He walked into the kitchen, closed the door, and turned on the range hood. Amidst the noisy hum of the machine, Yu Sheng felt his heart gradually calm down.
It was as if the thin wooden door of the kitchen and the noisy sound of the range hood had temporarily isolated him from a chaotic and strange world—he had finally returned to a place that was completely his own, and he could even temporarily pretend that he wasn't in that huge and strange "Boundary City," but had returned to his familiar, real "home."
This large house was different from his original "home" in every way, but only this small kitchen was very close to the structure he remembered. So, after settling down a bit in this world, he had tried his best to arrange it to his familiar liking.
Every day when he cooked here, he pretended that he was still in his real home, pretended that he had never pushed open the door that morning, never stepped into a strange city filled with strange shadows—sometimes when he was busy here, he would even feel that if he just looked up, he would see the familiar street scene of the past through the window, see the old street outside the kitchen bathed in the orange clouds, and the reddish sunlight flowing on the outer walls of the residential buildings in his memory…
But the view outside the window would always shatter these brief fantasies. Now, looking out the window, he could only see a bare, empty lot and low, old bungalows not far away. There were no residential buildings here, but there were plenty of messy telephone poles. And the warm and cozy sky from his memory, he hadn't seen it for a long time.
The light in this city was always either blindingly white or depressingly dim.
Yu Sheng sighed and pulled down the blinds outside the glass, not paying attention to the night that seemed to be perpetually shrouded in shadows.
He picked and washed the vegetables, heated the wok with cold oil, and after stir-frying the green onions until fragrant, he skillfully added the ingredients to the wok. Listening to the sizzling sound from the wok, Yu Sheng also heard the sounds of TV programs from outside the door—this strange city did have a series of information channels, including TV and mobile phones. In the beginning, much of his understanding of this "Boundary City" was almost entirely achieved by watching TV programs and browsing mobile news. And even now, this was one of his important ways of understanding this "world."
"Yu Sheng! The TV volume is too low! Turn it up for me! Please!"
A girl's boisterous voice suddenly came from outside the door. Yu Sheng was startled and his hand trembled, almost flipping the food out of the wok.
He had almost forgotten that there was still an Irene outside.
In the past, when he was cooking in the kitchen, no one would be talking outside!
"Wait!" Yu Sheng replied loudly and quite impolitely, then couldn't help but mutter, "…She sure makes herself at home…"
But soon he twitched the corner of his mouth, revealing a somewhat helpless smile.
Alright, that's fine too. It adds a bit of "life" to the house. At least it's a sound.
After a while, Yu Sheng came out with hot food. He placed the bowls and plates on the dining table, turned up the volume of the TV opposite the dining table by two notches, and then sat down with his back to the TV, opposite Irene's frame—he didn't have the habit of watching TV while eating, but he would turn it on for background noise. This point wouldn't conflict with Irene, who could only watch TV from a fixed angle.
Irene, in the oil painting, hugged a teddy bear and stretched her neck to look at the food on the table. Her eyes flickered between the program and the dining table, muttering, "Quite a spread…"
"Just some home-cooked dishes," Yu Sheng said casually. "I quite like cooking."
"Oh." Irene said, then continued to watch TV obediently. But after Yu Sheng started eating, she craned her head to look at the dining table again. After holding it in for a long time, she finally couldn't help but speak, "So you're just going to eat while I watch?"
Yu Sheng raised his eyes, extended his chopsticks, and waved them in front of Irene's frame. "Want a bite?"
Irene glared, but then she lowered her head and started to sulk.
"…Alright, alright, just for show," Yu Sheng felt helpless seeing her like this. He sighed and got an empty bowl from the kitchen, scooped some food from his own bowl into it, and placed it in front of Irene's frame. "I've left a bowl and chopsticks for you—just pretend you're smelling it. I'll be the one eating it in the end anyway."
Irene frowned at the bowl of rice in front of the frame. After thinking about it, she decided it was acceptable. She jumped down from the chair, leaned close to the edge of the frame, her face taking up almost half of the frame's area, and looked at Yu Sheng very seriously. "Okay, that's fine—thanks, you're quite considerate…"
Yu Sheng lowered his head and took a mouthful of rice, mumbling a reply. Then he looked up and saw Irene with only her head showing in the frame. His gaze then fell on the bowl of rice in front of the frame, and he suddenly felt that something was not quite right…
Irene didn't notice anything wrong. She was a little curious about Yu Sheng's sudden daze. "What are you staring at?"
Yu Sheng quickly lowered his head and took two more mouthfuls of rice, then looked up at Irene again—
The dark frame, the dark background, the doll girl's head, and a bowl of rice in front of the portrait.
The whole picture was like a memorial portrait.jpg.
The muscles on his face twitched twice, but he held it in for a long time and didn't dare to say what he was thinking—not for any other reason, but mainly because Irene's cursing was very foul.
Since it had come to this, he could only eat. He had to pretend that nothing had happened and buried his head in his food under Irene's puzzled gaze, trying his best not to look at the memorial portrait opposite the table…
The meal was like a funeral banquet.
After finally finishing the meal, Yu Sheng wiped his mouth, quickly cleared all the cups, plates, bowls, and dishes from in front of Irene's frame, and threw them into the kitchen sink, planning to soak them until the next morning to wash—mainly because his back still hurt, and bending over the sink to wash dishes was a bit of a burden for him now.
But the dishes could wait, the garbage couldn't. At this time of year, the kitchen garbage bag couldn't be left in the house overnight—he endured his back pain, collected the garbage, and carried the bag towards the door.
Irene, who was watching TV, looked up and asked curiously, "Hey, where are you going so late?"
"Do I have to report to you where I'm going in my own house?" Yu Sheng replied impolitely to this overly familiar doll in the painting, but he still raised the garbage bag in his hand to show her. "I'm going out to throw out the garbage."
"Oh, then come back early," Irene's gaze had already returned to the TV. "This house is so big. I'm scared to be alone. What if a thief breaks in…"
Yu Sheng rolled his eyes, thinking to himself that in such a gloomy, large house, if someone really broke in and the first thing they saw was a ghost-like figure floating around in a painting, the first one to be scared to death would definitely not be the one in the painting. With Irene's condition, a thief would probably call the police first…
But he was too embarrassed to say this in front of Irene.
Yu Sheng shook his head, grumbling to himself. He came to the door, put on his shoes for going out, and reached for the doorknob.
He applied a slight force with his hand, turned it, and pushed it open.
For some reason, he suddenly recalled that ordinary morning two months ago, a morning that seemed like any other ordinary day in his ordinary life.
At that time, just like now, he had pushed open the door of his home, walked outside, and stepped into a huge and suffocatingly strange city, and he hadn't been able to go back since—
A strange association flashed through his mind. Yu Sheng shook his head with a self-deprecating smile and pushed the door open.
The crisp sound of a dry branch breaking shattered the silence of the valley. A chilling night wind carried a disturbing smell of decay and stench. The coldness in the air made Yu Sheng, who was only wearing a thin layer of clothes, shiver subconsciously. Then he took several seconds to restart his brain, which had momentarily stopped working.
He saw that he was standing among desolate and ruined rubble. In the distance, the night seemed to be a gloomy and grotesque dense forest, with high mountains on both sides towering into the night sky, like silent,狰狞的巨人, looking down on the valley from both sides, bringing an unbearable sense of heavy oppression.
Yu Sheng stood frozen in the cold night, then slowly turned his head to look at where he had come from.
A pile of collapsed and ruined bricks and tiles came into view. It looked like a ruined temple that had been abandoned and collapsed a hundred years ago. A dilapidated door—or perhaps just a crooked door frame with half a door panel—stood alone in the ruins. When the night wind blew, a hollow whimper came from the crack between the broken door panel and the rubble.
Yu Sheng stared with wide eyes. "Where the hell did this send me…"
He finally began to understand.
With his action of "opening the door," the events of two months ago had repeated themselves.
He had been thrown into a strange place again.
And this was worse than two months ago—although that huge and strange "Boundary City" was very different from the "Boundary City" where he was born and raised, it was at least a modern city where people could survive. But this time, the situation was not good.
He had been thrown into a wilderness.
A dense forest in front, dangerous mountains on the left and right, and only a ruined temple that had been collapsed for who knows how many years behind him—Yu Sheng felt that if this place didn't spawn thirty or fifty bandits or a few wolf demons and fox fairies on the spot, it would be a disservice to the terrain…
And the only thing he had in his hand was a bag of kitchen garbage he had just brought from home…
Yu Sheng thought for a moment, and his heart was filled with foul curses.
And in the next second, just as the elegant words were about to burst out of Yu Sheng's heart, a sudden voice suddenly came from his mind—
"Yu Sheng! The TV has no signal! When are you coming back?"