Deep Dive (2-in-1) [Repair]
"Ah?" Everyone present was stunned.
I recalled the broken travel guide and confirmed that it was definitely not the original version. Someone had altered it. I repeated the only two clear paragraphs in it to the team leader.
[A lake is defined as having aquatic plants, animals, sponges, and comb jellies.]
"Sponge," I said, and fell down on the dirty ground, feeling very funny myself.
"——It's the sponge in 'SpongeBob, let's go catch jellyfish together.' Add in a snail that can't speak human language, and it's complete."
"It's not as good as the StarCraft you mentioned, Zhang Jia. It turns out to be a village fight on Bikini Bottom Beach."
The team leader was completely shocked and scratched the back of his head hard.
"That's all?"
"Yes." I said weakly, "Now there is only one of us, there is no water everywhere and there is no living person to make a wish for us, and it has fucked us to death."
"One can survive like this, but eight years ago we had to deal with a whole valley and a lake."
And that crappy manual that could kill someone by mistake.
After encountering difficulties and gaining enlightenment, I looked back at the words in the manual:
"Sponge" and "Ctenophore" can accurately describe the essence of the two strange stories, but they make all kinds of fatal mistakes in other places. It's as if they have unknown malice and resentment towards the travel company.
Who is the person behind this manual?
I didn't care how precarious the crumbling terrace floor behind me was, and I stayed there for a while, frowning. I really became a Squidward who was driven crazy by SpongeBob.
Several guys gradually recovered from the toxins in the illusion and asked me what to do next.
Zhang Jia was thinking about the helicopter he had always dreamed of, so he rudely suggested to just borrow a pump truck from the Zhang family to pump out all the groundwater and level it, not caring about any monsters or strange rules.
I thought about it seriously, but still shook my head.
Eight years ago, where could I, a fake, go to find the Zhang family? How could I gain their trust? Where could I transfer the equipment temporarily? Would I have enough time to do all these? The answers were almost all negative.
As for trying to transport people and equipment to eight years ago through the cave, they would need the help of "Flash".
The comb jellies themselves need to live in the lake, and if they find any behavior that harms the lake, they will probably attack us instinctively.
Not to mention that facing the banyan tree that was most prosperous eight years ago, it is difficult for us to avoid the trap of illusion and wish-making mechanism. The more people there are, the more likely they are to kill each other, and the situation will be very tricky.
After thinking for a long time, I sat up and told the team leader seriously that I would go to eight years ago alone, and asked them to follow the previous plan and continue along the mountain road to the lakeside to meet Yan Mo.
Zhang Jia's eyelids twitched, and he said no without thinking.
The three guys were unwilling to do so and just looked at me stubbornly.
I don't have the narcissism of a lone hero, I just realize that it is difficult for ordinary people to escape from the banyan tree. There is no need to let others sacrifice for me because of my speculation and attempt.
Besides, I did suddenly think of two important things, but I need the team leader to personally confirm and complete them for me.
"First, describe the tour guide's specific appearance to Yan Mo. It would be best if you could draw her for him. Ask him...if he recognizes her. He is the only one who should know the tour guide's real name."
I said, Zhang Jia was stunned.
I know this is a strange thing to say, but I still finished what I was going to do and continued, "Second, I may know who Rui Rui is. Please remind Yan Mo not to doubt her or hurt her. Ask him... not to check Rui Rui's background."
He looked at me, his eyes slightly widened, and cold sweat rolled down his forehead.
I also know how suspicious Ruirui is at this moment, and it seems like I am going crazy and making arrangements for my funeral.
But even with all the words I could think of, it was really hard to clearly and concisely tell the captain what I was thinking of. There was too much information to add. So I just looked into his eyes and whispered:
"Zhang Jia, you promised me. I will help you, and you just listen to me."
His face changed as if he was pricked by a needle, and he stood up without saying another word.
Having said all the hurtful words, I stuffed the cat into my backpack, put it on my back, and said goodbye to them one by one.
The more lively Zhang still couldn't accept it, and hesitated, "Master, what are you going to do? Are you going to go to that cave by yourself, to eight years ago?"
Yes, I want door-to-door delivery.
After going over the two important things I just told you, I felt that my delusions were too crazy.
But at this moment, I seem to understand why some words are difficult to say.
Zhang Jia was stubborn but insisted on letting the three men go first. He stayed alone and risked walking back a distance to send me to the front of the cave.
The climb up the mountain was as difficult as climbing stairs to heaven, but it was much smoother and easier when we got down. We soon returned to the place where we found the snail man. The cave was still standing there, like a entrenched beast with its huge black mouth open.
Seeing that he had a determined look on his face and was still holding my backpack tightly in his hand, I knew he was going to mess with me again.
"...Okay." I said, sighing, "Give you a question to think about. If you figure it out, you can catch up. Otherwise, you can continue to go down the mountain. This is also for you not to drag me down, okay?"
Zhang Jia bit his back teeth and moved his cheek.
I ignored him and said:
"Rongshu can only use existing objects to create a series of deadly traps, and has never shown the ability to create things out of thin air. The female tour guide is alone and has no children or nephews. Just assume that she made a wish to the sky for a child to accompany her. Where did the little girl Ruirui come from?"
“……” Zhang Jia looked at me, his pupils dilated, as if he had thought of something, but he couldn’t believe it at all.
"Borrowed, still borrowed." I sighed again and smiled at him, knowing that he was worried and would go to protect Ruirui immediately.
"——If it's not here, borrow it from eight years ago. If it wasn't here eight years ago, borrow it from sixteen years ago."
"There is always a place where there will be such a kind of child. They have no relatives or past, and even when they grow up, they don't have much contact with this world. Therefore, even if they are borrowed by the banyan tree without a sound, it will not cause any mistakes. Because she will definitely come back here at the necessary time to return it. There will not be any major errors in the logic of time and space."
"Just like Zhou Tingmao temporarily left here eight years ago, and finally we came. He said goodbye to me and went into deep diving, and finally returned to the stormy night eight years ago, to Qingshi and the Divine Concubine. In terms of time, his departure and return were the same moment, so he said that he had never left here."
"In order to avoid loopholes in the time loop, we must also ensure that Rui Rui is safely sent back to her original location, allowing her to return to her normal life trajectory sixteen years ago, until she grows up safely sixteen years later, and then - is brought here by us."
I looked at the team leader seriously, and he looked at me too, and cold sweat broke out on my body.
"There's a question I've always wanted to ask, but I've always been on adventures and never had the chance to ask it."
I said, "Zhang Jia, why are there no girls in the team? Apart from the team doctor in the camp, I have only seen one girl, Gao Liu. I don't think our team still talks about those old-fashioned foot bindings and thinks girls are not okay with that."
"...The younger ones have gone to school." He opened his mouth, his voice was extremely hoarse and difficult, mixed with a little relief.
"The head of the family's mother-in-law said that the people who work in the fields are all sinister and filthy. There is such a big world out there, let them study hard and behave themselves, and go out to bask in the sun."
"The rest are mostly used to manage our external business, contact and cooperate with secular dialogues, including some private hospitals and financial industries.
In order for the Zhang family to operate, it really needs a lot of basic support. Our equipment and fleet did not fall from the sky. We need someone to support us in the secular world and to coordinate and control us, so as to avoid losing our humanity and gradually leaving this world. In comparison, they are actually the backbone of the Zhang family. "
"She graduated in high school and was spending her summer vacation on a scholarship. She came to tell us the good news secretly and just helped out with some things, so she only got the title of deputy team leader.
If many people had not fallen into the trap unintentionally, we would have sent her back to continue her studies that day.
Headphones... these bone conduction headphones we use, these trendy ones were bought for us by her with her scholarship money, saying she was worried about old items.
"——Ye Mao and Gao Liu are siblings," I said, "but in the pit, Ye Mao was a little too worried about his sister. It was as if he knew that this sister was not originally his family, so he was confused."
Zhang Jia's breathing paused, and this time his voice was completely trembling.
"…Most of the Zhang family's children are abandoned babies and street kids. Wildcat and Gao Liu are the same."
I nodded and patted his shoulder.
There was no need to entrust anyone with anything this time, so I turned and walked into the cave, feeling very relieved and walking briskly.
The gloomy cave corridor was indeed not very long. As I walked, many scenes that "I" had seen reappeared in my mind again, as if an invisible hand was diving deep into the past.
In the first scene, Zhang Tianyi told me that Zhou Tingmao temporarily escaped from the pit because of this valley, but he also paid a price and forgot many things.
Amnesia: People who temporarily leave the valley will forget what happened there.
The second scene was the female tour guide running in the dark, holding "me" by the hand. She held Rui Rui in one hand and tightly grasped "me", no, Gao Liu's hand with the other hand. No matter how tired she was during the run, she never let go of my hand.
And Gao Liu, who had always been independent and somewhat eccentric, did not refuse for a moment, but just followed his instinct and died with her.
The third scene was when I saw Gao Liu sleeping and trapped in the body of the "Goddess".
The pale faces around her touched each other and lowered their heads as if kissing her forehead.
Among the trapped people, there is no Rui Rui who is always safe and not parasitized.
Gao Liu closed her eyes in agony, and she murmured in sudden realization: "So... it's me, it's me."
Then, the memory dived again.
In the first scene, Fang Ao said that four bodies were found in the pit. When I went there, I saw a female body.
And in the team, apart from Gao Liu who came on a temporary vacation and the female team doctor, there seemed to be no other women participating in the work.
The second scene showed the female corpse swollen and white, with her clothes torn.
Gao Liu took off his coat and put it on the female corpse to maintain her dignity and respect after death.
That's why when I saw the coat, I mistakenly thought that something had happened to Gao Liu.
The third picture shows the small bags inside the corpses.
The bag contained metal fragments, which were put in by the team leader. But the bag looked very strange. Mixed in the soil were things that looked like dead tree roots and insect shed skins.
I rubbed it at that time and complained in my heart that the back of my hand would feel itchy when someone touched it.
However, the pit is essentially the womb responsible for gestation, and the underground soil of the pit also proves that there is nothing in it except metal fragments that have not been digested yet.
So where do these things that look like tree roots and shed skin come from?
——It was carried by the female corpse herself.
She had briefly walked out of the valley, with banyan trees and comb jellies parasitizing her body. She flashed and looked into the past and the future at the same time, and saw Zhou Tingmao who was also trapped in the future, and also saw the team that Zhou Tingmao had been in before.
Through the ingenious miracle of time performed by comb jellyfish, she unexpectedly found the person she had been waiting for.
So, she found the camp, found Yan Mo's team, and went down the pit together.
As a stranger, it might be difficult to trust someone like Yan Mo, but based on the scenes I have seen in flashes, there is no doubt about her abilities.
The guys eight years later were able to accept me, a strange consultant, because of my ability, so they were naturally willing to temporarily trust her who was like a prophet eight years ago.
It was she who suggested making a family name registration form, and it was she who scribbled those matchstick men that left me with clues of inspiration.
The underground palace was the destination she found for her departing self.
She eventually died and was buried in the earth, near a cistern.
It was for the reunion, for eight long years later, with her remains, with the banyan trees and comb jellies she preserved, to lead us here after escaping the pit.
I once asked Zhang Tianyi on a stormy night that there seemed to be someone missing in the team. Because there was a hidden person who had been recording everything for Yan Mo and making that videotape. I deduced at the time that this person was Zhang Tianyi.
At that time, Zhang Tianyi did not give me a direct answer.
But later, I realized that as a person inside the wall, Zhang Tianyi could only hide and observe, and could not interfere without authorization.
——So, that person is her.
This way the number of people is finally correct.
She is a tour guide. Her child, Ruirui, is in her sixth year of high school.
The word "Rui" originally means small, newly born and flexible grass.
Gui Fu, a Qing Dynasty philologist, wrote in Shuowen Jieyu Yizheng: "Lan means a small grass, pronounced as Rui."
The name Gao Rui represents all her expectations and unfulfilled words for her child.
But for such a mortal mother, wanting to snatch a child from the terrifying pit mother, such an almost arrogant obsession will come at a price.
So she stayed there forever, and at that moment, she made a wish to the banyan tree.
The seeds of the banyan tree sprouted in her body. Although they were suppressed by the pit-like womb, they still silently eroded the surrounding corpses, parasitizing and polluting them.
Therefore, the team leader once wondered that after the metal fragments were removed, the corpses quickly decayed and sank, and the swelling state suddenly intensified.
That was a barrier that prevented the banyan tree from leaving the post. The banyan tree was stared at by the pit, so it was rotting quickly, as if it had been interrupted by a comb jellyfish.
Therefore, when I took the bag and twisted the soil apart at that moment, I felt a vague itch on the back of my hand.
Therefore, in the midst of repeated inferences, I once had a very special experience.
That time it wasn't like an inference, it was more like a flash of inspiration that came from the sky and poured directly into my consciousness, causing my nose to bleed for a moment and my entire chest to feel a stinging pain. But it did help me break the deadlock as I wished.
So, when I woke up on a stormy night, the aerial roots that parasitized me were different from others and were very strong.
So, at that time, Zhang Tianyi asked me to stay on the debris in the water and not move, saying that it was the safest place.
Because at that moment, the banyan tree would not kill me immediately in a short period of time.
Because at that time I was a more suitable breeding ground for fresh life than the floating corpses, because someone had already paid the price for me.
So, when I saw the female corpse in the bluestone, the extremely old female corpse was carrying a soaked note with her home address, as well as change wrapped in a handkerchief and reading glasses. I naturally thought she was an elderly person who was accidentally trapped.
After I understood that the "Goddess" was just the pharyngeal tube that the comb jellyfish vomited out from its stomach, a question arose: why did it mimic the appearance of a female tour guide and why did it carry those things?
——That was brought specially for me to discover.
Even though I knew nothing, I was still able to accept and remember the message she conveyed with a reasonable and self-consistent explanation.
If I could survive this time, I would surely find that the address on the note is where we should send the young Gao Rui.
The reason why I haven't discovered these things is because of one thing.
Because the only people who still recognized the female tour guide were her old acquaintance from eight years ago, Xu You, Yan Mo and Zhou Tingmao.
Zhou Tingmao and the female tour guide were captured by comb jellyfish, and Xu You was in a coma.
And Yan Mo, from beginning to end, due to various coincidences, had never met the female tour guide.
When the bus entered the mountains, it was the team leader who led people to intercept it.
When we were at the lake, it was the team leader who came to see me with the female tour guide.
Then, we took our equipment and headed straight up the trail.
By the time Yan Mo contacted us through the intercom, the female tour guide had already resolutely entrusted Rui Rui to me, who still knew nothing about it. She drank the water, mutated, and left me a few words about the lake, sponges and comb jellies.
During this process, Yan Mo did not have any chance to talk to his former comrades who had died in the past. He was already one step too late.
As for Gao Liu, since Ruirui left the valley when she was five or six years old, she has no memory of the valley or the female tour guide.
During this exploration, today when it was safe, she was out searching the mountains and had never met or spoken to the female guide, nor had she been in the same place with Ruirui.
And eight years ago, during the dangerous escape, the female tour guide protected her, while holding the young Ruirui and the adult Gao Liu, holding the past and future of her beloved children.
At that moment, had the female tour guide recognized Gao Liu?
I think, not necessarily.
Because at that time, I was still parasitizing and interfering with Gao Liu. And Gao Liu had changed a lot.
After sixteen years, Gao Rui no longer liked to cry. She had acquired good skills and was tall enough to look down on people like Snail Man.
I think at that moment, the female tour guide just instinctively protected every child who was like Rui Rui when she grew up.
Therefore, although so many floating corpses were of no significance to the comb jellies, several of them were snatched away by them and put into the bluestone.
Therefore, among so many guys who were parasitized and whose conditions could deteriorate at any time, only Gao Liu sank into the bluestone and fell asleep in the body of the goddess.
So, when I was looking for the bluestone, I found that the bluestone seemed to be avoiding something, constantly diving deeper and deeper, to places that the banyan tree could not reach.
That's why Gao Liu finally woke up and murmured in pain, "So I am me."
A part of my memory will always stay at the age of six in high school. When I grew up, I was very familiar with water. It once helped me to draw the waterway directly under the entire dense forest.
The team leader told me that there are no super powers in the world. He said that this has something to do with these weird stories.
I think at the time he thought it was the fertile contamination from the sinkhole.
He was wrong.
Yes, I only found out today what the miracle that happened to Gao Liu was.
In that artificial amniotic fluid treatment chamber, I saw Gao Liu recover his broken limbs and restore his self-healing ability that had been suppressed by the pit.
That moment was like a mermaid reborn in the water, which shocked and moved me greatly.
Now, I know:
She has comb jellies on her.
For a comb jellyfish in the ordinary biological sense, it only takes four days to restore a brain.
The female tour guide who had melted into the "Goddess" became a parasite on her own child.
When the child was thousands of miles away from her, twinkling as far away as a star, the comb jellyfish's instinct still vaguely connected them together and regarded them as a whole.
Therefore, Gao Liu will not be hurt.
Therefore, the continuous recovery leads to an overdraft of vitality. That’s why the female corpse I saw was so old.
This is the only gift that Girl Guide can give her children. This gift has an end. This is the superpower that does not exist.
It is not to give her the fulfillment of her wishes like the banyan tree, nor is it to give her the "immortality" of the comb jellyfish.
She gave Gao Rui a healthy body forever, allowing her to have enough courage to protect herself and others.
That's why I asked the team leader and a few guys to make the final confirmation with Yan Mo, hoping that Yan Mo will not investigate Rui Rui's background for the time being.
There are indeed some things in this world that cannot be expressed so frivolously and directly.
I let out a long, deep sigh, walked around the corner, and came to the deep pool.
I know that if I jump, I will be safe.
Because at this moment I remembered a detail.
When I first woke up eight years ago, I choked on water. My impression of the lake water I choked on was that it was sweet but icy cold.
Looking back, the lake water is stratified, warm at the top and cold at the bottom.
That is to say, the moment I woke up in the water, I was actually at the bottom of the lake. Maybe even among the bluestone.
The female corpse in the stone wall crawled out halfway, and perhaps reached out her hand to me and gently pushed me out.
I was confused in the rapids at the bottom of the lake for a while before I reached the surface of the water.
Therefore, if I jump from here, there is a great possibility that I will reach the comb jellyfish first and will not be directly exposed to the banyan tree.
and.
Zhang Tianyi lied to me again.
While walking in the cave, I suddenly realized that Zhang Tianyi had already walked the path for me.
Originally, leaving the tourist route and turning back still involves great uncertainty and risk.
But now it was the cave he went to first.
Since he was able to safely reach Qingshi and use the headphones, it meant that the cave he had just walked through was temporarily safe. He was using the result that he would definitely arrive safely, reversing the cause and effect, to ensure that I verified some paths that required adventure.
Yes, eight years ago and eight years later, the flow rates of today and “today” at the two ends of the time scale are the same.
But he misled me about one thing.
The "today" eight years ago was the day when the tour group encountered a storm and took shelter in the cave, not the day two days later when Gao Liu and I were trapped in Qingshi.
In other words, he was not in a hurry or had to wait. The only reason he had to leave immediately was because I was about to enter the guesthouse, understand everything, and then take the risk of returning to the cave.
All he needed was to walk through the cave faster than me and complete the closed loop where he would inevitably arrive safely, thus ensuring that "walking through the cave to reach eight years ago" was feasible.
Then the event of "I arrived safely", which was originally not guaranteed, will be locked in his closed loop as much as possible.
"...These are the self-absorbed 'parents'."
I shuddered, deeply, deeply, and sighed to myself.
In the cold pool of water, black hair emerged and the broken door seemed to appear and disappear.
I, who could not swim at all, smiled, walked in, sank safely, and dived deep into the water.
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