The Hand of Confession – Chapter 335

Volume 10: Days of Cultivating in the Republic of China

Preparing to Set Out

Shishi-meimei, could she be…?!

The story begins half an hour ago.

For the past few nights, Golden Retriever hadn’t been able to get a good night’s sleep, terrified that he would just… disappear in his sleep without even knowing it.

So when a strange noise started up outside, he was wide awake. But he was a bit of a coward and didn’t dare leave his room, figuring he’d just wait until morning to go out and check on the situation.

“There was lightning and thunder outside, and I was just about to fall asleep. But then a flash of lightning lit up the room, and I suddenly saw a dark figure by my headboard. I nearly pissed myself in fear…” Golden Retriever said, still shaken. “But the dark figure didn’t hurt me. It even looked like it wanted to talk…”

“So you talked with it, huh?” Shen Maomao asked.

Golden Retriever nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Isn’t that obvious? That thing looked really tall. I didn’t think I could beat it in a fight, so since it wanted to talk, what was there for me to hesitate about?”

Shen Maomao suspected that the dark figure in Golden Retriever’s room was the same one that had been hiding in her room before.

Golden Retriever continued, “It wanted to talk, so I nodded. Then I heard it say, Please, help me. When I heard its tone, I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal, so I agreed. And the result, as you all probably saw… right after I agreed, I suddenly got so thirsty. I desperately wanted to drink some water, and then my body was no longer under my control.”

Shen Maomao: “This dark figure was probably that rich merchant’s son, that Mr. Hu, right?”

Golden Retriever: “I don’t know. I was so scared my mind went blank. I wanted to stop, but no matter how hard I tried, it was useless. I knew you were chasing me, but I couldn’t control myself.”

Shen Maomao summed it up: “So the dark figure asked you to save it, but before it said how, the moment you agreed, it immediately tried to pull you into the water. Then you lost control of your body and tried to jump into the sea. That’s about the gist of it.”

Golden Retriever nodded, climbing up from the floor and sucking in a sharp breath. “Hiss——why does my face hurt a little?”

Shen Maomao guiltily averted her gaze. “You probably fell and hit it yourself just now.”

Golden Retriever didn’t think much of it. He tried to touch his face, then sucked in another cold breath in pain and lamented, “I’m not disfigured, am I?”

“Um…” Mingyue, who was behind them, suddenly spoke up. “I have a question, though I’m not sure if I should ask.”

“What the fuck!” Golden Retriever spun around. “There’s someone else behind us?! What the fuck! A ghost!”

Shen Maomao slapped him on the back of the head. “What are you ghost-howling and ghost-crying¹ for? She was revived with an item.”

“What kind of item is so badass…” Golden Retriever muttered, then looked at her. “What did you want to ask?”

Mingyue had a completely cracked² expression. “Are you a boy or a girl?”

Golden Retriever: “…” He forgot…

Shen Maomao: “…” She totally understood Mingyue. After all, her own expression had cracked the first time she heard Golden Retriever speak, too.

Golden Retriever tried to salvage the situation. “You guys won’t discriminate against me, will you? I’ve had a complex about my voice since I was little, so I could only pretend to be mute and not dare to speak…”

Mingyue’s mouth twitched.

Shen Maomao covered her face too.

Golden Retriever’s voice was like the scene of a car crash. Unless there was something wrong with your ears, you would never think he was a girl.

But some rules in the adult world are unspoken and mutually understood. Since Golden Retriever had said his piece, Mingyue took him at his word and didn’t press for details. She just said, “An Jing said she seems to have merged with some of the ghost’s memories, which might help us get out of the game.”

This was more important. Shen Maomao grew excited. “How so?”

Mingyue said, “She told me that over twenty years ago, that female ghost gave birth to a pair of conjoined twin girls here.”

The image of the two sisters standing side-by-side on the stairs flashed before her eyes. Shen Maomao’s eyes widened. In that instant, the thatch blocking her mind was suddenly cleared³, and she immediately wove together a rough storyline in her head——

In an era like this, conjoined twins were often seen as incarnations of demons and omens of misfortune, and were frequently treated inhumanely. The twin sisters’ deaths might have had something to do with the Hebo⁴, but it was likely inseparable from their family as well.

“Thanks, this information is very useful. If she remembers anything else, could I trouble you to let me know?” Shen Maomao said.

Mingyue nodded, waved to them, and turned to go back to An Jing.

Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever went upstairs together. Golden Retriever didn’t dare go back to his room, so he grabbed onto Shen Maomao and wouldn’t let go, insisting with dead skin and a shameless face⁵ that he sleep in the same room as her. Shen Maomao had no choice but to go with him to his room to grab his bedding, letting him make a pallet on the floor in her room.

As she was leaving his room, she suddenly felt a cold draft blow right across the back of her neck. The fright made her shiver uncontrollably, and a patch of chicken skin bumps⁶ immediately broke out on her arms.

She whipped her head around——the window in Golden Retriever’s room had opened at some point. The flimsy curtains billowed in the wind, like a female ghost twisting its body in midair.

Golden Retriever grabbed her wrist in terror. “Rabbit-jie! Let’s get out of here!”

Shen Maomao swallowed hard and left that cursed room with him.

But the moment they opened the door to her room, they both froze in their tracks——because the window directly in front of them was also open.

Golden Retriever was on the verge of tears. “Are you… even gonna let people live?”

Shen Maomao: “Come on, it’s just an open window. What’s there to be afraid of?”

Golden Retriever said faintly, “Then stop your legs from shaking…”

“Ahem.” Shen Maomao coughed twice. To save his dignity⁷, she kicked him through the door and said, “Go on, close the window.”

Clutching his quilt, Golden Retriever stumbled a couple of steps, then threw the bedding on the floor near the door. With a funereal look on his face, he said, “Do I really have to? I think sleeping with the window open is pretty nice…”

“Really?” Shen Maomao closed the door and looked at him. “Maybe something will crawl in through the window, but we won’t know a thing. We’ll just have to let it crawl onto our bodies, bit by bit, and then——snap!”

Golden Retriever jumped in fright. He scurried over to the window, lifted the curtain, ducked underneath, and quickly shut the window before darting back.

That speed, that fluidity—you probably couldn’t find a second person in the entire game who was better at closing a window.

Shen Maomao felt a little like laughing. She took a set of clean clothes out of her suitcase, held his quilt up with her arms spread wide behind her back so he could change, and then used the same method to change out of her own wet clothes.

They both dove into their respective beds at almost the same time, wished each other good night, and closed their eyes.

…

Nothing else strange happened that night.

By the time they opened their eyes again, the sky was already bright.

Kang Yuanhuai was knocking on each door to call them for a meal. Shen Maomao deliberately pricked up her ears to listen and confirmed that he only knocked twice.

In other words, he knew everything that was happening in the Western-style house, including that Golden Retriever was now in her room, and that Mingyue was downstairs with An Jing.

Once she heard Kang Yuanhuai’s footsteps heading downstairs, Shen Maomao kicked Golden Retriever awake and chased him back to his own room.

Golden Retriever woke up, his eyes heavy with sleep, and scurried out, carefully hugging his quilt.

A moment later, Sisi was the first to come out of her room. She was neatly dressed, her face a little haggard, but her spirits seemed decent enough. She was standing at the top of the stairs, waiting for Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever.

She hadn’t come out last night, but from the sounds, she had guessed that something thrilling might have been happening outside. So, the moment she saw the two of them, she warmly invited them to go to the bathroom with her.

Golden Retriever knew she wanted to get the rundown, but it was indeed inconvenient for him, so he waved his hands repeatedly, refusing to go with them no matter what.

With no other choice, Sisi grabbed Shen Maomao and left.

The two of them exited the main door and entered the courtyard. The rain had stopped in the morning, but the sky was still overcast. The light was very soft, and there were still some puddles on the ground. The flowerbeds were strewn with fallen petals, and you could faintly make out a few lonely, muddy footprints on them.

Shen Maomao glanced around but couldn’t find any sign of An Jing or Mingyue in the courtyard.

Where did those two go?

Sisi followed her gaze, looking around, but couldn’t figure out what she was searching for. “What happened here yesterday?” she asked.

Shen Maomao said, “I’ll tell you when we’re outside.”

They walked out of the courtyard side-by-side. A cool breeze swept past, setting the swing in the yard moving again, its teeth-grinding “creak” incessant.

On the steps outside the courtyard gate was a wet patch. If you looked closely, you could just make out the faint indentation of a huge palm print right in the middle of the two gates.

As usual, Shen Maomao took her around to the back of the courtyard and gave her a brief, to-the-point summary of last night’s events.

Sisi’s IQ was online⁸, and she quickly formed a theory: “People from this era would probably suspect conjoined twins of being demons, right? And conjoined twins have a high mortality rate due to their physical condition, yet those two sisters lived to be three or four. They must have been meticulously cared for. So the question is, why would the wealthy merchant Hu take care of them? I don’t think the reason of the bonds of flesh and blood⁹ alone is one that cannot stand on its feet¹⁰. If he truly cared for them, the sisters wouldn’t be retaliating against the rest of the Hu family in such an extreme way.”

Shen Maomao thought she had a good point and added that the sisters had asked her to kill Kang Yuanhuai.

“It just so happens we’re going to the West Hebo Temple today to check things out. Maybe you can have another chat with the sisters? I have a hunch that as long as we can figure out the relationship between Kang Yuanhuai and the Hebo, all our problems will split open as if meeting a blade’s edge¹¹.”

Shen Maomao mercilessly crushed her enthusiasm. “Have you considered what we’ll do if you can’t get anything out of them?”

Sisi said resentfully, “If we can’t… then we’ll just marry the Hebos together. We can get married at the same time. It won’t have been for nothing that we were sisters in this life…”

Shen Maomao: “…” Who’s sisters with you.

As if reading the disdain on her face, Sisi said seriously, “Okay, let’s be serious. You were looking for An Jing and Mingyue in the courtyard just now, right? Where did they go? Did they discover something?”

“If I knew, why would I have been looking?” Shen Maomao said. “But Kang Yuanhuai didn’t knock on their door today. He must know they’re not there.”

Sisi seemed to have thought of something and said in horror, “This morning, it seems like he only knocked on two doors. One was mine, the other must have been yours. In that case, Shishi-meimei, could she be…!”

Shen Maomao: “…”

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