they confessed their wrongdoings, they rushed into the mud like madmen and quickly sank to the bottom.”

As he spoke, he put down his water cup and gestured to a few people. “The mud was only this shallow, but whoever went in sank to the bottom, and their bodies couldn’t even be recovered. It was as if they were all possessed at the same time. I couldn’t stop them. If my heart wasn’t strong enough, I probably would have had an attack by now.”

Shen Maomao pondered for a moment and said, “I have a question, and I hope it won’t offend you when I ask…”

The wealthy man said, “You want to ask why I wasn’t affected, right? They all asked this question. Maybe it’s because I haven’t done anything to wrong others?”

This answer was as good as no answer. Everyone who had entered the game, including Shen Maomao herself, definitely had people they felt guilty towards or had wronged in their hearts. The solution the wealthy man mentioned was useless for most of them.

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