The Hand of Confession – Chapter 377

Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror

Zhang Xiao

The Vanishing Gan Ze

No matter how much Peng Xiaorui wept, time continued its steady march toward eleven o’clock.

Separated by a single door, inside the bathroom, Zhan Xin’s crying remained incredibly firm and upright¹, showing not the slightest sign of running out of breath. Perhaps after becoming a ghost, her physical constitution had improved along with it.

As soon as eleven struck, Shen Maomao immediately pushed the door open and walked in. “Is this the medicine you wanted?”

A small hand, identical to the one from last night, reached out from the gap under the door. Shen Maomao placed the medicine on it, signaled to Lou Jingmo and Peng Xiaorui with her eyes, then turned and ran.

A minute later, Zhan Xin pushed open the stall door and said feebly, “Thank you all… if it weren’t for… ???”

The group that had abandoned her had long since fled to the mirror on the second floor and prepared to cross over.

To prevent getting separated after entering the mirror, Peng Xiaorui suggested that the three of them hold hands while going in.

Lou Jingmo frowned; she didn’t want to hold hands with anyone else, and she certainly didn’t want Shen Maomao holding hands with anyone else. So, she refused, “No. Let’s leave her behind.”

Peng Xiaorui: “???”

Her expression was so spectacular that Shen Maomao almost spray-laughed². She hurriedly grabbed Peng Xiaorui’s wrist through her clothes. “Alright, alright, I’m holding her sleeve, is that okay? Let’s go, Zhan Xin is going to catch up in a second!”

Only then did Lou Jingmo reluctantly agree. She reached out to interlace her ten fingers with Shen Maomao’s and led the way, drilling into the mirror.

It was another journey that felt like squeezing toothpaste³. After the white light dissipated, they appeared in the same spot: the side stairwell on the second floor.

“Are we back?” Peng Xiaorui asked.

Shen Maomao raised the hand holding Lou Jingmo’s. “Which hand is this?!”

Peng Xiaorui was speechless. “That is two hands. You are the left hand; your family’s that one is the right hand.”

Shen Maomao felt it out and confirmed she was right.

After checking, she remembered that they had crossed over from reality, so left and right would be correct regardless. There was no basis for comparison, so this couldn’t be used to distinguish between reality and illusion.

Faint crying could be heard from within the building. They knew who the voice belonged to but had no intention of going up to help again.

Shen Maomao gave a shudder and heard the sound of keys jingling on her person. Her eyes went wide. “We brought the keys out!”

Peng Xiaorui said excitedly, “Does that mean we can look for clues in reality? Where was that report letter found again?”

“The counselor’s office.” Lou Jingmo said indifferently.

“Charge, charge, charge!” Shen Maomao led the way, guiding them toward the office.

She tried using the key to open the door and, unexpectedly, the key from the mirror worked in reality. Moreover, the real-world door wasn’t locked dead⁴, and she opened it with ease.

The floor behind the door was very tidy; there was nothing there, and it looked completely normal.

Shen Maomao backhanded the door closed, turned on her flashlight, and started rummaging through their counselor’s desk. Peng Xiaorui and Lou Jingmo went to the two cabinets respectively.

After searching for over half an hour, Lou Jingmo suddenly said, “Found it.”

Shen Maomao leaned in to look at the paper in her hand. On the last line, in the signature area, the name “Zhang Xiao” was written clearly.

“I go, what did I say!”⁵ Shen Maomao exclaimed. “This kind of NPC⁶ with a name is definitely not simple!”

Lou Jingmo glanced at her sideways. “I was the one who said that. Thank you.”

Shen Maomao hei hei⁷ laughed. “You and I don’t divide families!”⁸

Lou Jingmo’s expression instantly relaxed considerably.

Peng Xiaorui’s expression, however, grew solemn. “I hope I don’t meet you two again in the future. I feel like my fragile little heart has suffered massive trauma.”

“Ke ke.”⁹ Shen Maomao gave a dry cough and said, “Zhang Xiao is indeed a key character. She reported Wu Huiling, and Wu Huiling hated her to the bone… Could the exit be related to her?”

Lou Jingmo: “Then what about Zhan Xin?”

Peng Xiaorui added, “I’m more concerned about another point. Wu Huiling was scared to death and then pushed down the stairs. So, what scared her to death?”

Shen Maomao: “The amount of information in this instance is so small. It’s worrying people to death.”

“We don’t have much time left. I have a guess about the main plot, but I can’t be certain. We need to collect more information,” Lou Jingmo said.

Shen Maomao: “So what do we do now?”

Lou Jingmo: “We go find someone to verify my conjecture.”

…

When it came to selling the key juncture¹⁰, Lou Jingmo had never lost to anyone.

However, considering she probably didn’t say anything because she was afraid the two “simpletons”¹¹—herself and Peng Xiaorui—might ruin things, Shen Maomao generously forgave her playing mysteriously¹².

The three of them tiptoed down to the first floor. The guard room was pitch black, and the sound of rhythmic snoring was drifting out from inside.

Shen Maomao used the key to unlock the door, pushed it open to let the other two out first, and finally closed the main gate gently behind her. Everything went incredibly smoothly.

It was pitch black outside the teaching building as well. Whether it was the dormitory buildings or the nearby residential area, everything was in a state of darkness.

The three walked toward the dorms with their flashlights on and soon arrived in front of Building 18.

Unlike inside the mirror, the main gate of Building 18 in reality was locked. It was long past the time for sealing the dorms¹³, and there were no lights in the guard Auntie¹⁴‘s room; she was likely asleep.

However, to prevent late-returning students from being unable to return to their dorms, every dormitory building in their school had a doorbell installed on the door. Since the game used Jiang Da¹⁵ as a background, perhaps it had replicated this detail.

She searched according to her memory and actually found the familiar doorbell in the familiar spot.

The doorbell wasn’t loud, but it was just enough to wake the Auntie.

Warm yellow light spilled out from the guard room. The Auntie, wearing pajamas and slippers, walked out rubbing her eyes and asked them through the door, “Which dorm are you in? Did you bring your student IDs?”

Shen Maomao was silent for two seconds, then pulled her rice card¹⁶—which was also her student card—out of her pocket. “Auntie, we’re from the Humanities Department, Room 3058. We had something to do today and got back late.”

The door guard Auntie wouldn’t let them in. “Look at what time it is? No entry allowed after eleven. You’re escaping the dorm¹⁷; that requires a circulated criticism notice¹⁸. The school doesn’t allow letting people in.”

Shen Maomao shoved the rice card into the woman’s hand through the crack in the door. “Auntie, just let us in. There’s a few hundred kuai¹⁹ on this card, it’s all yours, as long as you let us in! We’re exchange students and we’re leaving very soon, so I don’t need the rice card back. Does that work for you?”

The Auntie glanced at the camera, leaving no trace²⁰ as she pocketed the card, and then took out her keys to help them open the door. “Just this once. There won’t be a next time.”

Shen Maomao thanked her repeatedly. “Thank you, Auntie!”

The door opened a crack, and the three squeezed inside. The Auntie locked the door again and urged, “Hurry up and go back to sleep.”

Shen Maomao waved goodbye to her and ceng ceng ceng²¹ went up to the third floor.

Their dorm room door was locked tight, but the dorm door was particularly easy to open. Lou Jingmo pulled out a piece of wire and, three down five divided by two²², popped the door open.

Peng Xiaorui watched in astonishment and gave her a thumbs up.

The three pushed the door open and entered. The room seemed empty and very quiet.

Of the six people in their dorm, excluding the three of them: Gan Ze had inexplicably vanished in the middle of the night, Bai Lu was lost in the mirror world, Lou Jingmo had seen the crazy little newcomer, and she and Peng Xiaorui had seen Wu Mei’s corpse… It would be strange if anyone was here.

Just as Shen Maomao was thinking this, the next second, a black shadow suddenly leaped out from behind the door and held Peng Xiaorui hostage right in front of them.

A black handgun was pressed against Peng Xiaorui’s head. The person, face cold, said, “Who are you? What is your purpose in acting ghostly and secretly?”²³

Shen Maomao raised her flashlight higher. Seeing the person’s face clearly, she couldn’t help but be shocked. “Gan Ze??!”

Gan Ze frowned. “You know me?”

Shen Maomao: “Of course I know you. Didn’t you go missing? That night you walked out of the dorm and vanished right in the hallway. We all thought you were dead… Why are you here?!”

Peng Xiaorui said weakly, “Also, how come you don’t recognize us? And do you remember that you’re a player?”

Gan Ze said, “What player? Who exactly are you people?”

Shen Maomao: “Can you let us inside first? I haven’t had water in two days, my mouth is so dry.”

Gan Ze swept her gaze over the three of them, lowered her gun, and took a step back to make room for them.

The three entered like a school of fish²⁴.

Shen Maomao closed the door, went straight to her bed, and with a light cart on a familiar road²⁵, pulled a bag of snacks out from underneath. She fished out three bottles of mineral water and tossed one to each person.

The intense suspicion in Gan Ze’s eyes lessened slightly.

The three of them guzzled the mineral water right in front of her. After finishing, Shen Maomao sat down behind the desk and explained the general situation to her.

Gan Ze listened in the cloud and mist²⁶. “According to you, I should be dead?”

Shen Maomao crunched on potato chips, going ka chi ka chi²⁷. “Not exactly. You just went missing. But in this game, going missing isn’t much different from dying.”

Peng Xiaorui was also biting into the bread Shen Maomao gave her. “How did you get back to the dorm? Do you have any memories?”

“I of course…” Gan Ze paused. “…I seem to really not remember… By the time I had memory, I was in this dorm. It’s been several days, and the dorm has only had me alone the whole time.”

Shen Maomao asked her, “How many days have you lived here?”

Gan Ze gave a vague timeframe.

Shen Maomao calculated and realized this was exactly the second day of her disappearance.

However, there were people in the dorm during the day on the second day, yet Gan Ze said she hadn’t seen anyone at all.

Shen Maomao paused her hand eating the chips, looking down at the potato chips in her hand that were complete in color, smell, and taste²⁸. “Is… is it possible we’re still inside the mirror?”

Peng Xiaorui also felt the bread in her mouth lose its fragrance. “Finished, finished, we ate food from the mirror; we can’t go back now!”

The two looked at each other and almost hugged head-to-head to cry bitterly.

Lou Jingmo gave them a look of sheer speechlessness. “Eat yours. Yes, this is the mirror world. This is our second day inside. We might not even get out on the third day. The game won’t let players starve to death, so whether you eat or not has no influence.”

Shen Maomao breathed a sigh of relief and continued going ka chi ka chi. After eating for a while, she seemed to think of something. Her movements suddenly stopped, and she looked at Lou Jingmo.

Lou Jingmo: “What now?”

Shen Maomao said aggrievedly, “Then didn’t we starve for a whole day for nothing?!”

Lou Jingmo: “…” Eat, eat, eat, hope you stuff yourself to death.

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