The Hand of Confession – Chapter 395

Volume 11: The Days of Traveling on a Train

Bonus Item

Puck Weeps

Flames covered the surface of the lake, the dancing light of the fire reflecting in Shen Maomao’s eyes.

As the card’s master, she didn’t feel the intense heat. Soaking in the sea of fire felt more like a warm bath. It was actually quite comfortable.

The black shadow underwater let out an enraged roar, but it never surfaced. It just thrashed about below, searching for a chance to attack her.

Shen Maomao’s palm grew warm. Puck slipped out of her hand and floated in midair, exclaiming in surprise, “Human, how did you do that?!”

Probably because he had formed a contract with her, Puck didn’t feel the heat in the air.

Shen Maomao gave him a mysterious smile. “Who said I was human?”

Puck: “??!”

Shen Maomao then asked him, “If this fire keeps burning, what are the chances it could burn the Immortal King to death?”

“If it can keep burning… the Immortal King will definitely be burned to death.” Puck looked at her as if she were a demon. “Y-y-you… you really plan to do that?!”

Shen Maomao nodded. “Yeah. Any problem with that?”

Puck was confused. “Aren’t you able to leave already? Why do you still want to save those people?”

Shen Maomao: “Because I’m kind.”

Puck glanced at the Immortal King circling below, roaring with rage. “…”

Shen Maomao felt that sounded a bit shameless herself, so she corrected it. “Actually, I’m just a Qianr¹ person. I like to meddle in other people’s business.”

Puck: “Qianr?”

Shen Maomao: “Oh, it’s a dialect term. It just means meddlesome.”

“Then why don’t you help the Immortal King?”

“Why would I help him when he’s in the wrong?”

“What is right? And what is wrong?”

Shen Maomao didn’t know how to answer that. Everyone has their own standards for good and evil, right and wrong. So she put on a show of wisdom, beckoning Puck over. She let him sit on her index finger, then gently tapped his forehead with her other hand. “You’re still young. You have a lot to learn. You shouldn’t be asking me questions like this. You should be asking your heart.”

Puck: “But I’m already two hundred years old.”

Shen Maomao: “…Right. Never mind. Bye-bye.”

But Puck followed her. “Are you leaving? Can’t you really stay and keep me company?”

Shen Maomao: “I’ll leave once the water has boiled away. We aren’t from the same world… Or maybe you could consider taking over as the Immortal King yourself? This one will be cooked soon anyway.”

It was as if a door to a new world had opened for Puck. His eyes lit up. “Can I really do that?!”

Shen Maomao patted his tiny shoulder. “Go for it, little guy. Anyone with a dream is amazing. I hope you become the Immortal King soon.”

Puck flew into the air, his small wings showering her with a shower of crystalline light. “I’ll work hard! Thank you, human!”

Shen Maomao: “Serve the People!”²

…

The fire burned for several hours. The blood-tainted water on the surface had completely evaporated, and the water level had dropped by over ten meters.

The lake was called Lake Baikal, but its depth and area were nowhere near the real Lake Baikal. At most, it was just over twenty meters deep—probably because the game didn’t have enough space to model it properly. After burning for so long, the lake was about to dry up.

Only then could Shen Maomao see clearly that the white light of the exit was actually in front of a white palace. The palace was immaculate, as if built from the finest white jade. Its top featured a deep blue Gothic spire, giving it a grand and spacious appearance.

Puck said, “Hey, don’t burn down my royal palace! I’m going to live there in the future!”

Shen Maomao: “It’s yours already?”

Puck said proudly, “I’m the oldest elf besides the Immortal King! It should be my turn!”

Shen Maomao murmured, “So your only advantage is your age, is that it?”

Puck snapped, “Human! Shut your mouth!”

Shen Maomao made an “OK” sign and zipped her lips.

The water level grew shallower and shallower, and the Immortal King below finally revealed its true face of Mount Lu³. It looked a lot like the merfolk of legend, with a human torso and a fish’s tail, but it wasn’t nearly as beautiful. It was enormous, with bluish-purple skin and a short, pointed horn on its forehead. Sharp fangs protruded from its mouth, and a necklace strung with human heads was wrapped around its neck. Among those heads, Shen Maomao saw Zhan Zhi.

This Immortal King was extremely afraid of fire, which was why it had been hiding at the bottom of the lake, using a pale blue shield to protect itself. After hours of burning, the shield had grown dim. Its roars of rage had turned into miserable wails. But looking at the necklace of heads around its neck, Shen Maomao couldn’t muster any sympathy.

If she didn’t have Andrei, her head would probably have a place on that necklace right now.

Seeing it was about to be burned alive, the Immortal King began a final, desperate counterattack. An incredibly sharp shriek suddenly erupted from its throat.

A sharp pain shot through Shen Maomao’s ears, and her mind buzzed. Her body swam forward twice against her will.

Her eyes flew open. She immediately decided to fight magic with magic and began to sing at the top of her lungs.

The two demonic sounds clashed, shaking Puck so hard he fell right out of the sky.

The distance between Shen Maomao and the Immortal King kept shrinking. She ramped up the power, her howling world-shattering and heart-rending, so much so that even the Immortal King’s song faltered for a moment.

She seized the chance to regain control of her body and immediately raised a hand to summon a sheet of sky fire⁴. The flame once again slammed into the protective shield. With a kacha⁵, a tiny crack appeared on its surface. With that opening, the sky fire converged on the spot as if it were alive. After a couple more kacha kacha sounds, the shield shattered into a pile of fragments.

The flames swarmed forward. The Immortal King let out a bloodcurdling scream and, in the blink of an eye, melted into a pool of blue liquid that merged with the remaining lake water, vanishing completely.

Shen Maomao fished Puck out of the water. “Is that it? Is it dead?”

Puck’s wings had turned into two small fins after getting wet. He shook his dripping hair and said, “Dead, dead, stone-cold dead. Now it’s my turn to be the boss!”

Shen Maomao: “Congrats, congrats. Well, I’ll be going then?”

Puck raised a hand. “Go on! I’ll see you off!”

A cluster of crystalline specks of light drifted from his fingertips to Shen Maomao’s back, forming a waterproof film around her.

Shen Maomao dove into the water like a real fish. She waved at Puck but didn’t say goodbye, swimming directly into the white light.

Before she left, she thought she faintly heard an angry shriek from behind her, but she couldn’t make out what Puck was saying.

Maybe he found out someone beat him to it and decided to occupy the mountain and proclaim himself king?⁶

A moment of the sky spinning and earth turning⁷ later, Shen Maomao returned to the real world.

Lou Jingmo, who had been waiting for her, saw her come to her senses and immediately asked, “How did it go?”

Shen Maomao: “Not sure yet, let me ask…”

She pulled out her phone and opened the forum. Before she could type anything, a message popped up from Auntie Ning: 【Xiao Shen, are you okay? I made it out safely. Thank you so much. I hope we can work together again in the future [Rose][Rose].】

Shen Maomao immediately said to Lou Jingmo, “A complete success!”

Then she typed a reply to Auntie Ning: 【I’m fine too, Auntie Ning. Hope to see you again! [Rose][Rose]】

The other side replied with two more roses. Shen Maomao closed her phone and shoved her big face in front of Lou Jingmo’s. “I was amazing! I need a reward!”

Lou Jingmo’s lips curved into a smirk. “Why would I kiss your face? If I’m going to kiss you, I’ll kiss somewhere else.”

Shen Maomao blushed and said flirtatiously, “You can do whatever you want to me.”

Lou Jingmo’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Really?”

Shen Maomao: “If you dare to do something like draw a turtle⁸ on my face, I’ll beat you to death.”

Looking guilty, Lou Jingmo pushed her down onto the sofa. “How could I?!” With that, she lowered her head to kiss her.

Shen Maomao wrapped her arms around her neck and returned the kiss, eventually ending up breathless and limp in the sofa cushions.

After catching her breath, she snuggled into Lou Jingmo’s arms and gave her a rough summary of what had happened in the instance⁹.

After listening, Lou Jingmo stroked her head, not stingy with her praise. “You did very well…” Then she couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. “You’ve grown up, Shen Guagua.”¹⁰

Shen Maomao was speechless. “Do you even know how to talk?”

Lou Jingmo admitted frankly, “I don’t.”

Annoyed, Shen Maomao shot her a massive eye-roll.

Lou Jingmo cleared her throat and got back on topic. “That instance itself isn’t very difficult. You just have to be brave enough to go look for clues when the train enters the tunnel. Even without reading 《A Midsummer Night’s Dream》¹¹, you’d notice something strange about that pattern…”

Shen Maomao nestled back into her arms. “I thought so too, but unfortunately, there was a Scavenger¹² in this run, so the difficulty went way up. The players were all on edge. Who would have the guts to wander around in the middle of the night?”

Lou Jingmo: “That’s still not too hard. That Scavenger’s level wasn’t very high, and its methods weren’t that sophisticated.”

Shen Maomao rolled her eyes. “Easy for you to say. As for that Immortal King, if I didn’t have Andrei, I probably couldn’t have beaten it at all.”

“No ‘probably’ about it,” Lou Jingmo said. “You couldn’t have beaten it.”

Shen Maomao: “…” Fine, never mind.

“But under normal circumstances, no one would be crazy enough to provoke that Immortal King,” Lou Jingmo added. “Logically, after doing so much extra work, you should have gotten some kind of reward…”

Shen Maomao: “If there’s no reward, there’s no reward. It’s not like I saved them for that anyway.”

Lou Jingmo stroked her head. “Alright. What do you want to eat? I’ll make you dinner.”

Shen Maomao: “Anything’s fine. In any case, I really don’t want to eat any snacks for the next few days—Hey? Ouch, that’s hot!”

“What’s wrong?”

Shen Maomao spread her fingers and saw that a pattern was imprinted on her palm—the very same pansy that had summoned Puck. “Why is this still here?!”

Lou Jingmo grabbed her wrist. “Is it that little elf?”

Shen Maomao was stunned. “What’s going on? My palm really hurts… I feel like something is trying to push its way out…”

The next second, a small blue elf materialized in front of them, yelling, “You big liar!! Waaaaah, my royal palace! My territory! It’s all gone! All gone!”

Shen Maomao: “Wocao¹³! How did this thing follow me?!”

Lou Jingmo frowned. “It seems this is your reward for the instance.”

Shen Maomao: “But we’re not even in the same dimension! I’m dumbfounded! What kind of reward is this?! If someone sees him, how am I supposed to explain it?!”

Lou Jingmo: “Calm down first… Maybe it’s like the cards. Non-game players can’t see it.”

Puck was still wailing. “You liar, waaaah… You tricked me!” He sobbed, tears streaming down his face. It was a truly pitiful sight.

Shen Maomao: “But what if other players see him? Then they’ll all know we have something like this!”

Lou Jingmo: “Then we’ll kill him.”

Puck’s crying stopped for a second, then grew even louder. “Waaah QAQ! You want to kill me too! Waaaaah! You’re not a good person! I didn’t even want to follow you! Waaaah, my life is so miserable!!”

Shen Maomao rubbed her temples, a headache setting in. “Alright, alright, we won’t kill you. I’m begging you, Dage¹⁴, just stop crying for a second. What’s done is done. Why don’t we sit down and talk this through like adults, okay?”

Puck sniffled. “Fine. But I’m two hundred years old. You’re the children.”

“Okay, okay, we’re the children.” Shen Maomao pushed the tissue box on the coffee table forward so Puck could sit on it. “So let’s start with how you followed me here.”

Puck dangled his little feet from the tissue. “After you left, I suddenly felt my connection to the world break, and then I was sucked into that white light with you.”

Shen Maomao: “Didn’t you say you couldn’t come with me?”

Puck lowered his head, wiping away tears. “I don’t know why it happened either… It might have something to do with you killing the Immortal King.”

Shen Maomao’s head throbbed. “So, can you go back?”

Puck sniffled and let out an “ao,” bursting into tears again. “I can’t go back, waaaaah! I want to go home!! I want to go back to my palace!”

Shen Maomao’s head was buzzing, even worse than when she’d heard the Immortal King sing.

It was true she liked kids, but she liked well-behaved, sensible kids that belonged to other people, not a crying, screaming bear child¹⁵ like this one.

Lou Jingmo threatened him with a cold expression, “Cry again and I’ll kill you!”

Puck cried out, “You evil human! I’ll turn you into a pig!” With that, he raised his little magic wand and started casting a spell at Lou Jingmo.

Shen Maomao was scared half to death and reflexively jumped between him and Lou Jingmo. Lou Jingmo, not expecting him to attack so suddenly, immediately grabbed Shen Maomao, pulled her into her arms, and turned her own back to Puck.

The scene froze for three seconds.

Puck looked at his wand, then at the two people holding each other. The little elf was in shock. “My… my magic is gone too!!”

Shen Maomao patted Lou Jingmo’s shoulder. “Should’ve said so sooner. You scared the hell out of me.”

Lou Jingmo kept her arms around Shen Maomao, just turning to look at Puck. She didn’t speak, but her expression was frigid, as if she were looking at a corpse or some other lifeless object.

Puck was too scared to speak. The tiny elf hid behind the tissue box and said weakly, “I… I can change it back… Don’t look at me like that… Your glare is so scary, waaaah…”

Shen Maomao had to be the one to comfort Lou Jingmo. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Lou-jie, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Only then did Lou Jingmo look away.

Shen Maomao turned to Puck. “Alright, cry again and we’re really throwing you out.”

Puck said in a small voice, “I’m sorry…”

Shen Maomao: “Knowing how to apologize makes you a good kid. Since you can’t go back, you might as well try to adapt to life here.”

Puck looked at them with teary eyes. “Will you take me in?”

Shen Maomao shook her head. “I get the feeling you don’t really like us, and it just so happens we don’t like you either. Why don’t we just let each other off the hook and go our separate ways?”

Puck was on the verge of tears again. “But I… I don’t know anyone here! If you don’t take me, what will I do QAQ.”

Shen Maomao: “So… you want to stay?”

Puck nodded furiously.

Shen Maomao smiled. “But we only like obedient children.”

Puck peeked his head out from behind the tissue box. “I… I’ll be obedient.”

Shen Maomao: “Saying it doesn’t count. You have to do it.”

Puck was being completely led by the nose¹⁶. “I’ll try my best to do it.”

Only then was Shen Maomao satisfied. “Then it’s a deal. You have to listen to us. Otherwise, we’ll kick you out and leave you to fend for yourself¹⁷.”

“Then… can I just listen to you…?”

Shen Maomao smiled. “Nope. We’re a team. You have to listen to both of us, or we won’t keep you.”

“Alright then…” Puck reluctantly agreed.

Shen Maomao was finally satisfied. “Okay, now tell me, what abilities do you have?”

Puck said, “I know magic!”

Shen Maomao: “What kind of magic? The kind that turns people into pigs?”

“Don’t look down on me! I’m the best at pranks!”

“Not allowed!” Shen Maomao crossed her arms in a big “×”¹⁸. “Pranks are forbidden!”

Puck: “I also have Love-in-idleness juice¹⁹! I can make everyone fall in love with you!”

Lou Jingmo glanced back at him.

Shen Maomao: “Stop right there. I don’t need everyone to like me. Besides, isn’t there something wrong with your Love-in-idleness juice?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“If someone affected by the juice can’t have the object of their affection, don’t they turn into a Bingjiao?”²⁰

“What’s a Bingjiao?”

“The ‘if I can’t have you, I’ll kill you’ type.”

Puck looked down guiltily. “I guess that can happen… But you can just not give them any hope and reject them clearly. Then they won’t like you anymore.”

Shen Maomao was speechless. “If that’s the case, then isn’t your juice completely useless?”

Puck was silent for two seconds, then sniffled and started crying again. “Waaaaah… I’m useless. I’m a useless little elf QAQ waaaah…”

Shen Maomao quickly tried to console him. “Okay, okay, don’t cry, don’t cry. As long as you’re obedient, we’ll keep you even if you’re useless. Hey, have you ever watched TV? Let me find a cartoon for you.”

She used the remote to turn on the TV and found a channel playing Peppa Pig²¹.

How could a two-hundred-year-old elf who had lived at the bottom of a lake have ever seen something like this? He was startled at first, hiding behind the tissue box to watch. But soon he was completely captivated by the lives of Peppa and George, completely forgetting about Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo.

Shen Maomao quietly pulled Lou Jingmo upstairs to discuss the situation. “What are we going to do about this? How did clearing an instance come with a bonus item?”

Lou Jingmo said, “If you like him, then keep him. Just don’t let other players find out.”

Although Puck seemed pretty useless, he was probably the only item with its own consciousness that could be brought into the real world. Even Lou Jingmo herself didn’t believe his abilities were so limited, let alone other players.

A common man is innocent, but possessing a treasure makes him guilty²². To avoid unnecessary trouble, Lou Jingmo felt it was necessary to hide Puck well.

Shen Maomao giggled. “How did you know I like him?”

Lou Jingmo shot her a sidelong glance. “Do you think I don’t know you?”

Shen Maomao rubbed her hands together. “It’s just that, when he’s not crying, he’s actually kind of fun.”

Lou Jingmo: “Keep him, then. Just think of it as having a pet.”

…

Shen Maomao had raised pets before, but this was her first time raising an elf.

Fortunately, Puck didn’t need to eat or use the bathroom, nor did he get sick or fear water. He was Shen Maomao’s ideal pet.

On his second day with them, Puck became obsessed with the taste of snacks and fruit. According to him, he had only ever eaten fish at the bottom of the lake. On the train, he would usually leave right after his mischief was done (meaning, sprinkling Love-in-idleness juice everywhere to mess up relationships), so he never stayed long.

After arriving in the real world, he had curiously stolen one of Shen Maomao’s potato chips and had been hopelessly addicted to snacks ever since.

He was tiny, less than twenty centimeters tall. You could give him an apple, and he’d sit in front of the TV eating it all day. He was very low-maintenance.

Shen Maomao bought a bunch of tiny clothes for him online to play dress-up. She also got him a luxury dollhouse and wooden furniture, which she and Lou Jingmo assembled by hand from the blueprints. When they weren’t busy, their days were spent eating, sleeping, and walking the elf. Life was quite pleasant.

Later, Auntie Ning needed to clear another instance. Shen Maomao thought about it and took the job, bringing Puck along as well.

Puck could be placed in the item slot and could even talk to her from inside it. But aside from playing pranks that caused people bad luck and chattering endlessly, he didn’t seem to have much use. So, after returning from that instance, Shen Maomao decided not to bring him along anymore.

Auntie Ning was an older woman with a long story. The photo she’d given Shen Maomao was from over twenty years ago, when she was in her thirties. Now she was over fifty, and she hadn’t taken a single photo in the intervening two decades. She had often mentioned that she, too, had a daughter who liked girls. It wasn’t until later that Shen Maomao realized she hadn’t been trying to set her up, as older generations often do, but was just reminiscing.

—Auntie Ning’s daughter had been dead for over ten years.

Shen Maomao suspected her sin might be related to her daughter’s death, but she had no intention of prying into someone else’s private life or digging up Auntie Ning’s old wounds, so she never asked for details.

After that, she took on a few different power-leveling clients²³. She even ran into another boss like Guan Qiwen who was pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger²⁴, but she ended up beating the crap out of that guy and leaving him in the instance. After she got out, she deleted his contact info, never knowing if he made it out in the end.

Another year passed like this, and then something happened that neither she nor Lou Jingmo had ever expected.

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The author has something to say:

Puck: I may not be human, but you are a real dog.²⁵

Also, this instance really wasn’t short. If I wrote 3k words a day, this would have been eighteen chapters. I originally designed the instances to be around twenty chapters. Some of the harder ones got more writing. This one wasn’t difficult. Do you guys feel it’s short because of the 6k-word daily updates? You read it in fewer days, so it feels short orz²⁶.

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