Duncan left the captain's cabin, not going anywhere else, but turning around and grasping the handle of the "Door of the Lost," pushing it open.

Zhou Ming returned to his bedroom.

Looking around, familiar scenery came into view. Everything in the room was exactly as it had been when he last left, and it seemed like a long time since he had returned here.

Slowly crossing the entrance hall, his feet stepped on the slightly mottled and worn floor. Zhou Ming, as usual, first went to the tightly closed window. He checked the marks on the windowsill and confirmed the state of the window lock—although he knew it was meaningless, he carefully completed all the checks and solemnly picked up the diary hanging next to the window, writing down today's inspection results in the blank part of the book.

The doors and windows showed no changes. During his absence, this room had never been opened.

After leaving this new record, he breathed a sigh of relief and slowly came to the desk.

On the desk, tiny green sparks were crackling and jumping, and the gradually spreading flames were outlining the outline of an object bit by bit. The entire outlining process was nearing completion.

It was a ship, a steam-powered mechanical ship with a beautiful white hull and towering smokestacks, looking quite advanced.

Zhou Ming looked at this scene calmly, with no surprise on his face.

The "model" of the White Oak had appeared in this room, but... why? Why did it suddenly appear here? What changes had occurred to this ship?

Zhou Ming raised his head and looked at the display shelf not far away. The "models" of the Lost and Prandt lay quietly between the grids.

"Items" that were completely burned by the spiritual fire and completely controlled by him would appear on the desk in this bachelor apartment in the form of precise models. This was an established rule. The Lost and Prandt were the same, and the White Oak...

Zhou Ming recalled his first encounter with that ship.

The White Oak had indeed been burned by his spiritual fire once, and even the entire ship had been "swallowed" by the Lost, but perhaps it was because his control of the spiritual fire was not skilled enough at that time. After the "burning," the White Oak did not become a "collection" on his desk, but only left an imprint. This state had continued until now.

Zhou Ming sat down at the desk, quietly watching the ghostly green sparks jump on the table and complete the last trace of the White Oak's outline, his expression thoughtful.

He could be sure that he had not paid attention to the White Oak's movements during this period, and had never actively "triggered" the fire mark on that ship, so this change was not caused by him—it was the White Oak. Something had obviously happened to that ship, causing the imprint on the ship to be activated, even directly "activating" the entire ship into one of the "collections" here.

Zhou Ming narrowed his eyes slightly and tried again to locate the White Oak and perceive its current state.

After a moment, he opened his eyes, his expression a little dignified.

Even in this bedroom, he still couldn't accurately confirm where the White Oak was. The vague perception only roughly pointed in the direction of Frost City in the world across the door. When trying to confirm the White Oak's status, he got a somewhat strange feedback.

He felt that the ship was completely wrapped in seawater.

On the desk, the ghostly green sparks stopped jumping, and the precise model of the White Oak lay quietly in front of Zhou Ming, every detail lifelike.

After hesitating slightly, Zhou Ming reached out and picked up the model of the White Oak, carefully observing it in front of his eyes.

But he didn't see anything out of place.

After fiddling with it for a while, Zhou Ming shook his head, realizing that he couldn't confirm the ship's status here either—he still had to go to Frost City to confirm the situation.

He got up from the desk, holding the White Oak in his hand, preparing to put the new "collection" on the display shelf first, but after taking a few steps, he suddenly stopped next to a mirror.

He looked at the mirror. In the mirror, what he held in his hand was not the White Oak, but a strange warship shrouded in black mist and large shadows!

The outline of that ship vaguely resembled the White Oak, as if they were of the same origin, but the whole presented a kind of unreal texture like a phantom. Traces of destruction and abandonment could be seen everywhere on the ship, as if it had been sleeping on the seabed for many years. Zhou Ming stared at the ship in the mirror. After a moment, he lowered his head and saw that what he held in his hand was indeed just the model of the White Oak.

After a brief moment of astonishment and thought, Zhou Ming suddenly put the model of the White Oak aside. He quickly walked to the display shelf, took the models of the Lost and Prandt, and tested them in front of the mirror one by one.

They didn't change in the mirror.

Only the White Oak showed a strange "other appearance" in the mirror.

Zhou Ming once again brought the model of the White Oak to the mirror, thoughtfully looking at the black warship shadow presented in the mirror.

It looked like a "reflection" of the White Oak in another dimension.

In thought, he slowly reached out towards the phantom in the mirror.

He only touched the cold, hard mirror surface.

Alone in his small boat, Lawrence watched the towering hull of the Black Oak gradually enlarge in his vision. The thick fog, seemingly filled with shadows, gradually enveloped him. A lantern hanging on the bow of the boat struggled to dispel the surrounding dimness, but could only outline a hazy route for him.

He turned his head and saw that the White Oak had become a blurry phantom in the mist—although the two ships were so close when viewed from the bridge of the White Oak, he now felt as if there was a chasm between them. That chasm was not a physical distance, but some kind of... barrier between reality and illusion.

And he was now gradually crossing this barrier.

His mood calmed down. The surroundings became more and more bizarre, and the environment became more and more dim, but his mood became more and more calm, as if all the roads were clear, and fate had shown him all the choices—he was going to the Black Oak, no matter what was waiting for him there.

But it seemed that only he himself had calmed down. There was another passenger on the small boat who didn't seem so calm.

"Just let me go back! Give me a rope, you can hang me on the mast!" Anomaly 077 babbled. This ugly dried corpse had been talking non-stop since just now. "As long as you let me go back to sleep, I'll listen to you... even if you let me convert to the Storm Goddess... or the God of Death! I don't want to open my eyes anymore!"

Lawrence finally turned his head and responded to the dried corpse for the first time since setting off: "You can still convert to a god?"

The dried corpse froze for a moment, then nodded immediately: "As long as you let me go back to sleep, I can convert to any god in my sleep!"

Lawrence thought for a while, thought of a joke popular among sailors, and smiled on his face: "Then try converting to the God of Wisdom?"

Anomaly 077 stiffened, and then moved slightly after an unknown amount of time, squeezing a few words out of his shriveled throat: "I can try starting with plane geometry..."

"You even dare to try the God of Wisdom, it seems you are really desperate," Lawrence shook his head, feeling a little curious in his heart, "But why are you so afraid? I saw in the data that you are the kind of anomaly that tends to go out of control, but now you are desperately trying to go back to sleep?"

Anomaly 077 didn't answer, but just curled up in a corner of the small boat, staring nervously at the green flames burning quietly on Lawrence's body.

Lawrence looked down at his body, which had not yet returned to its original state, and raised his head: "Because of this flame? Or because of the power symbolized behind this flame?"

Anomaly 077 said in a muffled voice: "Don't you understand?"

"I didn't expect that even an 'anomaly' like you would know the prestige of the Lost," Lawrence said with some emotion. "I saw in the data a description of you, saying that you have reason after going out of control, and can talk to people, but I didn't expect your reason to reach this level... If you weren't a dried corpse, I would almost think you were a human being."

Anomaly 077 lowered its head, seemingly resigned to its fate, and never spoke again.

Lawrence didn't care about the "sailor's" reaction. He now had countless mysteries to think about. Compared with those mysteries, a strange, out-of-control anomaly that deviated from the data records was insignificant.

So many unknowns, so many secrets.

How many years has it been since he felt this way?

It seemed that after saying goodbye to the Black Oak, the adventurer Lawrence had disappeared from this world. The unknown and the distant had become words in his memory, until now, when he saw the Black Oak again, the adventurer Lawrence was awakened again from the depths of an old captain's heart.

He raised his head and saw that the towering hull of the Black Oak was less than a few meters away from the small boat. He controlled the small boat to slowly approach, and stopped at the familiar place in his memory, picking up the oar and tapping the hull.

A rope ladder was thrown down from above, landing on the bow of the boat.

Lawrence turned his head and looked at Anomaly 077, who was curled up in the corner.

"Get on the ship, sailor."

Anomaly 077 got up reluctantly, lowering its head: "Yes, Captain."