Chapter 1

Boundless, dense fog rolled outside the window, so thick that it seemed the entire world had vanished beyond it. Only the chaotic and unclear light of the sky penetrated the fog, illuminating the quiet room with a dim, half-light.

Inside the slightly messy bachelor apartment, Zhou Ming hunched over his desk, the clutter on its surface shoved aside with rough movements. Looking haggard, he wrote furiously:

"Day seven, the situation hasn't changed. Dense fog blankets everything outside the window, the window is sealed by an unknown force… the entire room seems to have been 'cast' whole into some kind of abnormal space…"

"Unable to contact the outside world, no water or electricity, but the lights stay on, and the computer can be turned on—even though I've unplugged its power cord…"

As if a faint gust of wind suddenly came from the direction of the window, Zhou Ming, who was buried in writing in his diary, suddenly raised his head. A faint light flickered in his haggard eyes, but the next second he realized it was just his imagination. Outside the window was still only the lingering, pale fog, a deathly silent world coldly enveloping his small dwelling.

His gaze swept across the windowsill, taking in the carelessly discarded wrench and hammer—the marks of his attempts to leave the room over the past few days. But now these hard, clumsy tools lay there quietly, as if mocking his predicament.

After a few seconds, Zhou Ming's expression returned to calm—with an abnormal calmness, he lowered his head again, returning to his writing:

"I'm trapped, a completely clueless predicament. In the past few days, I've even tried to tear down the roof, walls, and floor, but I couldn't leave a single mark on the walls even with all my strength. This room has become like… like a box 'cast' together with space, with no way out…"

"Except for that door."

"But the situation outside that door… is even stranger."

Zhou Ming stopped again, slowly scrutinizing the words he had just written. He flipped through the diary somewhat absentmindedly, looking at what he had written in the past few days—repressed words, meaningless rambling, frustrated scribbles, and the cold jokes he wrote when trying to force himself to relax.

He didn't know what meaning there was in writing these things, didn't know who would ever see these rambling words. In fact, he wasn't even someone who was in the habit of keeping a diary—as a middle school teacher with very limited free time, he didn't have much energy to spend on it.

But now, whether he wanted to or not, he had plenty of free time.

After waking up from a sleep, he was trapped in his room.

Outside the window was a fog that would not dissipate, so thick that he couldn't see anything other than fog. The entire world seemed to have lost the alternation of day and night, with a constant, dim light filling the room twenty-four hours a day. The windows were locked, the water and electricity were cut off, his phone had no signal, and no matter how much noise he made in the room, he couldn't attract any outside help.

It was like an absurd nightmare, where everything in the dream was operating against the laws of nature, but Zhou Ming had exhausted every means to confirm one thing: there were no illusions here, nor was there a dream. There was only a world that was no longer normal, and a self that was still relatively normal for the time being.

He took a deep breath, his gaze finally falling on the only door at the end of the room.

An ordinary, cheap white wooden door, with a calendar nailed to it that he had forgotten to change since last year and had left there until today. The doorknob was polished bright, and the doormat was placed a little crookedly.

That door could be opened.

If this sealed, alienated room was like a prison, then the most vicious thing about this prison was that it actually retained a door that could be pushed open at any time, constantly luring the prisoner inside to push the door open and leave—but what was on the other side of that door was not the "outside" that Zhou Ming wanted.

There was no old but familiar hallway, no sunny streets and vibrant crowds, none of what he was familiar with.

There was only a strange and unsettling foreign land, and "over there" was also an inescapable predicament.

But Zhou Ming knew that he didn't have much time left to hesitate, and the so-called "choice" never existed from the beginning.

His food reserves were limited, and the few buckets of mineral water only had a quarter left. He had already tried all means of escape and rescue in this sealed room. Now there was only one path in front of him, which was to prepare himself and seek a glimmer of hope on the other side of the "door."

Perhaps there would still be a chance to investigate the cause of this bizarre and awkward supernatural situation.

Zhou Ming took a light breath and left the last few paragraphs in his diary: "...But in any case, now the only choice left is to go to the other side of the door. At least on that weird ship, I can still find something to eat, and my past few days of exploration and preparation over there should be enough for me to survive on that ship… although the preparations I can make over there are actually very limited."

"Finally, to those who come later, if I don't come back, and if some future rescue personnel or something open this room one day and see this diary, please don't treat everything I've written as an absurd story—it really happened. Although it's chilling, there really was a person named Zhou Ming who was trapped in a crazy and bizarre space-time anomaly."

"I have done my best to describe in this diary the various abnormal phenomena I have seen, and I have also recorded all the efforts I have made to escape. If there really is any 'later person,' please at least remember my name, at least remember that all of this once happened."

Zhou Ming closed the diary, threw the pen into the pen holder next to him, and slowly stood up from behind the desk.

It was time to leave, before he completely fell into passivity and despair.

But after a brief thought, he didn't go directly to the only door that could lead to the "outside world," but went straight to his bed.

He had to face the "foreign land" on the other side of the door in perfect condition—and his current state, especially his mental state, was not good enough.

Zhou Ming didn't know if he could fall asleep, but even if he forced himself to lie in bed and empty his mind, it would be better than going to the "other side" in a state of being too mentally exhausted.

Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes.

Outside the window was still a chaotic fog, the dim light of day and night carrying a depressing gloom.

Zhou Ming directly ignored the situation outside the window. He took out food from his meager reserves, ate until he was eighty percent full, and then came to the dressing mirror in the corner of the room.

The man in the mirror was still disheveled and looked quite embarrassed, and he didn't have any temperament to speak of, but Zhou Ming still stared intently at himself in the mirror, as if to permanently imprint this appearance in his mind.

He stared at the mirror like this for several minutes, and then whispered to himself, as if he was saying it to the person in the mirror: "Your name is Zhou Ming, at least 'over here,' your name is Zhou Ming, remember that at all times."

After that, he turned and left.

Coming to the familiar door, Zhou Ming took a deep breath and placed his hand on the handle.

Apart from the clothes on his body, he didn't carry anything extra, neither food nor equipment for self-defense. This was the experience left over from the previous few "explorations"—he couldn't bring anything across this door except himself.

In fact, he even felt that even this "self" had to be questioned, because…

Zhou Ming turned the handle and pushed open the door. A mass of swelling and wriggling gray-black mist appeared before his eyes like a curtain. In the swelling and erratic mist, he seemed to already hear the sound of waves entering his ears.

Stepping across the layer of mist, a slightly fishy and salty sea breeze came towards him. The illusory sound of the waves in his ears became real, and a slight shaking feeling came from under his feet. After a brief dizziness, Zhou Ming opened his eyes, and what came into view was a wide and empty wooden deck, towering masts standing under dark clouds, and a slightly undulating sea surface that could not be seen at the edge of the ship's side.

Zhou Ming lowered his head and saw a body that was stronger than he remembered, a captain's uniform that looked exquisitely crafted and expensive but of a completely unfamiliar style, a pair of large, knobby hands, and a classical and exquisite black flintlock pistol being held in his hand.

Yes, even the "self" had to be questioned.

(Holy crap! I'm back!)