The Hand of Confession – Chapter 227

Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn

San Mu

Xiao Fu’s Revenge

This row of fresh footprints clearly conveyed a message to them—someone had come to the bathroom during that time.

Shen Maomao lowered her head to observe the direction of the footprints, feeling a strong sense of dissonance somewhere. After a moment, she finally realized: although these footprints looked messy, without exception, all of them had their toes pointing inward.

In other words, the bathroom should be quite lively right now.

Shen Maomao pushed the door of the first stall but couldn’t move it. She thought for a moment, then turned sideways to make way for the awakened Golden Retriever. “You try?”

Golden Retriever also reached out a hand and failed, just like Shen Maomao.

Lou Jingmo said, “I’ll try swiping a card.”

The corner of Shen Maomao’s mouth twitched. “? A swipe-card bathroom?”

Lou Jingmo said, “Otherwise, I can’t think of where else these black cards would be used.” As she spoke, she took out a black card and gently pressed it against the doorknob.

The very air in the bathroom seemed to ripple. A kacha sound, like a jamming cassette tape, echoed in the ears of all three, causing them to instinctively cover them.

The stall door, much like Hong-jie’s face earlier, was suddenly broken down into individual color blocks by some unknown force. They were then scrambled and reassembled, taking on a brand-new appearance.

With a drip—, the stall door transformed into something identical to the hotel room doors. A small door plate even appeared in the center, with the number “321” written on it in a beautiful script.

Lou Jingmo yanked the door open, and a body fell outward. Just as it was about to smash into Lou Jingmo’s face, Shen Maomao, who was beside her, quickly and deftly pulled the body away. The sensation upon touching it was a bone-chilling cold.

Inside the door was a normal-looking bathroom stall; what had fallen out was a corpse.

She recognized this corpse. It was the first girl among the players to go missing. To think her body would be here—and from the looks of it, she had walked in here herself.

Shen Maomao carefully laid the body on the floor. Lou Jingmo took a step back, giving the space to Golden Retriever.

Golden Retriever squatted beside her and muttered a few superstitious words, “No offense to the spirits¹, may you have a safe journey,” before reaching out to touch the corpse’s arm.

Like all the previous corpses, her body turned to ash, leaving behind another pitch-black room card.

Lou Jingmo repeated the process, picking stalls with footprints in front of them and opening the doors. Sure enough, inside every door was a corpse that had previously disappeared.

The black cards could only be used once, and they hadn’t used the character cards yet. The women’s bathroom had a total of eight stalls. Lou Jingmo opened six, found six bodies, and from the bodies, they obtained five black room cards and one “全” (Complete) character card. Now, the only one left to find is “出” (Exit).

Without a moment’s delay, the three went to the men’s bathroom across the hall. But just as they finished dealing with two corpses, a flushing sound suddenly came from the adjacent stall, startling the two leg-hugging pendants.

The person in the next stall is alive??

Shen Maomao’s heart pounded wildly, and Golden Retriever timidly shrank behind Lou Jingmo.

Lou Jingmo’s brow furrowed. She curled her fingers and lightly knocked on the stall door three times.

A person’s voice came from inside. “Is someone there? Quick, help me get this door open! Let me out!”

The three exchanged a look, staring at each other in bewilderment.

That voice… it was actually San Mu’s.

Why was San Mu here? Wasn’t this where the corpses were supposed to be?

Lou Jingmo gestured for the other two to step back. She then used a black card to open the door but didn’t pull it open herself. Instead, she retreated to Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever’s side before saying, “You can come out now. The door is open.”

The door was violently pushed open, and San Mu rushed out, panting heavily. “Thank goodness I ran into you all! I thought I was going to die in here.”

Shen Maomao’s gaze traveled past his head and upward, finally fixing on another face on top of his. She swallowed nervously.

Xiao Fu was like a boneless snake, wrapped tightly around his neck. She rested her chin on the back of his head, her bloodshot eyes staring death at them.

Lou Jingmo’s gaze didn’t waver in the slightest. She said calmly, “Why are you here?”

San Mu seemed completely unaware of the Xiao Fu on his neck. He might have felt a bit of weight, as he raised a hand to pound his own neck. His fist passed through Xiao Fu’s body and landed on his nape as he said, “I don’t know. I just came to use the toilet and was somehow locked in here.”

Shen Maomao gave Golden Retriever a push. “Quick… San Mu must be weak after being locked up for so long. Go help him.”

Golden Retriever trembled like a leaf. “O-Okay. Um, San Mu-dage², let me… let me give you a hand? Let’s talk outside?”

San Mu refused. “It’s fine, I still have strength. Have you guys found a way to leave yet?”

Lou Jingmo said, “Still looking.”

San Mu said, “Xia Tian is missing. Can you help me find him?”

Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever both looked at Lou Jingmo.

Lou Jingmo paused for a moment, then said, “We can, but before that, I have a question for you.”

San Mu looked completely baffled. “Go ahead.”

Lou Jingmo looked at the Xiao Fu on his neck and said, “Did you do something to Xiao Fu?”

San Mu’s expression became dazed. “Xiao Fu? What could I have done to her? I’ve been locked in here since this morning, for the whole morning.”

Xiao Fu bared her teeth in a grin, her mouth flicking out a forked, snake-like tongue to lightly lick his ear.

Shen Maomao shivered along with him, for a moment even thinking it was her own ear that had been licked.

San Mu seemed to sense something and abruptly raised a hand to his ear, finding a glistening wet spot on his fingers. He looked up at the ceiling in confusion but saw no condensed water droplets. He just muttered strangely, “Where did this water come from?”

Then he turned back to Lou Jingmo’s group and said, “Let’s go? What are we still doing here?”

Shen Maomao pursed her lips and mustered the courage to speak to Xiao Fu. “Um… what do you think? Can we touch this one?”

Xiao Fu gave her a sinister look and flicked her tongue twice toward the bathroom entrance with a hiss hiss.

San Mu uncomfortably turned his head to glance behind him, then shakily turned back and asked her, “Who are you talking to?”

Shen Maomao’s expression didn’t change. “I was asking Xiao Tu.”

Lou Jingmo replied, “Let’s go. We’ll talk outside.” After speaking, she took Shen Maomao’s cold hand and turned to walk out, completely at ease leaving her back exposed to San Mu, as if she had no worries he would launch a sneak attack.

“Wait for me!!” Golden Retriever wailed and hurriedly followed.

The three of them exited the bathroom first. The moment their front feet were out the door, their back feet heard Lou Jingmo shout, “Run!”

The two little followers, who had already developed a conditioned reflex, immediately took off. Behind them, San Mu froze for a second before quickly running after them.

Who would have thought that just as he ran out the door, the previously docile Xiao Fu, coiled around his neck, would suddenly erupt? Her mouth split open wide to the sides, and then, in one bite, she swallowed San Mu’s entire head.

“Crunch crunch…” The continuous sound of breaking bones rang out, making Shen Maomao’s skin crawl.

San Mu didn’t make a single sound, not even a groan, before collapsing directly to the ground. No blood flowed from the wound.

The trio stopped at the entrance to the washroom, not daring to breathe too loudly as they watched Xiao Fu bite off San Mu’s neck. She then opened her mouth wide and chewed the hardest bone in the human body to bits, finally slithering back into the bathroom from the floor.

Golden Retriever’s legs went soft, and he sat right down on the ground. “My god…”

Shen Maomao also let out a long sigh of relief. “I thought she was going to attack us…”

Lou Jingmo said, “Scared? I only told you to run just now because I was afraid blood would splatter on you.”

Shen Maomao: “…” Then why did you sound as serious as if it were the end of the world?

Lou Jingmo smiled. “San Mu was clearly already dead. He just didn’t know it himself.”

“Xiao Fu was clearly most afraid of snakes… why did she end up turning herself into one?” Shen Maomao looked at the S-shaped trail on the floor, not knowing what she should be feeling.

Golden Retriever proactively squatted down and touched San Mu’s body, pulling out a room card. Wiping the ash off with a tissue, he muttered under his breath, “Quan! Quan! Quan!”

The characters for 人 (person) and 王 (king) appeared before his eyes.³ His eyes lit up, and he held up the room card for Lou Jingmo to see. “Lou-jie! Quan!”

The set really was complete.

Lou Jingmo said, “Let’s go. Back to the room, lock the door, and see if we can get out.”

Shen Maomao realized they were very likely about to leave this instance. She felt the phone in her pocket and remembered the Tetris game by Daming Lake⁴. “Lou-jie! I haven’t finished my game!”

Golden Retriever: “What time is it for that? You’re still in the mood to play games?”

Shen Maomao shot him a glare. “I have OCD!”

Lou Jingmo: “Play it when we get back. If we can, we’ll send Golden Retriever out first.”

The three returned to the room without a sound. Shen Maomao immediately took out her phone to play her game. Her level of concentration made Golden Retriever want to touch her forehead and ask if her fever had made her stupid.

Lou Jingmo studied the room cards in her hand.

Four character cards, twelve black cards, she didn’t know what they meant.

She spread the bedsheet flat and first arranged the four characters for “安全出口” (Safety Exit) neatly, but nothing happened.

She then placed the black cards under these four characters, arranging them in four neat rows, but there was still no reaction.

Watching her arrange them back and forth, Golden Retriever suddenly thought of something and said, “Lou-jie! Let me!”

Lou Jingmo made way for him.

Golden Retriever immediately placed four black cards at the very top. The second row was the four characters for “安全出口”. The third and fourth rows were also black cards.

The instant the last room card was placed, a soft white light suddenly appeared and spread outward. The originally scattered room cards automatically merged into a single piece. The four characters for “安全出口” also gained a small figure and a ghostly green arrow, making it look exactly like an indicator sign.

Three scarlet Chinese characters materialized to the lower right of “安全出口” and finally solidified. Shen Maomao took a moment to look up, but before she could see them clearly, she heard Golden Retriever shout, “Right! This book is called 《Safety Exit》, and the author is Wang Qiufu⁵!!”

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The author has something to say:

I suddenly made it onto the Golden List⁶. I’m so excited my hands are shaking. To celebrate 5,000 collection adds and the comment red envelopes I forgot to mention yesterday, the first one hundred comments today will get one! Thank you all for your support! Love you all! This instance is about to end, and next, I’ll write a bit about real life—it’s time for some romance.

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