Chapter 1 Zhou Ming

Zhou Ming stood before the mirror, quietly gazing at his reflection.

It was such a clear, such a real image—if he hadn't reached out and touched a cold, hard surface, he might have even suspected that the person standing opposite him was truly "another self."

After a long while, he finally withdrew his gaze from the mirror and looked at the vast darkness around him.

Just how big was this space? If he kept walking outward, could he reach an infinite distance? What was the essence of this dark space? Why did it appear here, behind the Door of the Lost? What connection did that Door of the Lost located in the Subspace have with the Door of the Lost in the real world? And most importantly...

What were those words that appeared in the darkness?

Zhou Ming moved away from the mirror, which quietly dissipated as he left, and the figure in the mirror disappeared into the darkness as well. As he walked, more pale words floated up in the darkness—describing everything related to him.

Like an extremely detailed personal file...registered in some vitally important database, a personal file whose purpose was unknown.

Zhou Ming felt that even his ability to imagine things was not enough—he tried to find a reasonable explanation to account for everything he was seeing, but found that no matter how he reasoned, it all looked like a bunch of wild, unadulterated fantasies in the end.

He even began to think that there was a "Doomsday Shelter Project" and that he was one of the people who had taken refuge in the shelter without even realizing it. That studio apartment wasn't his fortress of protection, and the words that appeared in that dark space were the registration documents after he entered the shelter...

In the darkness, his thoughts spread uncontrollably, but after who knew how long, he suddenly reined in all his wild thoughts.

Duncan suddenly froze.

Returning was faster than coming. It didn't take him long to cross this void of darkness and return to the "Door of the Lost" leading to the *Lost Ship*.

After crossing the door, he confirmed that the other side was not a patch of darkness, but his studio apartment—everything in the room. After saying that, he didn't wait for Goat Head to speak, and directly took the lantern and left the captain's room, then almost rushed through the deck and layers of cabins, heading straight for the lowest level of the *Lost Ship*.

For the first time in his life, he felt a sense of security when he saw that Goat Head was still sitting properly on the table.

Then he returned to the ship, this time opening the door to the captain's room.

There weren't many doors on the *Lost Ship*, but only three of them were ordinary. The first was the "Door of the Lost," the second was the bright wooden door deep in the cabin leading to the bottom hold, which was marked with the sign "The Last Door," and the third was the door standing in the center of the hold out of nowhere, which connected the Subspace with the real dimension, and might not be called the "Subspace Door."

To return to the real dimension from this "Damaged *Lost Ship*" that seemed to be located in the Subspace, all you needed to do was use the Door of the Lost as a transit point?

Finally, even those chaotic, jumping lines and points of light disappeared, and nothing new appeared. With a faint answer in his heart, Duncan breathed a sigh of relief, then stepped forward and pushed open the door to the captain's room.

A full half a minute later, the guy suddenly let out a "ga" sound, as if his neck was about to snap: "Cap... Captain?! You said you..."

He muttered again in a low voice.

"What about the situation of ￥#% &……%@#?"

I raised my head, looked into Goat Head's black eyes, and spoke with a slight firmness, "Don't be frightened by what I say."

"Ah, Captain! You're finally back!" Goat Head immediately made an exaggerated and attentive sound. It was as noisy as ever. "You suddenly left the ship completely, and I was really shocked! At least when you walk in the spirit world, you leave your body here! But just now, all your aura disappeared...and you're back from the deck now? Where did you go?"

I returned to the real dimension.

Putting his hand on the door, the solid texture that came from it gave Zhou Ming, who had just wandered and explored in the darkness for a long time, a sense of inexplicable security. Then

He took a light breath and stepped across the door.

The text suddenly became chaotic, the sentences became strange and inexplicable, and the original smooth record became something that could not even be read.

He hadn't lost his mind, hadn't become addicted to this process of constantly exploring the unknown.

Duncan's eyes changed slightly for a moment.

He turned his head, and the door he had come through was now almost just a hazy spot of light, but still stood quietly in the darkness. "Ah, you—your first mate is not only loyal and cowardly, but also cowardly and loy..."

He walked into the distance, cautiously and carefully moving away from the door.

He passed through "The Last Door" and arrived at the fragmented bottom hold.

Goat Head immediately turned its head when it heard the movement at the door, and its neck made a creaking sound as the wood rubbed together. "Name?"

Now it seemed that this "consistency" might have marked the real "exit" from the beginning!

What emerged from the darkness was no longer text and symbols, but a series of distorted and jumping lines, chaotic and restless points of light, and even various wave projections that seemed to follow geometric rules.

Zhou Ming stopped immediately.

He became more and more cautious, and in the end, each step only moved forward by a dozen centimeters.

And on the "Damaged *Lost Ship*", whether it was "The Last Door" leading to the bottom hold or this "Subspace Door", the marks on their door frames had been erased, and only the "Door of the Lost" in front of the captain's room maintained the exact same appearance whether in the real dimension or in the Subspace.

He turned his head thoughtfully and saw that he was standing in front of the captain's room, and the Door of the Lost was standing quietly in the sunlight, the words on the door frame shining.

The familiar chart room, the familiar elaborate furnishings, the table, and the familiar Goat Head on the table.

"Duncan Abnomar, it's you, you're back," Duncan said immediately. He had already guessed that the other party would definitely confirm with him—that Goat Head could sense whether he had left the *Lost Ship*, and might even be able to sense some kind of change in him to a certain extent. Its "name confirmation" seemed a little arbitrary on the surface, but there seemed to be a hidden rule inside. "You went to a very far place."

The door was tightly closed, without a single gap. "I went to the Subspace."

There were no more clues there, only phantoms that could shake his mind—regardless of whether there really was a huge secret hidden in that dark space, or whether it was just another conspiracy and seduction of the Subspace towards him, he shouldn't waste his time racking his brains there.

And that safest "Subspace Door" stood quietly in the center of the cabin.

While Zhou Ming silently memorized these words, he turned his head back from time to time to confirm his distance from the door, and to confirm that he was not lost in the darkness.

The cool sea breeze blew in his face, and the skylight that suddenly appeared in his field of vision made Duncan a little uncomfortable for a moment. The slight shaking under his feet and the sound of waves lapping against the shore that rang in his ears appeared in his perception a few tenths of a second later—perhaps it was because he had stayed in a noisy place for too long, the sound of the waves suddenly seemed like thunder.

"￥@* Small contract at 355 to *&a；, may exist &a.…of %&a."

Zhou Ming's heart stirred, but he didn't stop moving forward. He just walked more carefully, and as he continued to walk towards the edge of the darkness, more words floated up in the darkness.

Suddenly, he noticed that the words appearing under his feet had changed.

He checked his surroundings and saw the unfamiliar *Lost Ship*, the unfamiliar boundless sea, and the sun hanging in the sky, bound by double runes.

It was getting weirder and weirder. It was getting more and more chaotic, and the frequency of the chaos was increasing exponentially—but he could still see a few meaningful words in each sentence, but soon it reached the point where only one word appeared in several sentences, and later on, he couldn't even see these "garbled codes."

...He had wasted enough time.

Duncan's thoughts instantly became active.

Zhou Ming decisively turned around and walked back—no matter what else was in the depths of this darkness, he knew that he couldn't continue forward the moment the information that appeared under his feet reached its end.

Goat Head: "...?! 138 Reading Net"

More words were appearing under his feet—the content was not much different from before, just more detailed, more formal, and more and more like a registration document used in formal occasions.

"I went to the Subspace and got some good things." While saying that, Duncan walked into the captain's room and casually picked up the lantern on the shelf next to him. "Wait for me for a while."

Zhou Ming took a deep breath to calm his mind gradually, and then decided to conduct one last test and exploration of this dark space before leaving.

All aura disappeared? Completely left the ship?

This unexpected situation made him a little confused, because in the second before crossing the door in this darkness, he was still thinking about how to continue exploring the "Damaged *Lost Ship*" to find a way back, but he didn't expect to return directly to reality after crossing the door from here... What was the pattern in between?

Between the seams of the bottom hull, it was still this bright, mixed appearance. He couldn't see many details within the limited field of vision, but only the chaotic light and shadow turbulence and a momentary flash of light jumping and flowing in the darkness.

He walked forward, and in the darkness, distorted light and shadows that were difficult for the mortal mind to understand emerged, like the reflections of some unspeakable things at the edge of the universe, turning into a road extending forward under his feet.

He had indeed entered this place, which seemed to be the Subspace, with his real body, rather than the "consciousness projection" that he had thought of in an instant!