Chapter 60

Chapter 60: The Other Side of the Door

This door led to the Vanished.

The letters on the doorframe were cast in brass and looked as if they had survived a century. Under the light of the spirit flame consecrated lantern and the hazy, chaotic glow that filled the hold, every stroke of those letters seemed plated with frozen time, giving off an ancient, mysterious air.

Duncan stared at the line of letters for several seconds, then turned away without expression.

Alice’s voice came at once from the side: “Huh? Captain, are we leaving already? Don’t we need to check this door? We don’t have to open it, just take a look…”

“There’s nothing more to see. This is already the end of the bilge,” Duncan said casually.

But just then, a faint knocking sound suddenly came, making him stop.

Duncan turned and glanced at Alice behind him. Alice nervously looked around, then finally turned toward the dark wooden door: “It sounded like it came from behind this door…”

Duncan stopped where he was, his face serious as he fixed his gaze on the wooden door that the knocking had come from. He waited patiently for several seconds, then heard two more knocks. The sound was faint and blurry, as if it came through an incredibly thick Veil, as if the door was wrapped in something invisible, but it was definitely not an illusion.

After a short but fierce struggle in his mind, he finally walked back to the door. Alice followed, crowding close, nervously watching for whatever might happen next.

Duncan held the consecrated lantern in one hand and gripped his longsword tight in the other as he studied the dark wooden door. Only then did he notice that the door was not fully closed. Along the edge he could see a gap about a centimeter wide.

The door was only pulled to, as if someone had left in a hurry and forgotten to shut it, or as if something inside had left that crack on purpose to lure the unwary in.

Duncan raised the consecrated lantern and cautiously shone it through the gap, his eyes peering at whatever lay on the other side. At the same time, he braced his longsword beside the crack, ready to stab anything that dared squeeze out.

Yet he never could have imagined what he was about to see—

On the other side of the gap was a room.

It was a small room that looked like it had been around for years. The wallpaper on the walls was dull and wrinkled. The slightly messy furniture seemed long uncleaned. Directly facing the door was a single bed. Beside the bed stood a desk with a computer, some books, and a small ornament on it.

A tall, thin figure was bent over the desk, writing quickly. The figure wore an ordinary white shirt you could buy from a street stall. His hair was messy and unkempt, and his body was on the skinny side, clearly not used to exercise.

Duncan stared through the crack, staring at the familiar scene “over there”, at that room, at the hunched figure at the desk. The figure seemed to sense something. He stopped writing, snapped his head up, and jumped to his feet, running toward the door.

The figure ran up and stared out through the crack, staring straight at Duncan.

Duncan stared back, staring at that familiar face—that was his own face!

For a few seconds they only stared at each other. Then the figure on the other side suddenly grew agitated. He began to shove the door hard, as if trying to get out, but the door did not move at all, as if it had been poured into the surrounding space. So he tried to break the lock, using tools to pry at the crack. He pounded on the unmoving door, trying every way he could to escape, but nothing worked.

The man inside finally gave up these useless attempts. He slapped hard near the gap and shouted something toward this side through the door. But from outside, Duncan could only hear vague, drifting noise, not a single clear word.

Duncan watched all of this in shock and confusion, watching the “himself” trapped in the room. He knew what the man inside was trying to do. His gaze slowly dropped to the door handle beside him.

The handle was right within his reach.

From this side, the door might be very easy to open.

Yet he only looked at the handle and did not take the next step.

The man trapped in the room seemed to grow discouraged. He shouted again toward the outside one last time. After he realized his voice could not reach beyond the door at all, he ran back to the desk, bent over, and quickly wrote something on a sheet of paper. Then he rushed back and held the paper up for Duncan to see.

Through the crack, Duncan saw a line of messy words on the paper: “Save me! I’m trapped in this room! The windows and the door won’t open!”

Duncan suddenly laughed.

His smile slipped through the gap and fell into the eyes of the “Zhou Ming” trapped in the room. Zhou Ming’s eyes slowly widened. He looked stunned, and then gradually angry, as if feeling mocked.

The next second, Duncan’s pirate sword thrust forward, slid through the narrow crack, and stabbed straight into the body of the “Zhou Ming” on the other side.

Zhou Ming was run through by the blade. He opened his mouth as if screaming. In the blur Duncan seemed to hear a string of hoarse, chaotic sounds in his ears. Duncan did not move at all. He only tightened his grip on the hilt and pushed the sword in deeper, leaning close to the door as he said softly:

“If you can’t write Chinese, then don’t write it.”

The pigeon AI, who had been quiet the whole way, suddenly flapped her wings and let out a hoarse sound: “This is an illusion. What are you trying to hide?”

In the next second, the figure on the other side of the door began to melt like a wax statue and quickly faded into twisted, chaotic light and shadow. The room that had looked so real and so familiar shed its disguise just as fast. In Duncan’s eyes its true form appeared: a dim, old cabin, empty and bare, sealed in time and frozen decay.

The sword in his hand felt hollow, as if from the very beginning it had pierced nothing but air.

The other side of this “extra door” was only a cabin?

Duncan studied the space beyond the crack in surprise, but now, no matter how he looked, it seemed to be just an ordinary cabin.

But… was that cabin really “real”?

Duncan slowly pulled the longsword back from the crack, let out a small breath, and stepped back half a step.

The strange scene he had just experienced was still deeply burned into his mind. He did not know whether it had been a simple illusion or something else entirely. But one thing was certain. This door hid weirdness and danger far beyond what he had imagined.

If the illusion the door showed came from twisting his own memories and perception, then the danger beyond the door had already surpassed the power of “Captain Duncan”. But if it was not based on his own knowledge and memories, if some thing had “fabricated” the scene instead, then the situation was even worse.

Because in this world no one should have known what that room looked like. No one should have known that the person called “Zhou Ming” even existed.

But whatever was on the other side of this door knew.

He took a deep breath.

His caution just now had been right. No matter what, he could not open this door.

At the same time he felt a little afraid in hindsight. Just now, for a brief instant when he looked at the handle, a thought had flashed through his mind. He had wanted to open the door and let that “himself” out.

“Captain…” Alice’s voice suddenly sounded, waking Duncan from his thoughts. He looked up at the doll and saw worry and fear on the doll’s face. “Captain, are you all right? What’s inside that door? Why do you look so serious…”

Duncan shook his head: “It’s nothing. What’s behind this door is not something you should see. We’ve already reached the very bottom. We can go back.”

As he spoke, he reached out and tried to push the door, to see if he could close it.

That narrow gap really did not let him rest easy.

But the door did not budge. Even when he used all his strength, it stayed as firm as if it were fused with the very space around it.

Just like the sealed windows in his old single apartment.

Duncan pulled his hand back, thoughtful. The door could not be closed, but he certainly was not going to try to open it any further.

“Ah? Oh… oh, okay!” Alice did not pay much attention to the captain’s attempt to close the door. She froze for a moment, then reacted, her face breaking into a happy smile. “Then let’s hurry back. To be honest, this place is pretty creepy. I’m getting nervous again…”

Duncan only gave a noncommittal grunt, then turned with Alice and walked toward the “last door” that led to the stairs.

This place was far too strange. Even he did not want to stay any longer.

After that, no more Anomalies appeared.

They passed smoothly through the shattered bilge, through the cargo hold where the lighting was in Inversion, and through the dark stairs and corridors, until they returned to the cabins above the waterline.

The moment they returned to the normal cabins, Alice felt her whole body suddenly relax. It was as if some barely noticeable Shadows that had been wrapped around her had been driven away. She saw the lights around them return to normal, and the cabin no longer felt gloomy and oppressive. As for Captain Duncan beside her…

The captain looked no different from before. He did not seem to have felt the oppressive atmosphere earlier, and he did not seem to feel any special relief now. The environment deep inside the Vanished had not affected him at all.

Only, on the way back the captain was clearly very quiet, weighed down with thoughts.

“Captain, are you tired?” Alice asked cautiously. “Do you want me to make you something to eat? You didn’t really have dinner…”

Duncan stopped his thoughts and looked at the doll beside him.

On the doll’s face was genuine concern—just like Nina’s.

He suddenly relaxed, and the bit of gloom in his heart seemed to quietly fade.

“This time, don’t drop anything strange into the pot.”

“My head is not something strange!”

“Especially your head.”

“…Oh.”