From Another World

Li Wei found the room arranged for him by the volunteers and discovered it was still empty. His eyes fell upon two bunk beds, each equipped with pillows and bedding.

He walked to the lower bunk of the first bed on the left, spread out the bedding, and lay down, rubbing his temples to rest.

He did not know how much time had passed, but Li Wei, drifting in a hazy sleep, heard a ding-dong sound. Before he even opened his eyes, his pulse perception was already released.

There were already three more people in the room, and the ding-dong sound was coming from the broadcast speaker installed in every room.

He opened his eyes and sat up from the single bed. The other three roommates sitting on the lower bunks on the right noticed Li Wei waking up and raised their hands in greeting.

One was a white man and two were from China. The three had already been in the room for over an hour and had already introduced themselves, so their interaction was quite smooth.

Although the three greeted him, Li Wei had no intention of forming deep connections with them, so he just gave a casual, perfunctory response.

The broadcast speaker chimed again, and the voice of a female announcer came from the speaker above the door: "Please return to your assigned dormitories, passengers. Dinner will be served shortly, and the captain will deliver a speech during the meal."

The announcement repeated a full five or six times. Li Wei scanned the room but couldn't find a wall clock, so he looked at the three people in front of him and asked, "What time is it now?"

The three of them subconsciously looked at their left wrists, but only the white man had a watch, and his time was not set to the local time in China.

It wasn't until the bespectacled man on the left pulled a mobile phone from his pocket that they confirmed the time: "20:11. I think dinner should be in about half an hour."

Li Wei nodded, then stood up and waved at the three of them. "I have some things to take care of, so I'll be leaving. Don't worry about getting food for me, thanks!"

Although the three were a bit puzzled, they didn't lack the social awareness to press him for details.

After leaving the room, Li Wei navigated the somewhat narrow corridor, heading toward the higher decks of the massive ship.

Even at night, the ship experienced slight vibrations; clearly, the storm outside had not yet subsided, and the vessel would occasionally sway violently.

The scattered survivors walking outside all had to hold onto the walls, stumbling and moving cautiously. Only Li Wei walked with long, steady strides; no matter how the ground beneath him shook, his pace never wavered.

The ship had only six decks of accessible space. Four of them were dormitories and halls, the fifth was for storing supplies, and the sixth housed weapons, equipment, and administrative staff.

As Li Wei headed upward, he encountered two soldiers carrying a large pot, followed by several female soldiers carrying a stack of bowls.

He smelled the aroma of food in the air, which reminded him of rice porridge.

The last female soldier, as she brushed past Li Wei, stopped and turned her head to call out to him in confusion, "Hey, dinner is about to be served. Do you have business going up there?"

Seeing that Li Wei had an extraordinary air about him and was wearing a suit, she assumed he was some kind of clerk. But since dinner was imminent, she kindly suggested, "If your work isn't urgent, I can serve you a bowl of meat porridge first. Eat before you go?"

"Uh... no thanks, I'm in a bit of a rush!" Having been misunderstood, he felt slightly awkward, but Li Wei still naturally declined and thanked the female soldier for her kindness.

After declining the soldier's offer, Li Wei quickened his pace, running up to the top deck. He looked left and right, trying to locate the main control room.

Seeing a middle-aged man in a suit passing by, he reached out to stop him and asked, "Excuse me, where is the captain?"

The startled middle-aged man looked Li Wei up and down, but instead of answering, he demanded that Li Wei show his name tag and state his department. "Please show your name tag and report your department."

Li Wei didn't have a department, so he scratched his head. After looking around and noticing that no one was paying attention to them, he said to the middle-aged man, "I have something quite important to discuss with the captain. Please, do me a favor—it really is a matter of great importance..."

The middle-aged man suddenly stiffened, as if he were holding his breath to scold him, but hesitated just as the words were about to escape. Finally, he said in a stern tone, "What is the matter? If it is truly important, I will convey it to the captain. If it isn't, please go back; it's almost time to eat."

Since he couldn't bypass this middle-aged man, who didn't seem to hold a low position, Li Wei nodded. However, after glancing around, he felt that demonstrating his ability here wouldn't be appropriate.

"Can we go somewhere private?"

The top deck had relatively open space, with open offices and many soldiers. Many helicopters and fighter jets were stored here, and with so many soldiers coming and going, there was no guarantee that someone wouldn't see him change his form.

Therefore, he wanted to find a place with no one around to demonstrate and negotiate.

The middle-aged man frowned, his gaze scrutinizing, but in the end, he didn't refuse and led Li Wei to a utility room filled with various tools.

"Say what you have to say here."

Li Wei looked around and spotted a camera in the corner. He walked over to the middle-aged man, turned his back to the camera, and used his body to block his hand.

Under the man's puzzled gaze, a dark red biomass surged over his right hand, transforming his forearm into an armored state. He said in a mysterious tone, "I am a person from a parallel universe!"

The middle-aged man, who had witnessed the entire transformation of Li Wei's right hand, recoiled two steps as if he had seen something horrifying. He pointed at Li Wei's hand, his eyes wide as copper bells, clearly terrified by this unexpected sight.

"You... your... arm!" He stammered. Even having held a high position for many years, he had never seen anything that violated the laws of science like this.

The apocalypse could still be explained through science, but Li Wei's hand suddenly turning into a matte-black, thick monster arm was clearly beyond the limits of his worldview.

With his back to the camera, Li Wei transformed both hands, began to quickly form seals, and let his tentacles weave together, wantonly displaying his uniqueness to the middle-aged man.

"I am not from your world, but I have no malicious intent. I just want to obtain some small conveniences. I need to discuss the specifics with the captain. You understand what I mean, right?"

The stunned middle-aged man didn't return to his senses until Li Wei's words snapped him back. He clutched his throbbing head and nodded. "Your... uniqueness, I understand. Please wait here for a moment. By the way, my name is Shi Dong, and I am the administrative supervisor of the Dawn."

Good grief!

Watching Shi Dong push the door and leave, Li Wei had thought the man was just a low-level clerk, but he turned out to be a big shot!

However, it was fine; the man would likely pass his message to the captain, and he just had to wait.

Things went quite smoothly. Upon hearing about a person from another world, the mature captain, after a moment of thought, decided to follow Shi Dong—who was not joking—and brought a few people to the utility room, prepared to meet the man who claimed to be from another world.

The automatic door opened again, and the young captain in a naval uniform, Fan Guojun, stepped into the utility room with Shi Dong and two diligent guards.

Fan Guojun looked Li Wei up and down. He focused on his hands, and upon finding them no different from an ordinary person's, he didn't show any confusion. Instead, he stepped forward, extended his right hand, and said, "Hello, I am Fan Guojun, captain of the Dawn."

"Li Wei, a traveler from a parallel universe, more or less. I just arrived in this world yesterday morning." Li Wei responded enthusiastically, saying something that made the two guards behind him feel it was absurd.

A traveler?

He must read too many novels!

"Oh... Li Wei." Fan Guojun felt a bit skeptical inside, wondering if Lao Shi was pulling his leg, so he took half a step back and said, "Then... could you demonstrate your ability?"

Li Wei asked, "Right here?"

Fan Guojun nodded and took another step back, saying, "Right here is fine, no need to hold back."

"Alright!"

As the words left his mouth, Li Wei's body was shrouded in a burst of dark red fleshy tentacles. In less than a second, the young, strapping lad had vanished, and what appeared before the group was a bio-monster that looked like it had stepped straight out of a movie.

Looking at the four people who had all been rendered dumbstruck, he said modestly, "My ability is meager, not worth mentioning."