I am now "opposite" the door.

After confirming this fact, Duncan involuntarily approached the crack in the door, carefully observing the scene on the other side.

This reminded him of his previous experience after exploring the bilge, and remembered that he had returned to the bachelor's apartment for the first time to confirm the situation on the other side of the door—a familiar mentality, a familiar scene.

But just like last time, there was no other "Duncan" on the other side of the door with a sword to stab in this direction.

Duncan frowned slightly.

He was now on this side of the door, and he had seen it with his own eyes, and he had even searched the entire ship, and in the course of the search, he found nothing out of the ordinary.

That...... The guy I saw in the crack in the bottom door of the real dimension trying to disguise himself...... What the hell is it?

Duncan frowned slightly, turned around and looked around the empty and dim cabin, as if he wanted to find the thing that was disguised as "Zhou Ming" here - he remembered that he gave the opposite side a sword at that time, but if this side was really a subspace, then a simple sword should not be enough to kill the other party, at least there should be some traces here.

But no, there was no trace of it.

After a careful search, Duncan finally began to doubt his judgment at the time.

The things I saw in the crack in the door...... Maybe it's just an illusion presented by the subspace, an illusion that can only be seen by the self at the time, which is also in line with the characteristic that "the subspace will present the reflection of the mind".

Merely...... I can't explain why the apparition didn't have any effect on his mind in the slightest, and was even easily dealt with.

Duncan shook his head slightly, putting these confusions aside for the time being, but he couldn't help but sigh in his heart - subspace, it's really a place full of mysteries.

Then his gaze returned to the door.

Here, the door opens slightly towards the frame, while in the bilge of the Lost in the Reality Dimension, the door opens outward, and the two correspond to each other.

On the other side is the real world, the "Lost Country" that he is familiar with.

It seems that he has found the entrance and exit of this ship connecting the subspace and the real dimension, and theoretically, he should be able to return to the real world by pushing the door from here.

Duncan placed his hand on the doorknob with a small smile on his face.

Then pull gently to close the door.

It was surprisingly easy - he remembered that when he and Alice saw the door in the real dimension, they also tried to close it, only to find that the whole door seemed to be cast together with the space, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't push it even a bit, but on this side of the door, closing it only took a slight pull.

There was a soft click, the door was shut, Duncan silently stared at the closed door, and after a few more seconds, his expression tensed for a moment, and then gradually relaxed, and his heart seemed to react half a beat slower, and then suddenly began to thump.

In the two seconds he closed the door, he emptied his mind, didn't think about anything, didn't think about returning to the real world, didn't think about being trapped here, didn't think about all the consequences, he only gave himself a strong hint that "this door is dangerous", and then completed the execution without hesitation - and it wasn't until the door was completely closed that he let go of the mood swings that he had forcibly suppressed, and exhaled deeply.

It may really be an "exit" to the real world, but it must not really push the door open!

There was no clear evidence, but a strong instinct reminded Duncan that the way to return to reality was not simply to push the door out of here - it was a lure, a trap, and he had already experienced a lure in the bilge of the Lost Land in the dimension of reality, and now this was the second time, more stealthy and more unpredictable than the first.

Duncan stared at the door with deep eyes, and then slashed the sword burning with the spirit flame in his hand across its door, and the dark green flames rose into the air, engulfing the entire door almost instantly, but after a burst of blazing, the door still stood silently, as if unaffected.

Duncan frowned.

For the first time, the spirit flame failed in the face of something that clearly belonged to the otherworld, but not because of how strong the door was—on the contrary, he didn't feel the slightest resistance from the feedback of the flames.

He didn't even feel the door's presence.

Just like this ship, in his perception, this door does not exist!

However, this door cannot exist - even if the ship does not exist, this door must exist, because it can even exert such a complex influence on itself as "luring itself to open the door", and with extraordinary power, this thing absolutely exists!

Duncan struggled to sort out his thoughts, and he searched around the door and throughout the cabin, but found no clue to his doubts, and as time passed, he had to give up for now.

You can't waste all your time in this weird place - since the bilge is an "exit" with huge hidden dangers, you should find another way out.

While thinking about it, Duncan suddenly remembered something.

He immediately turned and walked to the staircase that led to the upper cabin, and made his way quickly through the dark and empty cargo hold and the crew cabin above, and through the gloomy wooden door that connected the upper deck to the cabin, to the deck.

The dilapidated and old Lost Country is still floating in the chaotic darkness of the universe, and the turbulence of light and shadow that appears around it from time to time occasionally reflects the shadows of some huge and terrible fragments, slowly drifting by from far and near, some of which look like broken land, some are huge and twisted creatures, and some are simply not visible at all, just a pile of simple "piles" that have lost their color and form, and it is terrifying to look at.

But Duncan's attention was not on the huge floats, and he walked straight through the empty deck and back to the door of the captain's cabin.

The door to the captain's quarters stood silently, as it had been when he left.

Duncan's gaze moved up, and on the door's frame, a few familiar words could be faintly seen in the dim darkness—

The Gate of the Lost.

Sure enough, as he expected, the special sign on this door is still there!

Deng affirmed his concentration and pressed his hand on the doorknob.

If there's anything on this ship that means the most to him, it's this door.

This door connects everything he knows and brings him the first and greatest mystery in this world.

With a slight force in his hand, Duncan pushed the door inward, and with the slight sound of the shaft spinning, the "Lost Man's Gate" was easily pushed open as he was familiar, and on the opposite side of the gate was the thick fog that he was equally familiar with.

After a moment's hesitation, Duncan took a step forward.

The feeling of penetrating the dense fog came to his face, followed by a brief feeling of weightlessness and confusion and dizziness, but soon this feeling faded away, and Zhou Ming slowly opened his eyes.

He did not return to his long-lived bachelor apartment.

He stood in the darkness.

Zhou Ming lowered his head, and what he saw was indeed his body as an "earth human", he turned around again, and saw that the door where he came was standing quietly, standing in the darkness out of thin air, keeping it open.

If you look around, you can only see endless darkness, which is the ultimate and pure black, as if everything has been extinguished, as if the universe has disappeared.

Zhou Ming immediately summed up a new experience: on the "old and dilapidated Lost Country", after pushing open the door of the homeless, he did not return to the familiar bachelor apartment, but entered a strange and pitch-black space.

This kind of extreme pitch-black space is enough to make ordinary people feel extremely depressed and even frightened, and Zhou Ming also knows this, but for some reason, he stood here without the slightest resistance, but ...... It produces an inexplicable sense of relaxation and soothing.

He didn't know what this strange sense of relaxation was all about, but intellectually, he knew that something wasn't quite right, and this clash of sanity and senses made him doubly cautious and try to take a step forward.

Even though it was pitch black, as if there was nothing, there was ground under his feet - and when he stepped out, he would feel grounded.

Zhou Ming lowered his head and looked at the place where he landed, and at this moment, he suddenly saw that there seemed to be some ripples under his feet, and this dark place actually appeared in a color other than darkness - what emerged from the ripples was words.

He is familiar with Chinese.

"His age?"

"About thirty-five."

It's just two lines of text, which seem to be a question and an answer.

Zhou Ming's eyes changed slightly, and then he took a tentative step forward, and sure enough, at the moment he landed, new ripples emerged in the darkness, still in Chinese, still a question and answer sentence:

"His profession?"

"A middle school teacher, teaching Chinese, and usually loves to read."

Zhou Ming felt his heart pounding, he subconsciously changed directions and took another step in the dark.

"His height?"

"About 1.8 meters – not very strong, but very healthy."

Zhou Ming stopped, quietly watching the ripples under his feet gradually spread, and the gray-white Chinese handwriting became clearer and clearer in the ripples, and then returned to dimness and dissipation as the ripples spread.

It didn't take long for him to take a deep breath and take another step forward slowly but surely.

Words rippled in his footsteps:

"What does he look like?"

"Looks like this."

In the darkness, a bright light suddenly appeared, and something seemed to be condensed in the bright light instantly, and Zhou Ming suddenly saw a figure appear on the opposite side, a figure exactly like himself!

His heartbeat almost missed half a beat, and he subconsciously took half a step back, and it was this backward action that made him realize that it was actually a mirror on the other side.

That figure was my reflection in the mirror.

Then he lowered his head and looked at the new ripples that had been drawn from his own half step back, and saw the handwriting that appeared in the ripples—

"What's his name?"

"Zhou Ming."

(End of chapter)