Deep Sea Embers

On the distant boundless sea, Duncan, who was sitting at the desk in the captain's cabin, frowned slightly.

He reached out and opened the secret compartment under the desk, touched the brass key that Agatha had discovered and handed to him from the hidden place, and put it in front of his eyes for a closer look.

The simple wind-up key has a cold metal texture, reflecting the light in the sunlight from the window. On the key handle like an infinity symbol, small decorative patterns come into view.

This is not the first time Duncan has looked at the key, but this time, his mood when looking at this "Queen's Relic" is completely different from before.

This could be Le Nora's "soul vessel"—a possibility that made his vision increasingly complicated.

The Frost Queen is a great person, and the secrets hidden in her attract Duncan's attention even more. If there is an opportunity to establish communication between Duncan and Lena Nora, that is of course a good thing - but the premise of all this is , cannot bet on Alice.

In Frost City, Duncan, who was wearing a black overcoat, narrowed his eyes slightly. He seemed to restrain his divergent thinking for a while, and his eyes fell on Agatha and the hazy shadow "Agatha" next to him again.

"Do you still remember your experience in the city-state when you were a 'fake'?" He asked suddenly.

"Yes, I remember." The hazy shadow seemed to be nodding, "I also remember the experience of going deep into the mine and blending into that weird darkness..."

"I already know this part of the information, Agatha...I mean, Agatha, who is a 'genuine product', has already reported this matter to me," Duncan said, with a thoughtful look on his face. "To be honest, your appearance...reminds me of someone."

"One person?" The two Agathas almost spoke in unison.

"A... shadow of the soul named 'Martha'," Duncan said slowly, "she is Lawrence's wife and a member of my new fleet, and for the past ten years, her identity has been a A 'fake' wandering in mirror frost."

The hazy phantom "Agatha" moved slightly.

"In the past ten years, this 'fake' has been hovering in the mirror space, attracting and gathering a large number of thought and memory fragments, which made her grow into a huge 'hybrid body', and 'Martha' , is the core personality of this hybrid," Duncan continued, his eyes fell on the hazy figure, "From the current situation, you are very similar to 'Martha', the difference is that you Not yet a 'hybrid' like hers - you're still in an early, pure stage. Of course, given that Mirror Frost has been destroyed, you'll probably remain at this stage in the future."

"There is... such a thing," said the authentic Agatha, her tone was incredible, "I thought that what happened to me was a special case..."

"It's not a special case, so it aroused my curiosity," Duncan said calmly, but his eyes still stayed on the hazy figure, "When the frost of the mirror image subsides, all the 'fakes' will disappear. But now there are two 'personalities' left. Does this mean that the power supporting the fake 'Martha' and the fake 'Agatha' is actually not the city of mirror images, but something else? The personality and memory replicated in the sea area can stably exist in the real world, and Martha is now even outside the frosty sea area. Does this mean at the same time... this kind of maintenance of the fake 'Agatha' and the fake 'Martha'? Power, is something as large and stable as the real world?"

The hall where the submersible was parked fell into silence for a while.

After an unknown amount of time, Agatha raised her head and looked at her "shadow" quietly.

Duncan suddenly broke the silence: "Have you considered the future?"

"The future?" Agatha was taken aback, as if she had never considered this direction, "You mean..."

"One cannot live forever as another's shadow—a literal shadow," Duncan said, gazing at the hazy phantom. "You should think about the days to come."

The hazy phantom fell silent, and after an unknown period of time, she said with a trace of hesitation: "But I am indeed her shadow."

"I repeat, a 'person' cannot live forever as the shadow of another person," Duncan still looked at her calmly, "You have your own personality, your own memory, and there may be two things in that memory." More than ten years belong to others, but at least the last few days belong to you, so what about the next...Agatha?"

When Duncan said the name "Agatha", the two figures raised their heads subconsciously at the same time.

Duncan glanced at the two of them, and then exhaled softly: "Think about it, it's okay, we still have a lot of time."

...

Duncan's thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the captain's door.

Temporarily withdrawing most of his attention from the "incarnation" of Frost City, he raised his head and looked at his bedroom door: "Come in."

The door was pushed open, Alice stretched her head to look inside, and then slipped into the room like a thief, with a plate of snacks still emitting heat in her hand: "I learned how to bake biscuits!"

With a proud tone, she put the snacks on the table in front of Duncan, and then looked around, as if looking for Ai Yi.

"Ai is in Frost." Duncan said casually, looking at the gothic doll in front of him.

This is the "inner room" of the captain's cabin, his bedroom—on this entire ship, the only one who could step into this room as if nothing had happened was Alice.

The first person he met after coming to this world... a humanoid creature.

He trusts her, although she is not so reliable, but Duncan knows that the honesty and trust of this lady doll to him are more than anything—although this almost extreme trust comes from her solid brain, but In this cold and strange world, this initial and deepest trust is still precious.

Alice finally noticed Duncan's gaze. She turned her head in doubt, first checked her clothes, and then touched her neck: "Why do you keep looking at me?"

"It's nothing." Duncan withdrew his gaze, casually took a biscuit from the plate and stuffed it into his mouth, "...the taste is not bad."

Alice laughed happily.

Then she noticed the brass key lying on the table.

"Ah, you are studying this key," Alice picked up the key casually, fiddled with it curiously, and then groped her back, "Are you going to wind me up?"

"Don't touch it indiscriminately," Duncan reached out and snatched the key back, his tone became extremely serious, "From now on, without my permission, you can't touch this key indiscriminately."

Probably because I haven't seen Duncan have such a serious reaction for a long time, Alice was even a little frightened, she quickly retracted her hands, and a look of nervousness and a little fear appeared on her face: "Yes... I'm sorry..."

"Sorry to scare you," Duncan reacted, and immediately slowed down his tone, "You didn't do anything wrong, and I'm not criticizing you—it's just that this key...may be dangerous to you."

"Dangerous?" Alice blinked, as if she couldn't understand, she reached out and touched her back in doubt, and touched the keyhole through the clothes, "But I heard Shirley and Nina say... this key It should be for me to wind up... Ah, Nina also bought a wind-up toy soldier in the city. I played with it for a long time, and the key to the toy soldier's wind-up is like this... "

Duncan rubbed his forehead. Although he knew that Alice might be difficult to understand, he patiently explained: "This key is not such a simple thing, it is a transcendent item, do you understand? Queen Le Nora left This thing, and now I suspect... it's some kind of resurrection method for her."

Alice looked into Duncan's eyes fixedly, and it took a long time before she raised her voice: "Ah...ah?"

"Lee Nora's memory and soul may be stored in this key," Duncan was not surprised by Alice's reaction. He just sighed softly, pressed the key on the table, and looked at the person in front of him. I said, "And you, have exactly the same appearance as Ray Nora."

After being stunned for a while, Alice finally came to understand. She looked down at her body, and then at the key pressed on the table by the captain, before she spoke for a long time: "So, if you wind me up, who Is it possible for the Frost Queen to control my body?"

"I'm really worried about this," Duncan nodded. He didn't hide his thoughts in front of the pure-hearted puppet. "Of course, this worry is not so...reasonable. There are still many doubts."

"Suspicious?"

"The most important one is that this process is too uncontrollable," Duncan said, "You should know how you were discovered—the doll's coffin drifted in the sea near Frost, and was salvaged by a passing ship Come up, but what about the key? The key is in the hands of successive consuls of the city-state. They have been passed down for half a century, but no one knows the connection between the key and you, the puppet. If this is the resurrection method left by the Frost Queen, then This method is too dependent on luck.

"The puppet may not be with the key, and the person who gets the key may not know the connection between the key and the puppet, and even if he knows, he may not necessarily turn the key—even Tirian doesn't know about it , who else will wind you up? What's more... under the terrible name of anomaly 099, how many people dare to approach the doll's coffin casually?"

Alice half-understood what the captain said, and after finally comprehending most of it, she asked curiously, "Then... what are the other doubts?"

"Other doubts..."

Duncan thought for a while, but in his mind, he suddenly recalled the Frost Queen he saw in the "Vision" when he was investigating Alice's "coffin", and the sentence left by the Frost Queen talk--

Please don't pollute history.

The Frost Queen, who died calmly in the face of fate...would she really arrange for herself to be resurrected decades later?