Chapter 2: The Captain of Homeloss

This was not Zhou Ming's first time passing through this door to "the other side."

Since waking up several days ago to find himself trapped in his room by some kind of "anomaly" and the bizarre fog obscuring the entire world, he had discovered this strange place "on the other side" of the door.

After all, that door was now the only exit in his "room."

He still remembered the confusion and helplessness he felt the first time he opened the door to see a deck outside, and the shock and panic of seeing himself in a different body. However, since then, in order to find a way out of his predicament, he had bravely carried out several successful explorations "over here." Although he still had not figured out what exactly had happened to him, nor understood the bizarre ship that appeared "outside his room door," he had at least gained some experience and a preliminary understanding of this ship.

As he had done several times before, Zhou Ming forced himself to quickly overcome the dizziness caused by passing through the door. He immediately checked the condition of this body and examined the short gun in his hand, comparing all the details from memory and finally confirming that the items he was carrying were the same as when he last left the deck.

"...It seems that every time I pass through this door, my body 'seamlessly switches'... It would be good to place a camera on the deck side, so I can confirm whether this body changes when I push open the door to the captain's room and return to my apartment..."

"Unfortunately, items from the two 'worlds' can't pass through the door, so I can't bring a camera over..."

"However, the smartphone I left in the apartment did record the scene of passing through the door from there. I indeed walked through that black fog... So did my body really 'change' when passing through the black fog?"

While mumbling to himself, Zhou Ming knew how silly he must look talking to himself on the deck, but he needed to make some noise on this deserted, eerie Ghost Ship... he needed some evidence to prove that he was still "alive."

A salty sea breeze blew across the deck, stirring the material of the unknown black-and-blue captain's uniform he wore. Zhou Ming sighed lightly, but he didn't head toward the deck. Instead, he turned to face the door behind him.

He placed his hand on the doorknob.

Twisting the knob, just pushing the door inward would reveal a gray-black dense fog. Passing through that fog would return him to his bachelor apartment where he had lived for many years.

He pulled the door forcefully outward.

The slightly heavy oak door creaked open, revealing a dimly lit cabin. Under the dim and unclear light, one could see ornate tapestries hanging on the walls, shelves filled with various ornaments, a large nautical table in the center of the room, and a smaller door at the far end of the room, in front of which lay a wine-red carpet.

Pushing open the door would return him to his bachelor's apartment, pulling open the door led to the captain's quarters—the latter clearly being the "normal fixture" of this ship.

Zhou Ming stepped into the captain's room. As he passed the doorway, he habitually looked to the left—fixed on the adjacent wall was a full-length mirror that clearly reflected Zhou Ming's current appearance.

He was a tall man with thick black hair, sporting a dignified short beard, deep-set eyes, and a commanding presence that seemed to radiate authority just by his looks. He appeared to be over forty, but his heroic looks and the intense gaze somewhat blurred that age impression, while the well-crafted captain's uniform further highlighted the special identity of the person in the mirror.

Zhou Ming stretched his neck and made a funny face at the mirror—he considered himself easy-going and friendly, and the image in the mirror didn't quite match his temperament. He soon gave up on that attempt, feeling that instead of appearing friendlier, the reflection had transformed from an authoritative captain to something resembling a psychopathic serial killer...

While Zhou Ming was making these gestures, a faint clicking sound came from the direction of the nautical table. Unsurprisingly, he turned toward the sound and saw a wooden goat head statue on the table slowly turning its face toward him—the lifeless block of wood seemed to come alive at that moment, its obsidian eyes eerily focusing on him.

Memories of his initial panic upon witnessing this eerie scene flashed through his mind, but Zhou Ming simply curled his lips and walked toward the nautical table. The wooden goat head also continued to rotate its neck, a raspy, gloomy voice emanating from its wooden throat: "Name?"

"Duncan," Zhou Ming calmly replied, "Duncan Ebnomal."

The wooden goat head's voice instantly turned from raspy and gloomy to warm and friendly: "Good morning, Captain. I'm pleased to see you remember your name—How are you feeling today? How is your body? Did you sleep well last night? I hope you had good dreams. Also, today is a great day for setting sail, calm seas, favorable wind, cool and comfortable, with no annoying navy or noisy crewmembers, Captain, you know how a noisy crewmember..."

"You are noisy enough," even though this was not his first interaction with the bizarre goat head, Zhou Ming still felt his head tremble, his eyes glaring fiercely at the creature as he squeezed the words through his teeth, "Quiet."

"Oh, oh, oh, of course, Captain, you prefer quiet, and your loyal first mate who also serves as the second mate, boatswain, sailor, and lookout is very clear on this. Being quiet has many benefits. There was once a person in the field of medicine, or maybe philosophy, or perhaps architecture..."

Zhou Ming now felt not only his head trembling, but even his bronchi began to shake as well: "What I mean is, I order you to be quiet!"

As soon as the word "order" came out of his mouth, the goat's head finally quieted down.

Zhou Ming sighed slightly with relief and stepped forward to sit down at the navigation table—now, he was the "Captain" of this unoccupied Ghost Ship.

Duncan Ebnomal, a strange name, a convoluted surname.

The moment he first crossed through that layer of dark gray fog and stepped onto this ship, he knew these things in his mind: he knew that in this body "over here," he was called Duncan, knew that he was the master of this ship, and knew that the ship was voyaging on a journey far beyond imagination—he knew these things, but only these.

The memories stored in his mind were so vague and scant that only these key paragraphs remained, and all other details were completely blank, as if he knew the ship had an astonishing sailing plan, yet had no idea where it was destined to head. The ship's original master—the real "Duncan Ebnomal"—seemed to have died a long, long time ago.

And what remained in Zhou Ming's mind felt more like the lingering impression of a ghost captain after an utter demise.

Instinct told Zhou Ming that there was a significant issue with this "Captain Duncan" identity, especially given the presence of supernatural phenomena (a talking wooden goat's head) on the ship, which could even imply a type of danger he had never imagined. Yet, he had to keep using this name to ensure his safety on the ship.

Because, just like the wooden goat's head earlier, certain things on the ship were constantly trying to confirm the "Captain's identity."

Even the ship itself was always confirming the identity of the captain.

It felt like some sort of precaution, as though the captain of the ship were actually at risk of forgetting his name at any moment, and if he did forget his name, something extremely terrible and dangerous would occur, thus the need to set up "verification measures" all over the ship.

Zhou Ming did not know the consequences of "Captain Duncan" forgetting his name, but he believed that if he were to get his own name wrong, it definitely wouldn't end well.

After all, even the wooden goat's head on the navigation table didn't seem like the benevolent type.

But if he took on the name Duncan Ebnomal, then everything on the ship seemed rather friendly.

Anyway, they didn't seem to be very intelligent.

Zhou Ming—or perhaps he should now be called Duncan—ended his brief moment of reflection and looked down at the map spread out on the table.

However, the map showed no recognizable sailing routes, marks, or land, not even an island could be seen. The rough, thick surface of the Parchment only revealed large patches of swirling, uprising gray-white masses, those gray-white, fog-like substances seemingly obscuring the original sailing routes on the paper, and among the map's center, the only visible thing was a dimly visible ship silhouette amidst the thick fog.

Duncan (Zhou Ming) had no sailing experience in his decades of life, but even those who were unfamiliar with navigation charts would definitely know that a "normal" map didn't look like this.

Clearly, like the wooden goat's head on the table, this map was also some sort of supernatural item—just that Duncan had yet to figure out how to use it.

It seemed that noticing the captain's attention was finally on the map, the quiet goat's head on the table eventually started to make a noise again. It began producing a creaking sound of wood friction, and its neck modestly twisted back and forth—initially restrained, but soon the creaking noise became too loud to ignore—eventually, its whole head vibrated wildly on its base.

Duncan, fearing the creature would continue spasming and potentially start a fire on his navigation table, couldn't help but glance at it: "Speak."

"Yes, your Excellency, Captain—I must emphasize again, today is a fine day to set sail, and Homeloss awaits your command! Shall we hoist the sails?"