Chapter 1真的假的？！

Honestly, Duncan suddenly realized that when the pigeon on his shoulder started talking, even if he had nerves thicker than a support beam, it would be difficult for him to maintain a composed gait.

At that moment, he wished more than anything that he could be like a normal pirate captain with a parrot on his shoulder—or at the very least, a monkey.

But he had already pushed open the door to the chartroom, and it was impossible to turn back now.

Inside the room where the chart table was, Goat Head was happily rambling about the twelfth legend of sea fish stew. The sound of the captain's cabin door opening finally interrupted the noisy fellow. His dark wooden head immediately turned towards Duncan, his tone lifting with obvious delight, "Ah, Captain! You've finally come out—I must tell you, Miss Alice is a truly excellent conversationalist. I haven't enjoyed chatting with someone so much in years, you know..."

Duncan directly ignored Goat Head's loud babbling and instead looked at the victim across the chart table. He saw the headless doll sitting upright in the chair, holding her head in her hands while desperately pressing her ears.

Even so, Alice's eyes were still as unfocused as if she had just finished twelve straight lectures of advanced mathematics. She didn't even react when Duncan walked up to her.

Duncan: "..."

"She pulled her head off herself," Goat Head explained before Duncan could speak. "Although I don't know why she did that..."

How incredibly powerful was Goat Head's incessant chatter that it could force a cursed doll to pull off her own head to combat the sonic assault?!

While Duncan was shocked, the hyped-up Goat Head finally noticed the unfamiliar creature that the captain had brought out. His wooden head turned slightly, and his dark eyes suddenly stared at the pigeon on Duncan's shoulder. "Hmm? Captain, what's that on your shoulder..."

"It's called Ai Yi, and it's my pet from now on," Duncan said concisely, using as few sentences as possible to avoid potential loopholes while observing Goat Head's reaction to his words.

"Your pet?" Goat Head was visibly stunned for a moment, then seemed to fill in the blanks with his own assumptions. "Ah, the *Lost Ship* did sense you temporarily leaving the ship... Were you spirit-walking? Is this a trophy you brought back from spirit-walking?"

Spirit-walking?

A term he had never heard before suddenly popped up. Duncan thought of the brass compass in the captain's cabin, the words left behind by the real Captain Duncan, and the strange experience of his soul traversing to a distant place. He vaguely matched the pieces together, feeling that he was probably on the right track, and then nodded with a nonchalant expression, "Just stretching my legs."

As Duncan finished speaking, Goat Head predictably began to flatter him. "Ah! As expected of the great Captain Duncan. Even a simple spirit-walk can bring back a trophy—is that a pigeon? To become your pet, it must have extraordinary qualities? You even hung your compass on it? Is this... Ah, of course, your judgment is always correct, but what is so special about this pigeon? Could it..."

From Goat Head's flattery, Duncan sensed something subtle. He realized that Goat Head obviously recognized the brass compass hanging around Ai Yi's neck, and that this compass was clearly very important to the real Captain Duncan—so important that it shouldn't be casually placed on a newly appeared "pet."

But even if he noticed the impropriety, he was helpless, because the compass was now "bound" to the pigeon. In fact... according to the feedback from controlling the spirit fire, the pigeon seemed to be the compass's real body at this moment!

Duncan's mind raced, but he maintained a calm expression on his face. During this brief moment of distraction, Ai Yi, who had been obediently perched on his shoulder, suddenly let out a loud cooing sound, then flapped his wings and flew in front of Goat Head.

Goat Head's dark eyes instantly focused on the pigeon, who cocked his head with an air of importance and pecked Goat Head's face with his beak. "Recharge your QQ coins?"

Duncan: "..."

"An anomaly with intelligence?!" Goat Head was also clearly stunned, but he quickly recovered and said in an extremely surprised tone, "This pigeon can actually talk?!"

Duncan immediately offered a subtle reminder, "You can talk too."

The pigeon Ai Yi also took two steps on the table, muttering to himself as he walked, "Is it appropriate, is it appropriate, is it appropriate..."

Seeing this, Duncan rubbed his fingertips, and with a sudden flicker of green flames, the pigeon pacing on the table disappeared into thin air in the blink of an eye and returned to his shoulder in the next instant.

"Yes, an anomaly with intelligence, and directly controlled by me," Duncan nodded to Goat Head. "Any other questions?"

Goat Head quickly replied, "Ah... of course not, of course not, that's perfectly fine—everything is under the control of the great Captain Duncan."

Duncan ignored Goat Head and quickly ended the topic, focusing his attention on Alice, who was still holding her head in a daze—perhaps his broad-minded experience had further strengthened the resilience of his nerves, or perhaps he had gotten used to it after seeing it a few times. Looking at Alice holding her head in a daze, he didn't find it too bizarre, but instead felt that this guy was a bit... cute.

He reached out and patted the doll girl's shoulder, "Wake up, wake up."

Alice's body jolted instantly, as if waking up from a long nightmare. Then the head in her hands opened and closed its mouth, making a sound, "Ship... ship... ship..."

Duncan: "Put your head back on first."

Alice finally reacted and hurriedly put her head back in place, her voice finally returning to fluency after a click of the joints, "Ah, Captain, you're back? It seems like something happened... Has Mr. Goat Head finished speaking?"

Goat Head on the table immediately opened his mouth, "No, we just talked about some legends about sea fish stew, this topic can be..."

Duncan succinctly: "Shut up."

"Oh."

Alice, who was next to him, visibly trembled the moment Goat Head spoke, a dignified cursed doll showing a terrified expression. Even though Goat Head obediently shut his mouth at the captain's command in the next second, she still looked at the chart table with lingering fear.

Duncan suspected that for a considerable period of time in the future, this doll girl would not step into the captain's cabin.

Thinking of this, he finally asked curiously, "You came to me, what's the matter?"

"I..." Alice's expression was a bit dazed, as if her initial goal of visiting the captain's cabin had been forgotten in the conversation with Goat Head. But after a few seconds, she still reacted, "Oh right, I just wanted to ask, is there a place to take a bath on the ship? My wooden box got seawater in it before, and now my joints feel a little... uncomfortable."

At the end, the doll girl's expression was obviously a bit awkward, but in fact, Duncan should be more embarrassed than her—after all, her box had been thrown overboard by Duncan before.

And it had been thrown several times.

A flash of embarrassment passed through his mind. Duncan tried his best to maintain the unchanged expression on his face, his tone calm: "Just for this?"

Alice sat stiffly in the chair: "Just... just for this."

"For many ocean-going ships, fresh water is an extremely precious resource, and bathing is a luxury and needs to be restrained," Duncan said seriously at first, but then suddenly revealed a smile, "But you are lucky, the *Lost Ship* is not an ordinary ship, fresh water is not a problem here. Come with me, there is a place to take a bath in the cabin below the mid-deck. To get there, you must first cross the upper deck."

Alice immediately stood up—she really didn't want to stay in this place with Goat Head for even a second.

Before leaving the room, Duncan looked back at Goat Head, "You continue to steer."

After giving the instructions, he got up, pushed open the door of the captain's cabin, and took Alice to the deck.

Night had already fallen.

The night sky over the boundless sea was clear.

This was the first time after many consecutive days of overcast clouds that Duncan had stood under the clear night sky of this world.

He suddenly stopped, raised his head, and stared motionlessly at the night sky.

The night sky was dark and starless, with no celestial bodies present.

The only thing that could be seen was a faint, gray-white "crack" that seemed to tear through the entire sky. The crack stretched across the horizon, its edges extending dense cracks like flesh blooming, and a dim, gray-white halo slowly emanated from the crack, like bloodstains spreading in a pool of deep water.

This "pale scar" across the sky illuminated the entire boundless sea, more than twice as bright as the moonlight in Duncan's memory.