The Hand of Confession – Chapter 364

Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror

Gan Ze

Someone ran over from the opposite side—it had no feet.

By the latter half of the night, the night-watching Shen Maomao could not hold on any longer.

She felt this was not her problem; it was all because Lou Jingmo beside her was sleeping too soundly. The slow and heavy sounds of breathing drilled into her ears continuously, dragging her into drowsiness along with them.

In her daze, she seemed to hear some movement.

The quilt rustled with a shasha sound, and the bed board let out a faint groan, as if someone had turned over.

At first, Shen Maomao did not pay attention, but immediately following that, the sound of foam slippers rubbing against the floor came from below. Someone must have gotten out of bed.

She moved as lightly as possible, her eyes—already adapted to the darkness—looking downward. She indeed saw a silhouette slowly walking toward the door.

Listening to the position, it should be Gan Ze, who was in the lower bunk beneath Peng Xiaorui.

Shen Maomao deliberately created some subtle noise, then asked in a small voice using a breathy whisper, “Are you going to the bathroom?”

Gan Ze did not answer. Instead, she pulled open the main door of their dorm room.

Cold wind poured in from the corridor, making Shen Maomao on the upper bunk shiver. Gan Ze below seemed unable to feel it, taking her first step out slowly but firmly.

Shen Maomao immediately felt something was wrong. Disregarding whether she would wake her roommates, she sat up with a jolt, pressing down on Lou Jingmo as she climbed over her body. She stretched her leg to step onto the desk while yelling Gan Ze’s name: “Gan Ze—Gan Ze?!”

The entire dorm room woke up. Peng Xiaorui was startled by her, her face full of confusion, speaking rapidly: “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?! What happened?!”

Lou Jingmo was almost pressed to the point of vomiting blood by her. After dry coughing twice, she climbed up and looked weakly toward the door.

In just a few seconds, Gan Ze’s figure had already disappeared from the doorway, leaving only a long shadow turning left, quickly fading away.

Shen Maomao followed closely behind. She rushed straight out, then froze in place.

She saw that the corridor was pitch black, deep and terrifying, with not a single human silhouette visible.

Where was Gan Ze?

It was just a matter of front and back feet¹; how could such a big living person disappear?

Shen Maomao was a bit stunned.

Suspecting her sleep-blurred eyes were playing tricks on her, she rubbed them with her hand. As a result, she really saw a hazy black shadow standing at the very end of her vision, walking quickly toward this side. She focused her eyes again, suddenly discovered something, and violently turned around to rush back into the dorm room. In passing, she pulled back Peng Xiaorui, who had stuck her head out the door, and then slammed the door shut with a loud Bang.

Peng Xiaorui was in a fog: “What happened? Where did my lower bunk go?”

Shen Maomao covered her mouth and let out a long “Shh——”.

The room fell into a suffocating silence.

Peng Xiaorui widened her eyes in the darkness, not daring to move again. The other few people also maintained their respective postures, sitting on their beds and lightening their breathing, making no sound.

After reaching a stalemate for over ten seconds, Shen Maomao’s legs were about to go numb. Peng Xiaorui could not help but pry open her hand and asked softly, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Maomao looked at the dorm door and answered truthfully, “Someone ran over from the opposite side—it had no feet.”

Peng Xiaorui: “I f—Mmph…”

Shen Maomao covered her mouth again. “Shh——go back to your own bed. Be gentle.”

Peng Xiaorui nodded and climbed up with extreme caution.

Shen Maomao also climbed back onto the bed, pressing Lou Jingmo’s body as she rolled back in.

Lou Jingmo held a mouthful of old blood in her throat and whispered, “Do you not know how heavy you are?”

Shen Maomao glared at her. “Something very likely happened to Gan Ze…”

“I can tell,” Lou Jingmo said. “Go to sleep. Don’t think too much. I will watch the second half of the night.”

Shen Maomao burrowed into her embrace and closed her eyes. “Okay.”

…

Although it was called the second half of the night, it was actually not long before dawn. After the night passed, Shen Maomao was woken up by her own alarm clock. She turned over and sat up, discovering that Lou Jingmo was not by her side again.

She poked her head out to look down. As expected, she had run down to the lower level again.

Lou Jingmo was down there, but Gan Ze had never returned.

Sunlight penetrated the sky-blue curtains, shining on the dorm room table and also on Gan Ze’s bed. A corner of her quilt was lifted into a triangle, a stack of folded clothes sat at the foot of the bed, and the rubber band she used to tie her hair hung on the bedpost. It seemed as if she had only gone to use the toilet, rather than disappeared completely.

This kind of disappearance was perhaps even more terrible than death. Shen Maomao felt a bit disappointed and frustrated, but now was not the time for melancholy. She still had to rouse her spirit to throw herself into a new round of investigation; after all, the best way to reduce casualties was to find the exit early.

During class today, the teacher did not call Gan Ze’s name. After class, Wu Mei ran over to ask the reason. However, the teacher opened the roll call book to show her, pointing at the names of the few people and saying, “Where is this person? Did you remember wrongly?”

Wu Mei glanced quickly and discovered that neither Wu Mei’s name nor the name of the person in Bed 2 of the neighboring dorm was on it. Thus, she deliberately pretended to be muddled and disoriented, using illness as an excuse to escape from the teacher.

This was nothing less than directly declaring Gan Ze’s death.

Today there was still only one class. After the teacher left, everyone scattered as usual, dividing into several paths to search for clues independently.

Shen Maomao bought a portable loudspeaker from a nearby store and made Lou Jingmo act as the cameraman, using the pretense of completing a survey task to grab some passing students to ask questions.

She didn’t go straight to the main topic at first. In the beginning, the students cooperated well. But later, when she took the opportunity to bring up Zhan Xin and Wu Huiling, the people being interviewed all had drastic changes in their expressions, finding excuses to turn and leave, impossible to catch even if chased.

After interviewing several people in a row with the same result, Shen Maomao couldn’t help but feel somewhat discouraged, and mostly confused.

They definitely had some key point they hadn’t triggered yet. Only by finding that point could they understand the true cause of death for the two girls.

Shen Maomao rubbed her chin and began to consider the feasibility of stealing the key from the guard room.

She had this intention, but she couldn’t quite make the decision. After all, the danger factor of the game world at night was too high; one moment of carelessness could mean leaving one’s life inside.

Lou Jingmo saw her thoughts and reached out to hold her hand. “If you want to do something, just go directly.”

Shen Maomao looked at her with teary eyes and nodded vigorously. “En!”

Since the decision was made, she began to think about the upcoming plan. First, she took Lou Jingmo back to scout the terrain.

Area D had several different majors. The School of Humanities was located near the center, while their dorm was at the easternmost end, separated by many golden bronze statues. The interior of the school only had one guard room. The guard was an uncle in his fifties who ate, drank, and slept inside.

Shen Maomao put on a sweet smile and went up to strike a conversation. “Uncle, can I ask you about something?”

The guard uncle was easy to talk to. “What is it?”

“What time does our school lock the doors at night?”

The uncle didn’t ask for the reason, as there were students who liked to study and would stay in empty classrooms until very late. He answered directly, “Around nine o’clock. After I finish patrolling, I have to lock the doors from the inside. Just make sure you leave before nine.”

Shen Maomao said her thanks, her eyes drifting straight toward the keys at his waist.

At night, all classrooms would be locked, and they were all security doors. If one wanted to enter, one could only rely on these spare keys.

But the guard room also had a lock. How could she get the keys into her hands without alerting the uncle?

She had no leads, so she simply said goodbye to the uncle and left with Lou Jingmo.

On the way back, she mentioned this decision in the group chat. Inside QQ², it was dead quiet; no one responded.

She put the phone back and turned to go to the cafeteria to eat.

Halfway through the meal, QQ rang twice. Someone had privately messaged her. She pulled out her phone to look and discovered that the first person to respond to her was actually Peng Xiaorui.

Peng Xiaorui: [Maomao-xuejie³, can I go with you guys? I won’t drag your hind legs.]

Shen Maomao looked at Lou Jingmo.

Lou Jingmo had her head lowered, battling with her food, extremely focused.

Shen Maomao understood and typed back: [There might be danger.]

Peng Xiaorui immediately replied: [There always has to be someone to face the danger like you guys.]

Shen Maomao felt very comforted in her heart. She told her she would return to the dorm immediately to find her and made an appointment to discuss details then.

The road back was very peaceful. The heads of the statues did not fall off; only the sky full of willow catkins made one somewhat annoyed.

Peng Xiaorui and Bai Lu were both there. She explained her plan in front of the two of them.

Bai Lu had a face full of shock, feeling that this behavior was stepping on the gas pedal straight down the road of courting death.

Peng Xiaorui laughed haha. “Then I also have to get on this car of courting death.”

Bai Lu’s smile faded. “You want to go too?”

Peng Xiaorui nodded. “We can’t just rely on the two Xuejies’ efforts. More people means more strength.”

Bai Lu wanted to persuade her not to go. “Can you handle it?”

Peng Xiaorui said seriously, “I should be okay.”

“You going will definitely drag their hind legs…”

“It’s fine. If necessary, they can abandon me. Maybe I can even block a ghost or monster’s attack for a bit, buying them time to escape.”

She was very calm, as if she didn’t fear death at all.

Bai Lu said a couple more sentences, all of which were choked back. Finally, she was angered half to death by this oil-and-salt-impervious⁴ attitude. She simply gave a cold humph and laid down harsh words: “If you want to go, go. Anyway, I won’t go.”

…

“If you want to go, go. Anyway, I won’t go, hee hee.”

Bai Lu glared fiercely at Shen Maomao. “Shut your mouth!”

Shen Maomao watched Bai Lu stuffing a power bank into her clothes and sighed with emotion to the remaining two, “One opening of the mouth and you know, she is an old aojiao⁵ one.”

Bai Lu: “…”

Peng Xiaorui was broken with happiness, like a little sparrow, chirping endlessly around Bai Lu. “Xuejie, you really came?! Xuejie, you’re so amazing! Xuejie, don’t be afraid, I’ll protect you! Xuejie, thank you!”

Throughout the journey, Shen Maomao’s ears were about to grow calluses. She could only increase her pace as much as possible to stay far away from these two.

After walking far away, she clung to Lou Jingmo’s arm and asked her in a small voice, “Could the two of them be the same as us?”

Lou Jingmo shook her head. “They should both be straight.”

Shen Maomao’s pupils quaked massively.

Straight girls can still show off love like this fucking much? Are they looking down on her and Lou Jingmo?!

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The author has something to say:

Late but here!! Dying of sleepiness, eyes won’t open. Might have to start asking for leave in a few days 555⁶ I can’t bear to leave you guys, but for one exam subject, we marked a scope of over an hour. If I don’t memorize it, I really won’t make it TAT

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