Chapter 34 – Successfully Reproduced, the Passage is Controllable!

As the Door slammed shut, the dim starlight from a distant sky vanished from Yu Sheng’s eyes. It took a full half minute before he snapped out of his momentary shock, then drew a long, slow breath, belatedly breaking into a cold sweat.

After opening a Door, one wouldn’t necessarily arrive at some “location” in an Otherworld or on a planet — there was even a certain probability of ending up directly in outer space?

The randomness of this “Door” and the range of that randomness far exceeded anything Yu Sheng had imagined!

In that moment, Yu Sheng even felt a surge of relief — relief that the first time he had accidentally opened a Door, he had stumbled into an Otherworld rather than opening it onto the depths of the cosmos. If he had truly been that unlucky back then, he couldn’t begin to imagine what would have happened.

In the worst case, he might have found himself in the harsh environment of outer space, continuously dying and reviving without pause, with perhaps no chance whatsoever to maintain a clear train of thought in between, let alone grope for and master the ability of Door Opening amid that rapid and relentless dying. Even if he had miraculously endured it, or luckily stumbled his way into opening a Door back to the surface, whatever had come before would surely have been an utterly terrifying ordeal.

Once his pounding heart finally calmed, Yu Sheng immediately began to analyze the new information he had gathered during the last Door Opening.

When the Door had opened, he hadn’t felt any terrifying “suction” from the vacuum on the other side, nor had he sensed the cold that outer space should have brought.

But in previous instances when the Door had opened, he had both heard sounds from the other side and felt some environmental effects from it — such as the scorching hot air currents from a barren planet.

Why was that? Did the Door itself have some kind of filtering property? When the difference between the environments on either side was too extreme, would it automatically block out that portion of the effect? Or was there something special about “outer space” itself — making it a kind of “coordinate” that could only be seen but never truly reached? Or perhaps… what he had seen just now wasn’t truly outer space at all, but rather a different kind of Otherworld that merely looked like a starry sky…

Yu Sheng pondered this, then turned to glance at Eileen in the Oil Painting.

Eileen hesitated, looking over at him. “Are you going to keep going? You seemed startled just now…”

Yu Sheng closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, only resolve remained.

“Continue.”

He gripped the door handle once more, but this time with far greater caution than before. He sensed that subtle, faint “spiritual guidance” more carefully, while also trying to recall the feeling from each of his previous successful Door Openings, attempting to… reproduce one particular passage.

He slowly pushed the Door open. On the other side was nothing but an unremarkable scene — what appeared to be a desolate beach.

It wasn’t any Door he had ever opened before.

And so he tried again and again, opening the Door over and over, searching for the path that led to Hu Li’s side.

Or any other reproducible passage — as long as it let him grasp the underlying pattern of Door Opening.

Amid this endless cycle of attempts, a brief thought surfaced in Yu Sheng’s heart at one point — could there be a Door, somewhere, whose other side was the familiar “hometown” from his memories?

He still remembered that he had come to this “Boundary City” one morning after pushing open his front door and stepping outside. Though he had no concrete evidence, he was now increasingly convinced that moment had been the very first time he had truly “opened a Door.”

Only, at the time, he had had no awareness of it whatsoever.

Then someday, in a future Door Opening, would he push open the Door and see the home in his memories?

Yu Sheng forcibly suppressed that thought as it suddenly arose. He knew he had more urgent things to do right now. Going home… he would let that remain a hope buried quietly in his heart for the time being.

The Door opened time and time again — to bizarre and fantastical sights, to mundane and unremarkable ones, to absurd and eerie ones, and even… to bustling and lively ones.

Countless distant worlds rushed toward him with each brief opening and closing of the Door, then slammed shut again. And in the midst of this endlessly repeating process, Yu Sheng suddenly had a wonderful feeling.

This world… truly was not limited to Boundary City alone.

Beyond this great city — seemingly possessed of so many unique qualities, sitting at the crossroads of so much — lay something so vast and boundless it took the breath away.

So many sights, so many mysteries, so many strange and varied distant places — right there with every opening of the Door, within each casual push and pull of his hand.

He was not imprisoned in this city.

Eileen also seemed to be gradually growing excited. Though it wasn’t clear what exactly the Puppet in the Painting was getting worked up about, she watched the scenery beyond the Door alongside Yu Sheng, and it was clear she was growing increasingly enthusiastic.

Unable to move, she began offering commentary on what she saw through the Door, one scene after another —

“That mountain is so tall! There’s something glowing on it — will we have a chance to go see it someday?”

“The ocean! Such huge fish!”

“Wow! It’s all snow, but why is it pale blue… doesn’t look like anywhere life could exist…”

“…It’s a toilet. Let’s go, let’s go.”

“…That scared me — there’s a ghost!”

The puppet never shut up for a single moment; whatever appeared beyond the Door would set her chattering endlessly. At first Yu Sheng found it a little grating, but gradually, Eileen’s ever-novel and exclamatory outbursts became a small source of amusement amid the otherwise dull process of testing.

Then, just before one particular Door Opening, he suddenly felt something stir deep in his heart — like the moment an old-fashioned rotary-dial capacitor tuner finally “locks onto” the right frequency while searching a very narrow band on a radio. He sensed a passage he had opened once before — not the valley filled with hunger, but a Door he had genuinely opened in the past.

Yu Sheng seized that feeling at once. For the first time, he actively controlled his own “spiritual guidance” — without technique, guided only by instinct — drawing closer to that familiar passage. He carefully pushed the Door open and looked at the other side.

He saw flames burning around the Door frame.

He also saw, in the distance, a solemn and ancient hall, with radiant spiritual light drifting among the upturned eaves and columns. There was a handsome young man in magnificent brocade robes, and an old man with flowing white hair yet a child’s complexion, carrying himself with the air of an immortal sage.

The young man was being hung from a roof beam and thrashed by the old man.

The old man was full of vigor, and his words could be heard clearly even from this side —

“And to think you’ve followed your master for so many years! You’ve secretly been cultivating the demonic path behind my back! Speak! What’s the business with refining living beings in the pill furnace! What’s with the human head! You, you, you… have you truly harmed the lodgeocent!?”

The handsome young man in his brocade robes twisted on the roof beam as he shouted back: “Master, this is a terrible injustice! I was just refining a perfectly ordinary Spirit Nurturing Pill! How was I supposed to know why Junior Brother would see a person pop out from the fire door of the pill furnace… ow ow, stop hitting me, stop it Master, it’s all a misunderstanding!”

The old immortal master nearly leapt into the air upon hearing this: “Stop your excuses! When I inspected the pill furnace earlier, I even glimpsed the spiritual essence of a living being! There was indeed a living person in that furnace of yours!”

Yu Sheng stared, dumbfounded. And then he saw a small figure pop up beside the Door frame — none other than the young Daoist boy from before, the one with the Fan. The little brat’s eyes went wide as he glanced toward the Door, then went running and hollering in the direction of the great hall: “Master! Master! Another head just popped out of Senior Brother’s pill furnace! The same one as before!”

The sage-like old man then drew out what appeared to be a copper-buckled belt strap…

Though it might not have been a copper-buckled belt strap exactly — it was too far away to tell clearly. It was only from the young man’s instantaneous yelp that one could judge the thing to be at least as fearsome as a copper-buckled belt strap.

Yu Sheng slammed the Door shut. Shock, relief, and excitement all tangled together at once. It was quite some time before he finally wheeled around and shouted to Eileen in delighted disbelief: “Eileen! I did it! I did it!”

Eileen was startled: “Calm down, calm down — what did you do?”

“That passage just now was one I’d opened before! I just consciously opened it again on my own — the process is controllable! It’s reproducible!”

He was both thrilled and elated. Having confirmed that he truly could control that subtle “spiritual guidance,” it also meant he could control and reproduce any other Door he had ever opened before — including the valley where Hu Li was!

What he needed to do next was find a way to recall the “frequency” he had sensed in his heart when he had first fallen into that valley, and even finding a close approximation would do — he could keep trying exhaustively until he found it!

Eileen was clearly caught up in Yu Sheng’s excitement as well, though this time the little puppet lady recovered her composure surprisingly quickly. She spoke up to remind him: “By the way, shouldn’t you explain the situation to the people on the other side of that last Door… the one hanging from the roof beam is practically being beaten to death…”

Yu Sheng froze, and only then did he belatedly remember that detail — mainly because every previous Door Opening had been completely random, and he still wasn’t accustomed to this new state of affairs where the process was controllable and so many things could be done deliberately.

He reached out and gripped the door handle again, but a flicker of hesitation crossed his mind.

Were the people on the other side easy to talk to? That sage-like figure… could he be the “immortal” Hu Li had mentioned? But he didn’t quite seem to fit — mainly because the whole atmosphere didn’t look like the type of immortal who would run a travel agency. Perhaps they were from a different system altogether… If his explanation went poorly and the other party attacked, what would he do? He himself was an ordinary mortal who definitely couldn’t win a fight… Then maybe he should just say something through the Door without going through? Surely the other side couldn’t reach through the Door to hit him… After all, when he had closed the Door last time, that sage-like old man had only sensed “the spiritual essence of a living being” without actually tracking him down through the Door…

A whirlwind of jumbled thoughts spun through his mind. Finally, Yu Sheng steeled himself, concentrated again, and tried to lock onto the frequency from the last Door Opening. After confirming it several times, he carefully pushed the Door open.

A surge of joy at his success rose from his heart — he had successfully reproduced that passage again.

The sage-like old man was escorting the robed young man, who had been beaten for quite some time, as they flew toward him from the distance on a beam of rosy light.

Yu Sheng stayed on his side of the Door and didn’t dare approach. He just shouted out loud: “It’s all a misunderstanding!”

The robed young man immediately fell off the cloud of rosy light, and called out in a voice that was almost tearful: “You can’t do this to someone! Whichever senior immortal you are on the other side, if Junior has offended you in some way, just say it directly!”

“I have no idea! I was just passing through!” Yu Sheng told the honest truth. “I didn’t even know this was your pill furnace — it’s a misunderstanding, a genuine misunderstanding.”

And then he shut the Door.

Mainly because he was truly afraid the immortal on the other side would come through swinging.

Yu Sheng turned back around and exchanged a wide-eyed stare with Eileen in the Oil Painting.

“…Do you think I explained it clearly enough?”

Eileen nodded vigorously. “I think you explained it clearly enough.”

“…I feel kind of bad for them.”

“…You probably won’t run into them again. The world is a big place, right?”

“Mm, that makes sense.”

(End of Chapter)