Chapter 8: Don’t Open the Door Recklessly
Yu Sheng stepped into the kitchen and closed the Door behind him, activating the extractor fan. The loud mechanical noise, oddly comforting, gradually calmed his racing thoughts.
It was as if the thin wooden Door and the raucous hum of the fan helped separate him from the chaotic, eerie world outside—allowing him, even for just a moment, to believe he was back in his own space. To pretend he wasn’t in the vast, sinister Boundary City but had returned to his real home.
The Big Manor was nothing like his original home. Yet, the small kitchen—carefully arranged to mimic the familiar layout from his memories—offered him a fleeting sense of belonging. After settling down in this bizarre world, he had made every effort to recreate the feeling of his former life here.
Whenever he cooked in this space, he allowed himself the illusion that nothing had changed—that he hadn’t opened the door that fateful morning and stepped into an unfamiliar city filled with sinister shadows. Sometimes, while bustling around the kitchen, he’d almost believe that just by raising his head, he would see the old street outside bathed in warm, amber light. He imagined the reddish sunlight flowing over the familiar brickwork of the residential buildings, as if nothing had ever gone awry…
But reality always intruded. When he looked out the window, all he saw was a barren, desolate yard and a scattering of low, decrepit shacks. No residential buildings. Instead, utility poles sprawled chaotically across the landscape. As for the cozy, sunlit sky from his memories—he hadn’t seen it in a long, long time.
In Boundary City, the sky was either blindingly bright or suffocatingly dim. No in-between.
Yu Sheng sighed and pulled down the blinds, blocking out the shadowy night that seemed eternally stagnant. He returned to cooking: picking vegetables, washing them, heating the pan, and splashing oil in to sizzle with fragrant scallions. Just as the pan crackled, he heard the muffled sound of the television from beyond the Door.
Despite its eldritch nature, Boundary City still had modern amenities like television and smartphones. In the early days, most of his understanding of this place came from watching TV shows and scrolling through news feeds. Even now, they remained essential tools to grasp the world around him.
“Yu Sheng! The TV’s too quiet! Turn up the volume, please!”
The sudden shout from outside startled him so much that he nearly tossed the food out of the pan. For a moment, he’d forgotten Irene was there. Back when he cooked alone, there was never anyone shouting from the other room!
“Hold on!” he snapped back, unceremoniously loud. Muttering to himself, he added, “…She sure made herself at home fast…”
A wry smile tugged at his lips. Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least there was some noise around the house, breaking the pervasive silence.
A few minutes later, Yu Sheng carried the steaming dishes to the dining table. He adjusted the volume on the television by two notches before settling down with his back to the screen. He wasn’t in the habit of watching TV while eating, but he left it on as ambient noise. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d be competing with Irene over viewing angles—she was confined to her Painting, after all.
In the Painting, Irene clutched a teddy bear, craning her neck to eye the food on the table while casting glances at the TV. Her voice came out in a low mumble, “Looks pretty good…”
“Just simple home-cooked dishes,” Yu Sheng replied nonchalantly. “I enjoy cooking.”
“Oh,” Irene muttered, still fixated on the screen. But after Yu Sheng took a few bites, she couldn’t help herself, peeking at the food again. Finally, she couldn’t hold back and spoke up, “So, I’m just gonna watch you eat?”
Yu Sheng raised his eyes and waved his chopsticks in front of her Painting. “Want a bite?”
She stared at him, then sulked and lowered her head, mumbling to herself.
“Fine, fine, let’s go through the motions,” Yu Sheng sighed, giving in. He fetched an empty bowl from the kitchen and scooped a bit from his own plate, setting it in front of Irene’s frame. “Here’s your share—just pretend to smell it or something. I’ll end up eating it anyway.”
Irene wrinkled her nose at the bowl, thought for a moment, and eventually nodded. Hopping down from her chair, she leaned so close to the frame that her face took up almost half of it. “Alright… Thanks. You’re pretty thoughtful.”
Yu Sheng chewed his food and mumbled something vaguely in response. When he glanced up again, he caught sight of Irene’s face squeezed against the Painting’s edge, looking far too serious—and then at the bowl in front of her. A sense of something being undeniably off started gnawing at him…
Irene didn’t notice anything amiss, but she did find it odd that Yu Sheng suddenly spaced out. “What are you staring at?” she asked.
Snapping out of his daze, Yu Sheng quickly took another bite of his meal, then raised his head to glance at Irene—
A dark, oppressive frame, a somber background, the face of a Doll girl, and a bowl of food placed before the portrait.
The entire scene looked like a tribute to the deceased, with the face still vivid and the smile lingering in a frozen, eerie tranquility.
Yu Sheng’s facial muscles twitched, but despite his vivid imagination, he dared not voice his thoughts—not because of anything else but mainly because Irene had a sharp tongue that could cut through steel.
With no other choice, he continued eating as if nothing had happened, burying his face in the food while occasionally sneaking glances at the eerie “memorial dining” scene opposite him. The meal felt like a wake, dining at a funeral banquet.
Once he finally finished eating, Yu Sheng wiped his mouth and hastily cleared all the dishes from the space in front of Irene’s portrait, dumping them into the kitchen sink. He planned to leave the dishes soaking overnight—his waist was still sore, and bending over to wash them was a burden he wasn’t willing to bear right now.
But leaving the trash overnight in the kitchen wasn’t an option in this season. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he gathered up the garbage, grabbed the bag, and headed for the door.
Just as he was about to leave, Irene, still watching TV, glanced up and curiously asked, “Hey, where are you going this late?”
Yu Sheng retorted, “Do I need to report my movements in my own house?” He raised the trash bag to show her. “Just going out to dump this.”
“Oh, well, come back soon,” Irene replied, her attention already back on the screen. “This house is so big and creepy—I’d be scared if a thief came in…”
Yu Sheng rolled his eyes, thinking that if a thief did break into this eerie, spooky Big Manor, the first thing they’d see would be Irene’s ghostly figure swaying in a painting, scaring them half to death. In fact, any intruder would probably call the police out of sheer terror. But he didn’t dare say it out loud.
Shaking his head with a wry smile, he moved to the door, changed into his outdoor shoes, and grasped the large door handle.
As he exerted a bit of force and pushed the door open, memories from two months prior flashed through his mind—an ordinary morning, seemingly no different from countless others. Just like now, he had opened his door, stepped outside—and found himself in a colossal, suffocatingly eerie city, unable to return since.
That unsettling thought vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Yu Sheng gave a self-deprecating chuckle and stepped outside.
The crisp sound of snapping twigs broke the Valley’s dead silence, and the frigid night wind carried with it a rotting, putrid stench. The cold seeped through his thin clothes, and he instinctively shivered. It took him several seconds to reboot his brain, which had abruptly stalled.
He found himself standing amid a desolate, crumbling expanse of scattered stones. In the distance loomed a dense, dark forest, and towering mountains flanked the Valley like silent, monstrous giants casting an oppressive, suffocating shadow over the Valley Floor.
Yu Sheng froze, his entire body tense in the cold night air. Slowly, he turned to look behind him.
Where he had come from now lay a pile of collapsed, decayed rubble—a ruin that might once have been a temple centuries ago. A broken, crooked door frame, barely holding up half a door board, stood forlornly amid the debris, the wind howling through the gaps like a ghostly lament.
Yu Sheng widened his eyes in shock. “Where the hell am I now?”
Only then did it hit him—by opening that door, he had repeated what happened two months ago. He had once again been thrown into an unfamiliar place.
And this time, it was even worse than before. At least the bizarre Boundary City he had been trapped in back then, despite its peculiarities, was still a modern metropolis. This place, however, was nothing but wilderness.
Ahead stretched the Dense Forest, on both sides loomed treacherous mountains, and behind him lay nothing but the remnants of a dilapidated temple. The terrain looked like the perfect setup for an ambush by bandits or a den of Wolf Demons and Fox Immortals.
And in his hands, the only thing he had brought along was a bag of kitchen garbage.
Realizing the ridiculousness of his predicament, Yu Sheng cursed inwardly. Just as he was about to vent his frustration, a voice suddenly echoed in his mind—
“Yu Sheng! The TV’s got no signal! When are you coming back?”