Zhou Ming returned to his bachelor apartment, where everything was still exactly the same as when he left.
When I stepped on the familiar and slightly old floor, looked at the things in the room that had never changed, and listened to the buzzing sound of the fan from the computer host that was always on.
His thoughts finally calmed down little by little. A subtle and indescribable feeling floated in his heart. Zhou Ming stepped over the scattered debris on the floor, came to the tightly closed window, and looked at the white fog that was constantly rising and falling outside.
He stared at the fog for a long time, then stretched out his hand and pushed the window. Of course, the window did not move at all, and the wine, flour, and several cans that were deliberately stacked on the windowsill did not maintain the original state, as if silently conveying to him a lonely and silent atmosphere.
For a long time he stood quietly in front of the window, maintaining the posture as if looking out of the thick fog, but his mind was without thinking about anything. After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly blinked and turned his head to the side like a stone sculpture awakened.
Next to the unmade bed, the computer monitor on the desk was glowing slightly, and the network disconnected prompt box still popped up from time to time in the lower right corner. The notebook I had taken notes in when I left was still thrown on the corner of the table. Which notebook had not been used for a long time.
flip.
Zhou Ming walked over, sat down at the desk, stared at the empty screen for a while, then reached out and grabbed the keyboard and mouse that he had pushed to the corner before, opened the browser, and typed a line of text in the search box: Does the sword world outside the thick fog still exist
!The browser certainly doesn't give any valid search pages.
After pressing the Enter key, the cursor on the screen flashed a few times, and then an error page popped up indicating that the network connection was interrupted and the remote server was not responding.
This result was naturally expected. Zhou Ming knew from the beginning that he had used this computer in a brittle state to make various attempts to contact the outside world a long time ago when the thick fog had just blocked the room.
He didn't expect that the content that would appear on the screen this time would be different from before. He just wanted to type that sentence out without asking Ren Keren or expecting any answer.
Listening to the monotonous hum of the fan, Zhou Ming let out a breath and threw the keyboard and mouse back into the corner. Then he took the notebook, casually opened it to a blank page, bent down and wrote on it carefully, "To the world outside the thick fog, the people in the room say hello to you."
It won't be long before I arrive at this place on the other side of the door. It is a city-state located in the borderland. I go there to confirm some things, but even if I don't confirm them, I think I already know the answers, because in that strange world on the other side of the door, countless unimaginable things are actually happening, and my intuition there has always been very accurate.
Based on this, I no longer expect to get a response from outside the thick fog, nor do I expect anyone to pass through the thick fog and knock on my door or window. I am still not sure what has happened in this world, but perhaps... it is not me who has experienced the change, but you in my quiet and narrow little house.
Everything is still the same as before. I have a bed, a sofa, a coffee table, a desk, and a chair. My wardrobe is next to the bed, and there is a large storage rack, but most of it is still empty.
I haven't cleaned my room for a long time, and there is almost no dust here. I know that most of the dust in human residences comes from human skin flakes shed and pollution caused by daily life, and I don't spend most of my time here.
So most of the place is still clean... but even without the dust, the room now looks a bit messy because I was in a hurry to go back to the room several times before and didn't clean up before leaving.
It’s not good to keep it this messy all the time... If everything is really as I want, I think I should make this room clean and tidy.
Besides… Maybe I shouldn’t say this, maybe it’s meaningless to say this, but I hope you are all well outside the thick fog. Goodbye… Now I’m going to clean this room. Zhou Ming exhaled softly, threw the pen back into the pen holder, and carefully read what he had just written, then closed my notebook and put it in a corner of the desk.
Then he stood up silently and began to do what he had planned in his notebook, cleaning and tidying up the room, starting with the slightly messy bed, folding the quilt, arranging the pillows and sheets, then the things on the table, the things on the coffee table, and then the wardrobe, bookshelf, and the miscellaneous items on the sofa and the floor.
There wasn't much dust and there was no need to mop the floor. He simply wiped away all the dust on the surface of the furniture with a piece of paper and then threw it into the trash can.
At the end of the last observation, Zhou Ming came to the window. He looked at the things on the windowsill silently. After standing there for a long time, he reached out and put the tools that he had tried to use to open the window, including hammers and wrenches, into the toolbox beside him. Then he put the stacked cans and other sundries in their proper places.
Then he wet a piece of paper towel and held it with his left hand and pressed it against the windowsill. He stayed in this position for a full ten seconds. Finally, he took a deep breath and slowly wiped the windowsill. The flour that had been used to confirm whether anyone had opened the window and entered the room was wiped clean by the wet paper. Now the room was completely clean and tidy.
Zhou Ming exhaled, looked around the room calmly, confirmed the results of his work, and then picked up a bag of garbage he had just picked up. The black plastic bag was not very heavy, because it was mostly waste paper and empty cans, but when he picked them up, he still felt that the bag was quite heavy.
He carried the bag of things that needed to be thrown away to the door of the bachelor apartment and opened it. The dark and surging fog was still surging and rising at the door as usual. The fog seemed to hide all the secrets of the world, but they were so chaotic that they could not be explored by reason.
Standing in front of the rolling black fog, Zhou Ming hesitated for a moment, then raised his hand and threw the bag of garbage into the fog. The moment the plastic bag slipped out of his hand, he had a strong urge to pull the bag back.
It was as if those waste papers and empty cans were the only treasures left in the world, and he was the only gambler left in this world, and he had to protect every gram of material in this room at all costs.
However, he suppressed this impulse in the end. He opened his hands and calmly watched the bag of materials fall into the other side of the gate and disappear in the surging mist in an instant.
.
He knew that those things would not reach the other side of the door. Only he himself could reach that world as Duncan. Apart from that, all matter would disappear in the swirling fog when passing through the door.
Now those things that should be discarded have completely disappeared in the world outside the room. Zhou Ming wiped his hands and took a step forward, ready to leave this place. On the other side of the door, Alice was still waiting for him for dinner.
But just as he was about to step through the door, a faint sound caught his attention: it was the sound of the computer fan suddenly speeding up.
Zhou Ming stopped instantly, retracted his steps and looked in the direction where the sound came from. On the dimly lit computer screen, the interface that previously showed the network connection interruption and remote server unresponsive prompts was flashing.
Then the prompt texts suddenly disappeared, and immediately afterwards, the loading progress bar at the bottom of the page turned from red to green and began to move forward slowly.
Zhou Ming felt that his heart seemed to explode at this moment, and a suffocating feeling filled his body. The next second, he slammed the door shut and rushed to his desk.
The loading progress bar at the bottom of the browser interface was still moving forward, the faint green color seemed to be slowly and steadily spreading, and on the originally blank page, the loaded content really appeared, it was a picture.
Zhou Ke stared at the picture that was gradually emerging. The moon... It seemed to be a photo taken directly from a certain position in space. What was shown in the picture was the moon floating in the dark universe, with craters all over its grayish-white surface.
It seemed like there were many strange lines of light and dark. Even though Zhou Ming was not an expert in astronomy, he was very familiar with this classic image.
And he once again confirmed that the picture he saw in Tirianbe's office was indeed the moon... The details were exactly the same, and it was obvious that it could only be drawn by someone who had seen the moon with his own eyes and carefully traced it at close range.
Zhou Ming slowly sat down on the chair and leaned back, staring at the moon image that almost occupied the entire screen with a frozen expression. After a long time, his eyes moved upwards to the line of text he had just entered in the search box.
Does the world outside the thick fog still exist
He was silent for a long time before he suddenly woke up from his stone-like state, quickly took the keyboard beside him, and typed new words in the search box. This was the answer!
Who gave the answer
After typing these two questions quickly, Zhou Ming stared at the computer screen in front of him. However, no one responded, and no new patterns or loading bars appeared on the screen. Only the cursor was rotating stiffly in place, like a silent and dull eye.
Apart from the gradually returning low and gentle sound of the ventilator turning, the only sounds in his ears were his own breathing and heartbeat.
After a moment, the moon image on the screen was refreshed due to a loading failure, and the interface returned to paleness with only a line of text remaining. The network connection was interrupted or the remote server did not respond.
.