The Hand of Confession – Chapter 308

Volume 9: The Days Can’t Be Lived Anymore

The Real Death

I should find a way to save you.

The potential for unknown factors on the elevators and escalators was too high, so the two chose to take the stairs.

The distance between the first basement level and the ground floor was significant. They descended a total of three flights of stairs before they exited the stairwell and saw a metal door that required a keycard for entry.

Shang Zhou walked up to the door, preparing to study a way to get in, but Shen Maomao stopped him. “Get out of the way. I’ll just blow the door open.”

Outside, the authorities were engaged in a firefight with the very monsters they had created. The sounds of cannon fire and roars were loud enough to cover the noise of an explosion here.

Realizing this, he immediately cleared the space in front of the door, retreating all the way to the stairwell entrance before shouting, “I’m ready!”

“…” Shen Maomao was a little speechless. She also took a few steps back to a safe blasting distance, then pulled out her explosive spheres. Without even counting, she threw a handful of them, all of which slammed against the wall next to the door.

Compared to the sturdy metal door, the concrete wall was an easier target.

The entire building trembled three times. An explosion of this magnitude would, at most, be felt as a vibration by those inside the building, but it wasn’t enough to cause a collapse.

Dust billowed out and rubble came tumbling down. The sound of the explosion was indeed mixed in with the sounds of battle outside, making it seem less conspicuous.

Shen Maomao quickly turned her back, covering her mouth and nose. She only turned around after the sound of dust particles hitting her down jacket had ceased.

As she had hoped, a large hole had been blown in the wall. A soft, white light peeked out from the hole, shining on her face.

The blaring alarms she had anticipated never went off. Perhaps the test subjects had destroyed the security system here when they rushed out.

Regardless—in short, this was the real exit. The one outside the maze was nothing but a decoy to toy with them.

Shang Zhou ran over from a distance, looking at the white light of the exit with emotion. “Heng Chuan’s death was truly unjust. He was clearly the one closest to the exit.”

“You should go, quickly,” Shen Maomao said.

Shang Zhou turned his head back to look at her. “You’re not leaving?”

Shen Maomao nodded. “I still have to wait for her.”

She had no idea how pale her face was, and Shang Zhou hadn’t expected her to be so resilient. The exit was right in front of her; could any friendship, no matter how important, be more important than her own life?

Since her mind was made up, Shang Zhou didn’t try to persuade her further. He gave Shen Maomao a cupped-hand salute¹ and said, “Take care.” Then he bent down and squeezed through the hole in the wall.

A broken piece of brick fell from the wall. Shen Maomao leaned against it, now almost unable to feel the existence of her right hand.

Her clothes were soaked with cold sweat, only to be dried by a cold wind that seeped in from somewhere. She shivered violently, which triggered a wave of numbness in her right hand—she didn’t even need to roll up her sleeve to guess how swollen her right arm must be.

After Shang Zhou left, she was the only one left. The incandescent light shining on her did nothing to dispel the chill.

She supported herself against the wall and slowly sat down, the rims of her eyes inexplicably growing hot.

Maybe it was from worry, maybe from the pain, or perhaps there was even a trace of imperceptible grievance.

Her tear ducts were actually quite active. She would cry watching movies, cry reading novels, cry when she was hurt, and even cry her eyes out over heart-wrenching plots in video games.

But throughout the entire journey just now, aside from the physiological tears brought on by the sheer pain, she hadn’t shed a single tear or shown a hint of fear. It wasn’t until Shang Zhou left that she finally lost control of her tear ducts, burying her head in her knees and beginning to cry with suppressed sobs.

She was 23 years old this year, 21 by Western age, and hadn’t had her birthday yet. She had only graduated from university a few months ago, yet she had endured far too much for someone her age.

Her classmates were running around, fighting for their futures, while she had to worry about her own life and the safety of her girlfriend every single moment.

She had never truly hated anyone before. When Ren Yue tricked her into this game, she was more confused than anything, unable to understand how Ren Yue could betray her so shamelessly. But at this very moment, she resented Ren Yue with a passion, hated her to the point of grinding her teeth and gnashing her incisors², so much so that she wished she could find a knife and stab her to death the moment she got out.

Time ticked by, second by second. She guarded the exit, forcing herself to stay awake and not pass out through the self-harming method of tapping on her wound. But even as the clock reached eleven fifty-eight, no one else arrived.

Shen Maomao stared intently at the watch on her left wrist. Two minutes passed in a flash. No matter how desperately she pleaded for time to slow down, it was useless. In the blink of an eye, the final second hand pointed to 12.

The bell tolled for midnight. She felt a searing heat on the back of her neck, followed by a sharp pain emanating from her heart.

What was meant to come had come.

Something had happened to Lou Jingmo.

The pain in her heart was far worse than the pain in her hand. Shen Maomao collapsed to the ground in agony, violently spitting out a mouthful of fresh blood as her body convulsed uncontrollably twice.

The back of her neck burned intensely, as if it was about to set her on fire. Her brain turned to mush; she could think of nothing but the word pain.

Something tore through her flesh and burst forth from her body, forming a red magic circle in mid-air with her blood.

The red light flared, and a straight, slender leg stepped out of the circle, then knelt before her.

In a daze, Shen Maomao heard a familiar voice whisper softly in her ear, “I’m sorry.”

Then, a pair of trembling hands lifted her into a princess carry. Soft kisses and scalding tears fell together on her face, which was stained with blood and tear tracks.

Her Lou-jie was back.

The Lou Jingmo who remembered her, who loved her, was back.

But she was about to leave.

Shen Maomao felt it become difficult to breathe. Her eyes were filled with tears, allowing her to see only a blurry pink shape.

She struggled to open her mouth, speaking intermittently, “Lou… Lou Jingmo… have I ever told you… that you look really good… with pink hair…”

That one short sentence nearly sent Lou Jingmo into a complete breakdown. She took a shuddering, deep breath to stop herself from crying out loud. She held the person in her arms tighter and said softly, “It’s okay… I’m taking you home.”

Home…

Could she still go back?

Shen Maomao felt herself becoming light, lighter and lighter, like a feather that drifts away with a puff of wind. She began to lose her sense of hearing, smell, and sight.

Lou Jingmo carried her into the exit. A warm white light enveloped her, but she only felt it for a few seconds before she completely lost all her senses.

In this darkness, she grew increasingly hazy. Her mind slowly emptied, her thoughts gradually ceasing as she prepared to welcome death. But the next second, a warmth bloomed in her chest, and all those thoughts that had drifted away were sent rushing back into her mind, stuffing it so full that she was stunned for a few seconds as she slowly processed everything.

Her lost senses returned. She felt Lou Jingmo’s death grip on her, heard the suppressed sobs by her ear, and smelled the orange-scented perfume on Lou Jingmo.

Then she snapped her eyes open.

She was back in reality. There were no injuries on her body, nor any discomfort.

She hugged Lou Jingmo back around the neck. “Lou-jie… my heart is breaking hearing you cry.”

In just one short instance, Lou Jingmo had cried for her twice.

Ren Yue really deserves to die.

Lou Jingmo held her, barely able to form a complete sentence.

Once dead, a hundred things are finished³; the one left behind is the one who suffers the most.

She gently patted Lou Jingmo’s back, wanting to arrange her own affairs before Death came to take her. “Lou-jie, don’t be sad. You’ll meet someone better.”

Lou Jingmo shook her head.

Shen Maomao forced a relaxed smile. “You know what’s good for you. I’m telling you, after I’m gone, for ten… no, five years… forget it, three years. You’re not allowed to date for three years! During these three years, please take care of my parents, and you have to try your best to live on…”

As she smiled, she began to cry too. “If you really can’t hold on, that’s okay too. I’ll wait for you down below. We can cross the Naihe Bridge⁴ together and be together again in the next life… What do you say?”

Lou Jingmo squeezed her hand, their fingers intertwining. With a face full of tears, she leaned against her and still shook her head. “I can’t do it…”

Shen Maomao deliberately misinterpreted her. “What? You don’t want me anymore? You don’t want to be with me in the next life?”

Lou Jingmo wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and leaned against her, her gaze fixed and unwavering, a frightening intention flashing in her eyes.

She knew herself. She wasn’t as strong as she appeared, nor as indestructible.

She seemed rational, but was in fact emotional. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have saved Shen Maomao and Little Golden Retriever at the very beginning, nor would she have fallen in love with someone destined to die for her. In contrast, Shen Maomao seemed emotional, but was in fact rational. She knew how to examine the time and measure the situation⁵, and the prerequisite for saving someone was “this action will not threaten the interests of herself and those she recognizes.” If you were to compare the two, Shen Maomao was actually the stronger one.

She couldn’t accept her lover dying because of her, nor could she accept a future without Shen Maomao, even though she had walked her path step by step on her own before she knew her…

Shen Maomao pulled out a tissue, blew her nose, and asked in disbelief, “You’re not planning to die for me, are you?”

Lou Jingmo calmed down and asked in return, “Can’t I?”

Shen Maomao fell silent.

It was only at a time like this that she discovered the selfish side deep in her bones. Hearing Lou Jingmo say that actually made her quite happy.

She didn’t have the kind of enlightenment that said, “I died for you, so you must live on well in my place,” nor did she want Lou Jingmo to gradually forget her and fall in love with another woman after she died…

It’s over. I’ve changed. I’m no longer the kind and lovely person I used to be.

She bit her lower lip and tentatively suggested, “How about… we prepare our final affairs together?”

Unexpectedly, Lou Jingmo, who had just offered to die with her, immediately changed her mind. “No… I should find a way to save you.”

Shen Maomao: “Huh?”

Lou Jingmo started pulling cards out from her person, laying them out in a neat row on the bed.

She arranged the cards from left to right in the order of the 12 apostles, leaving five empty spaces.

The five missing cards were Philip, Simon Peter, Thomas, John, and Judas.

Shen Maomao quickly took out Philip and Simon Peter and handed them to Lou Jingmo, sighing with emotion. “If I had known this would happen, I shouldn’t have been so creeped out by Simon Peter that I didn’t bring it into the game…”

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