The Hand of Confession – Chapter 222

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

Buried

This height… isn’t there something a bit wrong with it?

Shen Maomao hurriedly explained, “Not the thighs you’re thinking of, it was a bunch of little white legs!”

Lou Jingmo silently pulled out a knife.

Shen Maomao said, “I just peeked out through the crack in the door for a second and saw a bunch of identical women’s feet.”

Speaking of which, she recalled the state of those legs and added, “I have to say, those legs were pretty white and slender.”

Lou Jingmo rolled her eyes at her. “Never heard anyone praise themselves like that. Have you no shame?”

Shen Maomao: “??? Praising myself?”

Lou Jingmo said, “If I’m not mistaken, we had the same dream.”

Shen Maomao blinked.

Lou Jingmo retorted, “In your dream, were you the only one left in the room?”

Shen Maomao nodded repeatedly.

“Me too,” Lou Jingmo said. “I knew something was wrong right away. But when I pulled the door open, there was a row of ‘me’s’ standing outside. Every single ‘me’ was staring eagerly at the door, giving me the feeling that they were dying to rush in and replace me.”

Shen Maomao was shocked. “What’s going on? What kind of ‘you’? The real you? Or the you right now?”

“The me from character creation.”

Shen Maomao was even more confused. “Something wants to replace you? If you get replaced, you can’t return to reality? Then could the ones I saw also be a bunch of yous?”

Lou Jingmo ripped off her blanket. “See for yourself. Compare your legs to the ones you just saw.”

Startled by the sudden action, Shen Maomao nearly leaped off the bed. “Can we just talk?! Why’d you rip off my blanket?!”

Lou Jingmo pressed down on her head. “Less nonsense, hurry up and look.”

Forced to play along, Shen Maomao stared at her own calves for a long while before saying uncertainly, “I think… they looked like this…” Just looking wasn’t enough to be sure. She wrapped the blanket around herself, slipped her feet into her shoes, and then looked down again. That basically confirmed it—the feet she had seen were indeed her own.

Golden Retriever chimed in from the side, “You both had a dream like that, but I didn’t dream of anything. Is something going to happen to me?!”

Lou Jingmo, seeming to know something, said calmly, “It’s fine. This dream probably has nothing to do with the instance.”

Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever exchanged a look of pure confusion.

But Lou Jingmo had no intention of explaining further. She just stood up, straightened her clothes, and yanked open the curtains.

An expanse of pure white filled their vision.

Shen Maomao squeezed in next to her and said uncertainly, “This height… isn’t there something a bit wrong with it?”

Lou Jingmo nodded. “There is.”

Shen Maomao looked again several times, then had a sudden realization. “We’re much lower to the ground!”

Had the snow gotten that deep?! So deep that it had buried the entire first floor!

Lou Jingmo said, “We’re running out of time.”

Their clothing wasn’t enough to allow them to go out and clear the snow. Besides, with the snow this thick, clearing it by hand was unrealistic… Perhaps on the morning of the seventh day, they would be greeted by a great snow that blotted out the sky, and the dwindling oxygen in the hotel.

Shen Maomao thought for a moment and said, “Should we look for that ‘safety exit’ sign? I think it might be very important.”

Golden Retriever: “But we don’t have the keys to the other rooms…”

Lou Jingmo: “Let the rabbit sell her charms.”

Shen Maomao: “???”

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Lou Jingmo’s plan didn’t come to fruition, because Xiao Fu was missing.

The front desk was empty. Xiao Fu, who had been rocking in her chair for five days, was nowhere to be found. If she had simply disappeared, they could have assumed she left on her own to do something else. But now, there was an overturned bottle of nail polish on the counter. Messy red streaks covered the entire tabletop, with an “S”-shaped curve right in the middle.

Shen Maomao touched the tabletop. The nail polish was hard; it had clearly been dry for a long time.

Other than that, there was only a telephone and a “No Smoking” sign on the counter. She couldn’t find Xiao Fu’s card case.

Shen Maomao realized something.

She pulled open the drawers and pushed aside the rocking chair. She searched high and low but couldn’t find the case that held the room cards.

“Didn’t find it?” Lou Jingmo said coolly. “It seems they’ve made their move.”

Shen Maomao felt a pang of sadness. She traced the uneven “S” with her finger, her eyes welling up slightly as she said in a small voice, “Look at this mark, doesn’t it look like a little snake?”

I should have come to find Xiao Fu sooner.

Xiao Fu had only told her about her fear of snakes, but she had told the others. Perhaps that was the real reason she had gone missing.

And in this instance, missing people were generally dead. Very few survived.

A thick wave of guilt enveloped her, making it hard to breathe.

Lou Jingmo patted her shoulder lightly. “What’s done is done. Guilt is useless. Are you going to kill them to make them pay for Xiao Fu’s life?”

Shen Maomao’s shoulders slumped, as if something inside her had collapsed along with them. “I’m so useless…”

Lou Jingmo: “So could you, a good-for-nothing, stop trying to act like a Bodhisattva Guanyin¹ who saves people from suffering, okay?”

Shen Maomao: “…Thanks, I don’t feel comforted at all.”

Lou Jingmo said, “Since they got the room cards, they’re probably searching for clues in every room right now. We can take a break. If the exit is in another room, we just have to wait for the white light to appear.”

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A thick layer of white frost covered the first-floor windows. Shen Maomao wiped them twice, but all she could see was still a sheet of white. The entire first floor had been buried. She tried to push the main door, this time using all her strength, but couldn’t budge it. Leaving through the main entrance was clearly no longer an option.

Unable to go out and search for clues, Shen Maomao’s mind was a mess. She could only resort to playing Tetris to occupy her restless brain.

Golden Retriever was sent to cook. A short while later, someone came down from upstairs. It was Xiaobao’s Dad, who hadn’t been seen for a long time.

Compared to the first time they met, Xiaobao’s Dad was like a different person. He burst out of the elevator in a panic and bolted headlong for the main entrance.

Shen Maomao was about to tell him the door wouldn’t open when she heard Lou Jingmo suddenly yell her name: “Go!”

“Go where?!” She shot up, her mind still a bit foggy.

Lou Jingmo grabbed her and ran towards the kitchen, calling out to Golden Retriever who was wrestling with a pile of ingredients, then dragged them both towards the restrooms.

The three of them rushed into the men’s restroom, and Lou Jingmo slammed the door shut behind them.

Golden Retriever, also in the dark, asked breathlessly, “Wh-what’s wrong?”

Lou Jingmo said, “The elevator went right back up.”

Xiaobao’s Dad was clearly being chased by something. He probably hadn’t had a chance to see the scene outside the window, so his first instinct was to flee through the main door. But unfortunately, the main door was blocked.

In less than a minute, a set of frantic footsteps rushed towards their location, followed by a hand pushing against the men’s restroom door.

With three people holding it shut from behind, he naturally couldn’t push it open.

Breathing heavily, Xiaobao’s Dad turned and dashed into the women’s restroom.

After the sound of a door closing, Lou Jingmo whispered, “Find a stall. We’ll squeeze in.”

The three of them tiptoed over and chose a stall in the middle. Shen Maomao went in first, nimbly hoisting herself up to sit on the toilet tank. Lou Jingmo and Golden Retriever followed close behind, and then Lou Jingmo locked the stall door.

What followed was a long, quiet wait.

Dong… dong… dong…

Something was getting closer.

Shen Maomao craned her neck, carefully peeking out. She saw a black shadow through the crack at the bottom of the door. Someone was standing at the entrance to the two restrooms, seemingly deliberating whether to go left or right.

Besides this black shadow, something else was continuously bouncing up and down on the floor, its shadow flickering along with it, perfectly matching the drum-like dong dong sound.

Shen Maomao’s heart pounded wildly, her hands trembling with tension.

After a long silence, the shadow in the door crack finally moved. Then, with a creak, the door to their restroom was pushed open.

Shen Maomao jerked her head back.

In that fleeting glimpse, she had clearly seen who opened the door.

—It was Xiaobao, and his mother’s head.

The light footsteps and the sound of the bouncing head drew closer, bit by bit. Xiaobao giggled, “Hehe, Daddy? Where did you go? Come play with us!”

Shen Maomao clapped a hand over her mouth, not daring to make a sound.

Xiaobao spoke again, “Mommy, go peek under the door and see if Daddy’s there~”

Lou Jingmo and Golden Retriever acted almost simultaneously, both crushing a suddenly appearing feather-shaped item.

Understanding dawned on Shen Maomao, and she straightened her legs.

The two of them lifted their legs and stepped onto the tops of her shoes. As if they were completely weightless, they used her feet as a fulcrum to stand in mid-air.

It all happened in an instant. The two used their arms to brace against the stall’s partitions to better maintain their balance. Shen Maomao’s legs were tensed, and a drop of cold sweat trickled down her forehead.

Gulu gulu…

The head rolled in front of the several stall doors, its shadow flickering back and forth, but it didn’t discover them.

Xiaobao’s disappointed voice came from outside, “Looks like Daddy isn’t here… Let’s go look for him across the hall~”

All the sounds made by the mother and son gradually faded away. Shen Maomao relaxed her body. Golden Retriever and Lou Jingmo also jumped down from her feet, landing without a single sound.

Shen Maomao wanted to give them a thumbs-up.

That item was truly amazing.

The three of them made no other movements, simply pressing themselves against the door to eavesdrop.

Across the hall, it seemed Xiaobao couldn’t push open the women’s restroom door. He clapped his hands happily. “This door won’t open! Daddy must be inside!”

Then came a series of door-banging sounds.

A few minutes later, a man’s wail of pleading could be heard. “I was wrong… I’ll never drink again… Please let me go… I’ll be a good dad from now on…”

Xiaobao chuckled lightly, followed by a blood-curdling, pain-filled scream, which came to an abrupt halt after a few seconds.

“But… it’s too late.”

Someone let out a faint sigh, followed by a happy laugh. “Now our family can be together forever and ever!”

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