I have become Purienn!

  As Zhou Tianlei gradually regained consciousness, he felt a severe headache, as if his brain was about to explode.

  Wait... is this consciousness? A headache? Am I not in the underworld? Didn't I die along with that damned plane, crashing into the Indian Ocean? I should be dead, how can I feel anything? The thought flashed through Zhou Tianlei's mind: Could it be that I'm still alive? Or maybe I was rescued? In an instant, a surge of wild joy flooded Zhou Tianlei's heart, even temporarily suppressing the intense pain in his head.

  Heaven hasn't abandoned me yet, heaven hasn't abandoned the hope of Chinese Navy. Zhou Tianlei thought excitedly.

  Zhou Tianlei suddenly thought of the laptop bag again, hadn't it been lost? What about the things inside, were they damaged? As soon as he thought of this, Zhou Tianlei immediately became tense, wanting to open his eyes and see where he was, and whether the bag was still there.

  Zhou Tianlei tried to open his eyes, and they slowly opened. As his eyes gradually opened, he saw clearly where he was. Zhou Tianlei found himself lying on a narrow bed, feeling both familiar and strange about this place. The familiarity came from the fact that it should be the captain's quarters of a submarine, and outside, he could still hear many sounds of the submarine running, only these sounds were a bit too loud. The strangeness was that this wasn't the layout of the captain's quarters of his own submarine.

  Submarine, how did I end up on a submarine? Which country's submarine is this? It must not be a Chinese submarine. This thought suddenly appeared in his mind, and he slowly turned his head to look towards the door. On the wall beside the door, a frame was hanging with a photo of a foreign naval officer inside. Zhou Tianlei looked at the photo and felt like he knew the person in it. Suddenly, a flash of light went through his brain - wasn't this his most admired German submarine warfare god, Karl D?nitz? How could his photo be hung here? Was the captain of this submarine also a fan of his? But there were no other photos around.

  Never mind all that, as long as I'm alive! Zhou Tianlei shook his head violently, shaking off the previous thoughts, and suddenly thought of something important. Where was that laptop bag? Zhou Tianlei didn't find it on his wrist or around him. He used his hands to prop himself up to sit up, but felt weak and powerless, as if those limbs weren't his own.

  Helpless, Zhou Tianlei shouted: "Come on! Come on... Is there... anyone?" Due to his dry throat like winter's withered grass, Zhou Tianlei's voice was small and hoarse, and very labored, intermittent.

  Although this was the case, Zhou Tianlei's shout seemed to have been heard by someone after all. The door of the boat cabin was pushed open at this time, and a military officer with small eyes but very lean walked in.

  "Ah! You're awake! You've been unconscious for 8 hours!" The officer exclaimed with surprise, seeing Zhou Tianlei's open eyes and mouth. But Zhou Tianlei was even more shocked to see him - the officer was a foreigner, speaking German, and his uniform had the emblem of the World War II German Navy on it.

  "Wait a moment," I said, "I'll go and call Surgeon Su Lun over." The officer was about to turn around and run out to shout for the doctor.

  "Wait a minute. Am I your captain? And what time is it now?" Zhou Tianlei squeezed out his voice and also asked in German (his second foreign language at the Qingdao Submarine Academy was German). For him now, life had basic security, whether or not to shout for a military doctor was not his top concern, he was most concerned about where he was now, and where that computer bag went. Was it lost, or in whose hands?

  "It's just as Dr. Suren said, Captain. You not only have a concussion, but also symptoms of amnesia." The officer was taken aback for a moment, muttering to himself before responding: "Captain, you were carried in by me and the navigator from the command tower. After the doctor examined you, he said you were knocked unconscious by a heavy object. Today is October 15th, 1939."

  "Oh..." Zhou Tianlei responded vaguely, but then he felt something was off. Suddenly, he thought of something and asked in surprise, "You... you just said today is October 15th, 1939, and I was carried into here by you and the navigation officer from the command tower?" But Zhou Tianlei was clearly on a plane, and it was 2004! How did he end up on the command tower of a foreign submarine, and why had the year changed? And how did he become the commander of this submarine? He should have been sent to the hospital after being rescued!

  "Ah! You are the captain, aren't you? The commander of U-47? Today is October 15th, 1939, and didn't we sink the Royal Oak in Scapa Flow last night?" The officer found Zhou Tianlei's words somewhat strange and couldn't help but ask back.

  Commander of U-47? October 15, 1939! The Royal Oak of the British Royal Navy. Gunther Prien felt like he was going crazy. How could this be happening? How did I become the commander of U-47? No way! How did they rescue their own? And what's their purpose?

  "Bring me a mirror!" Zhou Tianlei said to the officer.

  "Captain, this is the mirror you wanted." Zhou Tianlei looked into the mirror and was shocked. The face in the mirror was that of a foreigner with bandages wrapped around his head. Zhou Tianlei felt a sense of familiarity when he saw his own face, and he lifted his head to look at the photo hanging on the cabin wall - it was him in the photo. Zhou Tianlei suddenly realized that earlier he had recognized the person in the photo as Gottfried Prien, the famous German U-boat captain from World War II. Then wasn't he Prien?!

  What the...?! Zhou Tianlei stretched out his right arm in front of his eyes and saw that it had grown a lot of very long body hair, most importantly, there was a large black birthmark on his right wrist, but the arm in front of him didn't have one.

  Zhou Tianlei felt like he was going crazy, so many problems he couldn't figure out. The officer saw him staring blankly like an idiot and just as he was about to remind him, he found that Puren (Zhou Tianlei) suddenly fainted...