Chapter 683 A Guiding Light

Silence fell within the "nest," so profound that even the perpetual tremors among the stars seemed to cease. Lei Nora observed the humanoid entity before her, seemingly frozen by her words. After a long while, the stagnant starlight suddenly surged and undulated once more.

"Only one lamp? What else is around the lamp? Roughly where is it?" Zhou Ming asked quickly, staring into the Frost Queen's eyes.

"Only a lamp, hanging from a broken plank of wood, nothing else—they float in the dense fog," Lei Nora said immediately. "As for its location… right next to your 'palace,' very close, almost touching…"

She paused, as if recalling more details. After organizing her thoughts, she continued, "That lamp isn't very bright, so logically, it shouldn't illuminate very far in the fog. But as soon as I arrived in this place, I saw it. I steered my 'drifting house' towards it, and it took a very long time to actually get here. It felt as if… the lamp's light wasn't affected by distance or fog. As long as it's lit in this place, its light can be seen from anywhere in this fog."

Listening to her description, Zhou Ming couldn't help but sink into thought. Lei Nora then added, "Of course, these are all just my subjective guesses—you should know, many things here are… 'not quite right.' I think it's hard for me to judge whether what I see or feel is actually real."

"I understand," Zhou Ming said softly. Then, as if remembering something, he abruptly stood up and walked towards the desk not far away.

Lei Nora remained on the sofa, unmoving due to caution. In her eyes, the writhing starlight entity suddenly stretched in another direction, seemingly "moving" to a distance in a way that defied rational judgment, and then remained there.

She didn't understand what he was doing.

Zhou Ming pulled a piece of paper from the edge of the desk, picked up a pencil, and quickly sketched on the paper—he drew a lamp, a classical design, made of brass, trying to recreate the one hanging in the captain's cabin of the *Ghost Ship* in as much detail as possible.

After a while, he returned to Lei Nora with the drawing, showing her the picture on the paper. "Is it a lamp like this?"

The humanoid starlight entity opened its limbs, the countless eyes at the ends of the limbs focusing on one spot, projecting a phantom image in front of the eyeballs. It was a lamp.

Lei Nora tensed up instantly, because in most cases, what a high-dimensional being casually showed to mortals could instantly kill those reckless onlookers, even well-trained scholars—but soon, she realized she hadn't fallen into madness.

The focused eyeballs only revealed a gentle gaze, friendly and patiently awaiting her answer—it seemed she had fully "adapted" to these starlights.

"…Very similar," Lei Nora steadied herself, carefully examining the phantom image. "I don't remember the details, but it's at least seven or eight parts similar."

Hearing this answer, Zhou Ming breathed a sigh of relief, confirming his guess.

It was the lamp left by "him"—during that final voyage in 1800, Duncan Abernathy had reached this place and left a "marker" of light.

Thoughts churning in his mind, Zhou Ming remained silent for a long time, lost in thought, and many vague associations gradually emerged.

The lamp in the fog… from a symbolic perspective, its significance, apart from "illumination," was more often "guidance."

For ships lost in the fog, the light piercing through the mist represented the correct course—at least, the course towards safety and shelter.

His own cottage was located deep in the fog. This place might be the border, or a place even more remote than the border. Here, the path to the world of order was hidden in chaos…

That lamp had established a "link" here. Geographically, it pointed to the Boundless Sea, to the *Ghost Ship*. And chronologically… it pointed to the day the *Ghost Ship* returned to the real world, to the time when the Boundless Sea was about to meet its end.

Zhou Ming pondered, his eyes flickering slightly in contemplation.

After experiencing many things, he had vaguely grasped many "deep laws" of this world, and the most important of these was the astonishing role of "information" in the operation of all things.

And obviously, that "captain" who had reached the end of the world had also touched this realm—it seemed that during the *Ghost Ship's* final voyage, "he" had learned many truths.

Zhou Ming turned his head and quietly stared at the apartment door.

In his gaze, the door seemed to open, and the black fog swirled outside—on the other side of the fog was the *Ghost Ship*, the captain's cabin of the *Ghost Ship*, the wall next to the "Door of the Lost."

The place where the lamp hung.

So, it really was hanging at his door, always hanging there.

Zhou Ming blinked, and the imagined scene dissipated from his mind. The door was still properly closed, waiting for its master to open it and return.

Lei Nora maintained a cautious silence. She couldn't discern human expressions from that starlight, but she could feel that this being was engaged in very important thought—its thought stirred up layers of ripples in this chaos, and a low, blurry howling echoed incessantly from all directions. She recalled the training she had received since childhood, trying not to listen, not to think, not to understand the sounds echoing in her ears.

She had to prevent her mind from "melting" into the other party's thinking, to avoid becoming a fleeting thought of the other party.

Fortunately, this terrifying thought finally ended—the surrounding low howling gradually calmed down, and the starlight once again gazed at her gently.

"Sorry, I spaced out a bit," Zhou Ming said politely. "Now, let's talk about your other adventures. I'm very interested."

Lei Nora breathed a sigh of relief—compared to "listening" to the voice of this being, she found that "speaking" herself was indeed much easier.

"…After escaping from there, I couldn't control my 'drifting house' very well for a while, so I drifted along for a long time—in fact, I suspect I experienced a much longer time than you know, because I encountered many bizarre phenomena related to timelines…"

This time, Zhou Ming didn't interrupt the "Frost Queen's" account. He listened with great patience and interest, and Lei Nora recounted the many incredible things she had experienced after gaining her freedom.

Frankly, most of the experiences on those journeys had no reference value for the problems Zhou Ming was currently facing and solving. They were mostly bizarre landscapes, or the wonderful phenomena that could be seen in the spirit world—but for Lei Nora, they were all amazing journeys that she, as the ruler of the Frost City-States, could not have imagined or experienced.

The "Queen" had fulfilled her wish to become a traveler, witnessing countless landscapes on a long journey.

Then, Lei Nora finally mentioned the last "turbulence" she encountered, and the process of arriving in this dense fog.

"…I encountered the turbulence after leaving the subspace. At that time, I was carefully skimming over the upper layer of the Deep Sea of the Abyss, you know, the one with the 'dome' of stagnant stars," she said as she recalled. "Then suddenly a shock wave erupted from the Deep Sea of the Abyss, as if it was aimed specifically at me, and 'pushed' me out. After that, there was a long period of loss of control. I completely lost control of this 'drifting house,' and by the time I finally managed to stop, I was already here."

Zhou Ming was thoughtful.

"…Could it be the Holy Lord of the Abyss?" He frowned, muttering in thought. "But that's not right… There has to be a reason…"

"Holy Lord of the Abyss?" Lei Nora heard this murmur and opened her eyes in astonishment. "Do you mean that the Holy Lord of the Abyss created that shock wave and consciously sent me here?"

"…Just a rough guess," Zhou Ming shook his head. He knew there was no answer for the time being, so he didn't dwell on the question. "Let's not talk about that for now, let's talk about this… 'fog'. Do you know what this place is?"

Lei Nora fell silent upon hearing this. After half a minute, she nodded lightly with a complicated expression.

"At first, I wasn't sure, but after staying in this dense fog for a while, I began to see some… 'illusions,' and knowledge seemed to appear in my mind out of thin air," she said softly. "This is the end of the world. I saw here… the shadow of the end of all things."

"You should be glad you found this place under the guidance of that lamp and stopped outside my cottage," Zhou Ming said with a serious face. "Fortunately, you didn't continue to drift into the depths of this fog—otherwise, you probably would never have returned."

Even the extraordinarily bold "Frost Queen" couldn't help but feel a sense of lingering fear at this moment.

She realized that in the past period of time, she had been like riding in a dugout canoe that had lost power and was rushing towards the end of the rapids. In the instant before she was about to rush out of the rapids and fall into the abyss, she was fortunately stopped by the only "stone" in these rapids.

Although she was almost smashed to pieces by this "stone."

However, after being quiet for a few seconds, she showed a hesitant look on her face, and finally couldn't help but murmur, "Actually… I was a little too reckless…"

Zhou Ming was stunned for a moment when he heard this and didn't react for a while. "Huh?"

"…After arriving at your palace by following the 'light,' I tried to communicate with this large 'entity,' but you didn't respond at the time—instead, a shadow rushed out of your 'palace.' That shadow was an indescribable mass. It smashed into my 'drifting house,' causing it to lose control again for a while, and I rushed into the depths of the fog again, but fortunately, this time it wasn't too serious…"

Zhou Ming's expression suddenly became a little subtle.

(End of this chapter)