As expected, the moment the rations were in hand, the criminals assigned Li Haozhang to stand guard over Diao Zhuo and the others at gunpoint while the rest of them wolfed down the food without the slightest regard for appearances — clearly, they had been starving badly.

Ba Yunye couldn’t help but think of the two strange figures they had encountered the previous night, biting at people in a frenzy. Perhaps it hadn’t been madness after all, but hunger.

With their rations seized, the group had no choice but to forage for wild fruits and mushrooms along the way. Ba Yunye and several members of the mountaineering club drew on the proud Yunnan tradition of knowing how to identify edible fungi, gathering quite a haul as they walked. Liu Ming rendered the fat from the cured pork he had brought, then stir-fried the mushrooms in it, producing an aroma that could drift ten miles — utterly delightful, if one could ignore the land leeches that kept latching on at irregular intervals.

All the criminals could do was point their guns at the group and watch them chop bamboo for water, slice the cured meat, and forage for mushrooms, their faces twisted in disgust and unease.

Ba Yunye cradled a bamboo tube of wild mushroom broth and thought to herself: this group isn’t completely inexperienced in wilderness survival, but they won’t touch the mushrooms growing everywhere — which marks them as outsiders.

Li Haozhang seemed to want to say something, then thought better of it, and finally asked: “That stuff… can you actually eat it?”

“Why don’t you try?” Ba Yunye said with her mouth, while her hands made no move whatsoever.

The criminals murmured among themselves in low voices. Though their English carried a heavy accent, Diao Zhuo listened carefully and caught five or six parts in ten: the two crazed figures had been unable to endure their hunger and had picked some dull-grey-looking mushrooms to roast and eat, declaring them quite tasty — but before long, both had descended into raving madness, as if bitten by zombies.

That being the case, the behavior of those two figures hadn’t been demonic possession or a supernatural fright, but mushroom poisoning. Most likely, the villagers Kong Gan had mentioned who had supposedly escaped back to the village after entering the forest had also lost their minds from a combination of getting lost and eating poisonous fungi.

Seeing that Ba Yunye had drunk so much of the broth without going mad, the criminals drank all the remaining mushroom soup. Red Beard announced that going forward, someone would have to taste-test the food before any of them would eat. Listening to Red Beard speak English with his thick accent, Diao Zhuo noted that his pronunciation was worse than someone who had merely crammed for the College English Test Band 6 — and yet his vocabulary was impressively large, clearly a product of “occupational necessity.”

Ba Yunye’s eyes fixed on the gun at Red Beard’s waist. She thought: it would be easy enough to grab a weapon and take someone hostage, but the lesson of the Qiang Tang poachers gave her pause. She suspected that losing one or two people meant nothing more to these criminals than one fewer person to split the money with — it would not constitute a genuine threat, and might only bring about her own death instead.

Diao Zhuo caught the look in Ba Yunye’s eyes and understood what she was scheming. His fingers moved in a series of small taps. Ba Yunye’s sharp eyes caught it, and her furrowed brow eased — he knew Morse code.

“Don’t take the risk,” he tapped out.

Ba Yunye touched her ear as if scratching an itch, and tapped back her reply in Morse code: Understood.

They walked for a long time, only to arrive back at the same spot.

Ba Yunye stared with grim composure at the tree trunk marked with Long Ge’s and her own signs, then glanced at her phone screen displaying “December 22nd, 2012.” Her mood grew increasingly bleak. At this rate of walking in circles, never mind finding Long Ge — whether they could ever get out was itself in question.

Diao Zhuo walked over, and the camouflage-bandana guard immediately followed, placing himself between Diao Zhuo and Ba Yunye, keeping them from getting close enough to speak privately.

“This forest is very strange,” Ba Yunye said. “I have no idea how Long Ge managed not to go around in circles.”

Diao Zhuo asked: “How many times have we circled now?”

“Four times. From this morning until now, half a day and we’re still in the same spot,” she said. “I haven’t been heading in a single direction the whole time — I’ve deliberately turned in the opposite direction from the previous lap. Just now I was walking east, so now I went west, and yet we still end up here. There’s something off about that spot over there… it’s as if everywhere looks identical. The trees, every single tree looks exactly the same.”

Something seemed to occur to Diao Zhuo. “Walk it again!”

“Walk again?”

“Walk,” he said with conviction.

Ba Yunye nodded and called everyone to move.

Because the criminals shadowed their every step, no one dared speak freely, and the atmosphere became dreary and dull; they simply kept their heads down and pressed forward. Ba Yunye seized a moment to tap out a message to Diao Zhuo in Morse code: “Do you have a plan?”

“No,” he replied soundlessly.

Ba Yunye let out a quiet sigh.

At a certain point, Diao Zhuo suddenly called a halt. With uncharacteristic courtesy, he said to the camouflage-bandana guard pointing a gun at him: “That tree over there — fire a shot at it.”

“Why?” The guard stared at him in disbelief.

Diao Zhuo didn’t explain, just pointed toward a tree in the distance and repeated the location to him.

The guard was skeptical but, perhaps because ammunition was plentiful, followed Diao Zhuo’s indicated direction and took aim.

Bang! The shot echoed and faded.

“Did you see?” Diao Zhuo turned and asked Ba Yunye.

“Missed.” Ba Yunye shrugged.

The guard felt his pride had been wounded and fired another shot.

“Let me try,” Ba Yunye said, her hands itching, and she reached for the gun.

The guard had no intention of handing it over — he waved her off and told her to get lost.

After two more shots, the camouflage-bandana guard sensed something was wrong. He reached out, grabbed Diao Zhuo by the collar, and glared furiously at him: “What trick are you pulling!”

“Let go,” Diao Zhuo said coldly.

The guard’s anger flared, and he shoved the barrel of the gun hard against Diao Zhuo’s forehead.

Red Beard gave a quiet cough, and the guard grudgingly lowered his weapon. Then, as everyone watched, Red Beard murmured something to him, and the guard’s expression turned to one of astonishment — but in the end he had no choice but to comply: he handed the gun to Ba Yunye.

Ba Yunye took it without a second thought, and instantly three gun barrels swung toward her head.

Red Beard studied Ba Yunye, his grey eyes radiating a cold stillness. “One shot only. Don’t waste the bullet.”

She couldn’t follow the English, and looked blankly toward Diao Zhuo.

“Hitting that tree should be easy for you, but they’re only giving you one chance to hit it,” he said — yet he seemed not especially concerned about whether she would succeed or not.

Ba Yunye gripped the gun, suppressing the overwhelming urge to open fire on the criminals, took aim at the tree trunk Diao Zhuo had indicated, and fired in one fluid motion.

The tree didn’t move. Not even a leaf stirred.

As she handed back the gun she was somewhat dejected, muttering: “There’s no way I missed…”

“Of course you missed,” Diao Zhuo said. “It’s not real.”

Everyone froze, all eyes turning to him.

“If that illusion appeared out in the open, it obviously couldn’t fool anyone. It’s like walking into a room lined entirely with mirrors — you simply can’t tell which way is the path and which way is only the mirror’s reflection of a path.”

“…What do you mean?” Li Haozhang asked again, absently slapping two land leeches off his ankle.

Da Qin and the others, who had been forced into silence, finally had a chance to speak. Questions came all at once: “You’d feel it if you walked into a mirror.” “How could there be mirrors in a forest? Besides, mirrors would show your reflection.” “Even if there are illusions, surely they can’t be everywhere!”

“The fact that all our electronic devices have failed tells us there is a magnetic anomaly in this area. Combined with the influence of microclimatic conditions and air humidity, it may be producing ground-level mirages — illusions similar to a desert mirage. Before the rain, we didn’t encounter any illusions. This tells me that aside from the magnetic field, their appearance is also connected to atmospheric moisture. The surroundings are all trees and grass, and the content of the illusions is also trees and grass, making them extremely deceptive. We unknowingly pass through an illusion; when the moisture disperses, the illusion is broken, but we immediately encounter the next one. And so we end up wandering in circles through layer upon layer of illusions distributed at unknown positions throughout the area. What we see is partly real, partly phantom — we can’t even be certain that the tree ten steps ahead is real or false. Where there is no actual tree, we believe there is one and veer slightly off our intended course, and with no working navigational equipment to correct us, one thing leads to another and we loop back to the starting point.”

A ripple of unease passed through everyone as they looked around. Those apparently verdant cypress trees and the bamboo groves interspersed among them looked completely real, without the faintest hint of falseness.

Yet the unease in Diao Zhuo’s heart had not diminished one bit from seeing through the illusions; if anything, his sense that something was wrong deepened. That magnetic fields or moisture could produce false images was not unusual in itself — what was unusual was the way they kept appearing repeatedly at different positions. It was consistent with neither physical principles nor logic. But there was no time to dwell on that now; the immediate priority was to be rid of these criminals and find a way out.

Li Haozhang still carried a trace of skepticism. “Since everyone here is visiting for the first time, how were you able to notice something like this?”

Diao Zhuo replied flatly, “I kept seeing trees and plants that looked exactly the same.”

“Don’t all the trees and plants here look exactly the same?” Li Haozhang frowned.

The rescue team and Ba Yunye found this hilarious, privately thinking: don’t compare your eyes to Diao Zhuo’s.

“What do we do now!” Ba Yunye asked. “Split up to look for a path?”

Li Haozhang snorted. “Dream on. We move as one group.”

Diao Zhuo extended a hand. “Eyes can be deceived, but whatever your hand touches is real. The moment you open your eyes, you’re vulnerable to false appearances. In extraordinary circumstances, a blind man feeling an elephant may only grasp a part of the truth — but at least it is the truth. What a sighted person sees is not necessarily so.”

“Close your eyes and feel your way out?” She looked mildly astonished.

“Exactly.”

“Don’t try to fool us, boy…” Li Haozhang laughed coldly. “Everyone walking with their eyes shut? You obviously want to use this as a chance to escape!”

His obtuseness was almost embarrassing to witness. “Only the person at the front needs to lead with closed eyes,” Diao Zhuo said.

Red Beard cast a glance at Li Haozhang, then looked at Diao Zhuo. “Very well. You’ll lead the way this time.”

Diao Zhuo accepted without objection, turned, and walked toward Liu Ming and the others. “Lend me your trekking pole.”

Liu Ming didn’t hesitate — he immediately handed over his trekking pole, showing Diao Zhuo the utmost goodwill and trust. Diao Zhuo took it but didn’t turn around; he stood there staring at the mountaineering enthusiasts without a word.

The silence made Liu Ming uneasy, and it struck Red Beard and the others who were waiting for him to lead as faintly peculiar. Li Haozhang barked at Diao Zhuo to get moving; Liu Ming gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Whether we get out of here is all up to you — don’t be nervous, you’ve got this.”

“Stay close. Don’t fall behind,” Diao Zhuo said, his tone carrying the weight of an unspoken message. With that, he turned and moved back to the front of the group.

Liu Ming glanced back at his companions with a trace of worry in his eyes, then gave a nod, waiting for them to set off again.

Diao Zhuo walked at the head of the column with his eyes closed, the trekking pole in his hand serving like a blind man’s cane — probing ahead to distinguish real from phantom, and at the same time driving away insects and snakes. Separated from him by several people, Ba Yunye kept craning her neck to look at him. The criminals paid close attention to the distance between her and Diao Zhuo, deliberately preventing them from finding a private moment to speak.

When everyone’s own eyes saw the “tree” ahead pass right through Diao Zhuo as he walked, they believed his theory completely. Without visual interference, an illusion would vanish without a trace the moment it was broken, and when those behind turned to look back, the path behind them would appear entirely different, meaning new layers of illusions had already formed. If you thought it through, there might be a fresh layer of illusion every few steps, oriented in any direction — unless you had the courage to push through, you’d never know what was real and what wasn’t.

Following the group, Ba Yunye found the whole experience profoundly surreal. It was the first time she had ever encountered something like this; her mind was muddled by layer upon layer of illusions, as though she had been sealed inside a transparent tent, perpetually separated from the outside landscape by an airtight membrane.

After walking for a good while, the atmosphere among the group began to relax somewhat. Through careful exchanges, they learned that the criminals had followed Long Ge through the night into this stretch of forest. Afterward, Long Ge had somehow escaped without a trace, and the criminals had found themselves trapped inside. Ba Yunye thought: Long Ge, known in their circles as a legendary “hard-core trekker,” had probably figured out the forest’s secret after wandering in circles a few times too, and simply closed his eyes and pressed forward through the darkness to make his escape. Long Ge was still safe — this piece of information made her genuinely glad, and filled her with renewed energy. Still, she had the nagging feeling that she had missed some more important piece of information.

She was still turning this over in her mind when a faint hissing sound suddenly reached them, followed by the rustle of falling leaves. That sound…

“Stop!” Without stopping to think, Ba Yunye suddenly bellowed.

At that very moment, Diao Zhuo’s trekking pole swept through another layer of illusion. The undergrowth ahead flickered like a screen flashing white, blurred for just an instant before snapping back into clarity — and in that moment of clarity, everyone saw it: coiled in their path was an enormous dark-brown snake, its girth at least as thick as a grown man’s calf.

More than half the snake’s body lay hidden beneath the leaf litter, but the exposed half was powerful and massive. Its head was raised high, the muscles on either side of its neck compressed into a flat, broad hood. At that size, in that posture, it was unmistakably a king cobra — a creature feared by both humans and other snakes.