That clarification would suggest that Path 2 would be chosen for arriving at the final destination sooner, but the line in the clarifications on the 5th of May was what confused me. It says "Your query should be made directly to the server of station-A, and need to provide station-B and time-T (the inputs). If station-A is directly connected to station-B, station-A can get the answer from its own timetable, and immediately reply with:" I understood this as saying that if the destination is its neighbour, the result will be immediately returned without considering any other paths. Which would imply that Path 1 is the chosen one.