Identification
The laughter behind him suddenly stopped, and he rushed over with a sharp cry.
I was strangled by an arm, and the water pushed me outward, and we both fell out of the narrow wall and into the warmer water.
My vision was churning like a washing machine, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge, weird face covered in yellow hair flash by, staring at me viciously.
But for some reason, after I fell into the new waters, those mandrills had no intention of chasing me. Instead, they crowded at the exit of the waterway, and their facial features, which were so close to those of humans, were filled with resentment and fear.
I held the new oxygen mask tightly and gasped for air. I felt like my lungs were about to explode. The breath I had temporarily held back didn't help much in the chaos.
I was seeing stars for about two or three minutes, but the mandrills didn't leave. They kept staring at my face without giving up.
Seeing that we were about to stare at each other until the end of time, the man changed from strangling to carrying me, pulling the fluorescent tape on my back, signaling me not to waste my energy.
Only then did I have time to look at this surprising soldier who had descended from above. When I turned my head to look at him, I was stunned for a moment.
This man was covered in equipment and looked very similar to my long-missing brother, but the strangeness and undisguised coldness and gloom in his expression made them clearly different.
Three Yi?
I was very surprised and nodded in thanks out of politeness. However, I was wondering in my heart why he insisted on pretending to be Zhang Tianyi at this time when he was a fake who had been exposed long ago. He must be a psychopath.
It was really hard to figure out what this guy was up to. He handed me a leash, knocked on the mask and told me to follow.
I grabbed the tow rope and tried to paddle in the water. As a landlubber who had escaped death, I felt like my hands and feet were not my own.
I swam along in silence, the warmth of the water bringing a strong sense of relief and calm, and the pain from the dragging injuries on my body gradually subsided. I focused my mind and looked around, and was dazzled by the scene in front of me.
Here is a huge sphere full of holes.
The waterway exit from which I just escaped was just one of the tiny holes on the surface of the sphere.
There is not only a blue-grey stone forest here, but the entire sphere is covered with sharp blades that form stone pillars. The blue-grey color tightly wraps and covers all directions. The huge, single cold color is extremely solemn and old, making people want to hold their breath.
Sanyi held up a mobile phone wrapped in a waterproof evidence bag. The screen was on, and a line of words was written in the document in advance:
"They won't come down. From here upwards is their allowed range of activities. Here, once an entrant mistakenly enters an area that does not belong to them, they will be punished the moment they leave."
My eyelids twitched and I started typing quickly.
"Where is this place?"
“Abandoned mine.”
An unmanned mine buried in deep water? My eyelids jumped again. What the hell is going on?
I had finally caught a living person and I had so many questions to ask him. But before I could say anything, I noticed that there were some vague holes in the sky, and it seemed that something was hanging and floating there.
The distance was too far, so I squinted and found that it seemed to be a fixed diving guide rope, hanging about five or six meters long, and it was old and faded.
strangeness.
Now that I had time to think, I began to question where exactly I was.
I don't know how far I have traveled along the way, I can only feel that time seems to have passed for a long time.
But common sense tells me that the average person can dive to a depth of 10 to 20 meters at most. For a well-trained person, without equipment, the maximum they can go is 113 meters, which is the deepest record for human bare-handed diving.
I still have some self-awareness. For a layman like me, my eardrums would start to feel pressure and ache after falling three or four meters, and even with the help of scuba diving it wouldn't get much better.
But at this moment, there was no strong tingling or malfunction in my ears, as if I had skipped the ear pressure balance stage.
If I hadn't suddenly turned into Superman and was able to rely on my unreasonable physical fitness to resist, then the depth I actually dived to was far less exaggerated than I imagined.
It is said that underwater cavers are prone to sensory contraction, and under psychological pressure, they will misjudge the size of the space they are in. At the same time, the strong and uncontrolled overload of sensory organs will make people feel that they have entered the center of the earth.
Therefore, most people who search for tunnels in the water layer do not die from compression fractures or decompression sickness, but because they suffer from sensory dysfunction and misjudge how long they can travel the distance and the survival supplies they carry can sustain them. They are deceived and choose to continue the adventure when they can return.
When thinking about the "safety rules" of this place, it feels as if there is some water-loving coach who loves extreme sports here, and he wants all the reckless idiots who enter the water to experience the feeling of no return.
But are the water ghosts so unique? They also require divers to be accompanied by a swimming partner, which is too professional.
While I was complaining in my heart, San Yi knocked on me rudely, interrupting my thoughts and pointing at me.
Only then did I realize that my body was covered with a fine layer of white, between gravel and stones, probably rubbed off from the waterways during the climbing process.
I raised my hand to swat it away, but Sanyi shook his head, as if he was just reminding me of the existence of such a thing. Then he raised his hand and took away the phone I was typing on.
I was stunned.
Are you kidding me? Since their previous exploration and conclusions were very effective, they should have made it clear in advance. If they were afraid that I would run away halfway without cooperation, then since we have come here and cannot escape, they should have made up for it and explained it clearly to me. But this fake guy just pretended to be ignorant.
It’s over. How could I meet such a group of idiots?
Seeing me cursing with my eyes, Sanyi took a deep breath, as if he also looked at me with displeasure.
In the silent mutual contempt, there was a cough in the water, and a young man unexpectedly came out from the stone forest in the distance, with a diving bell hanging on his body, and looked at the two of us helplessly.
Shit, it’s the deputy’s face again.
Is this some kind of reality show version of Match 3?
I thought to myself: This is too much, are they kidding me? These people must be mentally ill.
The young man seemed to have just learned to swim. He paddled over slowly and looked at me carefully.
He looked at me and made me feel creepy. Then I heard the young man sigh and turn to San Yi and say:
"I can't contact the person who brought him down. I'm afraid something has happened up there that we didn't anticipate."
Obviously, the young man didn't say anything shocking, but both of them were looking at me at this moment, and there were many things in their expressions that I couldn't understand.
It was an irresistible feeling of exhaustion and guilt after so many attempts.
I suddenly felt an indescribable panic.
Didn't they say that we couldn't communicate after entering the water? Why did they start talking and communicating again? Why did they look at me so strangely, as if I had reached some kind of tacit agreement with them, but I was about to die, and they had to bid me farewell with nostalgia.
"Under the water, there is something identifying me and preventing me from leaving here."
The young man said, "We tried many times, hoping to rescue me from here, or at least change the situation where it seemed like something was always watching me."
Just these two sentences gave me a chill, and suddenly I had an epiphany:
Is this the thing they want me to find in the water and bring out, the thing that won't change? Are they asking me to save someone?
I stood there in a daze, and saw the young man approaching me. I said a little embarrassedly:
"But the thing that is blocking me can identify everyone and won't allow living things to leave. There are two solutions I can think of at the moment. One is to temporarily put myself into hibernation and turn myself into a dead object in a fixed state; the other is to change my identity so that it can't find me for the time being."
I don't know why, but the young man only came a little closer, but I couldn't help but feel the hairs on my body break out in sweat. The shock was so intense that it made it a little hard for me to breathe.
I felt that a similar scene had happened somewhere before, but I couldn't remember where. The huge feeling of confusion and scratching almost suffocated me.
What is it? Think, think. I have to think of an answer quickly.
I stared at the young man's face and suddenly remembered the safety rules mentioned by the "deputy". He warned me not to make any confirmation on my companions.
But at this moment, my subconscious sense of crisis was like a needle, and I reached out my hand without hesitation and touched the young man's face.
The young man seemed a little surprised, but he didn't hide, allowing me to check his appearance. Even when I temporarily took off his scuba gear, he didn't move, but just took a deep breath and waited for me to return the oxygen mask.
The more I touched him, the more depressed I felt. I put the mask back on him in a daze.
At the same time, he took a new breath of oxygen and explained softly:
There have been several groups of people who came here to rescue him, but everyone who came down was screened without exception, and felt that someone was looking at them coldly. This strong sense of being watched was like an X-ray, as if they were being checked from head to toe, which was creepy.
However, during the rescue process, they found that in order for that thing to completely identify a person and then lock onto that person, it seemed to require certain specific conditions, and it would not launch an attack at the very beginning.
Moreover, if the young people try to leave with the rescuers, they will be the first to feel the sense of being watched.
It was as if the thing would first confirm whether the young man was still there, and then deal with other outsiders who intended to escape.
Once they used some method to make the young man "disappear" temporarily. The gaze frantically searched everyone, and after catching the young man, it attacked and killed the rescuers one by one.
They were almost successful that time, and most of the rescuers had already returned and climbed to within one or two meters of the giant net.
But unfortunately, the unknown eyes discovered the young man who was hidden by them before they could escape completely. The rescue ultimately failed.
My hands trembled and I understood what the young man meant, as if a basin of cold water was poured over my head.
"Yes, at that moment, my deputy and I had the same face, and we were identified as one person. That gaze wandered between us, and I couldn't tell which one was me.
They put me in a sleeping bag, deliberately in shock and suspended animation, and dragged me up as cargo. Do you see those guide ropes up there? They were there to carry me up as cargo.
But we failed, and before I could be pulled up and out of the water, the guide rope was cut in the middle. "
I felt myself getting colder and colder, and said in my heart:
However, what I saw was the deputy's head in severe rigor mortis.
This means that they have failed for a long time. This kind of rescue cannot continue forever, and the rescuers who enter this area must be carefully selected.
The young man sighed again:
"We tried a few more times and sent down a group of people who looked like me. But for some reason, the power of recognition seemed to be even more severe. The same appearance alone could no longer deceive it.
Most people who enter this place go crazy for unknown reasons before they even reach the water, and try desperately to escape, thus triggering the attack.
We need rescuers who are more coordinated and more indistinguishable.”
He grabbed my hand, staring at me with his dark pupils without blinking.
"Advisor, you know, there is a way in this world that allows a person to completely hide in another person's body and completely become that person. There is no better means of confusion than this."
I looked at him stiffly, my mind suddenly buzzing, and I found the reason for his compassion and apology on this mysterious young face.
At this point, the huge fog that had been hanging over my rationality all along the way finally lifted, allowing me to see young people more clearly than I had ever seen before.
I should have realized it earlier.
He, him and his deputy, all look like me.
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