This was an unbelievable ship—an unbelievable captain, an unbelievable first mate, and an unbelievable pigeon.

And onboard was also an equally unbelievable doll with a face identical to her own.

Rhea Nora felt that this place was completely different from what she had imagined—but a little better.

After wandering around the upper deck, Duncan took the "Frost Queen" back to the main deck.

"This ship is very large. There are layers upon layers of cabins below the deck. If you really want a detailed tour, I'm afraid it would take a whole day," he said with a smile. "Let's get down to business first."

Hearing what the captain said, Rhea Nora's thoughts instantly returned from her admiration of the ship. She immediately straightened her expression and looked solemnly beyond the ship's rail at the *Lost Country*.

That seemingly ordinary, thin, and gentle haze flowed outside the ship's rail, quiet and harmless.

But it wasn't fog. There was no "fog" at all—in the entire space outside the *Lost Country*, there was only the ultimate, unrecognizable, and indescribable nothingness. That seemingly existent "mist" was actually just a faint illusion produced when the extremely limited perception of mortals vaguely sensed the "existence of something."

But the "captain" said that the cornerstone of the new world was hidden in this ultimate nothingness.

Rhea Nora couldn't help but turn her gaze to Duncan. She knew that another real existence was hidden inside this tall and majestic shell, and that the "Thousand-Faced Starlight" was using this shell to look solemnly into the distance, as if sensing and searching for something in the flowing mist.

Duncan-Zhou Ming walked towards the edge of the deck. His perception permeated the entire ship, and using the ship as a carrier, he cautiously "touched" the formless "Sea of Ash" outside the ship. Among those flowing wisps of mist, he cautiously observed the debris left behind after the annihilation of the world.

After a moment, he reached out his hand towards the outside of the ship—strands of flame covered his fingertips, and the color of starlight quietly permeated the flames.

He heard a burst of indistinct noise and vibration from deep within the *Lost Country*. The masts and cables creaked, and these sounds seemed to be mixed with some kind of unease.

"Don't worry," Duncan said softly, as if talking to himself, "I'm still your captain."

The uneasy creaking and vibrating noises subsided slightly.

Duncan's fingers then touched the "area" outside the ship's rail for the first time.

A flurry of flapping wings came from the air almost at the same time. Ai flew down from the mast with great fanfare and landed on Duncan's shoulder. It flapped its wings vigorously, making sharp, strange female sounds: "Kun Jin Kao… tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang…"

Then the pigeon jumped off Duncan's shoulder and fluttered its wings on the deck, dashing around seemingly both anxious and excited, all the while shouting something that no one but Duncan-Zhou Ming could understand—leaving Rhea Nora dumbfounded.

"...What is this pigeon saying?" Rhea Nora finally couldn't help but poke the doll next to her. Although it felt extremely strange to talk to a doll with a face exactly like her own, she couldn't find anyone else to ask about the situation here. "Tang… what?"

"Oh, Ai has its own way of speaking," Alice waved her hand with a matter-of-fact expression. "It's conveying some very important things to the captain."

Rhea Nora was stunned for a moment and looked at the doll in surprise: "...You can understand?"

Alice was even more confident than before: "Can't understand."

Rhea Nora fell silent upon hearing this: "..."

Alice noticed that there was a sudden lack of movement beside her and turned her head to look curiously at the "Frost Queen": "Hey? Why aren't you talking?"

"...If only I had your good mentality back then," Rhea Nora sighed, her thoughts seemingly returning to the past. "I used to...live so tiredly."

"Then just try to live a little easier from now on," Alice smiled and patted Rhea Nora's arm. "Anyway, the tiring days are over."

Rhea Nora suddenly felt that this seemingly simple-minded doll might actually have a different kind of wisdom...

Duncan heard the conversation behind him, but he didn't pay attention to it—most of his attention was now focused on the "other world" outside the ship's rail, on the depths of those ashes.

Slowly retracting his hand, Zhou Ming opened his eyes towards that haze, and ancient starlight extended in his vision. Where his gaze reached...he saw those unassigned basic information elements changing under the infiltration of the starlight.

After a period of contemplation, he opened his hands in a certain direction.

Rhea Nora and Alice's conversation stopped immediately—when the sound of wind and flowing mountain springs came from that direction, their eyes widened in astonishment.

In that hazy mist, something appeared. A solid entity was suddenly outlined, and a huge, colorless, and detailless gray mountain range appeared out of thin air between the clouds and mist. Then, the mountain changed rapidly like some kind of living thing. Its surface began to show ravines, and gradually it was dyed with various colors. All kinds of sounds also came from that direction, sometimes near, sometimes far, sometimes real, sometimes illusory.

Duncan-Zhou Ming stood at the edge of the deck. Information was reorganizing before his eyes, being reassigned in his thoughts. He raised his hand and adjusted it slightly to the side as if plucking a string. The "mountain" that was rapidly gaining substance suddenly split in the middle, and a magnificent waterfall cascaded down from the mountain, flowing into a river—the next second, the river surged, and vast plains emerged on both sides of the river. A land more vast than any city-state Rhea Nora knew grew and spread in the mist. The mist dissipated, then condensed into clouds and blue sky...

This newborn everything was still expanding rapidly, and finally it spread to the vicinity of the *Lost Country*. The river was injected into a vast lake here, and the *Lost Country* floated on the open, mirror-like lake. A few seconds later, "wind" was generated and introduced into this scene, and ripples began to appear on the lake.

Rhea Nora looked at this scene in astonishment. She finally couldn't help but come to the edge of the deck, looking at this green land and blue sky that had spread to the end of her vision, as if the entire world had been shaped, as well as the lake and the high mountains. She smelled the fresh air and heard the sounds of wind and water. A strong feeling appeared in her heart—

This was real, everything here was real and "valid." At this very moment, if a person came to this vibrant lakeside, then...he could survive here!

He could breathe here, the water here could be drunk, crops could grow in the soil, birds and animals could breed on the mountains and plains, rain would fall here, clouds would gather and disperse in the wind, plants would wither and flourish, and life would change in cycles...

A joyful smile was almost blooming on her face.

But before that smile appeared, Duncan-Zhou Ming had already lowered his hands.

Then everything around the *Lost Country* collapsed and dissipated silently—mountains and plains instantly turned back into mist, all colors and outlines returned to chaos, and those sounds and the breeze that blew across her cheeks...were as if they had never appeared.

Rhea Nora looked at this scene in a daze, seemingly unable to react for a moment. After a long while, she looked up in the direction of the captain.

"This is just a test, and the most basic test," Duncan walked towards Rhea Nora, his voice low. "It's only used to verify whether the 'materials' here can be reactivated—this is not how Genesis works."

Rhea Nora heard a complex tone in the captain's voice and couldn't help but become nervous: "Then...the result of the test..."

"Good news and bad news," Duncan breathed a sigh of relief and slowly said, "The good news is that my previous judgment was correct. Information does not disappear, it just loses its original 'definition'. Reassigning values can make this mathematical machine run again."

Rhea Nora said urgently: "What's the bad news then?"

"The bad news is that my other previous judgment was also correct—the current conditions cannot support this restarted mathematical machine to 'self-sustain'. Just like what you just saw, once it loses my observation and definition, everything here will instantly return to its initial state.

"So simply reassigning values to them is meaningless. Everything must return to the 'singularity', I need an initial Big Bang, and the Big Bang...requires harsh conditions."

Rhea Nora tried to follow the captain's thoughts. The knowledge she had gained in that "nest" was running in her mind again. After a moment of thought, she gradually realized: "You...know what conditions it needs?"

Duncan was silent for a moment, then nodded: "...Yes."

"Can you do it? Is it difficult, or is it simply impossible to achieve?"

This time, Duncan did not answer her question. After a long period of contemplation, he simply shook his head: "I still need to think about it carefully."

After saying that, he waved his hand to Rhea Nora and Alice.

"I need to go back to my room and plan the next things carefully," he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to walk towards the stern of the ship. "There are many empty rooms below the deck. Alice can take you to rest."

Duncan walked away. Rhea Nora blinked, turned her head to look at the doll next to her: "He looks very worried. Is the 'captain' usually so...human?"

She thought for a long time before finding the appropriate word "human," and she didn't dare to say it in front of Duncan just now.

"Yes," Alice nodded without thinking much. "Shirley said that the captain is very humane!"

Rhea Nora: "...?"

Is that how the word "humane" is used?!

But before the Frost Queen could speak, Alice had quickly changed the subject: "I'll take you to rest in a room on the ship first...by the way, would you like some fish soup?"

Rhea Nora didn't even know how the topic suddenly jumped to this, and was stunned for a moment before saying: "Uh, no thanks."

Alice was still full of enthusiasm: "Fish soup is so delicious! It's the specialty of this ship!"

"Thank you, but I...may not be able to enjoy it."

"You don't like fish? How about sweet pancakes? The captain loves sweet pancakes the most!"

Rhea Nora looked embarrassed: "...But I'm a ghost now."

"...Oh."

(End of this chapter)