The Hand of Confession – Chapter 240

Volume 8: The Days of the Ghost Marriage

Four

The big red lanterns are hung up high

The night gradually deepened. The crickets chirped noisily, grating on the nerves, yet there was nothing to be done about it.

Zhai Yiqiao probably wasn’t coming back tonight.

Shen Maomao had no idea what kind of ending awaited her.

Would she ascend to the heavens in a single step, coasting to victory under Young Master Shao’s protection, or would she instantly court death, never to be seen again by morning…

From the very beginning, Zhai Yiqiao had no reverence for the instance. She was young and hadn’t seen much of the world. Perhaps she was still under the influence of transmigration novels, thinking she could activate a Mary Sue¹ route after traveling to an ancient era. She didn’t take Cheng Rui’s words to heart and probably didn’t believe ghosts would actually appear, which is why she dared to so directly activate death-seeking mode.

Everyone else has the script for a horror RPG², but she thinks she’s playing an otome dating sim³. It’d be a miracle if nothing went wrong.

Thinking this, she quietly turned over, rolling herself into Lou Jingmo’s arms and looking at her skin, which was cast in a layer of yellow light by the flame.

Lou Jingmo was also dressed as a young maid. Because they didn’t know how to do up the two bun hairstyle, they hadn’t undone it for bed. At first glance, seeing her custom face with such a clearly childish hairstyle inexplicably gave Shen Maomao the feeling of an old cucumber painted green⁴, but if she were to mentally photoshop this hairstyle onto Lou Jingmo’s real face…

Beautiful people really look good in any hairstyle 【Thumbs up】.

Just as she was imagining what Lou Jingmo would look like in Hanfu⁵ in real life, a set of orderly footsteps came from outside. It was probably the male players returning together.

Lou Jingmo’s eyes snapped open with a shua, and she met Shen Maomao’s gaze in a deep, affectionate stare.

Shen Maomao leaned over and silently kissed the corner of her mouth.

A hint of a smile flashed through Lou Jingmo’s eyes. She shrank back into the bed, then lifted a corner of her own quilt, revealing a large empty space underneath. The implication was very obvious.

Shen Maomao’s face flushed, and she silently crawled out of her own bedding and slipped into someone else’s.

Not long after the two had settled in, a knock suddenly sounded at the door, followed by Cheng Rui’s voice, “Excuse me, where did you find the lamp? Do you have any spares?”

The other three women also opened their eyes but showed no intention of answering.

Cheng Rui continued to knock, looking like he wouldn’t give up until he got what he wanted.

Su Han frowned, sat up, and answered, “We’ve already taken off our clothes, it’s not convenient to open the door. We borrowed the oil lamp from people in another room. You should hurry up and go borrow one too. Don’t waste your time here, we don’t have a spare.”

Only then did Cheng Rui stop. He took a step back from the door and thanked them, “Sorry to disturb you. You can go back to sleep.”

Then came the sound of him assigning tasks to the others. “Three to the left, three to the right. Let’s split up to borrow a lamp. The sooner we find one, the sooner we can rest.”

This was followed by the sound of footsteps scattering, and the successive sounds of knocking on doors. The quiet night was completely shattered, which, contrary to expectations, provided a good deal of security.

Taking this opportunity, Su Han said, “I don’t know if you’ve felt it, but as soon as it gets dark, I always get the feeling of being watched whenever I’m standing outside.”

Milk Tea looked at the rafters on the ceiling and replied, “No… but I feel like it’s really cold outside at night. It’s so cold it scares me…”

Su Han lay back down and whispered, “I always feel like I’m being monitored by something… and not just one thing. I had the same feeling in the kitchen, but it wasn’t as strong as it is outside, which is why I was in such a hurry to get back.”

Lou Jingmo asked, “You don’t feel it in here?”

“Right,” Su Han replied. “This place feels very safe for now, but I feel very uneasy in my heart.”

Lou Jingmo said, “You are very perceptive.”

Su Han gave a small laugh, her smile tinged with bitterness. “Sensitive, I’d say? That’s probably why I never quite fit in.”

Lou Jingmo tactfully refrained from probing further and instead said, “Let’s get some sleep. We have other chores to do tomorrow morning.”

The small room returned to tranquility.

After a while, the people who had gone to the right to borrow a lamp returned, dejected.

In ancient times, the separation of the sexes⁶ was taken seriously. Although servants didn’t have as many scruples, this most basic rule still had to be observed. In the dead of night, the unmarried young maids would naturally not open their doors for men.

The three returned in disappointment, complaining as they passed by the women’s window. Judging from their voices, it was the two new male players and that Zhang Paohui.

Cheng Rui had probably guessed that the mission to the maids’ quarters would be fruitless, so he had dispatched a few unimportant people to borrow the oil lamp.

Shen Maomao lay on the bed and peered out the window, watching the silhouettes of the three flash past their paper-paned window.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four… four?

Shen Maomao suddenly gripped Lou Jingmo’s arm.

Why is there an extra one??!

Lou Jingmo softly shushed her, then pulled her tighter into her embrace, calming her wildly beating heart.

The four figures standing in a row quickly walked past their door, disappearing one by one from the window view.

Lou Jingmo gently patted her on the back, signaling for her to sleep properly and not overthink it.

Now was really not a good time to talk. Everything would have to wait until morning.

Shen Maomao suppressed her pounding heart, snuggled deeper into her arms, and then closed her eyes, gradually falling into a deep sleep while breathing in Lou Jingmo’s pleasant scent.

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“Cock-a-doodle-doo—” [LP: This is funny to me, for some reason]

A rooster’s crow rang out by her ear. Shen Maomao jolted and opened her eyes, thinking for a split second that a chicken had somehow climbed onto their bed and crowed right next to her.

The other women all woke up too. Lou Jingmo sat up and looked out the window, only to realize that the sky wasn’t fully bright yet.

But it was bright enough to make out people.

The small flame on the lampstand, after burning for an entire night, was still stubbornly shining brightly. Without watches or phones, they could only rely on their feelings to tell the time, at most inferring that it was now the next morning.

A series of noises came from outside. It seemed that besides them, everyone else had also been woken up by this big rooster.

The five of them decided not to sleep anymore. They got up one by one, put on their jackets, and sat in the room waiting for Bi Chun to assign them their work.

Lou Jingmo started ordering people around. “Rabbit, you go outside and take a look.”

Shen Maomao understood that she was just a tool to be used wherever needed and didn’t feel any dissatisfaction. She only said aggrievedly as she pushed the door open, “Can’t you add a ‘dear’?”

Lou Jingmo paused, then said again, “Rabbit, you go to the dear outside and take a look?”

Shen Maomao: “…” Can you use ‘dear’ to describe a location word?!

She glared at Lou Jingmo, carefully pushed open the door, and poked her head out for a peek. Only then did she discover that the other servants were already up and preparing to work, and the lamps in their respective rooms had been blown out.

Shen Maomao turned back and reported this, and Su Han immediately said, “Then should we blow ours out too?”

Milk Tea and Potato Chips naturally had no objections, so Shen Maomao walked directly to the window and, with a whoosh, blew out the oil lamp.

A plume of white smoke dissipated in the air, and the room instantly darkened.

The women folded their quilts in the dark. Just a few minutes after they finished, they heard Bi Chun’s voice at the door. “It’s the fifth watch⁷, hurry up and get to work!”

Shen Maomao slipped on her embroidered shoes and went to open the door. The moment she saw Bi Chun, she gave her a big smile, curtsied just like Potato Chips had the day before, and said, “Reporting to Miss Bi Chun, we’ve been up for a while. We didn’t dare to walk around without your arrangements, so we were just waiting here.”

Bi Chun was holding a yellow lantern. Hearing this, she waved her hand to the side and peered inside with the lantern.

Shen Maomao, being very perceptive, sidled to one side, clearing the doorway for her.

Seeing that the women were indeed fully dressed, Bi Chun nodded in satisfaction. Then, she seemed to remember something and asked with a frown, “Why are you missing a person?”

Potato Chips said, “Miss Bi Chun, we reported to you yesterday afternoon while washing clothes that one of the new maids had run off somewhere and didn’t come back all night.”

Bi Chun’s brow furrowed into a big “chuan” character⁸ as she repeated coldly, “Didn’t come back all night?”

Potato Chips nodded repeatedly.

Bi Chun glanced at them again but didn’t transfer her anger. Instead, she said, suppressing her temper, “You all have done well. Don’t worry about the clothes. Today, you will go assist in the kitchen. Do not learn from that sort of rule-breaking wench⁹. Remember clearly what you are allowed to do and what you are not.”

Potato Chips said, “We understand.”

Bi Chun gave a faint nod. “Go on, then.” After speaking, she turned and walked towards the area where the handymen lived.

The five women got moving, closed the door behind them as they left the room, and headed toward the kitchen they had been to yesterday.

Shen Maomao was still thinking about last night’s events. She frowned and said to Lou Jingmo, “Did a ghost mix in with the men?”

Milk Tea said in surprise, “You saw it too?! I saw four silhouettes flash past the window. I was so scared I didn’t fall asleep until the latter half of the night…”

Shen Maomao nodded.

Potato Chips said, “Huh? I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me…”

Su Han looked back at the rooms that still had lights on and said, “It should be fine. They managed to borrow a lamp in the end.”

Milk Tea said with lingering fear, “I hope we don’t have a situation where a teammate gets swapped out this time…”

The thought of someone she spent all her time with having their core completely replaced without her knowledge made her skin crawl and her scalp tingle.

Potato Chips also murmured, “That’s impossible, right? We just went through a plot like that in our last instance. The same trick definitely wouldn’t appear so frequently.”

As they spoke, the five of them walked out of the small courtyard where the servants lived. As soon as they left the courtyard gate, they saw two large, bright red lanterns. They were the ones the male players had hung up during their work in the daytime.

And at that very moment, Su Han’s steps faltered, her face instantly turning deathly pale. “It’s here again!”

Shen Maomao hadn’t yet reacted. “What’s here again?”

Su Han took two steps back. “That feeling of being watched is here again…”

The five of them exchanged glances, then collectively raised their heads, their gazes silently fixing on the two red lanterns hanging above them.

If they had to say what was at the gate but not in the courtyard…

It was these red lanterns, hung by the players’ own hands.

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