Good Morning, Mr. Duncan

Duncan put the book back and checked the rest of the furnishings in the room. He didn't find anything valuable. The small bedroom was sparsely furnished and seemed to be rarely used. The most valuable clues were the book itself and two old notebooks found in the desk drawer.

The notebooks were filled with content related to steam engines and engineering principles, occasionally interspersed with complaints about certain teachers or classmates.

This made it easy to draw a conclusion: the resident was a young person still of school age.

Duncan slowly pieced together the fragments of memory in his mind. After restoring everything in the room to its original state, he returned to the master bedroom.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pondered for a while, then got up and walked to the adjacent wardrobe. Almost by muscle memory, he pulled open the cabinet door and opened one of the drawers.

Several bottles of strong liquor were hidden deep within the drawer, along with half a box of painkillers for alleviating pain and soothing nerves. These were the belongings left behind by a cultist named Roen.

He suffered from a serious illness that had progressed to an incurable state. The low-quality liquor and temporary painkillers were kept in the drawer, but these items clearly did nothing to extend the life of someone plagued by illness.

So, this man who had lost hope in life turned to the Sun Cult. The missionaries told him that the healing power of the Sun God could cure all worldly ailments and purify the body and mind of those who converted. To a certain extent, those cultists did fulfill their promise:

They had bloody and bizarre rituals that used blood as a medium to transfer the vitality of innocent people into the bodies of sick believers. Duncan didn't know the principle behind the ritual or if it could truly cure incurable diseases. He only knew from the residual content in his memory fragments that the cultist named Roen had indeed seen his condition improve after the ritual, and subsequently became a devoted follower of the Sun, even donating more than half of his family fortune to the "Emissary."

However, Duncan wasn't concerned with whatever happened between those dead cultists.

He reached deeper into the drawer, successfully finding a hidden compartment. After fiddling with it for a moment, he found a revolver and a box of well-maintained bullets.

The Pland City-State did not prohibit citizens from owning firearms, provided they had legal permits. A fake antique dealer living in the lower city clearly lacked the funds and identity to obtain a gun license, so this was undoubtedly an illegally possessed weapon. Out of caution, the original owner of this body had left the gun in the room instead of taking it to the gathering. He probably used it to protect his shop, but now it belonged to the Captain.

Duncan knew that this was just an ordinary weapon. It was nothing compared to the "anomalous objects" on the Lost Homeland, and even his seemingly outdated flintlock pistol on the ship might possess special power surpassing this revolver. But he was a pragmatic person. He knew that his actions in the Pland City-State were different from being on the ship. The body he was currently using was made of flesh and blood, and many places in this city were far from safe.

After all, he couldn't just have pigeons deliver people for every situation. Ai Yi's movements were too conspicuous and could easily attract unnecessary attention from the Church's forces in the city.

Just then, a faint sound suddenly caught Duncan's attention.

He heard the friction of keys from the direction of the shop entrance on the first floor, followed by the sound of a door opening and hurried footsteps.

Duncan quickly tucked the revolver inside his coat and only then noticed that it was already daylight outside. He had been busy in the antique shop all night. The pigeon Ai Yi suddenly chirped on his shoulder, "You have a new short message!"

"Quiet," Duncan immediately glanced at the pigeon, speaking quickly as he walked towards the door. "You stay in the room and wait for my orders. Also, don't speak if there are outsiders present."

Ai Yi immediately flapped its wings and flew towards a nearby cabinet. "Aye captain!"

Duncan quickly left the room. Just as he reached the top of the stairs, he heard the hurried footsteps ascending the steps. Immediately after, a young and hurried girl's voice came from below: "Uncle Duncan? Is that you back?"

The next second, a girl with long, dark brown hair, wearing a brown dress and a white shirt, entered Duncan's line of sight.

The girl appeared to be only seventeen or eighteen years old, small and slender. Her hair seemed to have a bit of morning dew on it. Her appearance wasn't particularly striking, just possessing the youthful beauty typical of her age. She stared wide-eyed at Duncan, who stood at the top of the second-floor stairs, her face filled with surprise and delight.

Duncan did not respond. He simply stood silently on the second floor, his figure silhouetted against the sunlight filtering through a narrow window behind the stairs, his expression hidden in the haze. He watched the girl silently for a few seconds before finally speaking slowly, "What did you just call me?"

"Uncle... Duncan?" The girl's face showed a moment of surprise, then she became slightly nervous. She held onto the nearby stair railing, cautiously peering up, as if trying to see the middle-aged man's expression in the backlight. "Is something wrong? Did... did you drink again? You haven't been home for days... I just saw the light on downstairs..."

The girl's expression and voice registered in Duncan's eyes and ears. She clearly didn't understand (or hadn't even considered) hiding her emotional reactions.

Based on the memories he had absorbed, this girl should be the "niece" of his body's original owner, and his only relative.

Duncan vaguely confirmed that this girl didn't think there was anything wrong with what she said, not realizing that the "Uncle Duncan" she mentioned was a misnomer from the very beginning.

Where did things go wrong? Why would this girl, who theoretically shouldn't have known his secret, so naturally utter the name "Duncan"?

A flurry of conjectures surged in his mind. At the same time, Duncan found a sliver of information in his memory fragments corresponding to this girl – the child with dark brown hair, the last lingering figure of his body's original owner in the human world.

"Nina," Duncan's expression remained unchanged, his tone calm, his mental storm completely hidden. "Did you stay at school yesterday?"

"I've been staying at school these days," the girl from downstairs answered immediately. "I thought you'd be away for at least a week like usual, so after tidying up the house, I went to stay with a classmate... Mrs. White, who manages the dormitory, agreed. I only rushed back today because I realized I left a book at home... Are you alright? You seem... strange..."

"I'm fine, just a little sleepy."

Duncan responded naturally, then walked towards the first floor. An extremely outlandish guess had begun to form in his mind, and he needed to confirm it now.

He passed Nina. The young girl on the stairs turned her body sideways, looking curiously at Duncan's eyes. Just as he was about to reach the first floor, she suddenly asked, "Uncle Duncan, are you going out again? Are you... staying home for a few more days?"

"...We'll see," Duncan didn't look back, as he wasn't sure if his expression was natural enough. He was just answering his "niece's" question in the tone expected from memory. "I'll just check the door. If nothing's up, I'll be home these days."

"Ah, okay. Then I'll go buy groceries later. We're running low on ingredients..."

The girl said quickly, then scampered upstairs with quick, light footsteps and a cheerful tone.

Duncan had already reached the shop entrance. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

He turned around and looked up at the sign hanging at the shop entrance. On the old, dirty sign, a line of letters was clearly visible: Duncan's Antiques.

The first few letters were as old as the subsequent ones, showing no signs of temporary modification, as if it had always been this way.

Duncan frowned and slowly walked to the adjacent display window. He leaned forward, observing his face in the reflection of the dirty glass.

It was indeed an unfamiliar face, not belonging to the majestic and gloomy Ghost Captain, but to a bearded, hollow-eyed, tired-looking middle-aged man – the cultist named Roen who had suffocated in the sewer.

Duncan straightened up slowly. He heard the city gradually coming alive around him. The crisp sound of bells colliding came from the doorways of street-front shops opening for the morning. The sounds of bicycle bells and people talking gradually filled the street. Someone passed by the antique shop; it seemed to be a neighbor from next door. A greeting reached Duncan's ears:

"Good morning, Mr. Duncan! Did you see today's newspaper? The Deep Sea Church seems to have busted a large cultist den. This is quite a big deal!"