The Hand of Confession – Chapter 77

Volume 3: Days of Working at the Manor

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I like women

“What?” Shen Maomao was shocked.

The priest said: “The Cardinal holds a very high position and usually stays in the Royal Capital’s church to help the Pope handle official business. Our church doesn’t have such a high ranking – we only have one bishop, not a cardinal.”

Who was that person last night?? They had seen him walk into this church with their own eyes!

Shen Maomao anxiously asked again: “Is there anyone here who likes to wear red clothes?”

The priest shook his head with a smile: “I think you’ve come to the wrong place. The Church of Light has a strict hierarchy, and we don’t have the qualification to wear red clothes. If you don’t want to pray, I’ll go guide other believers.”

Shen Maomao quickly said: “Thank you, please go about your business, don’t mind us.”

The priest didn’t stand on ceremony and left.

Shen Maomao looked expectantly at Lou Jingmo.

Lou Jingmo looked around and said: “Perhaps we can wait here until night, but I’m not sure if we’ll see that bishop again.”

When the big god spoke, the two newbies naturally had no objections. The three didn’t waste time and started wandering around the church.

The game world was very peaceful during the day. People living in this city came to church voluntarily, offering their loyalty to the deity without reservation, just to receive the “holy water” issued by the church.

During their wandering, everyone they met was bragging about the effects of the “holy water.” For these simple commoners, these strange illness symptoms they had never seen or heard of must be the devil’s mischief, and the church’s “holy water” was the best tool to deal with demons.

The three-person team sent Golden Retriever to blend into the crowd and taste the so-called holy water.

Golden Retriever came back smacking his lips and objectively evaluated: “It feels like plain water, no taste at all.”

Shen Maomao asked dreamily: “Did you feel blessed by holy light and filled with power to fight ghosts for eight hundred rounds?”

Golden Retriever: “…No.”

Lou Jingmo said: “Whether the holy water works or not isn’t up to you to decide.”

She had just walked around again and found that most people who drank the “holy water” were visibly in better spirits, showing their condition to others, describing how the holy water felt, and frantically praising the God of Light.

Because of the plague, times had changed, and the church’s actions served two purposes: first, to win people’s hearts, and second, to prevent panic from spreading among the lower and middle classes – killing two birds with one stone.

Shen Maomao: “But the holy water has no effect…”

Those who were meant to get sick would still get sick. What would happen if they grew to hate the church because of this?

Just like last night, those commoners with ulterior motives pushed down the bishop, whom they usually had to treat with utmost respect, and in their eyes flashed the pleasure of trampling the privileged under their feet and completely overthrowing their faith.

Lou Jingmo answered: “How could the holy water have no effect? The holy water will work; it’s not working because you don’t sincerely believe in the God of Light, so the god won’t bless you.”

This way of handling things was a common tactic of the Church of Light – if God didn’t bless you, it’s because your faith wasn’t pure enough; if God didn’t save you, it’s because you had impure thoughts…

After these words, all three fell silent.

This was a fortunate era, with the wheels of the industrial revolution slowly rolling in, world economy soaring, and various cultures flourishing; it was also an unfortunate era, where a plague took millions of lives, bringing along too much misfortune…

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They had pretty much toured the entire church, and Shen Maomao’s legs were getting sore, so the three found a hidden corner and sat on the pews there waiting for dark.

Lou Jingmo suspected that the Cardinal in red wasn’t human and only appeared in the church after dark.

The scene at the Baron’s manor was probably a chaotic mess of demons right now, so staying at the church was actually safer.

Time slowly passed, and waves of people coming to receive holy water came and went. Shen Maomao was getting drowsy, she gave a big yawn, her head nodding up and down, looking like she could fall asleep at any moment.

On the other side, Golden Retriever had already leaned his head against a nearby pillar, sleeping so deeply that drool was running down.

Only Lou Jingmo showed no signs of sleepiness. She sat with a straight back, legs crossed, eyes fixed on a point in empty space, lost in thought.

Nodding off again, Shen Maomao jerked awake. She yawned again and looked at Lou Jingmo to her left with sleepy eyes.

Lou Jingmo was truly beautiful, but she rarely smiled, her features constantly shrouded in ice and snow, making her appear very aloof. Come to think of it, the Baron’s young lady also had this kind of ice-cold personality, but between the two ice beauties, Shen Maomao privately thought Sister Lou’s beauty was superior.

The young lady was like a cold and gorgeous iceberg that could freeze anyone who came close; Lou Jingmo was like a glass of ice water – she was calm, carefree, and fearless of death; she embraced everything yet remained detached from all things.

Just like now, Shen Maomao felt she looked like she was about to ascend to heaven.

She thought for a moment, closed her eyes again, her head swaying left and right, and finally fell towards Lou Jingmo’s shoulder…

Lou Jingmo… Lou Jingmo quickly dodged her head.

“Holy crap!” Shen Maomao, still with eyes closed, fell directly onto the chair, her head colliding with it with a loud bang.

“What happened?!” Golden Retriever woke up startled, “What’s going on?!”

Shen Maomao held her head and slowly sat up straight, everything spinning before her eyes, involuntarily shedding two lines of tears.

Lou Jingmo awkwardly rubbed her nose tip and coughed: “What were you trying to do suddenly leaning over?”

Grimacing in pain, Shen Maomao: “What kind of woman are you?! What’s wrong with you?! Would it kill you to let me lean on your shoulder?!”

Lou Jingmo deflected: “Why don’t you lean on him.”

Golden Retriever: “?” What does this have to do with me?

Shen Maomao said through gritted teeth: “Isn’t he a man?! How could a pure and innocent young lady like me casually lean on him?”

Golden Retriever: “…Now you remember I’m a man.” Usually these two women were completely uninhibited in front of him!

Lou Jingmo: “Well, you can’t lean on me either, I like women.”

Shen Maomao nearly died of anger: “Sister Lou! You’re too much! I’m unfollowing you for one minute!!!”

Lou Jingmo looked completely innocent: “What did I do? Do you look down on homosexuals?”

Shen Maomao rolled her eyes at her and sat down on the seat angrily, arms crossed.

Lou Jingmo sat down leaving one seat between them, feeling somewhat amused.

This silly thing probably thought she avoided her out of disgust, but there was no need to explain such things.

Shen Maomao covered her head, outwardly appearing angry, and began a one-minute cold war with Lou Jingmo. When she, Miss Shen, gets angry, it’s very scary – it won’t get better without at least a minute!

Golden Retriever: “…” No more words, the car’s already arranged underneath (meaning he’s ready to be run over by this drama).

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After all this commotion she wasn’t sleepy anymore. Shen Maomao rubbed the big bump on her head for a minute, then cheekily moved closer to Lou Jingmo again: “Aww, Sister Lou, my head hurts so much, am I going to become stupid from the bump- Oww oww oww!”

Lou Jingmo extended her index finger, pressed against the bump on her head, and pushed her next to Golden Retriever: “Sit properly, don’t bother me.”

Shen Maomao could only give her a resentful look and quietly lowered her head to play with her fingers.

After who knows how long, suddenly there was a commotion not far ahead, then four or five priests began dispersing the crowd, large groups of believers were being asked to leave the church.

Shen Maomao woke up Golden Retriever who had fallen asleep again: “Stop sleeping, something’s happening!”

Soon a priest came to them, politely asking them to leave.

Shen Maomao asked: “May I know the reason?”

The priest said: “A Cardinal in red robes has suddenly decided to visit our church, we need to be in the best state to welcome his arrival.”

Shen Maomao: “!”

She looked at Lou Jingmo, who was also looking at her, and they quickly exchanged glances.

Lou Jingmo said: “Alright, we’ll leave immediately.”

The three walked out of the church one after another, and not far away people were already cleaning up debris at the entrance, some even on ladders cleaning windows…

The two women climbed onto the carriage, and Lou Jingmo said: “Don’t return to the castle, let’s wander around nearby.”

So Golden Retriever led the little red horse, aimlessly walking forward.

Shen Maomao asked: “What’s going on, Sister Lou?”

Golden Retriever walking in front also quietly perked up his ears.

Lou Jingmo was puzzled: “Why did you exchange glances with me if you didn’t know??”

Shen Maomao said shyly: “I just wanted to look at you~”

Lou Jingmo: “…”

She cursed “stupid” in her heart again, then explained: “I was wrong this morning, the Cardinal in red isn’t a ghost, but hasn’t arrived yet.”

Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever looked confused.

Lou Jingmo: “We seem to have returned to the second day.”

The other two: “??”

“Today is our third day in the game, but it’s the second day of game progress.”

This explanation seemed to make things more confusing.

Lou Jingmo sighed and said: “Today is a repeat of the second day, but we’re not within the repeated track. This is the downside of progressing through the map too quickly – you might hit a bug.”

Games have a process. If you compare the game’s progression to a railway track, then the plot is the train. The train will move forward along the track according to settings, but the people inside the train forcibly speed up the train, making it reach the destination ahead of time. Although this saves time, it could lead to two or even multiple trains colliding.

And what’s called a bug is probably when the subsequent plot loses momentum, players haven’t found the exit, causing previous plots to repeat.

On the first day they entered the game, were assigned work – this was a peaceful day in the game, so nothing happened except for a few deaths.

On the second day the game progress officially began, players each had their roles, and missing positions were filled by ghosts, which is why there were two Shen Maomao’s, because the game determined she had “died.” After the ball ended, this storyline was finished, the instance had no other stories to tell, so it could only start cycling.

But in the second cycle, all players wouldn’t follow the steps from the previous time, so the game created substitutes for the players to complete the work.

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