Chapter 63 Road Trip Tips (Part 7)
“Sizzle…Sizzle…”
The car was speeding on the road and the wind was blowing past the window.
The radio was blaring.
At first, there was only FM noise inside, and then some fragmented music began to appear, and Tang Xinjue just let it play there.
Countless pieces of information were spinning rapidly in her mind, colliding and connecting.
The faceless child's statement, the restaurant owner's strange behavior, the tingling pain in the brain and the ominous premonition...all these clues dispelled the fog and revealed a vague outline.
Tang Xin Jue finally found the source of all the anomalies——
From the beginning, everything she saw, knew, and felt was wrong.
Looking back, when she opened her eyes in the convertible, the preconceived environment made her think that this was the beginning of the exam: her roommates were scattered somewhere and she was the only one in the car alone.
But what if... this isn't the real start at all?
Through the rearview mirror, Tang Xinjue looked at the interior of the convertible from a completely new angle. The passenger seat, front passenger seat and back seat could just accommodate four people.
Perhaps, the truth was clear from the beginning: this test was not a single-person test, but rather a test for four people sitting in a convertible!
This is the normal configuration for ordinary college students to go on a "road trip" together.
And why did she know nothing about this, and why couldn't she find the other three people... Tang Xinjue tapped the steering wheel, and a word came to his mind.
Weekly cycle.
Tang Xinjue stepped on the brakes and stopped by the roadside, closing his eyes and letting his senses overflow.
She has no relevant memories, but once the framework is determined, she can still gradually infer what happened through her understanding of herself and her roommates.
In the blank sea of consciousness, pictures gradually emerged.
At the beginning, which is also the first week, all the people on the bus should be complete.
After seeing Grandma Mayas's mission, the four of them properly kept the gift box, and Tang Xinjue took the driver's seat and drove on the road.
A few steps away from the starting point was a small coffee shop. The NPC gave them coffee that could be reimbursed, and then roughly marked four lines on the menu.
They continued driving and came to a fast food restaurant on the highway. There was a boss with a weird smile and a little boy without facial features in the restaurant, who gave them the same reimbursable meal. The restaurant owner probably didn't make any aggressive moves, but his cold and sticky eyes kept lingering on the few people... Not wanting to stay for long, the few people hurriedly set off and soon arrived at the gas station.
Did the accident happen at a gas station?
Tang Xinjue opened his eyes, looked at the foggy road ahead, and crossed out this branch.
No, they probably managed to leave the gas station and even drove all the way to the end of the road, trying to find Grandma Mayas's house.
Then something unexpected happened.
The mission was not successfully completed, and the copy was restarted - or in other words, they returned to the starting point of the road. However, this time, there were only three people instead of four.
I woke up in the same daze, thinking that the exam had just begun, and hurried on the road, passing by a coffee shop, a fast food restaurant, a gas station... No one knew where the missing roommate had gone.
Tang Xinjue felt that she should have realized something in the second round, so they gave Guo Guo's watch to the harmless faceless ghost in the restaurant. Of course, the marks they left should be far more than that.
But when the third week came, the mark disappeared along with Guo Guo.
The fewer people there are, the more dangerous the road becomes for them. In the second or third round, the restaurant owner attacked them, the unknown gas station, and the inevitable failure in the end.
Just as the kid demonstrated with his actions, the four people in the dormitory were wiped out one after another silently... until the fourth round, which is now.
Tang Xinjue was the only one left on this road trip.
The only traces of the roommate's existence were ten messy pencil scratches on the coffee shop menu, the watch in the little ghost's pocket, and the stinging pain in Tang Xinjue's mind.
She finally realized where the pain came from.
Danger summoner.
Before the exam, she and Zhang You bought a danger summoner. Once Zhang You is in a dangerous situation, the summoner will automatically send a signal to her. The greater the danger, the stronger the signal.
There was no opportunity to test before entering the examination room, and there is no need to test what the signal will look like when the danger level reaches a certain level.
Tang Xinjue used one hand to press his temple.
The signal would become a stabbing pain in her mind, constantly warning her of danger.
But at the same time, this signal also conveys a message...
Zhang You is still alive!
“Sizzle…”
As the time approached five o'clock, the sky was gradually covered with a subtle darkness, indicating that dusk was approaching.
After a long and hoarse music, the radio finally turned into a chaotic signal stream again, as if trying to condense into something again.
Tang Xinjue now felt that the contract was indeed somewhat effective. Perhaps he had determined that the "friendship" she gave to Wu Shi was worthless, so he repaired the radio into this half-dead state.
By far the greatest benefit was the destruction of her ears.
[Identification: This is a not very good car radio, but it will occasionally provide some useful information, it may depend on your luck]
Listening to the intermittent noise from the radio, Tang Xinjue keenly discovered that the fog at the end of his sight seemed to be less than at the beginning.
The road seemed to have finally changed a little during its long, unchanging stretch.
The mental power in the sea of consciousness was beating suddenly, which was not a good premonition.
Tang Xinjue slowed down the car, held his breath and concentrated. All the information in his mind was running all the time, breaking it down and looking for a way to break the impasse.
The worst possible scenario is that she fails again this time, becomes the last person to disappear, and the game will never restart.
They will forever lose the chance to pass the level directly from the highway, and may even be trapped in this copy forever.
...But there is too little information.
Even if you know the rules of the cycle, you still lack an important piece of information if you want to break the deadlock: the reason for triggering the failure mechanism.
In the game, there are two possibilities to reach the Be ending: one is not following the established path, and the other is to follow the established path completely.
The former means being eliminated by making mistakes, but you can pass the level safely by just following the steps and not triggering the error points.
The latter is much more difficult.
Tang Xin Jue stared at the road ahead. In the golden light of dusk, the road became narrower and narrower. The convertible could no longer change lanes and could only continue forward along the center of the road.
Even though she hadn't reached the end yet, she already had a premonition in her heart.
The danger of this copy should be the latter.
Following the established path, even if they were walking on thin ice and did nothing, they would still die. Because its existence itself was executing the failure program, making them slide into an irreversible abyss without knowing it.
Only by finding a unique exit can you break the shackles of reincarnation and find the mission target named "Grandma Mayas's House".
But this was a straight road with no turning back. There were no forks or branches, and she was not even given the chance to choose.
etc.
Tang Xinjue suddenly clenched his hands, and a logical line in his mind that he thought was a dead end seemed to suddenly open up, revealing an answer he had never thought of.
No, she had a choice.
The opportunity to choose had even appeared in front of her very clearly. If it was really related to this, if there was only one possibility left...
If this speculation is correct, then she still has a chance!
The road became narrower and narrower, and the convertible suddenly shook, as if it had changed from a straight road to a rugged gravel road. The trees on both sides were getting closer and closer, and finally it was almost struggling to move forward.
At this point, the radio finally buzzed, and the electric current gathered into understandable broadcast sound.
"In order to promote the development of out-of-town road tourism... In order to increase students' interest in out-of-town travel and improve safety... We have summarized the following advice as "Road Travel Tips", which will be set as a compulsory course for each university, and the difficulty level will be set according to the university level..."
"Next are the specific details of the road trip"
The sound from the radio was still flickering and only some of the words could be heard successfully.
"Please make sure you bring enough food to ensure your physical strength during the journey..."
"Please prepare enough university coins, download the map, and confirm the location of the highway buildings... In order to protect students' eyesight, the buildings have been uniformly painted green. Please don't litter..."
This time the radio played turbulent music for a long time, and finally the last sentence popped out:
"...Please find the correct entrance and exit of the highway in advance to ensure smooth access. If you find the wrong starting point, you may end up in an endless loop. Recently, the Education Center has discovered many cases of students going missing on the highway and is investigating."
The turbulence disappeared, the radio made a soft sound, and then everything became silent again.
At the same time, the car finally drove out of the rugged and narrow road. As the road surface became flat, the scene ahead came into view.
At the end of the sight, a narrow green coffee shop stands there quietly.
The familiar man in the chef's hat seemed to be sticking to the window, giving an unclear smile.
This road is a closed loop with no exit!
Tang Xinjue stepped on the brakes, but the car did not stop and continued to move forward at a constant speed. At this point, everything seemed to be beyond her control, and would only mechanically follow the long-planned death path to the end.
Tang Xinjue took his hands off the steering wheel. It was meaningless . Glass rose from all sides, and the convertible became closed, blocking the possibility of the student leaving.
This is why failure is repeated every week. When the people in the car finally realize the problem, it is too late.
Is it too late...?
In the last few seconds, Tang Xinjue did not close his eyes. Instead, he pulled out a small white bottle from his pocket with his hands so fast that they were invisible, and poured the pills inside into his mouth in one breath.
For her, there is no possibility of being "too late" 100% because there are still three probability variables.
Regret medicine!
[A bottle of regret pills (low level): Life is not satisfactory eight out of ten times. After taking this bottle of regret pills, you have a 10% chance of changing a decision made at a certain point in the past.]
[Of course, it can only find nodes that match your memory]
There are three red pills in the regret bottle.
They enter the esophagus one after another, the first one, the second one, the third one...
The moment the third pill was swallowed, the convertible rushed onto the familiar road, and the surrounding scene suddenly changed -
A convertible was parked quietly under a sign that read "Highway Out of City".
Not far in front of it was a green coffee shop that was open for business. Through the narrow business window, the man in the chef's hat saw the girl in the car wake up, subconsciously looking around, and got out of the car to confirm the broken cliff behind.
He gave a weird smile, put down the barrier, prepared a cup of steaming coffee, stretched out his hand and shook it up and down.
However, the next second, the girl returned to the car, but the convertible did not move forward.
Tang Xinjue quietly looked at everything in front of him: the foggy road, the exaggerated smile on the face of the man in the chef's hat, and the journey that was already destined.
She drove up to the front, took the cup of coffee and drank it all in one gulp.
The man in the kitchen hat smiled and said, "Have a nice trip."
Tang Xinjue also nodded, then shifted into reverse gear, and the convertible began to slowly move backwards.
Man in kitchen hat:? ? ?
In the sight, the chef's hat man's face changed from stiff to astonished, and finally his whole face was pressed against the window, his eyes were red and he looked extremely ferocious.
The cold mist surged in from behind, and the words on the coffee cup also changed in the mist:
[Everything ends here]
From beginning to end, this is both the starting point and the end point.
The exit they are looking for is right here.
Tang Xinjue stepped on the accelerator to the bottom, and the whole car jumped into the cliff!
The author has something to say:
Examination: You regret it now, but there is no regret medicine in the world~
Tang Xin Jue: Thank you, I do.
