Bereavement Services

Splash... Zhou Xun scooped up a handful of water and patted it over his face. After a moment, he lifted his wet face and looked into the mirror. Reflected in the glass was the face of a fifteen-year-old youth. It had been two weeks, yet Zhou Xun was still not used to this brand-new face. Every time before looking into a mirror, he would pause subconsciously to prepare himself mentally. He reached out, pinched his cheek, tugged outward, and let go. Two red marks lingered on his skin. How wonderful it would be if he could simply rip away this face, and everything before his eyes, everything around him, everything from the past half month, would shatter like glass shards as if waking from a long dream. Of course, Zhou Xun knew that was impossible. Smack! Zhou Xun slapped himself across the face. Even though the face looked strikingly like a young Leonardo, Zhou Xun showed no mercy when striking it—in fact, he felt a strange, petty gratification from doing so. The slap was not some naive attempt to wake from a dream, but rather to clear his head so he could carry on living inside it. Since he was already here, he might as well make the best of it. That was the only way Zhou Xun could comfort himself. Knock, knock, knock... Knock, knock, knock... A knock sounded on the washroom door, accompanied by Mina's concerned call: "Brother Karen, Brother Karen, are you all right?" Mina was his cousin, the daughter of his uncle Mason. And the body Zhou Xun now inhabited also had a name—Karen. "I'm fine," Zhou Xun replied. "Okay." Mina let out a long breath of relief outside the door, then asked, "I'll bring breakfast up to your room in a bit, okay?" "No need, Mina. I'll come down to eat in a moment." Mina seemed a little surprised, but quickly responded, "All right, Brother." Zhou Xun continued staring at himself in the mirror, picking up a cold towel to cover his reddened face. In his previous life, he had been a psychiatrist with his own private clinic in Jinling City, concurrently serving as a psychological consultant for the police department. During a hostage situation, he had gone in as a negotiator to talk with the kidnapper. Something went wrong midway; the kidnapper tried to push the young hostage off the rooftop. Zhou Xun lunged forward and pulled the little girl back, but he fell off the edge himself and instantly lost consciousness. After what felt like a long stretch of bizarre, fragmented dreams, he slowly woke up. When he opened his eyes, Zhou Xun was stunned to find that he was not lying in a hospital ICU, nor were doctors gathered around his bed. Instead, surrounding him was a group of... "foreign friends." The eldest among them was his grandfather, Diss Inmeles. Karen was his eldest grandson. When Karen woke, Diss's eyes held relief... alongside an inscrutable, unspoken look. An uncle in his forties, Mason, was genuinely happy. Aunt Mary, Mason's wife, had first smiled, then scowled, and after scowling, smiled again. Another older woman was his aunt Winnie, who had wept tears of joy. Then there were three children. His uncle and aunt's kids—his cousins—were fourteen-year-old Mina and thirteen-year-old Lunt. The third was Aunt Winnie's daughter, thirteen-year-old Chris. As for Zhou Xun—or rather, Karen himself—his parents had passed away several years ago. That was the makeup of this family. Zhou Xun switched to a warm towel, placing it over his face once more. After a long while, he tossed it aside. Over the past two weeks since waking, he had spent most of his time in bed. On one hand, his body was indeed terribly weak; on the other, he needed to process the original Karen's memories. Absorbing another person's memories was a curious experience. It didn't cause any clash or confusion with his own; rather, the former owner's memories felt like files stored in a bookcase or on a computer drive. He was still Zhou Xun, but when necessary, a slight moment of contemplation—like running a search—would quickly retrieve the memories belonging to Karen. In short, since things had turned out this way, he had to face life bravely. Zhou Xun had already done his mental groundwork, ready to embrace his second life with a positive attitude. Pushing open the washroom door, he saw the family's black cat, Purr, lazing on the windowsill soaking up the sunlight. Spotting Karen, it naturally turned its head toward the window, exuding the quintessential aloofness of a feline master. Zhou Xun paused, took a deep breath, and muttered to himself, "Starting today, I am Karen." *** Karen walked down the stairs, descending from the third floor where his bedroom was to the second floor. The Inmeles family lived at 13 Mink Street in the West District of Rojia City, a detached villa with a large garden. By the standards of his past life, even if Mink Street was not in the absolute core district of Rojia City, it was comfortably within the inner ring. Imagine owning a detached villa in a non-suburban area of a second-tier city... In his previous life, Karen could only dream of a townhouse, unable to afford even a semi-detached home. That was one thing he felt quite lucky about. Transmigration... landing in a family with decent finances made life much easier. If he had transmigrated into a little match boy, oh heavens, that would have been true misery. The kitchen and dining room of the Inmeles residence were on the second floor, while the first floor was the workspace. Yes, this was a business, or rather a family workshop. This villa served both as the family's residence and as their means of production. The family ran a funeral business, operating under the shingle "Inmeles Bereavement Services." Grandfather was the boss. In both family life and the firm's operations, his word was law. At the same time, Grandfather served as the priest of the small church at the end of Mink Street. Uncle Mason had originally worked at the stock exchange, while Aunt Mary had once been a moderately well-known makeup artist in the entertainment circle, specializing in styling celebrities and even making cameos in minor movie roles. Their life ought to have been comfortable middle-class, and they had long since moved out to live on their own. However, due to Uncle Mason's failed investments, they lost not only their savings but also their property, seemingly falling into debt as well. In the end, Uncle Mason had no choice but to bring his wife and two children back home to... fulfill his filial duties to his father. Grandfather had said nothing about it. However, he soon found excuses to fire the original hearse driver and mortuary cosmetologist. In Grandfather's words: "The Inmeles house feeds no freeloaders." Now Uncle Mason drove—specifically, the family hearse—taking the hired hands Paul and Ron with him to pick up and deliver "distinguished guests." Aunt Mary continued in her area of expertise, still doing makeup on people, except she no longer had to worry about bad-tempered stars making trouble or dealing with customer complaints. Their children, Mina and Lunt, attended secondary school. Aunt Winnie had once been an accountant at a small clothing factory. After divorcing her husband over irreconcilable differences, she returned to the family home with her daughter, Chris. Fortunately, the Inmeles house was large. Even with the "distinguished guests" residing in the basement and the first floor serving as the mourning parlor, the numerous rooms across the second and third floors were more than enough to accommodate such a large household. Karen and his cousin Lunt had originally shared a room. Since Karen fell ill, Lunt had moved upstairs to sleep with Grandfather on the third floor, where Grandfather also had an office. The second floor had three bedrooms: one for his uncle and aunt, one for Aunt Winnie, and one for the two younger female cousins. The atmosphere at home was actually quite harmonious. Grandfather commanded immense authority, and no one dared stir up trouble under his nose. When Karen reached the dining table on the second floor, Mina was helping her mother lay out the plates. Seeing Karen come down, Aunt Mary deliberately put on a mocking sneer. "Our young master can finally walk down for breakfast on his own? No need for your loyal maidservant of an aunt to carry it up to you?" Aunt Mary was simply that kind of person—sharp-tongued and fond of sarcastic jabs. In this house, aside from Grandfather whom she dared not cross, everyone else—her husband, her children, her sister-in-law, and Karen—served as targets for her acid tongue. A warm smile appeared on Karen's face, and he said with genuine sincerity, "Thank you for taking care of me these past days, Aunt Mary. That's why I recovered so quickly." In Karen's memory, though his aunt had a vicious mouth, she had always cared for him just as she did her own two children, very much a case of a sharp tongue but a soft heart. "Uh..." Not expecting her usually sullen, reticent, and eccentric nephew to deliver such smooth, gracious words, Aunt Mary was momentarily caught off guard. She curled her lip and said, "Eat your food." "All right." Karen took a seat at the table. Breakfast consisted of sandwiches, fried eggs, milk, and a few small grilled sausages. Taking a bite of the sandwich, he chewed slowly. Although he had only been here for half a month, Karen was already starting to miss duck blood vermicelli soup with three spoonfuls of chili oil. Just then, a car horn sounded outside. "Your father is back." Aunt Mary washed her hands at the sink and untied her apron. "Keep eating. I'll go see what sort of 'surprise' your father brought back for me." When other husbands returned home, the extravagant ones brought rings or designer handbags, while the ordinary ones brought a bouquet of flowers as a sweet little surprise for their wives. Uncle Mason, on the other hand, brought his wife corpses. To Aunt Mary, a body from a normal death by illness already counted as a "surprise." What she hated most were unnatural deaths; those were an absolute nuisance to work on. Karen set down his fork. Subconsciously, he viewed himself as an adult; when something happened in the house, he could hardly sit at the table eating like the children, so he followed Aunt Mary downstairs. The ground floor was spacious. In the southeast corner stood a small raised platform three steps high, used for resting coffins. At this moment, the two hired hands, Paul and Ron, were wheeling in a gurney covered with a white sheet. Uncle Mason hadn't come inside. He had an air of aloof pride; though he had to work under his father's authority, he only handled the driving and rarely touched the bodies. In Karen's impression, though Uncle Mason was unreliable with investments and had squandered the family fortune, he was witty, humorous, and very good to his family in daily life. Aunt Mary stepped forward, lifted the sheet for a glance, and let out a long breath of relief. The deceased was a young man whose condition was not gruesome, though while the body lay flat on its back, his face was turned ninety degrees to the right. "Frozen to death?" Aunt Mary asked. "A welfare case?" Winter had just begun and the truly bitter cold hadn't arrived yet, but incidents of drunks or vagrants freezing to death on the streets were already occurring from time to time. As for welfare cases... they were funded by a special foundation established jointly by the city government, churches, and charitable organizations, specifically to provide a dignified funeral for deceased individuals without family or friends—those with no one to pay for burial expenses. Welfare cases had to be actively bid on by various funeral parlors, divided by district. After being skimmed layer by layer, the profit that actually reached a funeral home was meager enough to be practically negligible, but it kept the business running. After all, even when there was no work, the hired hands still had to be paid, didn't they? Correspondingly, welfare cases were far easier to handle because there were rarely relatives around to supervise and nitpick. The body would receive basic preparation before being placed into a coffin. Grandfather, dressed in his priest's robes, would stand beside the deceased while an official sent by the municipal department snapped a few photos for the registry, concluding the process so they could wait for the monthly payout. "Yes, ma'am. I know him—name's Jeff, an unlucky bloke who always lost at cards. Sigh, I'm even unluckier; every time he went to the tavern to play, I wasn't there," Ron said. "Ma'am, there's another run. We need to head to Flower Water Bay Nursing Home," Paul said. Aunt Mary immediately called out loudly, "Tell the nursing home staff to bathe them first, or don't bring them back! The last elderly person you hauled from there had feces crusted all over his body!" "Yes, understood," Paul promised at once. With that, he and Ron swapped for an empty gurney and headed back to the hearse. Honk, honk... Sitting in the car with a cigarette between his fingers, Uncle Mason tapped the horn twice. He first called out to Karen, "My little Karen, looks like you've recovered quite well!" "Yes, Uncle," Karen answered. "Haha, wonderful!" Then he looked at his wife and shouted, "Darling, when I come back at noon, I want your meat pies! That's one of the two greatest delicacies of my life!" "Go eat in the toilet, I don't have time!" Uncle Mason shrugged, continuing to grin shamelessly. "Oh, that's my other favorite!" Aunt Mary couldn't keep a straight face, turning her head away as the corners of her mouth twitched. "Off we go, darling!" Mason started the engine and drove away. Aunt Mary took two deep breaths and reached out to push the gurney. Karen naturally stepped over to lend a hand. Aunt Mary glanced at Karen, remaining still. Karen looked at her with slight confusion. "Karen, you seem a bit different from before." "Perhaps." Karen didn't bother covering up his transmigration. In fact, as a transmigrator, that was the least of his worries—who among the people around you would ever jump to the conclusion that your soul had been replaced? They'd have to be insane! "To the basement." "All right, Aunt Mary." Together, aunt and nephew pushed the gurney bearing the corpse past the corner of the ground-floor hall and down the ramp. The path to the basement was a slope with a flat landing in the middle. Pushing it downward required controlling their speed to keep the body from sliding off. "It would be great if we could install an elevator," Karen said once they reached the basement, his hands gripping the gurney feeling slightly strained. "Like the ones in department stores?" Aunt Mary scoffed. "Are you mad? Do you know how expensive that would be!" The basement consisted of a single level divided into three rooms, or functional areas. One was a storage room... though it wasn't just junk; it held various supplies needed by the funeral home, neatly stacked. Another was the morgue, currently devoid of any bodies. Inside, Karen didn't spot a refrigeration unit either. Karen didn't bother asking why they hadn't bought a freezer, confident that if he asked, Aunt Mary would snap: "Are you mad? Do you know how expensive that would be!" Still, this showed that the Inmeles family's business was not particularly large, with no need to maintain a backlog of "inventory." From another perspective, however, it also proved that regardless of the era or cultural background, the business of the dead was truly lucrative. The final room was Aunt Mary's workshop, where she applied "cosmetics" to the deceased. No matter how good-looking someone was in life, once dead, they ended up looking very... ordinary. Not to mention those who died unnatural deaths, which required far more work. Ordinary welfare cases only needed attention on the face; no relatives would fuss over anything else. But for major orders—the kind where families were willing to spend money on an elaborate service—the entire body required thorough cleansing, down to trimming the fingernails. Beyond that, the caskets, shrouds, priest's prayers, and even the layout of the mourning service could all be tiered according to budget. Karen helped Aunt Mary push the gurney into the workshop. Aunt Mary pulled over a chair, sat down, and set an ashtray onto the gurney, nearly level with Jeff's face. Snap... Aunt Mary lit a cigarette, took a drag, and slowly blew out the smoke. Setting aside her acid tongue, Aunt Mary was genuinely an attractive woman. Though getting on in years, she still had plenty of charm. Of course, no matter how refined a lady once was, being dragged into this line of work by her husband made it hard to remain graceful and poised. Karen stared at the cigarette in Aunt Mary's hand. Noticing his gaze, Aunt Mary smiled faintly and slid the pack toward him. Karen reached out, took one, and picked up the lighter. He lit it and took a puff. "Cough, cough... cough, cough... blech..." A wave of intense nausea surged up, and Karen clutched his chest, coughing violently. "Hehehe, hahaha..." Aunt Mary laughed until tears came to her eyes. This reaction wasn't an act on Karen's part. He had been a heavy smoker in his past life, but this body had never been poisoned by nicotine; both his flesh and brain issued an instinctive, violent warning against the toxin. Aunt Mary snubbed out her cigarette, checked Jeff's body to confirm there were no other external injuries, and then tried to twist his face back straight. A light application of makeup would finish this job. Once the hands returned, they would dress Jeff and haul him upstairs; in this weather, they could even skip the embalming procedure. "Hm?" Aunt Mary released her grip and said to Karen, "You try turning it. I can't budge it." "Oh, all right." Karen put out his cigarette, stepped forward, pressed one hand against Jeff's neck, and supported Jeff's right cheek with the other. He applied force. More force. More force... Jeff's face slowly began to turn back toward center. Yet to Karen's shock—something Aunt Mary standing beside him couldn't perceive—as he exerted force to straighten the head, he clearly felt Jeff's corpse pushing back toward the right... It didn't feel like turning a dead man's face; it felt like wrestling with a living person! The discovery sent a chill through Karen's heart. But just as he intended to let go, the opposing force abruptly vanished. No... the moment he let go, Jeff's head— Creak, creak, creak... It straightened itself! Jeff's eyes snapped wide open, glaring right at Karen. His mouth began twitching frantically, producing a rustling sound like a swarm of rats gnawing through floorboards. Karen instinctively took two steps back until his back slammed against the wall. Immediately after, a resounding thud echoed, as if someone had struck the back of his head hard with a shovel. Karen curled inward, his vision blurring. Yet he fiercely resisted losing awareness of his surroundings under such circumstances. Enduring the throbbing agony at the back of his head, he forced himself to look up. In his field of view lay a sea of red. Karen stumbled backward. As he retreated, his perspective rose higher and higher. He realized the red he saw was a high-heeled shoe. Above the heel rose an impossibly long leg, a pale white leg, and opposite it stood an identical giant high heel and towering leg... He was like a tiny mouse standing at someone's feet. Thump... Karen lost his balance and fell onto his backside. He couldn't tell whether this was a dream or an insane hallucination... Until— Plop... A thick pool of viscous liquid landed on him, completely soaking his upper body. Karen slowly tilted his head back. He saw it. Above him, between those two gigantic legs, was a woman's face. She looked down at him with curiosity and a smile. At the same time, from her slightly parted lips, drool dripped steadily down. Hiss... hiss... hiss... A burst of static laced with white noise came from somewhere unknown, followed by a deep, magnetic voice of a middle-aged man: "Do not be afraid. This beautiful and charming lady... is merely craving your body."