Chapter 030

Chapter 30: The Door Opener

The small supermarket’s door slammed shut with a bang, cutting off the heat from that scorched planet and the sudden killing intent from two soldiers in black armor, as Yu Sheng stood quietly at the doorway, a little dazed.

He stared for a few seconds, then sucked in a breath and turned to look around.

There were hardly any pedestrians on the street. The few people who passed by seemed not to notice anything strange. Only Yu Sheng had faced that eerie scene a few seconds ago, and now he stood there in the wind, completely rattled.

After a moment, he slowly turned back toward the supermarket door.

He had come to this place more than once in the past two months. It was a small shop in the old city. The goods were limited, but daily needs and rice, flour, and cooking oil were all there. The owners were a young couple, and by now Yu Sheng was familiar with them.

The front of the shop looked ordinary. Street-facing glass windows were crammed with sale posters and crowded little shelves stuffed with knickknacks. One hinge of the glass door didn’t work well, so on that side a sheet of A4 paper said, “This door is broken.” Through the door he could see the tight aisles inside and the owner moving goods by a shelf.

It looked completely normal. Nothing could be more normal than this.

But Yu Sheng refused to dismiss what he had just seen as an “illusion.” He still felt that hot breath with a faint sulfur smell curling in his nose. [That was real.]

He almost stepped forward, but the aftereffects of falling into the Otherworld had made him wary. Now he was jumpy not only about the door at home; he was jumpy about any door. After opening a door, he would always hesitate for a beat. Another reason he paused just now was the sharp jolt he had felt in his chest at the instant of opening.

Steadying himself at the supermarket entrance, he thought for a moment, then reached out to grip the handle. He pressed gently, pushed the door open a crack, and poked his head in for a look.

Inside was a normal store. At this hour there weren’t many customers. The owner was still busy behind a shelf and didn’t seem to notice the door.

Yu Sheng pulled back, closed the door, grabbed the handle again, drew a deep breath, clenched his teeth like he was arguing with himself, and shoved the door wide.

On the far side stood a tall woman with long blond hair, on a raised platform. She turned in surprise to stare at Yu Sheng.

She was beautiful, but her ears under the gold hair were not human. They were long and elegant, sharp at the tips, and several glowing tubes and data cables trailed from behind her ears into the space behind her.

What caught Yu Sheng’s eye more was the wheel-like structure extending from under her silver robe, and the mechanical limbs behind her, gripping a spread of tools and moving through the air.

A voice called from somewhere beyond the door: “Boss, the client wants to know if the superluminal core from last week is fixed.”

The blond woman didn’t answer. She just stared at Yu Sheng at the threshold, held it in for a long beat, then shouted: “How did you even get in here?!”

Yu Sheng slammed the door.

The next second he threw it open again, because he hadn’t seen clearly. Was that an elf on the other side? [I have never seen an elf in my life. Was that really an elf? Why did the style feel so off?]

The door swung open to reveal a little boy in a coarse brown Daoist robe. He and Yu Sheng stared at each other. Smoke had blackened the doorframe all around. The boy held a fan, mid-swing, eyes bulging like they might pop out.

Before Yu Sheng could speak, the boy dropped the fan and sprinted off, shouting as he ran: “Master, master, it worked! Eldest senior brother’s alchemy furnace refined a human head! It has a nose and eyes! It even breathes!”

“I swear…” Yu Sheng yelped, slammed the door, and staggered back several steps before stopping.

He glanced at the street and saw a few passersby looking over with puzzled faces. They seemed to notice only his strange behavior. Because he had shut the door so fast, no one had noticed what was in it.

He quickly fixed his expression, acted casual, and walked aside. When no one was watching, he gulped several deep breaths and stood at the corner, lost in thought.

Things were too messy and too weird. He didn’t even know if he should call himself shaken, world view shattered, or lucky to be alive. His mind felt like twelve storms tearing through it, like two hundred Irenes all talking at once, humming and buzzing with wild thoughts crashing around. He didn’t come back to himself for seven or eight minutes.

One thing he did figure out fast.

The places on the far side of the door were not the Otherworld.

At least the elegant elf mechanic and the fan-waving Daoist boy were not in the Otherworld. As for the two hulking soldiers in powered armor who looked like they were in a firefight, their environment was harsh enough that it might have been the Otherworld. He couldn’t tell.

After a long while, his tangled thoughts finally calmed. He forced the wild guesses into order and pushed them down. Then he lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Hesitating, he slowly reached toward the side.

He stood at the corner of an alley. The only thing next to him was a bare concrete wall.

He stroked the rough surface, closed his hand, and imagined a door there, the way he had found a hidden handle at the end of the hallway at home outside Irene’s room, the way he had grabbed at thin air in that night valley when a monster flung him up, pulling open a door back to the real world.

His fingers found it, a door.

He couldn’t see it, but the door was there. He held the handle, and the door began to take shape, to lock into place. Face stiff, he slowly turned his head. The door glimmered in his sight, like it could be opened the next second.

“Holy…” he whispered, and as he tensed, his hand let go. The “door” faded at once, silent, into the wall.

His heart pounded like it might leap out of his mouth.

He took long breaths until he steadied, recalled the feeling of gripping the handle, and tugged a corner of his mouth.

“Irene,” he called in his mind, with feelings so mixed even he couldn’t name them.

“Hey?” Irene answered at once, bright as always: “I was just about to call you. You’ve been gone a while. Didn’t you say the shop is right at the corner? Did you buy way too much stuff?”

“I haven’t even gone into the store,” Yu Sheng said.

“You got lost?” she asked.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m not going to think about moving anymore,” he said, ignoring her goofy guess.

“Really?” Irene sounded happy and also curious: “Why? Didn’t you say the apartment feels wrong? Especially how opening a door might throw you who knows where…”

“It’s nothing. I just realized the main problem may not be the apartment,” Yu Sheng sighed: “The problem might be me.”

“…?” Irene said.

She didn’t say more. Still, Yu Sheng could picture the doll’s face full of question marks.

“It’s a bit hard to explain. Anyway, don’t worry about moving,” he said, leaning on the wall and rubbing his forehead: “If we get a chance later, I’ll tell you.”

Her curiosity flared, but she could tell he didn’t want to go into detail yet, so she only said, “Oh.”

Yu Sheng ended the call.

He didn’t describe the details of “door opening” to her. It wasn’t that he was worried about anything else. His own thoughts were a mess, and he hadn’t had time to think through the details. The situation had been too chaotic. He had ignored a lot; he would need time to recall and sort it out.

He decided to wait until he got home and calmed down to tell Irene.

Even if he told her now, she would be just as confused as he was. Still, it’s better to have someone to think with than to muddle along alone. The doll did know a little about the supernatural, even if not much.

A few minutes later, Yu Sheng stepped out from the corner. In the cooling night wind, he pulled himself together and looked toward the small supermarket.

He hesitated, then walked that way.

He decided to finish today’s shopping plan first. The door problem was unsettling, but he couldn’t go through life without opening any door from now on.

This time, when he pushed open the supermarket door, he was more careful than ever.

He focused hard, noticing every scrap of detail in the opening of the door, from the feel in his hand, to the thought in his heart, to the tug of his gut, even the wind and the reflection in the glass.

If anyone had been watching, they would have thought he was moving in slow motion.

Then the door opened.

Between the cramped aisles, the young owner looked up, saw Yu Sheng, and smiled: “Oh, what do you need?”