Chapter 163

Chapter 163: An Exhausting Conversation.

The skeletal pigeon, wrapped in spirit form flame, circled twice above the deck. The cargo from the city-state of Pland appeared in the fire. Alice stared blankly at the first thing that showed up in front of her, and only after a long moment did she lift her head to look at the captain.

To be honest, in that moment Duncan almost thought this doll was going to burst into tears and run off. That had been the most likely reaction in the long list he had imagined from Alice. Instead, he and this silly doll just stared at each other for a long time, big eyes to big eyes, until she finally gave a dazed little nod and said: “Thank you!”

Duncan: “…?”

“You really bought me new hair!” The next second Alice’s face broke into a wide, joyful smile, as if she had just received the most wonderful gift. “I thought you were just joking last time! Mr. Goathead said that wigs for dolls are very expensive things…”

Duncan: “…”

The reaction he had waited so long for did not happen. His persecution plan had run into a huge failure from the very start. The one who was supposed to be persecuted was overjoyed and even full of heartfelt gratitude.

He felt like a prankster who had suddenly lost his own fun.

“Captain? Captain, why are you spacing out again?” Alice’s voice suddenly sounded, pulling Duncan out of his daze. The doll was holding the wig in her hands, standing on tiptoe with her face almost pressed to Duncan’s nose. “You spaced out so many times today…”

Duncan blinked and leaned his face back a little, staring at the cursed Doll with a strange look: “I didn’t think you had such a big heart. Last time, when I talked about wigs, you were really depressed. I thought that when you got this gift, you’d at least have a bit of an inner struggle…”

“I was depressed about losing hair. Why would I be depressed about getting new hair?” Alice blinked, as if she thought Duncan’s whole view of the world was wrong, and explained: “I’m a doll!”

Duncan finally understood where the problem lay.

Alice was usually so lively on the ship that, aside from the strange bones in her neck, she looked just like an ordinary person. After spending so long with her, he had unconsciously started treating her like a human, and had forgotten how different her values were as a doll…

As a doll, why would she care about wearing a wig? Do humans care that much when they put on a new pair of shoes?

“Forget it, I was just thinking too much,” Duncan said, covering his face and waving a hand. As the greatest calamity on the Boundless Sea, he once again felt unable to keep up his image in front of Alice. “Anyway… as long as you like it.”

“I like it!” Alice said happily, hugging the wig. Then she craned her neck over Duncan’s shoulder to look at the rest of the things on the deck. “And the rest of this…”

“This is also for you,” Duncan sighed, trying his best to ignore the visual shock of an elegant, beautiful gothic doll hugging a wig with such joy. He turned and picked up a box from the deck. “Open it and take a look.”

Alice opened the delicate little wooden box curiously and saw a silver hair ornament made of diamond-shaped pieces linked together, lying quietly on the velvet lining.

She looked up in shock and saw the captain nodding slightly to her.

“Last time I took away the feather hair clip you found in the cabin,” Duncan said calmly. “Back then I promised to buy you a new one. I’m keeping that promise now.”

Alice froze for a long moment before she finally reacted. Her smile held a joy she had never shown before: “Thank you, Captain! Captain, you’re the best!”

“Don’t be so loud,” Duncan said, ears ringing from the doll’s sudden high-pitched voice. He could not help waving his hand. “It’s just a hair ornament. No need to get so excited.”

“It’s not just the ornament, there’s also the new hair you bought me!”

Duncan suddenly felt a little embarrassed. A strong sense of shame, the kind you get when you set up a prank and the target thanks you earnestly instead, wrapped around his heart: “…Don’t bring up that wig.”

Alice, however, did not notice the captain’s subtle mood at all. The doll with not many thoughts in her head was fully immersed in her joy, and soon her gaze naturally fell on the last wooden box on the deck.

It was a wooden box a little more than half a meter long – or rather, a wooden trunk – with elegant, old-fashioned decorations and brass locks and hinges that gave it a sense of quality at a glance.

For some reason, it also reminded her of her own “house.”

“What is this?” Alice put down the wig and hair ornament beside her, walked over, and pushed the trunk curiously. Then she looked up and asked.

“It’s also from the doll shop, but this one isn’t for you,” Duncan said casually. “You can open it and take a look.”

Alice made a soft sound of acknowledgment and opened the trunk curiously.

A finely made doll in a classical maiden style lay quietly inside the trunk.

Alice: “…?”

“You can call her Nilu,” Duncan’s voice came from beside her. “But unlike you, she’s just an ordinary doll… probably.”

Alice did not react for a long time. After nearly ten seconds, she finally moved. With a light click-pop, her head dropped straight into Nilu’s box and rolled together with the small doll inside…

“He… he… help me…”

Duncan sighed, picked up Alice’s head with practiced ease, and put it back in place. He looked at this embarrassing fellow helplessly: “Did you really need to react like that?”

Alice only held her head with both hands and twisted her neck back into place. Then she widened her eyes at her captain, her face full of disbelief: “Captain, you… you’ve got yourself a new doll…”

“What nonsense!” Duncan felt that something was very wrong the moment he heard that and quickly cut her off before Alice could spew more rubbish. “Didn’t I just say that Nilu is not like you? She won’t run and jump around the place. And what do you mean I ‘got myself a new doll’? That makes it sound like I have some kind of strange collecting hobby.”

“But if you bought a doll and brought her back, isn’t that…”

“There is a very special reason behind this,” Duncan said softly, letting out a breath as he stood and looked out over the distant sea. He tried to use the serious, deep look on his face to suppress the rubbish running around in Alice’s silly head. “This doll named Nilu and another doll named Lunie were originally a pair. Many years ago, my daughter took Lunie away. By coincidence, I found Nilu again today, left behind and gathering dust in the shop. I thought… I should buy her.”

Duncan did not hide the information he had just learned. He said it in a natural tone. No matter what, he now had to play the role of “Captain Duncan” well, and from that persona, he had to “of course know” about his own pair of children.

Alice, unsurprisingly, stared wide-eyed at her captain, her face full of shock.

“C-captain, you have a daughter?!” The doll held her head with both hands, as if afraid that in the next second it would leave home again from sheer shock. “I… this is the first time I’ve ever heard that!”

Duncan sighed in his heart. He was thinking that this was also the first time he had heard of it himself…

But his face stayed as calm as ever. He only gave a small nod: “Is that so strange? I also have a son, and I haven’t seen either of them for a century.”

“You also have a son?!” Alice was even more stunned. She even took two steps back. Then her eyes spun twice as her brain worked in some way, and she suddenly blurted out: “Then doesn’t that mean they also have a mom?”

Duncan: “…”

In that moment, he and Alice just stared at each other, big eyes against big eyes.

“I’m starting to regret opening this topic with you,” Duncan finally sighed after a long time, his face full of weary age. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Oh… oh, okay!” Alice had no idea what she had just imagined in her head. After a short pause she nodded again and again. Then she looked down at Nilu in the wooden trunk and suddenly understood: “Ah, then that feather-shaped hair clip I found in the cabin last time… was that your daughter’s?”

Duncan gave no clear answer.

He himself was not sure either. But thinking of the deep, involuntary feeling of nostalgia that had risen from his heart when he saw that hair clip, Alice’s guess was probably not far off.

Then he noticed that Alice had been sneaking looks at him the whole time. He noticed the strange look on the doll’s face, as if she wanted to say something but kept stopping.

“If you have something to say, just say it,” he said lightly. “Staring at me in secret like that is ruder than speaking without a filter.”

“Ah, it’s nothing, nothing, I just…” Alice waved her hands, then finally said hesitantly: “I just suddenly feel… that you still have some humanity.”

Duncan: “…Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

Alice froze at once. Then, as if she remembered something Mr. Goathead had taught her, she showed a guilty look: “Ah, sorry, Captain. I shouldn’t insult you by saying you have humanity…”

“I… thank you,” Duncan sighed, waving a hand, his face showing how tired he was in both body and soul. “Take your gifts and go back. I want some time alone.”

“Oh.”