The Hand of Confession – Chapter 75

Volume 3: Days of Working at the Manor

Punishment

I saw his tears

Shen Maomao was startled. Just as she was about to open her mouth to remind Golden Retriever, Lou Jingmo pulled her arm. She showed a confused expression, and Lou Jingmo put her index finger to her lips, then pointed at the flowers near Golden Retriever.

She looked carefully and finally noticed something unusual.

The roses that were growing on Golden Retriever’s back yesterday were unusually well-behaved today. They surrounded Golden Retriever, with the two small leaves under the flower receptacle slightly curved, holding up the petals, just like little kids cupping their faces while listening to the teacher telling stories.

Shen Maomao: “…” Holy crap, how can these roses be a bit cute?

Golden Retriever dug the soil for a long time. The last shovel hit something very hard. He quickly stopped and turned his head to call the two women: “Damn, I really dug up something, Sister Xiaolou, Sister Rabbit, come and see!”

Freckles, standing outside the garden, heard his voice and quickly walked in. All four squatted down, surrounding the round flowerpot that looked black and shiny, staring at each other.

Lou Jingmo was the first to make a move. She picked up the flowerpot and knocked it hard on the ground twice. A lot of soil fell off with a “huala” sound. The most soil fell from the left and right sides at the bottom of the flowerpot. The whole flowerpot was no longer round, but became a shape that was round on top and wide at the bottom.

Golden Retriever’s legs went weak, and he sat down on his butt, nervously asking: “Sister Xiaolou… this isn’t a skull, is it?”

“Congratulations, you’re right,” Lou Jingmo said gloomily. “Since you’re so smart, why don’t you guess what creature’s skull this is?”

Golden Retriever: “…” I really don’t want to guess, okay?!

Shen Maomao couldn’t help but curse: “Damn that perverted Baron, actually using human skulls as flower pots? Nima (motherfucker), is this something a human would do?”

Freckles said from the side: “There’s more than just one rose here.”

Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever were both stunned. The two half-newbies turned their heads in unison, looking at the hundreds and thousands of roses in the sea of flowers, chilled to the bone.

The moment they looked over, the roses frantically shook their bodies, making some weird “jili gulu” (gibberish) sounds.

Golden Retriever, still sitting on the ground, scooted backwards on his butt several times, asking in panic: “What are you guys trying to do?!”

Lou Jingmo kicked the shovel towards Shen Maomao and said: “Dig out all the roses that are acting up badly.”

Shen Maomao: “So many roses, am I, a weak woman, supposed to dig them all by myself?”

Lou Jingmo walked towards the tree, took out three more shovels from her tool bucket, and threw one in front of each person: “Let’s dig together, hurry up.”

This time no one objected, everyone grabbed their shovels and entered the flower field. Only Golden Retriever was a bit scared and insisted on sticking close to Shen Maomao.

The roses were making “guji guji” (gibberish) noises chaotically. Shen Maomao crouched in the flower bush, carefully loosening the soil around its roots. Golden Retriever sidled up next to her, digging at the roots of another “guji guji”-ing rose, waving his little shovel while chatting with Shen Maomao: “Sister Rabbit, are you scared?”

Shen Maomao turned back, looking at him expressionlessly: “I’m so scared, wuwuwu, Big Brother Golden Retriever, can you help me do the work?”

Golden Retriever shuddered: “Big Brother Rabbit, can you be my big brother?” (Here “big brother” implies someone superior or to be respected)

Shen Maomao couldn’t help but laugh, smugly shaking her head.

The rose under her hand shook more violently, as if urging her not to slack off and get back to work properly. She hurriedly continued to dig its human skull flower pot, while saying to Golden Retriever: “Since you can’t help me, don’t bother me, just work hard Little Gold, someday you’ll get promoted and get a raise too.”

Golden Retriever: “…”

The atmosphere between the two was still harmonious, while on the other side, Lou Jingmo glanced in their direction, quickly withdrew her gaze, and focused on the rose in her hand.

However, her eyes were a bit deep, not knowing what she was thinking.

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After working for a while, they dealt with a quarter of the area of the rose garden, digging out more than a dozen skulls of various sizes, with some skulls surrounded by a large number of scattered bones.

Everyone took a short break, Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever tremblingly carried the bones, pots and flowers to the empty space in front of the rose garden.

Freckles only took a glance and said, “The skulls and skeletons are all from women.”

Golden Retriever asked, “How can you tell?”

“I’m a doctor,” Freckles said with a flat expression. “These skulls have smooth bone surfaces, inconspicuous brow ridges, obvious frontal eminences, non-protruding cheekbones, and shallow eye sockets. They clearly belong to women.”

Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever looked completely confused. Golden Retriever only understood the first part about smooth bone surfaces, and barely understood the rest. Shen Maomao was surprised that Freckles, who seemed so bloody, was actually a white angel (meaning a medical professional).

Freckles couldn’t be bothered to explain in detail. He simply picked up a few bones, examined them carefully, and said, “From the teeth… nevermind, you wouldn’t understand even if I explained. The owners of these bones were probably quite young, around eighteen years old.”

Eighteen years old, female.

It was obvious who these skulls belonged to without even thinking about it.

Shen Maomao turned towards the castle behind her, spat three times “pei pei pei” (onomatopoeia for spitting), and then raised both her left and right middle fingers.

Lou Jingmo wrapped her hand with her sleeve and tried to pull out a cluster of roses planted in a skull. After two or three attempts, making the roses “howl” wildly, she still couldn’t succeed.

Plants are fragile, but they’re also extremely tenacious.

The tiny space inside the skull was not enough for the rose to grow freely, so it stretched its roots more forcefully, digging the rootlets into the skull, becoming one with it, unable to be pulled out.

Just looking at this scene made Shen Maomao feel a tightness in her skull.

After resting enough, they continued to search for skulls in the garden, clearing out half the area in one go, discovering forty to fifty heads and various bones.

Lou Jingmo lowered her head and recited a long string of unclear words. Shen Maomao curiously asked, “Sister Lou, what are you doing?”

Lou Jingmo: “Performing last rites for them.”

Shen Maomao: “…Sister Lou, you know quite a lot.”

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They had just cleared half of the last quarter of the area when suddenly two sets of hurried footsteps came from afar, and the sound was getting closer and closer to their position.

Fortunately, in order to find the skull flower pots, they were all crouching on the ground. The rose bushes were tall enough that in their crouching position, they could hide the entire person, so their location hadn’t been exposed yet.

The messy footsteps quickly passed by them. The two people fleeing for their lives gritted their teeth and darted into the rose garden that had been cleared of a large patch, coming face to face with Shen Maomao and the others.

“Shh——!”

“Shh——”

The people who arrived were Dongfang and Wen Muyan. Both groups made the same gesture simultaneously, and smiles of relief appeared on all six faces.

Shen Maomao looked down and saw a total of six shadows, with no other abnormalities for the time being, which made her feel much more at ease.

There was no movement outside for a while. Golden Retriever couldn’t resist the urge to poke his head out for a look, but Lou Jingmo quickly pressed him down with her quick hands.

A few more footsteps sounded not far away, and something went “tak tak tak tak” as it walked around nearby. Shen Maomao’s heart was racing, pounding chaotically.

Those footsteps went left for a while, then right for a while, and finally stopped in front of the skulls they had dug up but hadn’t had time to conceal.

Shen Maomao’s heart felt like it was about to jump into her throat as she strained her ears to judge the direction of the footsteps.

But there was no sound at all. The surroundings were eerily quiet, like the final calm before a storm.

“Hee hee hee…”

The skull flowerpots placed in front of the garden let out strange laughs, then started to make “guji guji” noises randomly.

It sounded like… they were talking to something?

Shen Maomao looked at Lou Jingmo and found that she was actually listening intently, instantly raising her admiration for Lou Jingmo another level.

Sister Lou is awesome, she can even understand rose language [thumbs up].

After the little roses spoke for a while, footsteps sounded again, going “da da da” as they faded into the distance.

The tense atmosphere in the air instantly disappeared. Shen Maomao carefully half-squatted, her eyes peeking above the bushes, and saw two blurry figures walking away.

She sighed in relief and called to the others: “It’s okay now, they’ve gone far away.”

Golden Retriever remarked with feeling: “I never thought we’d end up being saved by rose flowers…”

The little roses in front put their leaves on their hips and lifted their heads, looking very proud.

Freckles looked at the disheveled Dongfang and Wen Muyan and asked: “What happened?”

Wen Muyan took two deep breaths: “They’re all alive!”

Just as Shen Maomao was thinking, “Did the dead nobles and servants actually come back to life?”, she heard Dongfang add: “It’s the players who are alive.”

Shen Maomao: “??”

Dongfang: “The dead players have all come back to life. Besides that, we six have also ‘come back to life’.”

“I say ‘come back to life’ because I don’t know what adjective is appropriate. If I have to say it… I think the word ‘copy’ might be more suitable.” He looked towards the castle, then immediately withdrew his gaze and continued, “After Little Wen and I went in, we saw Lin Fei, whose death I had personally confirmed.”

“When we exchanged information yesterday, I didn’t remember to mention that yesterday Lin Fei seemed to be bewitched, saying he wanted to take back the second young lady, that she couldn’t be traded like a commodity. He insisted on rushing into the castle and was killed by the guard NPCs at the door. Freckles and I even dragged away his corpse.”

Freckles nodded, agreeing with his words.

Dongfang continued: “But when I walked into the castle today, I found him standing among a group of guards, expressionlessly looking at me, without any wounds on his body, as if… the game had turned him into an emotionless NPC.”

“No!” Wen Muyan suddenly interjected, “He has thoughts and consciousness… I saw his tears!”

She hugged her arms, as if recalling that scene, and couldn’t help but shudder: “You didn’t see it with your own eyes, so you can’t truly feel that sensation… At that moment, I felt numb all over from that one look he gave me — his eyes were glistening with tears, but his body showed no movement at all. It was as if his body and spirit had been split into two parts…”

Seeing the dead people appear alive before her eyes wasn’t as shocking as the glimmer of tears in his eyes.

If the result of death wasn’t liberation, but being trapped in such a bizarre world, confined in a body that one couldn’t control…

This kind of punishment was definitely more terrifying than pure death.

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The author has something to say:

Because I’m not a doctor either, the information about whether bones can reveal age and the differences between male and female skulls are all from Baidu (a Chinese search engine). If there are any loopholes in Freckles’ words, please let me know in the comments~

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