Ashes Of Deep Sea - Chapter 32

Chapter 32 Breakfast on the Lost Home

The night passed, and the white scar that covered the entire sky gradually dissipated. Duncan stood on the helm deck, looking up at the sky. He did not miss any detail during this transition period between night and day.

He saw the scar slowly become transparent and ethereal, as though the world was waking up from a dreamscape. The gray-white light mist emanating from it first merged with the sky, and then the scar itself did so as well. Throughout the entire process, this scar’s position did not shift.

Duncan blinked. New speculation loomed in his mind. Since the scar in the sky did not change position, did that mean it was not a distant astronomical body? Was it just a mark on the background of the atmosphere, an illusion that would move at the same speed as the boundless sea?

Or was the planet where the boundless sea was on, if it genuinely was a planet, coincidentally moving at the same pace as the scar? Or was the scar actually moving, but due to his observation time being too short, his naked eye could not detect its movement?

Various speculations emerged in his mind. However, Duncan knew clearly that before he had ample evidence and reliable experimental data, these speculations would remain mere hypotheses. There were countless possible ways to explain natural phenomena, but everything was moot without theory and evidence to back them up.

The sun rose.

A golden halo appeared on the horizon. Then, a gigantic body of light suddenly surfaced from the ocean, followed by radiant multi-colored light. A ball of light sealed by two layers of runes appeared in Duncan’s vision.

The rune constructs slowly churned. The sun rose solemnly. This impressive process seemed to emit some sound. A low, powerful, slow imaginary hum reverberated in Duncan’s mind. However, it suddenly disappeared when he tried to focus and hear the sound.

He frowned and doubted whether he had been hallucinating. However, the memory of the sound was so vivid that he could not deny that he had heard it for real.

Was that the sun’s announcement to the world as it rose? Or was it one of the many illusions of the boundless sea?

No one could answer Duncan’s query. The boundless sea kept all of its secrets as usual. The pigeon Ai perched comfortably on Duncan’s shoulder. It then suddenly stood up and flapped its wings vigorously. It looked at the sea’s surface and chirped loudly, “Give me some fries! Fries!”

Duncan could not help but laugh. He glanced at this strange pigeon. He suddenly felt that it was not bad to have this bird around. The weird words that this pigeon occasionally uttered always made him feel a sense of nostalgia for his own world.

“Unfortunately, there are no fries on the ship,” Duncan replied as he played with the pigeon’s beak. He then turned and headed towards the captain’s quarters. He added, “However, you are right. I should make something to eat.”

After a short while, the captain of the Lost Home prepared a traditional ghost ship breakfast for himself. Duncan used the nautical table in the captain’s quarters as a meal table. He placed a few plates next to the nautical chart on the empty parts of the table. Today’s breakfast, yesterday’s dinner, lunch, and every other meal were the same. His meals consisted of jerky, cheese, and water.

Duncan sat before the nautical table. He thoughtfully and habitually put on a napkin. The goat head silently sat opposite of him. To Duncan’s left was the cursed doll Alice who had come to greet him bright and early. The strange pigeon sat to his right on the table.

Duncan suddenly felt that this scene was beginning to match his setting as a ghost captain. There was a wooden goat head that represented demons, a cursed doll he could not get rid of, a talking bird who was well-versed in the knowledge of this alternate world, and a ghost captain at the head of the table. If a picture of this scene was taken, it could serve as the poster of a movie without any editing

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However, only the people present here knew about the current state of rations on the Lost Home.

Duncan sighed as he looked down at the food on his plate. The movie poster scene ended, and he returned to the reality of having simple meals on the Lost Home.

He took a bread knife and carved out the cheese with force. The sound of hard objects rubbing against each other could be heard. He then used his fork to stab at the jerky to the side. The jerky and the plate collided, emitting loud clanging.

Alice watched this scene curiously. In the end, she could not help but ask, “Captain, are today’s meals the same as yesterday’s?”

“They will be the same tomorrow as well,” replied Duncan as he looked up at the cursed doll. “Do you want to give it a try?”

Alice thought for a moment. Then, she picked up a piece of jerky. She threw it into her mouth and chewed twice vigorously. She then spat it out and exclaimed, “This doesn’t taste good at all.”

“Even if it were tasty, you wouldn’t be able to eat it. Do you have a stomach?” asked Duncan as he extended his hand and took the remaining half of the jerky from Alice’s hands. “You actually tried it when I asked you to.”

He looked at the food on his plate worriedly as he said this.

This was the only food he could find on the ship. The jerky tasted like thick salted pieces of cardboard. The cheese was like loose sandy firewood. No matter how he tried to process it, it still had a strange smell. He also tried to boil the jerky in water, bake it and fry it. However, no matter how much effort he put into it, the food’s texture and the flavor did not improve.

At the very least, the food did not spoil and would not poison him to death. The bad news was the passing of time had resulted in these unspoiled foods being in a state unsuitable for consumption. Duncan had reason to believe that the cheese was several generations older than he was. It would have been at least a century old if the jerky was still alive.

The captain of the Lost Home might not need to worry about scurvy. However, Duncan was still yearning for a healthy diet. At the very least, he hoped that the food on his plate could at least be younger than he was.

He would accept it if they were the same age.

The Lost Home supply procurement and land exploration plan he had been pondering yesterday surfaced in his mind again.

However, these plans would not come to fruition overnight.

Duncan sighed and continued to cut away at the “wood” on his plate with a vengeance. Ai, who had been watching beside him all this while on the table, walked over curiously. The bird glanced at its master and then at the food on the plate. It asked, “Are our mineral ore reserves insufficient?”.

Duncan looked at the pigeon. He then pinched some cheese crumbs that had fallen on his plate and threw them at the pigeon. Ai bent down and pecked at the crumbs twice. Immediately, it froze and stood still as if it was suddenly dead.

The bird was stiff for a good three to four seconds before it suddenly came back to life. It flapped its wings and flew up to a rack to the side. With an exasperated voice, it said, “Even if I die of starvation today, I will not eat this. I would rather jump overboard than eat this.”

Duncan felt hurt. As for the goat head opposite him, who had remained silent all this while, with much difficulty, it finally began to emit the creaking sound of rubbing wood as it stifled a chuckle.

Before it started a fire with its rubbing, Duncan nodded his head and said, “If you have something to say, say it.”

“Yes, Captain,” responded the goat head. It finally had the opportunity to speak. It immediately said, “Since yesterday, I have been meaning to ask about the guest you brought…Ai, if I recall correctly…why is it that I can’t seem to understand what it is saying? I pondered all night the meaning of topping up Q coins.”

Duncan raised an eyebrow. He never imagined that the goat head managed to hold it in until now. He had underestimated its self-control!

“Don’t pay it any heed. This bird’s thoughts are bizarre,” said Duncan, not stopping with his woodwork. He used the knife and fork in his hands to chop away at his cheese as he recited the response he had thought of, “It seems to use a language that only it can understand to communicate. Once familiar with its speech, you can roughly guess what it is trying to say.”

“Is that so?” said the goat head pensively. “I feel there is some form of hidden logic to its words. It is as though there is a complete, self-consistent set of knowledge hidden behind its words. Did you discover Ai while walking in the Spirit World? If so, could it be a projection from the Deep End of the World? As you are aware, the deeper you venture into the Spirit World, the more likely for projections from different dimensions to surface. Among them, there is no shortage of lost eras that we know nothing of. There are even fragments of the future. Could Ai be something from another dimension?”

Duncan paused his cutting momentarily for a split second, at speed invisible to the naked eye. He then continued as usual. In a calm voice, he said, “Then I hope you will one day figure out the logic behind Ai’s language.”

The goat head might have just been randomly running its mouth and guessing, but the information it disclosed stirred Duncan up involuntarily.

When he was traversing the Spirit World, had his soul approached the deeper end of the world? The deeper he ventured, the more likely he would encounter projections of different dimensions? Scenes from different timelines might even emerge in these projections?

While Duncan was in the Spirit World, he had not seen any of this. However, the goat head was right about one thing: Ai was indeed from another dimension.

Then, was this pigeon brought to this world by an Earthling called Zhou Ming? Or was it truly as the goat head speculated and it was from the deeper end of this world?