The Hand of Confession – Chapter 378

Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror

Superfluous

Do the opposite

Shen Maomao said aggrievedly, looking pitiful¹, “The child has been hungry for almost two days.”

Lou Jingmo looked to the other side. Peng Xiaorui was also crunching away with exceptional relish, which couldn’t help but give her a bit of a headache. “You two are acting like you’ve been abused.”

Shen Maomao, hugging the potato chips like a groundhog², said, “Don’t mind us, you guys go on talking.”

At this moment, Gan Ze was full of questions³, so she naturally didn’t mind this alternative background music and directly opened the floodgates of conversation⁴. “What’s this game you’re talking about? A live-action Werewolf⁵? Or a script-kill game⁶?”

Shen Maomao swallowed her potato chips and said, “It’s too complicated to explain. It’s not wrong for you to think of it that way, I guess. You’ll probably be able to remember everything completely after you get out.”

Gan Ze said, “If what you all say is true, then it’s not even certain if I’m dead or alive right now, is it?”

Lou Jingmo avoided this question and asked her instead, “What have you experienced here these past two days?”

Gan Ze replied, “Just normal classes. I remember being a student here. Are my memories fake too?”

Shen Maomao asked tentatively, “Do you know Zhang Xiao?”

“Zhang Xiao is our class monitor⁷.”

“In that case…” Peng Xiaorui said, “Your memories are probably half-real, half-fake.”

“What do you mean?”

Shen Maomao: “It means you’re probably also a student at Jiangcheng University in reality, but your memories have been messed up. The game built a layer of false memories on top of your real ones, blurring your memories related to the game. It’s not just your memories; it’s not even certain if your name is real… But it’s also possible some ghost did it, not necessarily the game stirring up trouble.”

She spoke chaotically, but Gan Ze actually managed to sort it out⁸ and grasp the main point. “Then how can I leave this place and recover my memories?”

“That, I don’t know.” Shen Maomao never spoke in absolutes⁹. “But you can try gathering information with us and see if we can leave.”

Gan Ze had no other choice. Although she was still half-believing, half-doubting them, she could only follow this group of people with unknown origins for now.

Besides, living here these past few days, she always had an indescribable sense of unreality. It wasn’t until she met these three women today that this feeling of not being grounded¹⁰ disappeared. Maybe they were right…

Thinking this, she couldn’t help but feel a little nervous and said, quite excitedly, “So what are you guys planning to do next? Where are we going to investigate?”

Shen Maomao put down the potato chips, had Lou Jingmo pour some mineral water for her, and waited to wash her hands under the stream of water. As she washed, she said, “Next, of course, is sleeping. I’m dead tired.”

Peng Xiaorui came over eagerly to get some water, nodding repeatedly upon hearing this. “Exactly, exactly. We’ve been busy for two days. I can barely keep my eyes open.”

Gan Ze’s surging enthusiasm was doused with cold water¹¹ as she watched them briefly wash up with mineral water and then climb into their beds one after another.

At that moment, she couldn’t help but have some doubts: With teammates like these, can they really get out of here?

But no one was there to answer her question, so for her, tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.

On the top bunk, Peng Xiaorui tossed and turned several times before finally speaking up, “You guys think Bai Lu… could she have also lost her memory like Gan Ze and entered a world we don’t know about?”

The sound of Shen Maomao’s even breathing came from the upper left; she had probably already fallen asleep.

The air was quiet for a long while, then a voice, so low she almost couldn’t hear it, suddenly said, “Maybe.”

She couldn’t tell if it was Maomao or Hai Dongqing who had spoken, but it was like taking a calming pill¹². She was soon overcome by drowsiness and fell into a deep sleep.

……

When they woke up, the sky was already bright.

Lou Jingmo, who had gone to sleep the latest and woken up the earliest, first patted Shen Maomao awake. After she was a little more conscious, she said loudly to the other two, “Get up, time to work.”

Peng Xiaorui sat up with a jolt. “What? WHAT?!”

Shen Maomao groggily slipped on her slippers and carried her toiletries to the washroom to clean up. Even in a dire situation, she had to be a delicate piggy girl¹³.

Lou Jingmo followed behind her, in case she forgot to turn and walked past it.

The hallway was empty, but there were sounds coming from the other dorm rooms—normal waking-up noises, occasionally mixed with a few voices calling out for morning roll call.

There were already two unfamiliar people washing up in the washroom. Shen Maomao consciously walked to the far end, leaving the closer spot for Lou Jingmo.

While brushing her teeth, she stared blankly at the broken faucet on the far right. As she stared, she suddenly thought of something, turned to look at the position of the first faucet, and then reached out to turn the handle of the last faucet.

Screech—creak— The aged metal parts made a teeth-grinding sound. No water came out of the last faucet.

She immediately took out her toothbrush and said, “That’s right! This broken faucet should be on the left side!”

The other two girls shot her a confused look, but Shen Maomao couldn’t be bothered with that anymore. She took a big mouthful of water, spit out the toothpaste, quickly rinsed her hands under the faucet, and grabbed Lou Jingmo’s wrist to head out.

Lou Jingmo didn’t resist, dropping her toiletries and going out with her.

Shen Maomao pulled her toward the stairwell. When they got there, she said, “I’m sure this isn’t the world we first entered! That faucet, I made a special point to remember it. It was definitely on the left side, I’m not mistaken!”

Lou Jingmo smiled. “I’ll credit you for this one¹⁴.”

Shen Maomao’s eyes lit up. “Eh? Did I help you?”

Lou Jingmo pinched her cheek. “It’s alright. Though I could have discovered it myself without you.”

Shen Maomao pouted and gave her a “Fuck off¹⁵.”

Lou Jingmo said, “Let’s go back first. The next part will be too slow with just the two of us. We need their help.”

“Eh?” Shen Maomao didn’t understand the inside story. “What about our basins…”

Lou Jingmo grabbed her¹⁶ hand. “Who cares about the basins? Forget them, let’s go.”

“Oh, oh.” Shen Maomao quickly followed.

……

As the two were heading back, they happened to run into Gan Ze, who was carrying a basin and preparing to go wash her face.

Shen Maomao pulled her back. “Don’t wash, don’t wash, we have something important to say.”

Gan Ze followed them back to the dorm room, her face full of confusion.

After having shot up in bed while deathly ill¹⁷ once, Peng Xiaorui had returned to the embrace of her blanket and was now sleeping soundly, letting out little snores.

Shen Maomao showed no tender feelings for the fairer sex¹⁸, directly shaking the bed twice. “Time to talk business, wake up.”

“AH!” Peng Xiaorui let out a cry of alarm, now fully awake. She sat up¹⁹, rubbing her eyes. “Huh? What’s going on?”

Lou Jingmo clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention, and then said, “Next, I need you all to go around and look for mirrors you can enter. If you find one, smash it directly.”

Gan Ze frowned. “Why is that?”

Lou Jingmo: “After running back and forth in the mirrors, do you all still remember what day of the game it is?”

Hearing this, Shen Maomao counted on her fingers and then realized with a start, “FUCK²⁰! I think it’s the morning of the seventh day today!”

Lou Jingmo glanced at her, her expression like she was looking at an idiot.

Peng Xiaorui said, “That’s not right. One day when we arrived, the second day someone next door fell to their death, the third night Gan Ze disappeared, the fourth night we entered the mirror, the fifth night we came out. Today is the daytime of the sixth day—how did you count seven days?”

Shen Maomao felt ashamed. “Sorry, I’m useless.”

Lou Jingmo shot Peng Xiaorui a sidelong glance.

Peng Xiaorui was pinned to the bed by her gaze and could only wail internally: Why are you looking at me! She said it herself! Dog woman²¹!

Shen Maomao didn’t notice the brief exchange between the two and lamented, “Time passes so fast in this scenario… It’s already the sixth day, and we don’t have any clues. Can we even get out?”

“It’s precisely because we have no clues that we need to think about the problem from a different angle,” Lou Jingmo said.

Shen Maomao and Peng Xiaorui stared at each other, dumbfounded²², and Gan Ze was even more lost in the clouds and fog²³.

Lou Jingmo explained, “Actually, your direction of exploration was correct. Normally, following this path, one of you should know where the exit is by now.”

The others were still confused.

Lou Jingmo: “Remember what I said? The game’s difficulty has increased.”

Shen Maomao had a sudden realization²⁴. “So this is Its²⁵ way of increasing the difficulty? By having us run around like headless flies²⁶?”

“That’s one way to put it. I suspect the method for clearing the game has changed.”

The normal way to clear the game is to collect information in the instance, find key characters, sort out the instance’s main storyline, and then deduce the location of the exit from that. Applied to this instance, it would mean digging up the relationships between these people, figuring out who was right and who was wrong in what happened back then, and then finding the one true reality among the layers upon layers of mirror worlds.

But now, the variable of Lou Jingmo has appeared in the game, so she deduced: the leader behind the game would definitely try its hardest to dig a pit²⁷ for her, so she would deliberately do the opposite²⁸.

The world in the game is inherently false, so how could there be a true reality?

If there is no reality, then the players will create one.

After hearing her explanation, Peng Xiaorui said, a little uncertainly, “If we break the mirrors… what will happen to the people inside?”

Lou Jingmo said with great certainty, “They will be lost in the mirrors.”

Peng Xiaorui pressed her lips together. “So Bai Lu-xuejie²⁹…”

Shen Maomao said, “How about this? In a bit, let’s see if we can travel through the mirrors during the daytime. If we can, we’ll all go into one mirror together to look for her. If we find her, we’ll take her with us. We can also determine the number of traversable mirrors at the same time. Then, we can start smashing them when night comes?”

Lou Jingmo: “We can, but there will be no time for regrets. If my judgment is wrong, we will all die here.”

Shen Maomao looked at her, her eyes seeming to sparkle with light. “I believe in you.”

Lou Jingmo couldn’t help but squeeze her hand.

Peng Xiaorui: “…” For some reason, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m superfluous.

Gan Ze: “…” What a coincidence, me too.

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The author has something to say:

Another ten thousand characters! I gave out red envelopes last time, so I can’t do any less this time. To the first hundred commenters on this chapter, charge!

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