Two directions (two in one)

The clues have been collected here. Except for the three people in pajamas who were absent from the beginning to the end, the origins, experiences and endings of the other people have become very clear.

It seems that the final key piece of the puzzle still lies with the group of tourists of unknown origin.

After repeatedly discussing the current information, we, along with a group of guys on Yan Mo's end of the intercom, reached a consensus on two things:

First, the driver Lao Zhao’s conspicuous disguise was maintained for a long time.

The people around him, including the female tour guide who was a half-relative, were used to it and perhaps had never seen his true appearance.

Second, the appearance of our group and the closure of the mountain were unexpected events that no one could have expected.

"The reason why we switched to using walkie-talkies these days is because the information in the mountains is extremely poor and there is almost no mobile phone signal."

I recalled it and speculated that after the tourist bus was intercepted and persuaded to leave by us, the employees in charge of the B&B might not have received the early warning in time, and might still be waiting to receive tourists as usual.

Hearing this, team leader Zhang Jia was finally somewhat excited, and continued, "According to the travel time, it will still be a while before the people in the B&B are ready to welcome tourists, and they may not have noticed that things have changed. If we rush in now, we may have a chance to catch them off guard."

Yan Mo was ambiguous and did not directly object, but only reminded:

"Advisor, you stayed in front of the B&B for so long. If there were people inside, they might have spotted you. It's hard to say who is ambushing whom, so you'd better be extra careful."

I have no objection to their ideas, one is enterprising and the other is steady, but I feel uncomfortable at this moment, as if I have missed something.

At this time, Zhang, who was still entangled in Rui Rui's matter, muttered to himself for a long time, and couldn't figure it out. He asked in confusion:

"Even if the driver Lao Zhao wanted to silence her, he was too efficient. What was his intention in letting Rui Rui walk to the lake bed alone?"

As soon as these words came out, my eyes fell on his face.

The guy was a little embarrassed and asked curiously, "What's wrong? I'm not saying anything shocking, am I?"

I looked at him and asked seriously, "Why do you think the driver killed me?"

Now it was the guy's turn to be confused.

"They must have killed him... If I were the driver, I would have done it. Didn't we always say that the travel agency was the one who murdered him?"

This is the problem, I hissed, feeling a little confused.

Normally, there is no need to dwell on such trivial matters. After all, it is the travel agency that is to blame, so it doesn't matter who is in charge. But when my obsessive-compulsive disorder kicks in, I always feel that there are details that need to be corrected.

"From the tour guide and the snail man's point of view, if tourists have the opportunity to enter the valley on their own, as long as they accidentally bump into the range of the comb jellies on this road, and get even a few drops of rain that trigger the banyan trees to sprout, they may get into trouble automatically."

I told a joke that was a joke but a cruel joke from hell, and I rephrased my meaning:

"So... why do you subconsciously think that the driver was responsible for silencing the witness? According to the usual travel arrangements, the driver should never be responsible for the procedures after entering the mountain."

The team leader was puzzled when he heard this: "Why are you suddenly stammering? Isn't this just a casual remark?"

This time, the guy shook his head without any appreciation, saying that he really thought it was the driver Lao Zhao who did it, but he couldn't explain why at the moment.

The two looked at each other.

The feeling that something was missing became clearer.

I said, the tragic scene on the mountain road seemed like everyone was dead, and with that lifelike human head in front, it was obviously a perfect thing, but the driver Lao Zhao still had to fake his death in front of Rui Rui to get away, which was a bit superfluous.

It is really unacceptable to leave a survivor and make so many additional arrangements in this matter.

It is precisely because of this that I feel that the tourists who had accidents on the mountain road were not taken away by the driver to be killed. The little girl Rui Rui survived, not because Mr. Zhao had a guilty conscience and could not bear to hurt her.

The guy seemed to finally be alert, and immediately asked silently with lip language: "Is there something wrong with the little girl? What should Captain Yan do? Remind him?"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "That's not what I meant..."

I really should have been on guard against Ruirui, but I only remembered it now and the daylily is already cold.

It was Yan Mo who listened for a long time on the other end of the intercom and roughly understood what I meant:

"Counselor, you mean that we thought too much of the driver. Although the driver was vicious, he probably thought that something bad would happen to the tourists after they entered the mountain, so he didn't do anything extra after we drove them away. He just left Rui Rui behind and hid away on his own."

The guy uttered an "ah" and finally responded: "What about Rui Rui?"

I thought Ruirui would not be harmed because she was always on the bus. She was young and cute, and would occasionally interact and chat with tourists.

He might have been afraid that Rui Rui would accidentally reveal the abnormality of the bus somewhere in advance, so he instilled the "sprouting" thing into Rui Rui just to scare the child, and he might not have thought of avoiding the fake head from being exposed in advance.

"As for the fake head, perhaps it was prepared long ago and placed in the haystack just like his disguise. Anyway, haystacks are fresh and will not rot over time. This has nothing to do with the recent incidents."

Everyone felt uncomfortable as he spoke.

Especially the team leader Zhang Jia, who pointed out at the very beginning that these guys were unreliable, but still did not dare to think too much about the stupidity and casualness of his opponents.

I had spent a lot of time analyzing the random operations of this makeshift team, and was almost led astray by their misunderstanding of the rules. Now I have to fight wits and courage against a vicious idiot. It was just such a group of people who made such a huge mess, which was really speechless.

"——In order not to be absent." Zhang Tianyi, who had spoken less and less and had fewer expressions along the way, suddenly said.

"He wanted the dead to think that he was not absent from the journey and was buried on the mountain road. Otherwise, it would be difficult to return to the mountain. This should be the practice that the driver followed in the past. Compared to this... something is not right. I'm afraid there is no one alive in the B&B now."

An unexpected remark interrupted our half-hearted discussion, shocking everyone.

I looked at the still quiet homestay in front of me. Behind the red bricks, there was only the unmoving shade of the trees, and I couldn't help feeling a chill.

Zhang Tian looked at me and asked strangely, "Where are your headphones? Did you bring them with you?"

My heart skipped a beat again, and I had a feeling that something was going to happen. I also had a vague feeling that he didn't talk or joke much during the second half of the journey, as if he was distracted by the increasing fatigue and waiting.

But when we came up here, we mainly brought some things for mountaineering and sun protection. Because of the signal problem in the mountains, I still use the old walkie-talkie to contact Lao Yan.

I searched my tool bag for a long time but found nothing.

Finally, I found one from the bottom of Zhang Jia's backpack, but I didn't know if it would work. I put it on and debugged it, but found that the signal was still extremely poor, and it was almost useless.

"I'm going to the banyan tree." Zhang Tianyi seemed very interested and his spirits had recovered a lot. He said, "You guys go explore the B&B now."

I was stunned and felt a chill on my ears. He reached out and took off the headphones I had just adjusted.

A headset is not a big deal, but this action is a bit strange. I asked him curiously: "Old Yan and a bunch of guys are over at the banyan tree. It should be easy for you to contact us, right?"

And leaving the route midway always makes people feel a little uneasy.

He shook his head and laughed, as if he had finally come back to life: "I don't need anyone else's."

I couldn't help but wonder, maybe this guy's mysophobia, which was cured many years ago, has relapsed. But does this mysophobia only attack people? The headphones that Zhang Jia and I used were not disinfected.

Being stared at by me, he smiled, looked at the sky, and asked the team leader what time it was.

It was rare to see him with such a rich expression in the second half of the journey. He no longer looked like he was ready to fly away at any time. I don't know why, but I felt something explode behind me. What's going on? This guy doesn't play the role of a master who is lonely and indifferent in front of others? I thought he was afraid that if he said too much, he would make mistakes and his identity would be exposed.

Zhang Jia checked his watch with him and was also a little puzzled:

"My dear brother, although we didn't have much chance to get to know each other on the way, I see that you are quite caring towards our advisor. Now that we are here, why don't we walk a little further together? If there is any danger inside, I have never worked with the three new guys before, so I can't help but take care of everything."

"Besides, Captain Yan is at the banyan tree. Are you still worried about something?"

Zhang Tianyi just looked at me and raised his hand to tap on his headphones.

"I need to contact you, so I'll use this to be safe. Your team channel is now open by default so we can match, right?"

I nodded, still a little confused, and again advised him to change to a walkie-talkie, as this broken headset was too unreliable.

He shook his head again, clicked his tongue, and seemed to mutter something, saying how could anyone think I was smart, that was crazy.

Damn it, my hair stood on end, and my mind, which had been confused by the group of idiots from the travel agency, suddenly came to its senses. I realized that he was taking advantage of the rest during the second half of the climb to do something big.

Headphones, headphones, he already asked me for headphones, what else could it be?

I felt a surge of electricity all over my body, and I couldn't help but get nervous. A voice in my heart screamed, "Under the bluestone, it was this pair of headphones that connected me at that time." So that's why an extra pair of headphones can connect to my team channel.

But how is he going to get there? Is he going to teleport to me on the spot?

"I want to try and find it from the cave where the snail man came out." Zhang Tianyi was very frank and asked me, "Is there anything I should pay attention to?"

I broke out in a cold sweat for about two seconds, and the words I wanted to use to scold this dear brother for seeking his own death were stuck, and my mind was racing.

"It's almost time, I'm rushing." He smiled, "Isn't that rushing you?"

Damn, why didn't he urge us to stop talking? He just stood there and listened like a model. My mind flashed, and I said vaguely: "Make a wish, don't make a wish." Before I finished speaking, a doubt just now was suddenly solved, and my back suddenly felt cold, and I was stunned.

He checked his equipment without looking up. "Can you elaborate?"

"…It may not be of much help to you."

"Um."

"The driver is so conspicuous so that tourists can have a sufficient memory of the destination and make it convenient for them to make a wish."

I said, feeling a chill down my spine again. "Do you remember the wishing mechanism we deduced? The most important thing is the process of making a wish - getting it fulfilled - paying the price."

"People who panic because of the change will subconsciously want to escape. People who have no hope will subconsciously resent those who survived."

I spoke very quickly, not in the mood to organize my sentences clearly, and my heartbeat gradually quickened.

"Assuming that this group of tourists have their own ulterior motives and come here with the purpose of "making their own wishes come true", then the triggers and directions of their "wishes" are very scattered and difficult to achieve. On the contrary, it will not be triggered so quickly to the later stage of alienation."

"…But the travel agency can artificially create a target of hatred or a difficult situation, guide their strong emotions, and make a wish together. Even if it is only for a moment, even if the wish itself is not noticed by them. At this time, the result of their wish being fulfilled in advance is already waiting in the haystack."

"This is a trigger-and-kill trap."

I paused, and actually felt a little frightened by this madness.

"When these tourists who came here to make their dreams come true walked on the mountain trail and saw a strange storm, most of them would probably have a thought of wanting to see the driver appear and leave. Some people would also be eager to witness the miracle of their dreams coming true, and some would wish that everyone else would die, leaving only the secrets and opportunities to themselves."

It was such a joke and such a foolish thing. At this time, the head of "Driver Lao Zhao" was already lying in the haystack, reuniting with them. The first group who wanted to escape would be the first to achieve their wish and cause mutations, followed by the desperate people who were greedy to witness miracles at all costs...

In this way, one after another, the wishes and demands of different people will appear here, because this trigger triggers a series of "wish fulfillment" and price payment links.

"The boundary between what you want and what you achieve is too vague and too broad to be guarded against. The only way to protect yourself is not to try to clear your mind, because people cannot absolutely control their subconscious. What's important is how to avoid having your wishes maliciously brushed aside and realized."

"——But how can I ensure that I have a strong desire that always overrides other distracting thoughts and does not get fulfilled in disguise?"

My heart sank. Is there such a strong, pure, and absolutely impossible wish in the world?

This seems impossible.

Then there is only one other way, which is to induce a large number of other people to make wishes in a certain period of time, like what travel companies do, which may create a vacuum and jam of some trigger mechanism in a short period of time.

Or maybe they have figured out some way to use the money paid by the tourists to pay themselves back.

Just like a ghost, once it is eaten and controlled by a tiger, it will come out to lure humans to be scapegoats and pay the salary for its continued existence.

"Now I have." Zhang Tianyi patted me casually and laughed, "You have three choices. Wouldn't you rather die than change? You just want to get the truth, right?"

"You've been chased by the truth in the pit before, and you should have experienced the suffocation of the endless pursuit of knowledge. The more you know, the higher the threshold you will have for satisfying the truth."

"Of course, you still need to pay a price to get these subtle answers and satisfactions."

"But referring to the speed of mutation transformation caused by wishing when the tour guide and his companions were trapped...

You have already witnessed the reality and terror represented by the huge monster at the end of the Moon Eye in the Underground Palace, and you have been baptized by the essence of "Goddess" under the isolation of Gao Liu and Zhou Zhimao without going crazy.

Now, unless you face the banyan tree directly, the changes brought about by these "knowledge-seeking" levels of satisfaction will be very slow."

His expression gradually returned to the coldness and strangeness of the first time we met. He lowered his head and spoke coldly in a voice that only the two of us could hear.

"Once you make a choice, you cannot change it, Xu Ranxing, you must remember this."

I was dumbfounded, and then I saw that he had let go of my hand, nodded to all of us, walked to the side in three or two steps, and jumped down the rugged path we had taken.

There was no need to slow down and wait for us. He went down very lightly, as if he just touched some points and quickly descended straight down. The whole person was looming on the slope that was almost a cliff. This was very decisive. I saw the corner of his clothes disappear from my sight before I could stop him.

Finally, a slow thought came to my mind: What about him? What was his wish that was so strong that it eliminated all other obsessions, yet was never going to be realized? How could he protect himself?

Ping Ping. I shuddered in my heart, wishful thinking, he lied to me again, he was willing to pay any price to make his wish come true. Everyone here wanted to live, only he was here to die.

But the twisted banyan tree legend never triggered him in any form, nor did it fulfill his wish. With an extremely desperate indifference, it still nailed him here, in the form of an ordinary human being.

So, now, he was leaving this world without lakes and storms, and going back to the time eight years ago when the banyan tree was at its most prosperous.

The scene of myself trapped on the floating object in the water reappeared in my mind. He came over slowly, holding a mining lamp that he had come from nowhere, humming Pingping's favorite nursery rhyme. His singing was very relaxed and his voice was clear and melodious.

Another scene was him coldly warning me not to get involved in this mess, but he didn’t take too many protective measures for me, as if he already knew that nothing would really happen to me and that I would be able to escape any possible “bad ending”.

Another scene shows him identifying the corpses floating in the water one by one and rescuing them without any impatience.

Until he knocked open the bluestone, perhaps at that moment he was face to face with the picture of a woman opening a door embedded in the stone wall, and calmly dragged out the people inside one by one.

This time, it was different from the group of guys who were rescued from the lake and thrown directly to me by him.

He looked carefully at the person who was between the banyan tree and the bluestone, confirming the other person's facial features.

Because of that deep diving distance, perhaps I missed his momentary disappointment and relief.

Later he entered Qingshi and disappeared. Perhaps he wanted to rescue Gao Liu who was still trapped, but his ultimate goal was still only one.

So back to the present, he has been watching me questioning and reasoning, and sometimes even if it is useless, he has not stopped or helped me.

He is waiting.

Waiting for me to get enough baptism and barrier from Zhou Tingmao's final gift, waiting for me to form enough clear and solid fears and desires.

I had never thought that in the jump between the two world lines, our final directions would be opposite.

I escaped from that bad ending, but he wanted to run back. This world, which might be a good ending, was nothing for him to miss.

An inexplicable sadness surged in my heart. I was probably very sad and cursed him, "You are a lunatic. I am not a plant or a tree. Aren't you afraid that I will change my obsession now? This lunatic."

Before I had time to think about it, team leader Zhang Jia suddenly said:

"Look at the roof. Is there a body with some corners exposed on the roof?"

"No, that's not right. Is that person wearing a diving gear or something?" Zhang Jia looked around and asked the other guys around him, "It's all creepers and I can't see clearly. Who can identify him?"

My mind buzzed. Even though I knew it couldn't be Zhang Tianyi, it still triggered a kind of retreat and rejection that was almost like a psychological shadow.

"——Young Master?" Zhang Jia looked at me. He didn't know how many twists and turns I had experienced in the time since Zhang Tianyi's departure. He felt a little worried.

"Why are you looking pale? Do you want to rest for a while?"

I came to my senses with a start.

It can’t change. This is what I have to do well. Just like Yan Jinger told me, I have to keep moving forward. Now, everyone else has done their part in the closed loop.

"...Let's go." I probably swallowed my saliva, feeling that if I hesitated, the whole situation would turn in the direction I least wanted to see.

I spent three minutes checking my physical strength and concentration, asked Zhang Jia to help me double-check my equipment to make sure there would be no temporary mistakes, rubbed my hands vigorously to warm them up, and then began to pat my cheeks which were stiff with nervousness.

Looking from the outside in, the cool green shade is extremely real, but it is all banyan trees.

On both sides, eight banyan trees were arranged symmetrically side by side. The soil on the ground was turned up, and all the protruding roots were messy and looked like pythons.

But these banyan trees are also dead. The green on them is all silk, and the velvet leaves are lifelike, as if they were frozen forever.

The cobblestone path in the middle extends all the way to a red brick wall and a half-open iron gate. Looking up, the ivy lying on the wall does not move at all.

No, it's not ivy, it's also a banyan tree.

Those were extremely tiny aerial roots that covered the entire wall, and after withering they looked like thin tendrils of vines. The leaves covering it were not obovate ivy leaves, but also realistic banyan leaves cut out of pieces of silk.

The entire homestay, starting from the open space in front, looks like a huge, exquisite but lifeless toy.

“Let’s go in now and see what the final piece of the puzzle is,” I said, stepping onto the cobblestone path.