Breakfast on the Lost Homeland

The night receded, and the pale scar that had dominated the sky gradually dissipated. Duncan stood on the stern deck, gazing up at the sky, not missing a single detail of this moment of transition between day and night.

He watched as the scar became transparent and illusory, like a slowly awakening dream. The gray-white mist that emanated from its surroundings first merged with the sky, followed by the scar itself—and throughout this entire process, the "scar's" position never changed.

Duncan blinked, a further speculation faintly rising in his mind: the fact that the mark in the sky hadn't changed its position, did that mean it wasn't some distant astronomical structure? Did it mean it was merely a phantom "imprinted" on the atmospheric background, moving in sync with the Boundless Sea?

Or was it because the planet where the Boundless Sea was located (if this truly was a planet) and the scar maintained perfect synchronization? Or perhaps the scar was actually moving, but the observation time was too short to be detected by the naked eye?

Various conjectures arose and subsided in his mind, but Duncan knew very well that until there was sufficient evidence and reliable experimental verification, these were just speculations. There could be thousands of explanations for a natural phenomenon, but without theoretical and evidential support, it was all empty talk.

The "sun" began to rise.

First, a golden radiance emerged at the horizon where the sky met the sea. Then, a massive luminous structure abruptly surfaced from the water, accompanied by brilliant and dazzling sunlight. The spherical body of light, locked by a dual rune structure, appeared in Duncan's vision.

As the rune structure slowly operated, the sun ascended majestically. This solemn process seemed to possess a certain sound—a low, powerful, and slow rumble that echoed illusorily in Duncan's mind, but when he truly focused to listen, the sound suddenly vanished.

He frowned, doubting if he had just hallucinated, but the memory brought by the sound was so vivid that he couldn't deny it.

Was that... a declaration from the sun to this world as it rose? Or was it just one of the many illusions brought by the Boundless Sea?

No one could answer Duncan's doubts. The vast and boundless Boundless Sea, as always, kept all its secrets.

The pigeon Ai Yi, as usual, was comfortably perched on Duncan's shoulder. Then, it suddenly stood up, flapped its wings vigorously, and looking out at the sea, squawked loudly, "Fries! Get some fries!"

Duncan couldn't help but laugh. He glanced at the peculiar pigeon and suddenly felt that having this bird around wasn't so bad—its occasional strange remarks always gave him a sense of "hometown familiarity."

"Too bad there are no fries on the ship," he casually nudged the pigeon's beak and turned towards the captain's cabin. "But you're right about one thing, we need to get something to eat."

A moment later, the captain of the Lost Homeland prepared his traditional Ghost Ship special breakfast. In the captain's cabin, Duncan directly used the navigation table as a dining table, placing several plates on the empty surface next to the sea chart. Today's breakfast, like yesterday's dinner, yesterday's lunch, and every meal before that, consisted of dried meat, cheese, and plain water.

Duncan sat at the navigation table and meticulously and ceremoniously laid out his napkin. Goat Head quietly sat opposite him. To his left was the cursed doll Alice, who had come to greet him early in the morning. The peculiar pigeon was perched on the tabletop to his right.

Duncan suddenly felt that this scene was starting to fit his persona as the "Ghost Captain"—a goat wood carving representing a demon, an inseparable cursed doll, a talking bird that possessed knowledge of the other world, and the Ghost Captain sitting in the main seat. This picture, if taken, wouldn't need any editing to be a movie poster...

But only those involved knew the reality of the food situation on the Lost Homeland.

Duncan sighed and looked down at the food on his plate. The movie poster-like opening scene was over; now came the mundane reality of daily life on the Lost Homeland.

He picked up his knife and forcefully cut into the cheese, producing a squeaking sound as the hard object rubbed against itself. He then poked the dried meat next to it with a fork, and the dried meat clinked against the plate, making a crisp dinging sound.

Alice watched this scene with curiosity and finally couldn't help but ask, "Captain, the food today is the same as yesterday?"

"It will be the same tomorrow too," Duncan looked up at the cursed doll. "Do you want to try?"

Alice thought for a moment, then directly picked up a strip of dried meat with her hand, put it in her mouth, and chewed vigorously. Immediately, she spat it out, saying, "It's not tasty at all!"

"Even if it were tasty, you couldn't eat it—do you have a stomach?" Duncan reached out and took the half-strip of dried meat Alice had left. "You actually tried it when I told you to."

As he spoke, he looked at the food on his plate again with a hint of worry.

This was all the food they could find on the ship. The dried meat tasted like thick cardboard with salt added, and the cheese was like loose, sandy firewood. No matter how he prepared it, it had a strange smell. He had tried boiling the dried meat, roasting it, or pan-frying it, but despite his efforts, he couldn't improve the texture or taste of these items.

The good news was that at least these foods hadn't spoiled and wouldn't poison anyone. The bad news was that the power of time had transformed these uncorrupted substances into a state that was extremely unpalatable—Duncan had every reason to believe that this cheese was several rounds older than himself, and if those dried meats were still alive, they had at least witnessed a century of wind and rain.

The captain of the Lost Homeland might not have to worry about scurvy, but Duncan still yearned for a healthy diet—at the very least, he hoped the food on his plate was younger than himself.

The same age would be fine too.

The "Lost Homeland Supply Plan" and "Land Exploration Plan" he had considered yesterday resurfaced in his mind.

But none of these could be realized in a short time.

Duncan sighed and continued to cut the "firewood" on his plate with a vengeful air. Ai Yi, who had been tilting its head and watching from the adjacent table for a long time, curiously walked over. The bird first glanced at its owner, then at the food on the plate: "Insufficient crystal ore reserves?"

Duncan glanced at the pigeon, casually pinched some fallen cheese crumbs, and threw them to it. Ai Yi lowered its head and pecked twice. Immediately, it froze as if it had crashed, standing still.

The bird remained stiff for a full three to four seconds before suddenly coming to life. It flapped its wings and flew to a nearby shelf, squawking furiously, "I'd rather starve to death today, die out here, and jump off from here, than eat..."

Duncan felt a little hurt. Goat Head, which had been quiet for a long time on the opposite side of the table, finally couldn't help but emit creaking sounds of wood rubbing.

Before this thing could start a fire, Duncan finally nodded. "If you have something to say, say it."

"Yes, Captain," Goat Head, finally having a chance to speak, immediately became garrulous. "I've been wanting to ask since yesterday, this person you brought... is it called 'Ai Yi'? Why can I never understand what it says? I thought about it all night yesterday, what does 'topping up QQ coins' mean?"

Duncan's eyebrows immediately shot up—he truly hadn't expected Goat Head to hold back until this moment. He had underestimated this guy's self-control!

"You don't need to worry about it, this bird's thinking is very peculiar," Duncan didn't stop his woodworking, making sounds like chiseling and sawing with his cutlery as he casually offered the excuse he had already prepared. "It seems to communicate using a language that only it understands. If you listen enough, you can roughly guess what it means."

"Is that so?" Goat Head pondered to itself. "But I always feel like there's some logic hidden in its words... as if there's a complete, self-consistent knowledge hidden behind that language... Did you discover Ai Yi during your Spirit World Walk? Could it be some kind of projection from the deeper realms? You know, the deeper you go, the more projections of information from displaced timelines appear. Among them are fragments from lost eras we haven't understood, or even some fragments from the future. Perhaps Ai Yi is talking about something from another time and space?"

The cutting work in Duncan's hands paused for an imperceptible moment, then everything returned to normal. He calmly said, "Then I wish you success in deciphering the logic behind Ai Yi's language soon."

Goat Head's words might have been casual speculation, but the information revealed inevitably stirred waves within Duncan's heart!

During his Spirit World Walk, had his soul approached the "deeper layers" of this world? The deeper it went, the more projections from displaced timelines he would see? Could those projections even show scenes from different timelines?

Duncan hadn't seen any "scenery from different timelines" during his Spirit World Walk, but Goat Head was right about one thing—Ai Yi did indeed come from another time and space.

So... was this pigeon brought to this world by the Earthling named "Zhou Ming," or did it truly come from the deeper layers of this world, as Goat Head suggested?