The Gatekeeper

The small supermarket's door slammed shut, cutting off the scorching heat from the scorched earth planet and the killing intent of the two black-armored soldiers who had suddenly exploded. Yu Sheng stood quietly at the doorway, a little stunned.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, he suddenly took a breath, then turned to look around.

There weren't many pedestrians on the street. The occasional person who walked by seemed to completely ignore the abnormality here. Only Yu Sheng had directly faced the bizarre scene that had rushed at him a few seconds ago, and he was still standing there, disheveled by the wind.

After a moment of disarray, Yu Sheng slowly turned back to look at the supermarket's storefront.

He had been here more than once in the past two months. This small supermarket in the old town didn't have many items, but it had basic daily necessities and staples like rice and flour. The owners were a young couple, and Yu Sheng was now somewhat familiar with them.

The supermarket's facade was unremarkable, just a typical ground-floor shop. The street-facing side had a large glass display window, almost completely filled with various promotional messages and shelves of small goods stacked behind the glass. One side of the glass door's hinges was a bit sticky, and an A4 paper reading "This door is broken" was stuck on the corresponding half of the door. Through the door, one could see the slightly crowded shelves inside and the owner moving things next to the shelves.

It looked completely normal, nothing could be more normal than this scene.

But Yu Sheng would never dismiss what he had just seen as a "hallucination"—he could still feel that scorching, slightly sulfurous scent lingering in his nostrils.

He had almost stepped through, but fortunately, the aftereffects of his previous fall into another world were still present, making him not only sensitive about his own front door but also about any door. After opening a door, he always hesitated for a moment, and another reason for his hesitation at the doorway was the feeling he had at the moment of opening the door... a "jolt."

Yu Sheng stood at the supermarket entrance, steadied himself, and after a moment of deep thought, reached out again to grasp the doorknob. Then, with a little force, he pushed the door open slightly and poked his head inside.

Inside was a normal supermarket. There weren't many people at this time, and the owner was still busy behind the shelves, seemingly unaware of the movement at the door.

Yu Sheng retreated, closed the door again, then gripped the doorknob forcefully, took a deep breath, and gritted his teeth as if struggling with himself, then shoved it open.

A tall woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, wearing a silver-white robe dress, stood on a platform opposite the door and turned her head in surprise to look at Yu Sheng.

She was beautiful, but her ears beneath her blonde hair were not human. Instead, they were elegantly long and pointed—and several faintly glowing tubes and data lines extended from behind her ears, connecting to something behind her.

However, what Yu Sheng cared more about was the wheel-like structure extending from the hem of her silver-white robe and the mechanical limbs behind her that were wielding various tools and flailing in mid-air.

A voice came from somewhere opposite the door: "...Boss! The customer is asking if the super-light core we delivered last week has been fixed."

The blonde lady didn't respond, only stared intently at Yu Sheng standing at the doorway, and after a long pause, finally yelled—

"How the hell did you get in?!"

Yu Sheng slammed the door shut.

But the next second, he pushed the door open again—because he hadn't seen clearly just now, was that an elf opposite the door? This was the first time in his life he had seen an elf! Was that really an elf?! Was the art style so damn wrong?!

As the door opened, a small child in a brown coarse cloth Taoist robe made eye contact with Yu Sheng. The doorframe was ringed with smoke and fire. The child held a fan halfway up, eyes wide as if about to pop out.

The next second, before Yu Sheng could speak, the child, as if seeing a ghost, threw down the fan and, hopping and skipping, ran out shouting, "Master! Master! Senior Disciple Brother succeeded! Senior Disciple Brother's alchemy furnace has refined a human head! It has a nose and eyes! And it's breathing!"

"I'll be damned..."

Yu Sheng exclaimed, slammed the door shut, and stumbled back several steps before steadying himself.

He looked back at the street and saw a few passersby looking at him curiously—but they seemed to have only noticed his strange behavior. Because he closed the door so quickly, no one noticed the situation at the door.

Yu Sheng could only quickly adjust his expression, pretend nothing was wrong, and walk to the side for a moment. After no one was paying attention to him, he took several deep breaths, standing dazed at the street corner, starting to contemplate life.

The events were too chaotic and bizarre, making him unsure if he was still in shock, if his worldview had been reshaped, or if he had narrowly escaped death. All he knew was that his mind was like a twelve-storm tempest—or like two hundred Eileens chattering simultaneously, with all sorts of messy thoughts crashing and colliding in his mind for a full seven or eight minutes without him snapping out of it.

But one thing he quickly confirmed.

Those things opposite the door... were not from another world.

At least, the elf beauty who looked like a mechanical weirdo and the Taoist child holding a fan were definitely not in another world, and as for the two imposing soldiers in power armor who were clearly fighting at the beginning... their surroundings were indeed harsh, and it was hard to say if it was another world...

After a long time, Yu Sheng's chaotic mind finally calmed down. He forcibly sorted and suppressed the torrent of wild guesses and thoughts. Then, he lowered his head and looked at his hands.

After much hesitation, he slowly reached out and felt to the side—

He was currently standing in the corner of the alley, with only a wall beside him, a bare cement brick wall.

He rubbed the rough surface of the wall, slowly clenched his fist, and imagined... there was a door there.

Just like at the end of the corridor in his house, where he found a hidden doorknob outside the room where he found Eileen, just like in that moonlit valley, when he was thrown into the air by a monster and instinctively grabbed at the air, pulling open the door back to the real world—

He felt it, a door.

He couldn't see it, but the door appeared. He grasped the handle, and the door began to materialize, to locate itself. With a stiff expression, he slowly turned his head—the door flickered with a faint light in his vision, seeming like it could be easily opened the next second.

"What the hell, holy crap!"

Yu Sheng let out a low exclamation, and as he tensed up, his hand instinctively loosened, and the "door" instantly and silently vanished into the wall.

Yu Sheng's heart pounded like it would leap out of his mouth the next second.

He took several deep breaths to calm down, then recalled the feeling of grabbing the doorknob, and tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Eileen," he called out in his mind, with... a complex emotion and hesitation that he himself couldn't explain.

"Yes?" Eileen's voice immediately rang out, as cheerful as ever. "I was just about to contact you. You've been out for a while. Didn't you say the supermarket was at the intersection... Did you buy too much?"

Yu Sheng: "...I haven't gone into the supermarket yet."

Eileen: "Are you lost?"

"I just wanted to tell you, I probably won't consider moving anymore," Yu Sheng said, not paying attention to Eileen's nonsensical guess.

"Ah?! Really?" Eileen sounded a little happy, but also a little curious. "Why? Didn't you say you felt something was wrong with this house? Especially that you might get 'thrown' somewhere just by opening the door..."

"It's nothing, I just suddenly realized... on this biggest issue, it might not be the house that's wrong," Yu Sheng sighed. "It seems like it's me who's wrong."

Eileen: "...?"

She didn't say anything, but Yu Sheng could imagine the expression of that doll with a head full of question marks at that moment.

"It's a bit complicated to explain, but you don't need to worry about moving anymore," Yu Sheng leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead. "If there's a chance later... I'll tell you then."

Eileen's curiosity was piqued, but she sensed that Yu Sheng didn't want to elaborate further, so she simply replied, "Oh."

Afterward, Yu Sheng ended his conversation with Eileen.

He hadn't revealed the specifics of what happened when he "opened the door" to her. It wasn't due to any particular concerns, but mainly because his own thoughts were still jumbled, and he hadn't had a chance to carefully consider many of the details from when he "opened the door." The situation had been too chaotic at the time, and he had overlooked many details that he would need to recall and organize later.

Yu Sheng decided to wait until he got back and had some time to recover before discussing the matter with Eileen.

Of course, he knew that even if he told Eileen, she would likely be as confused as he was, and they'd just be confused together. But still, having one more person to discuss it with was better than him trying to figure it out alone.

That automaton at least had some knowledge of the supernatural realm—though not much.

A few minutes later, Yu Sheng walked out of the street corner. He perked himself up in the gradually cooling night breeze and looked towards the small supermarket not far away.

After a moment of hesitation, he still stepped forward and headed towards the supermarket.

He decided to complete his shopping plan for the day first. Although the matter of the "door" was unsettling, he couldn't just stop opening any doors from today onwards.

However, this time, he was more cautious than ever when opening the supermarket door.

He tried his best to concentrate, sensing every subtle detail as he opened the door—the feel of the handle, the thoughts in his mind, intuitive reminders, even the sound of the wind around him, the shadow reflected on the glass door...

If anyone had been present at that moment, they probably would have felt that Yu Sheng's process of opening the door was like slow motion.

Then, the supermarket door opened.

Between the slightly crowded shelves, the young shop owner looked up. Upon seeing Yu Sheng, he smiled, "Oh, what can I get for you?"