Ashes Of Deep Sea-Chapter 238 - 242 "Zhou Ming

Chapter 238 -242 “Zhou Ming

She was now on the “other side” of the door.

After confirming this fact, Duncan couldn’t help but approach the door slit to carefully observe the scene on the other side.

It involuntarily reminded him of his experiences after exploring the bottom of the ship, when he had immediately returned to his bachelor apartment to check the situation on the other side of the door slit—an all-too-familiar mindset, an all-too-familiar scene.

But just like last time, there wasn’t another “Duncan” on the other side of the door, trying to stab through with a sword.

Duncan frowned slightly.

He had reached this side of the door and had witnessed the situation here with his own eyes. He had even searched the entire ship and found nothing amiss during the process.

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So… what exactly was that thing that had tried to disguise itself as him, that he had seen through the real-world dimension’s door slit at the bottom of the ship?

Duncan frowned slightly, turned around, and scanned the empty, dimly lit cabin as if trying to find the thing that had disguised itself as Zhou Ming here—he remembered stabbing it through the door slit, but if this side was really Subspace, a simple stab would hardly be enough to kill it; there should’ve been some trace left.

However, there was nothing, not a single trace.

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

The things he had seen in the door slit… were perhaps just illusions presented by Subspace, visible only to him at that moment, which matched the trait that “Subspace reflects the mind’s mirror image.”

Only… it didn’t explain why the illusion had no impact on his mind and was easily dealt with.

Duncan shook his head lightly, set aside these perplexities for the moment, but couldn’t help feeling a sigh within—Subspace was indeed a place full of mysteries.

His gaze then returned to the door.

On this side, the door was slightly ajar within the doorframe, while on the real-world dimension’s Homeloss at the bottom of the ship, that door was cracked open outward, corresponding to this one.

On the other side was the real world, the Homeloss he knew so well.

It seemed he had found the entrance and exit point between Subspace and the real-world dimension aboard this ship. Theoretically, pushing this door open should allow him to return to the real world.

Duncan placed his hand on the doorknob, his face revealing a faint smile.

Then gently, he closed the door.

Unexpectedly easy—he still remembered the time he and Alice had tried to close this door in the real-world dimension and found it as solid as if it were cast with space itself, unmovable no matter how much force they applied. Yet on this side of the door, it just needed a gentle pull to close.

A soft click sounded, and the door fit tightly shut. Duncan silently watched the now closed door, and a few seconds later, his expression tensed, then gradually relaxed, and his heart, seemingly delayed in reaction, suddenly began to thump wildly.

In those two seconds of closing the door, he had cleared his mind, not thinking about anything, not considering returning to the real world, not considering being trapped here, not considering any consequences. He only gave himself a strong suggestion that “this door is dangerous,” then unhesitatingly executed it—and only when the door was completely closed did he allow the emotional turbulence, which he had forcibly suppressed, to be released, and he took a deep breath.

This might indeed be an “exit” that connects to the real world, but the door must never be truly opened!

Although there was no clear evidence, a strong intuition reminded Duncan, telling him that the way back to reality could not be simply pushing the door open from here—it was a lure, a trap. He had already experienced one such lure at the bottom of the real-world dimension’s Homeloss, and now this was the second time, even more surreptitious and guard-evading than the first.

Duncan’s gaze was fixed deeply on the door. Then he used the sword in his hand, burning with Spectral Flame, to swipe at its door panel. The eerily green flames soared and almost instantly engulfed the entire door, but after a burst of intense burning, the door still stood there silently, seemingly untouched.

Duncan’s frown deepened.

Facing something that obviously belonged to the Transcendent realm, the Spectral Flame failed for the first time. However, it wasn’t because the door was exceptionally strong—on the contrary, he felt no resistance from the flames.

He didn’t even feel the door’s existence.

Just like the ship, in his perception, this door didn’t exist!

Yet this door couldn’t possibly not exist—if even the ship truly “did not exist,” this door must, because it was even capable of exerting complex influences on him like “luring him to open the door,” with Transcendent power, this thing absolutely existed here!

Huge confusion filled his mind, but Duncan found it difficult to sort out his thoughts. He checked around the door area and the entire cabin again, still finding no clues that could answer his doubts, and as time slowly passed, he could only temporarily give up.

He couldn’t waste all his time in this eerie place—if the bottom “exit” of the cabin posed a significant danger, it was time to look for another way out.

While pondering, Duncan suddenly remembered something.

He immediately turned and headed toward the stairs leading to the upper cabins, quickly crossing the dark, empty cargo hold and the higher crew cabins, through the somber wooden door connecting the upper deck and the cabin, onto the deck.

The battered old Homeloss continued to drift in the chaotic darkness like outer space, with occasional streams of light and shadows sometimes casting huge, terrifying shadows of fragments drifting slowly by, some resembling broken landmasses, some distorted giant creatures, and some simply unrecognizable as anything more than colorless and shapeless “accumulations,” terribly ominous to behold.

But Duncan’s attention wasn’t on these floating behemoths; he walked straight across the empty deck, back to the captain’s quarters.

The door to the captain’s quarters stood quietly there, just as he had left it.

Duncan looked up at the doorframe, where, in the dim light, he could faintly make out a few familiar words—

Homeloss Door.

Indeed, as he had expected, the special sign on the door was still there!

Duncan steadied himself and placed his hand on the doorknob.

If there was anything on this ship that held extraordinary significance for him, it would have to be this door.

This door linked him to everything familiar and had brought him the first and greatest mystery in this world.

Duncan applied a light force with his hand and pushed the door inward, accompanied by the faint sound of the hinges turning, the “Homeloss Door” easily opened as he was accustomed to, revealing the thick fog opposite the door that he knew all too well.

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

The sensation of penetrating the fog hit him in the face, followed by a brief feeling of weightlessness and disorienting dizziness, but this sensation soon faded away, and Zhou Ming slowly opened his eyes.

He wasn’t back in his bachelor apartment where he had lived for a long time.

He stood in extreme darkness.

Zhou Ming looked down and indeed saw his own body, the one of an “Earthling.” He then turned around and saw the door he had come through, standing silently there, seemingly floating in the darkness and remaining open.

Looking around, all he could see was endless darkness, a purity of blackness that suggested a complete extinction of all things, as if the universe had ceased to exist.

Zhou Ming quickly summed up a new experience: On the “Aged and Dilapidated Homeloss,” opening the Door of the Displaced did not lead back to the familiar bachelor apartment, but instead he had entered a strange and pitch-black space.

This extreme blackness was enough to make an ordinary person feel intense oppression and even fear, Zhou Ming knew this, yet for some reason, standing here, he felt no disgust but rather… an inexplicable relaxation and comfort.

He didn’t understand why he felt this odd sense of relaxation, but rationally, he knew something was off about his state, and this conflict between reason and sensation made him even more cautious as he attempted to take another step forward.

Despite the darkness as if nothing existed, there was ground beneath his feet—when he stepped out, there was the sensation of solid ground.

Zhou Ming looked down at where his feet landed, and just then, he suddenly saw ripples emanating from under his feet, colors other than darkness appeared in this black space—those ripples revealed text.

The Chinese characters he was familiar with.

“His age?”

“About thirty-five years old.”

Just two lines of text that appeared to be a question and an answer.

Zhou Ming’s eyes shifted slightly, and then he tentatively took another step. Sure enough, new ripples emerged in the darkness at the moment his foot landed, still in Chinese, still a question and an answer:

“His occupation?”

“A middle school teacher, teaching language; loves reading books.”

Zhou Ming felt his heart thumping; he subconsciously changed direction and took another step in the darkness.

“His height?”

“About one meter eighty— Not very strong, but very healthy.”

Zhou Ming stopped, quietly watching the ripples under his feet gradually spreading out; the grey and white Chinese characters became clearer in the ripples, then faded back into dimness and dissolved as the ripples spread out.

After an unknowable length of time, he finally took a deep breath, and slowly but firmly, Zhou Ming took another step forward.

Text waved and surfaced with his step:

“What does he look like?”

“Like this.”

Suddenly, a light appeared in the darkness, within that light something seemed to instantly take shape, and Zhou Ming abruptly saw a figure facing him, a figure that was a mirror image of himself!

His heartbeat nearly skipped a beat, and he instinctively stepped back half a pace, and it was this backward movement that made him realize that what was opposite him was actually a mirror.

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That figure was his own reflection in the mirror.

Immediately after, he looked down at the new ripples caused by his half step back, seeing the emerging words within those ripples—

“What’s his name?”

“Zhou Ming.”