Chapter 1

Boundless dense fog rolled outside the window, so thick that it seemed as if the entire world had vanished into its depths. Only the dim, hazy light managed to penetrate the fog and illuminate the quiet room, maintaining a half-lit, half-dark atmosphere.

In the slightly disordered single apartment, Zhou Ming leaned over the desk, pushing aside the clutter on the table roughly. With a haggard appearance, he was writing furiously:

"Day 7: The situation has not changed at all. The thick fog envelops everything outside the window, and the windows are sealed by an unknown force... The entire room seems to have been 'cast' into some kind of abnormal space...

"I can't contact the outside world, and there is no water or electricity, but the light is always on, and the computer can be turned on—despite the fact that I have already unplugged its power cord...

""

Suddenly, a faint breeze seemed to come from the direction of the window. Zhou Ming, who was writing in his diary, suddenly lifted his head, his haggard eyes lighting up slightly. However, the next second, he realized it was just an illusion. Outside the window, there was still only the dense, pale fog that refused to dissipate, and a dead, silent world coldly enveloped his small abode.

His gaze swept over the windowsill, where he saw a wrench and a hammer carelessly discarded—remnants of his attempts to leave the room over the past few days. Now, these hard, crude tools lay there silently, as if mocking his predicament.

A few seconds later, Zhou Ming's expression returned to a calm state—this abnormal calmness. He lowered his head again and continued writing:

"I am trapped, in a completely hopeless situation. Over the past few days, I even tried to dismantle the roof, walls, and floor, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't leave even the slightest mark on the walls. This room has become like... a box 'cast' together with space, with no way out...

"Except for that door.

"But the situation outside that door... is even more bizarre."

Zhou Ming stopped again. He slowly examined the words he had just written, then flipped through the diary casually, looking at what he had left over the past few days—oppressive words, meaningless ramblings, frustrated doodles, and forced jokes written to relax his mind.

He didn't know what the purpose of writing these things was, or who would read these ramblings in the future. In fact, he wasn't even someone who was used to keeping a diary—being a middle school teacher with limited free time, he didn't have much energy to spend on this.

But now, whether he liked it or not, he had plenty of free time.

After waking up, he found himself trapped in his room.

Outside the window was an unending fog, so thick that nothing could be seen beyond it. The world seemed to have lost its day and night cycle, with a constant, hazy light filling the room. The windows were locked, the water and electricity were cut off, and his phone had no signal. No matter how much noise he made in the room, no external help would come.

It was like a bizarre nightmare, where everything defied the laws of nature. But Zhou Ming had already tried every possible method to confirm one thing: this was not an illusion or a dream. It was a world that had become abnormal, and he was still relatively normal.

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

An ordinary, cheap white wooden door, with a calendar still nailed to it from last year, the doorknob worn bright, and the doormat slightly askew.

The door could be opened.

If this sealed, transformed room was like a cage, then the most malicious aspect of this cage was that it actually retained a door that could be pushed open at any time, constantly tempting the prisoner inside to leave—yet what lay beyond that door was not the "outside" Zhou Ming wanted.

There were no familiar, old corridors, no sunny streets with vibrant crowds, no familiar surroundings.

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

But Zhou Ming knew that the time for hesitation was running out, and the so-called "choice" had never existed from the beginning.

His food supply was limited, and the few buckets of mineral water were down to a quarter. He had tried all possible methods to escape and seek help in this sealed room. Now, the only path left for him was to prepare and go to the other side of the door to seek a glimmer of hope.

Perhaps, there was still a chance to investigate the cause of this bizarre and dire supernatural situation.

Zhou Ming took a light breath and wrote the final few lines in his diary: "But no matter what, the only choice left now is to go to the other side of the door. At least on that strange ship, I can find some food, and the exploration and preparation I did over the past few days should be enough to help me survive on that ship... Although the preparations I can make there are indeed limited.

"Finally, to any future readers, if I don't come back and someone really opens this room in the future and sees this diary, please don't treat what I have written as a bizarre story—it really happened. Despite how terrifying it is, a man named Zhou Ming was indeed trapped in a crazy, bizarre spatial anomaly.

"I have described all the abnormal phenomena I have seen in this diary and recorded all the efforts I have made to escape. If there are any 'future readers,' please at least remember my name and remember that this all really happened."

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

It was time to leave, before he was completely trapped and in a hopeless situation.

But after a brief moment of thought, he did not go directly to the only door leading to the "outside." Instead, he walked straight to his bed.

He needed to be in the best possible state to face the "foreign land" on the other side of the door—his current state, especially his mental state, was not good enough.

Zhou Ming didn't know if he could sleep, but even forcing himself to lie down and clear his mind was better than going to the "other side" in a mentally exhausted state.

Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes.

Outside the window, it was still a chaotic fog, with a hazy, oppressive light that made it impossible to distinguish day from night.

Zhou Ming ignored the situation outside the window. He took out some food from his limited supplies, ate until he was about 80% full, and then went to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room.

The man in the mirror still had messy hair, looked quite disheveled, and had no particular charm, but Zhou Ming stared at his reflection intently, as if trying to permanently imprint this image in his mind.

He stared at the mirror for several minutes, then spoke softly to himself, as if addressing the person in the mirror: "Your name is Zhou Ming, at least in 'this side,' your name is Zhou Ming. Remember this always."

After that, he turned and left.

He approached the familiar door, took a deep breath, and placed his hand on the doorknob.

Apart from his clothes, he carried nothing else, neither food nor any defensive equipment. This was the result of his previous "explorations"—he couldn't bring anything through this door except himself.

In fact, he even doubted whether he could bring himself through, because...

Zhou Ming turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. A mass of pulsating, gray-black fog appeared before him like a curtain, and through the undulating fog, he could already hear the sound of waves.

Stepping through the fog, a slightly salty sea breeze greeted him, the illusory sound of waves became real, and he felt a slight swaying under his feet. After a brief dizziness, Zhou Ming opened his eyes and saw a wide, open wooden deck, tall masts standing under dark, stormy clouds, and an endless, gently undulating sea beyond the ship's rail.

Zhou Ming looked down and saw a body that was stronger than he remembered, wearing a finely crafted, expensive but completely unfamiliar captain's uniform, with large, knobby hands, and a beautifully crafted, classical flintlock pistol in his hand.

Yes, even "himself" was in doubt.

("Oh my God! I'm back!")