The Hand of Confession – Chapter 217

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

Tang Song

Back to the room!!

There’s a kind of disappointment that’s hard to describe in words.

Its name is: the card is right in front of you, but you just can’t draw it.

Shen Maomao opened her prop inventory and found an extra prop that could shoot a bolt of lightning to temporarily paralyze an enemy.

She almost wailed out loud, “I told you my luck is terrible… Waaah QAQ!!!”

Lou Jingmo pointed at Golden Retriever and made a “shush” gesture with her hand.

Shen Maomao sobbed softly, “That was a card… a card… it slipped away right in front of me…”

“It would have been great if you had helped me draw just now QAQ. I really want to cry, boohoohoohoo.”

“A card… a card… a card…”

Lou Jingmo: “…” Good thing she hadn’t made a move earlier. If she had been the one who didn’t draw it, there’s no telling how this damn rabbit would have howled at her.

Annoyed by the wailing, she directly pulled a rectangular card from her prop inventory and “piaji¹” slapped it onto her face. “Take it and go to sleep, quickly.”

Shen Maomao was like a screaming chicken that had suddenly been choked; all her subtle, feigned sobs came to an abrupt halt.

She took the rectangular card off her face and, using the light from her phone, observed the image on it—a man in a red robe was depicted. The man held his hands in front of him, palms up, with a flame floating within them. The flame seemed to be dancing…

Under the phone’s light, the patterns on the card’s background faintly glowed with a slowly flowing red light. But when she turned off her phone, this trace of red light vanished along with it.

Shen Maomao’s hands trembled slightly.

This was a card…

Players relied on these cards to leave the game. Lou Jingmo actually gave her the card so generously??

No… something so important, she probably just gave it to me to broaden my horizons. I’ll have to return it to her when it’s light tomorrow…

Thinking this, she felt much more at ease and put the card into her prop inventory, planning to return it to Lou Jingmo the next morning.

However, falling asleep was impossible now.

She stealthily slipped into her quilt and opened another game on her phone—Tetris.

If clearing Snake gives an prop… Tetris must have one too, right? The game developers can’t show favoritism!

So, early the next morning, Lou Jingmo received a rabbit with dark circles under its eyes.

Golden Retriever, completely unaware of what happened later last night, was startled to see her like this and thought she had been possessed by a ghost.

Shen Maomao looked at the two of them with a resentful gaze and said faintly, “I’ve become obsessed with gaming², you don’t need to worry about me.”

Golden Retriever: “??”

It was only 6:30, the sky still dim. Shen Maomao yanked open the curtains, and a blast of cold air hit her face. She was almost blinded by the white outside. “Holy cow! Did it snow all night yesterday?”

Speaking of last night, the few of them inevitably recalled the knocking sound from the middle of the night.

They didn’t know if it was a ghost that came knocking last night, or if something had really happened.

According to Shen Maomao’s logic—Tang Song and Van Gogh lived in 304, while the three of them were in 310, with several rooms in between. If Tang Song really wanted to ask for help, San Mu and Xia Tian next door were clearly better choices. Two men were obviously more capable of helping him than two women plus a seemingly useless Golden Retriever.

Or had San Mu and Xia Tian also refused his plea for help?

The three of them tidied up and went out. As soon as they opened the door, they saw a row of bloody handprints on their door.

Shen Maomao said, her heart still pounding with fear, “If we had opened the door yesterday, would we have been goners?”

Lou Jingmo frowned. “Not necessarily. Let’s go take a look.”

Shen Maomao nudged Golden Retriever. “Go, go knock on the door.”

Golden Retriever looked miserable. “Why me?”

Shen Maomao: “Because I’m a little scared.”

Golden Retriever: “…And I’m not scared?!”

“But I’m just a delicate girl, you know?”

Golden Retriever: “…” When you get tough, you could f#cking knock my head off.

But there was no helping it. As the only man in the team, he always had to bear responsibilities that someone his age shouldn’t have to.

He took the lead and, full of bravado, knocked on the door of 304.

There was no response from inside, as if no one had ever lived there.

The door of 302 next door opened from the inside, and San Mu poked his head out. “What’s wrong with them?”

Shen Maomao didn’t answer his question, instead asking, “Did you hear any commotion late last night?”

San Mu shook his head. “No commotion, I don’t think so? I was sleeping like a log—Xia Tian!” He turned his head to call someone. “Was there any commotion last night?”

Xia Tian walked to the door with his hands in his pockets and said, “No, I’m sure.”

Seeing his dark circles, Shen Maomao knew his words were very credible. Some people look cool on the surface but are actually too scared (?) to sleep every night.

Shen Maomao sighed and said, “They might have run into trouble. Last night, Tang Song knocked on our door and said Van Gogh had gone crazy, asking us to save him.”

San Mu was taken aback. “You didn’t open the door, did you?”

Shen Maomao shook her head. “To be honest, we didn’t dare.”

Xia Tian, behind him, said coldly, “If you had opened it, you’d probably be the ones who disappeared.”

Shen Maomao nodded.

San Mu extended an invitation, “Shall we ask the front desk for a spare key card?”

Shen Maomao looked at Lou Jingmo, and only after Lou Jingmo nodded did she say, “Alright, let’s go together.”

At a time like this, they couldn’t be bothered with washing up. The five of them walked towards the elevator, only to find it was coming up from the first floor.

Who would have gone downstairs this early in the morning?

Shen Maomao watched the display panel. The number changed from one to an upward scrolling arrow, then jumped to two after a few seconds, and then, without any pause, changed back to an arrow.

Lou Jingmo’s expression changed. “Back to the room!!”

Shen Maomao didn’t hesitate for a moment. Hearing Lou Jingmo’s command, she turned and ran. The three men paused for a second, then immediately followed them back.

Lou Jingmo used her key card to open the door, yanked it open, and rushed inside.

Shen Maomao followed closely behind. The four of them filed in, and Xia Tian, the last one in, closed the door behind him.

Just as the door was shut tight, they seemed to hear the “ding” sound of the elevator stopping.

The group huddled by the door, not daring to breathe too loudly, straining their ears to listen to the sounds outside.

It seemed no one got out of the elevator. Even room 310, closest to the elevator, couldn’t hear anyone walking. Besides that, the elevator made no further sound.

However, the five people in the room were all sharp cookies³ and didn’t act rashly because of this.

After waiting for about ten minutes, they finally heard the sound of the elevator doors closing again. At the same time, heavy footsteps passed by their door, moving step by step further away.

“Squeak—”

They didn’t know which door he had pulled open. Outside, it finally returned to silence.

Lou Jingmo suddenly spoke, “Could you tell which room’s door opened?”

All four shook their heads.

Shen Maomao said, “Xiao Tu, who do you think this person is?”

Who could make an elevator that was supposed to stop on the second floor come directly up from the first floor? Was it Hong-jie? Or a hotel staff member? Or perhaps the missing Van Gogh and Tang Song?

Lou Jingmo paused for a moment, only then realizing her nickname was Xiao Tu. She replied, “Me, identify people by their footsteps? If I had that ability, why would I still be a corporate slave⁴?”

Shen Maomao: “…” If you don’t know, you don’t know. You can’t be so fierce just because you have boobs!

Lou Jingmo patted Golden Retriever’s shoulder. “Open the door.”

Golden Retriever’s hand trembled. He shakily pulled the door open a crack, wishing he could be eighty meters away from it.

Outside, there was no one. He breathed a sigh of relief and was the first to step out of the room.

San Mu asked, “Are we still getting the key card?”

Lou Jingmo nodded. “Yes.”

“Alright, then let’s hurry.”

This time, the elevator obediently stopped on the third floor.

The group got into the elevator, it paused on the second floor, and then arrived at the first floor.

Lou Jingmo said, “So the elevator wasn’t broken just now after all.”

Shen Maomao went to the front desk, knocked on Xiao Fu’s desk, and asked, “Excuse me, can we get a spare key card from you? Our friend seems to have fainted in their room, they’re not responding to knocks…”

Xiao Fu said, “Do you have your friend’s ID card?”

Shen Maomao was silent for a second. “No.”

Xiao Fu thought for a moment, then said, “Which room is your friend in? I’ll try calling them.”

The front desk had an internal phone line connecting to all the rooms, convenient for the hotel to provide services to guests.

Shen Maomao: “304.”

Xiao Fu picked up the phone, held it to her ear, and soon hung up. “No one’s answering. Could your friends have gone out?”

Shen Maomao: “It’s so cold, and they don’t have warm clothes. How could they go out?”

Xiao Fu spread her hands helplessly. “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you either.”

Shen Maomao thought for a moment and said, “You should be quite familiar with Hong-jie, right? We’re all tourists under her. Can she help vouch for us? The main thing is, my friend isn’t in good health. If something happened to them in the room, that’s a situation nobody wants to see, isn’t it?”

Xiao Fu seemed to be persuaded. “Then wait a moment.”

She picked up the phone again, dialed a number, and said, “Hello, is that Hong-jie? There are a few people at the front desk, they say they’re tourists under you… Yes, they said their friends might have had an accident in their room and want to go in to check, they need you as a guarantor… Alright, then come down quickly.”

After saying that, she hung up the phone directly and gave the waiting group an eight-toothed smile. “She’ll be down right away, please wait a moment.” Then she lay back down in her rocking chair and played with her nail polish.

Her attitude when speaking to Hong-jie couldn’t be called bad, but it definitely wasn’t good, forming a stark contrast to her attitude towards the players—could these two have some personal grudge?

While they were waiting for Hong-jie to come downstairs, Xia Tian suddenly asked, “The phone can make calls? Why not use it to call the police?”

Shen Maomao was stunned again.

That’s right… They were players and knew calling the police was useless, so they almost never considered contacting the outside world. But maybe if they were rescued, they could naturally escape the game?!

And even if the police officers couldn’t save them, maybe they could use this to expose Xiao Fu’s abnormality and determine if she was the main character…

Thinking of this, she looked intently at the woman behind the counter.

Xiao Fu’s smile was flawless. “This phone can only be used to contact internal guest rooms. It can’t make outside calls. If you don’t believe me, I can show you.”

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