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Living Funeral
墨書 Inktalez
Living Funeral
Recently, there have been many reports online about corpses piling up in funeral homes, with some bodies left unclaimed for one or two decades. I can't speak for other funeral homes, but the situation at the one where I work is even worse.
Our funeral home is located in a remote area, and it was established before the reform and opening-up period. After some renovations, this old funeral home has survived to the present day.
Due to the lack of advanced preservation technology, some bodies, while not completely decomposed, have accumulated significant amounts of fluid and are simply unviewable.
Additionally, there are several dismembered bodies that are not well-preserved either. However, all these bodies share one common characteristic: they are unclaimed.
Half a month after I started working at the funeral home, we received a directive from the Civil Affairs Department regarding the handling of unclaimed bodies. Once the directive was issued, the staff at the funeral home were quite pleased; finally, we wouldn't have to deal with these repulsive corpses every day.
With this directive in place, we could process these bodies on-site.
Previously, we had been too afraid to handle them, worried that family members might come looking for their loved ones and create a difficult situation. Now that we had orders from above, we could finally take action.
That day, we worked from morning until night, everyone exhausted and panting as we nearly finished cremating the "accumulated corpses" in the funeral home.
I was so tired that I felt like collapsing and just sat down on the ground without thinking much about it.
Brother Li walked over and handed me a cigarette. I took it and lit it up. I asked Brother Li if we could go home now.
Brother Li glanced at me without responding and instead called out to my roommate, Zhang Pangzi.
Zhang Pangzi is an old employee at the funeral home.
He quickly ran over and asked Brother Li what was up.
Brother Li looked at Zhang Pangzi and then at me and said, "Pangzi, make sure you handle that last body with Flying General later."
After those words were spoken, Zhang, the chubby man, changed his expression and said, "It's so late now, and Old Wang isn't handling that corpse!"
Brother Li immediately chimed in, "Old Wang isn't refusing to handle it! We've been working under Old Wang for so many years; even if he doesn't take care of some things, we still have to do them ourselves, right?"
I listened quietly from the side without interjecting.
Zhang remained silent while smoking, and the other two employees did the same, not uttering a word.
After a moment of contemplation, Zhang said, "Alright then, for the sake of fairness, let's all go together. Old Wang has treated us well; we should do our job thoroughly this time as a way to repay him. What do you all think?"
At this point, no one stepped forward to disagree, and consensus was reached.
In my heart, I thought, isn't it just handling a corpse? Is it really necessary to make such a fuss about it? Just Zhang and I would be enough; however, since I was new here, I felt it wasn't appropriate to speak up.
After Brother Li extinguished his cigarette butt, we headed toward the old building of the funeral home. The exterior of the building looked quite stylish; its design clearly indicated that it was from the Republic of China era.
At that moment, I felt curious. I had been working here for over half a month but had never entered this building before and had never heard that there was a corpse stored inside.
I initially thought this was an abandoned old building.
Brother Li unlocked the door with a key, and we climbed the stairs to enter the morgue on the second floor. As we stepped inside, a chill enveloped us.
The morgue was supposed to have air conditioning; however, this one lacked any body cabinets. There was just an iron bed, and we walked over to it.
The lights in the room were probably old and hadn't been replaced for years; they cast a dim yellow glow that made the place feel somewhat eerie.
A white cloth covered the corpse. Brother Li lifted the cloth, revealing the body beneath. It was dressed in what looked like a robe, with hair tied up high and secured with a wooden stick. Its cheeks were sunken in, and its complexion was pale as death—quite unsettling—but it seemed to be preserved relatively well.
After taking a glance at it, Brother Li quickly covered the body back up with the white cloth.
"Brother Li said, 'Lift it up.'
As everyone prepared to move, Zhang, the chubby one, stepped forward and said, 'Wait a moment.' He then took off the Guanyin Pendant hanging around his neck and said, 'Put this on him to ward off bad luck.'
Once Zhang was done, Brother Li instructed the four of us to carry the stretcher. In Old Wang's absence, Brother Li was in charge of the funeral home, and we had no objections to his orders.
After placing the body on the stretcher, Zhang and I took the rear while Brother Li led the way, muttering something under his breath that I couldn't quite catch.
As we lifted the stretcher, Zhang handed me a yellow talisman and said, 'Hold onto this.'
I looked at Zhang and asked, 'Aren't you the least superstitious? Why are you giving me this?'
But today, Zhang wasn't joking. He replied directly, 'Less talk, more action.' His words left me speechless.
We carried the body and took some time to have it cremated. I didn't feel anything special about it, but Zhang seemed as if he had fallen into a cesspool.
After returning to our dormitory, he spent a long time taking a shower and rubbed his plump body with pomelo leaves several times until his skin turned red.
I asked him what he was doing.
Zhang told me, 'Fei, you should also rub your body with pomelo leaves later.'
I replied, 'You're crazy. We just carried a few bodies. You never acted like this before; back then, you didn't even wash up.'
After we were done and feeling exhausted, neither of us had the energy to talk. Before long, I fell into a deep sleep.
In the morning, as I climbed down from the upper bunk, I saw Zhang wrapped tightly in thick blankets.
I thought to myself that it was truly bizarre; here in Great Xia, why was Zhang using so many blankets? The top one was mine—the blanket I had brought for winter."
How did this fat guy manage to throw my blanket off? At this rate, a perfectly healthy person might end up getting sick.
After calling out to Zhang, the fat guy, several times with no response, I stepped forward and gave him a push, but he still didn’t move.
Could he really be sleeping that deeply? Reluctantly, I decided to lift the two heavy blankets that were piled on top of him. But once I did, I was instantly dumbfounded.
Zhang's face was pale, his eyes bulging out, and part of his tongue was sticking out. There seemed to be finger marks around his neck, making him look like a corpse. I reached out to check for his breath and was so startled that I fell back onto the ground.
He’s dead! He’s really dead! Panic surged through me as my mind went blank. I hurriedly ran out, desperate to find Brother Li and the others.
When I reached Brother Li’s dormitory, I was met with an even more horrifying sight: all three of them were buried under thick blankets.
I was completely stunned.
I didn’t dare approach; I stood frozen at the door, my heart racing and my scalp tingling. Once I regained my senses, I fumbled for my phone and quickly called Director Wang.
Director Wang was the Old Wang that Brother Li and the others mentioned.
I was frantic as I shouted into the phone that something had happened—people were dead; Brother Li and the others were all dead.
As soon as my voice fell silent, Director Wang responded, "Fei, listen to me. Don’t call the police just yet. First, I need to ask you something: did they also deal with a corpse from the old building?"
I replied with a hesitant "yes."
On the other end of the line, Director Wang’s breathing grew heavier as he said, "Why does Li Qiang insist on tempting fate?"
I asked what he meant by that.
Old Wang didn’t answer my question directly but told me not to act rashly. He said he would come over immediately and instructed me to wait for him.
I suppressed the fear in my heart, and after hanging up the phone, my palms were soaked with cold sweat. I waited for quite a while.
An old man dressed in a black Zhongshan Suit appeared. In the half month since I started, I had only seen Old Wang once.
The heat was intense, yet my body trembled with chills.
Old Wang walked towards me and immediately asked where their bodies were. His face was incredibly grim, and his voice carried a hint of darkness.
I replied that they were in the dormitory building.
Old Wang carried a black bag on his back. After we went upstairs, to my surprise, the next moment he suddenly pressed his hand against my forehead and chin…
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