Chapter 30: The Gatekeeper
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The door of the small supermarket slammed shut behind Yu Sheng, cutting off the scorching heat from that charred world and the sudden menace of the two black-armored soldiers. He stood there, rooted to the spot, a bit dazed.
For several moments, he simply stared ahead before drawing a sharp breath. Turning his head, he glanced around.
The street was nearly empty. The few passersby seemed entirely oblivious to the strange occurrence that had just unfolded. Only Yu Sheng had confronted that bizarre scene head-on, and now he stood in the evening breeze, his thoughts swirling.
After a moment, he slowly turned back to gaze at the storefront of the small supermarket.
Over the past two months, he had visited this place more than once. Nestled in the old part of town, the little shop didn’t stock much, but it had all the basics—daily necessities, rice, flour, cooking oil. The owners were a young couple, and Yu Sheng was somewhat familiar with them by now.
The supermarket’s facade was nothing special—just an ordinary ground-floor shop. Large glass windows faced the street, almost entirely covered with various promotional signs and shelves crammed with small items pressed against the glass. One side of the glass door didn’t work properly; an A4 paper with “Door Broken” was taped to that half. Through the door, he could see the slightly cramped shelves inside and the owner moving goods beside them.
Everything looked perfectly normal—nothing could be more ordinary.
But Yu Sheng couldn’t dismiss what he’d just witnessed as some kind of hallucination. He could still feel that scorching, faintly sulfurous air lingering in his nostrils.