No One Behind the Door

Yao Yao has always dreamed of becoming a novelist. In her twenties, with no exceptional talent to speak of, her greatest wish is simply to find a job that can support her and, while she’s at it, finish the novel that never gets past its opening pages. An unexpected round of layoffs leaves her unemployed. Every day, she sends out résumés, waits for offers, and plays video games. Her ordinary, financially strained life seems to stretch on without end. Then one evening, while tidying her bookshelves, she finds a door tucked away at the very back. It hasn’t appeared out of nowhere. She simply realizes for the first time that there has always been a door there. Beyond it is no room, only a road she has never seen before. From that day on, inexplicable changes begin to seep into her life: nonexistent floors, unfamiliar streets, photographs she never took, and places that exist only in her novel. Yao Yao begins to wonder whether her imagination is turning into reality, or whether this world has always concealed another, unknown corner. When she finally opens the door, there are no answers waiting for her. Instead, there are one inexplicable space after another, forgotten stories, and people who seem to have known her for a long time. She had thought she’d stumbled upon an entrance to another world by sheer accident. Only later does she discover Some doors are never found by people. They are waiting for someone to open them.