She had been pestering the mortician to put on herself

1

"Are you putting on makeup for others?" Ah Zhao looked up at Li Di.

Eyes blinked, like a punctured notch in a half-cooked poached egg.

The fresh, soft breath flows out from inside.

This kind of breath is incompatible with this kind of place.

In the face of this sudden girl, and her sudden problem, Li Di suddenly stopped moving.

Then subconsciously he snuffed out the cigarette in his hand and replied dryly, "Sort of."

"Can you help me put on some makeup too?" Ah Zhao coldly threw a request at him, "Every time I steal my mother's cosmetics, I will be disciplined." She added, with a bit of grievance. "No." Stunned, Li Di once again gave a dry answer.

Rejected so crisply, Ah Zhao was unexpected, stunned for a long time before he came back, I don't know if it was shame or sadness, red face, and ran away with a cigarette.

Ah Zhao was nine years old, and this was her first encounter with Li Di.

Not everything in this world, there is a first time, there will be a second time.

But the next day, Li Di saw Ah Zhao again.

He felt inexplicable about this and became curious about her.

A little girl can't come to such a place for two consecutive days.

Li Di took the initiative to grab her and asked: What are you doing here to run around?

Ah Zhao smiled and giggled, as if he didn't remember the incident yesterday at all.

"I heard there's a dressing room here, and I want to wear makeup and become a woman."

Li Di couldn't help but laugh. Seeing Li Di's smile, Ah Zhao was somehow encouraged.

"Can you help me put on my makeup?" Suddenly she asked the question again.

"No." Or the same answer.

Only this time, Li Di's voice was not as hard as yesterday, with some tenderness.

This time when li di met, he knew that Ah Zhao's parents were also working here.

In the original words of Ah Zhao: Mom is a flower seller, and Dad is a fire burner.

Li Di immediately understood: Ah Zhao's mother was responsible for selling wreath baskets, urns and various coffins here.

Father, on the other hand, is the head of the crematoria here.

And Li Di's job has a nice name: Soul Makeup Artist.

Specifically, it is the mortician.

Daily registration of the remains, refrigeration and embalming, scrubbing and changing clothes, and putting on makeup for the remains are all things he is responsible for.

I don't know if it was because Li Di rejected her with a smile, Ah Zhao did not take this rejection too seriously, but thought that Li Di was teasing her.

From that day on, Li Di and Ah Zhao had officially met.

2

The refrigeration equipment emitted a low humming sound, and on both sides of the narrow refrigerator, there were more than 300 freezers densely packed, and there was a dense smell of disinfectant potion.

The storage temperature of the freezer is generally minus 10-18 degrees Celsius, while the temperature in the morgue is maintained at about -5 degrees Celsius.

Most of them were lying in the freezer, while Li Di was standing in the morgue.

From time to time, he needed to check the temperature control equipment on the freezer and pull out the body for observation.

When repeating these processes, sometimes he can't tell who the machine is, and what is the difference between himself and the general situation in the freezer.

Unlike other colleagues, Li Di did not have much professional pride.

When he first saw the modern funeral management major in the admission brochure, he immediately felt the smell of copper.

He decided it was a well-paid, secure career, as rumored.

But what awaited him was a strong smell of blood and putrefaction.

The first time he helped someone, he encountered the body of a drowning man.

Due to the long soaking in the water, the remains have swelled more than double.

For the next two or three days, he felt dead when he ate rice, but he barely swallowed it. As the days go by, the sensitivity to smell plummets, and many of the odors that cover people's eyes and noses become less valuable.

For example, li di has now lost the ability to perceive the fart of others.

I don't know if this is the reason, Li Di slowly found that the smell of dead people is not the most terrible, what is more terrible is that there is no human taste.

The two worlds of yin and yang should be the most distant distance and cannot be touched by each other, but Li Di believes that this is far less distant than the two incompatible hearts in real life.

Forget when he started, his circle of contacts became smaller and smaller.

When a friend he had just met asked him what he was doing, at first he would tell the truth, but gradually he noticed that the way people looked at him became unnatural.

So later, I could only change my mouth to: working in the civil affairs system.

His formerly good friends and relatives have become more and more distant from him, and no one is willing to play mahjong with him anymore because he is obscure.

Friends get married and have children, and they hardly receive any invitations.

Death is a taboo thing in the eyes of many people, and the mortician who has been dealing with the deceased has naturally become an obscure existence.

Knowing that this is the common sentiment of people, but sometimes Li Di still can't help but wonder why people tend to fortune tellers who can communicate yin and yang, but they can't avoid the morticians who give comfort to the living and rest in dignity and rest?

In the end, man is still the product of contradictions.

Li Di slowly got used to loneliness.

Life is so deadlocked and glued, like the dry paint in the corner of the wall, and like a fan in winter, full of uninhabited ash.

He felt that such a life, no matter what happened, it was as if nothing would happen.

Until the appearance of Ah Zhao.

Instead of "Hello", as soon as they met, Ah Zhao smiled brightly and asked, "Today, can you help me put on makeup?"

Ah Zhao always believed that the reason why Li Di had always rejected her was only because she was still too young, not because it was a thing worth avoiding.

She knew what death was all about, more or less.

But she didn't know what this had to do with Li Di's refusal as always.

Nine-year-old Ah Zhao looked young, but in fact, he had long since left the state of ignorance.

Her unbridled innocence is not out of ignorant innocence, but out of unbridled temperament.

"Why can't you make up on the living because you put on makeup on the dead?" What is the difference between the dead and the living?" Ah Zhao just asked casually unwillingly, but the answer contained in it was far beyond the scope of the topic that should be spoken at this age.

However, could this answer be easily said by placing it on Li Di, a young man who has not been in society for a long time, or on an old man who is dying of old age?

The question of what life is, after all, belongs to the ultimate question of human beings, any age can give its own answer, and any age is too naïve in front of the answer to the essence of life.

As someone said, life is just enough to taste the fireworks of the world and then taste the yuanbao candle, what is the difference?

3

Li Di could not answer the difference between the dead and the living, but he did understand what was the difference between people.

Out of pampering and willfulness, the more Li Di refused, the more A Zhao became.

She came to Li Di more and more frequently, and once she caught him out to rest, she pestered him to tell ghost stories.

Because once Li Di said to her, "Death is terrible."

How terrible can it be?

She didn't take it seriously.

In order to scare her, Li Di told a horror story, but Ah Zhao giggled after hearing it, saying it was funny.

From then on, nominally looking for him to make up, she came to him more to listen to ghost stories.

When she came to look for her, Li Di said that she didn't think much about telling ghost stories to a girl who was only nine years old.

All he knew was: At least this, I could do it.

Once, after listening to the ghost story with relish, Azhao jumped in place with excitement and excitement, he was so young, full of freshly squeezed vitality, every pore was filled with the crispness of freshly peeled vegetables and fruits, and the front teeth were like two shells hiding pearls.

Li Di didn't know how to describe this kind of good-looking, if he had to describe it, he would say: Ah Zhao looks as good as Ah Zhao.

Unconsciously, Ah Zhao became Li Di's only reference to beautiful and vivid things.

Ah Zhao's arrival made him feel human once again.

Li Di liked Ah Zhao very much, felt that she was full of life, and never feared or avoided him.

However, one day, when he just wanted to put his hand on the top of Ah Zhao's head, like a spoiled sister, and touch her hairy hair.

An urgent, sullen call came from not far away: "Ah Zhao?"

This was followed by a figure that rushed over quickly. A pair of hands forcefully grasped Ah Zhao's wrist and dragged her to the side.

Only then did he see clearly that it was a middle-aged woman with coiled hair, and Ah took care of her as her mother.

The woman led Ah Zhao to the distance while reprimanding something.

Although his voice was deliberately lowered, the voice of anxiety and anger still came into Li Di's ears: "What did I say, you don't run around, do you know what he does?"

"But..."

Ah Zhao's voice whispered, li di could not hear clearly.

The last thing he heard was one sentence: "Did he just touch you?"

Then the end of this sentence gradually dissipated with the figures of the two people.

That was the first time Li Di found that in addition to the hands of the able-bodied and the disabled, there was also a difference and hierarchy between the hands and hands.

In this world, the attraction between people is always too little, and the repulsion is always too much, and there is nothing to hide.

Not only are they difficult to understand each other, but they are also the easiest to repel each other.

For example, the terms used to women are probably created by women themselves.

After all, most boys don't care whether the person they love is green tea or white lotus, especially li di, I hope that girls are like a clean plant, who will say that they will sneer?

Li Di and Ah Zhao's mother obviously worked in the same place, and according to the reason, they should understand each other, but as a result, Ah Zhao's mother's prejudice against him was even worse than ordinary people.

After all, Ah Zhao's parents chose to work here, not out of their understanding of this profession, but because of the compulsion of life.

Isn't that how most people are?

There is no love or pride in their work, more often than not, just patience and responsibility for their own powerless life.

We can't live a satisfactory life, and we have to find self-worth in this limited living space, the most convenient way is to create a hierarchy to suppress others, and hypnotize ourselves to live well among our kind.

Everyone suppresses each other, obtains their own strength from the suppression of others and verifies their own status value, which is society.

As a result, the relatively high-paid mortician in the funeral home has become the most angry presence in the hearts of other employees.

4

Li Di didn't know if there was another profession in this world, as lonely as he was, whether there was another profession that suffered more than him.

There are many unbearable voices in this world. The sound of a metal spoon scraping the bottom of the pan, the sound of a nail scratching a blackboard, the sound of a leader speaking, the voice of oneself in the tape recorder.

There are the voices of lovers complaining, the voices of heartless people being indifferent...

Once heard, it is allergic to the whole body and produces a feeling of disgust and discomfort.

I heard that some police officers had a trick to make the suspect confess honestly, that is, to find a piece of iron, stick it to the suspect's ear and scrape it with the tip of the knife, making a harsh sound, disturbing his torment and anxiety, and finally had to obediently obey.

And the cries heard in the funeral home, even in the dead of night, would re-enter his ear pinnae again and again, burning like a ghost and refusing to dissipate easily.

It was a wave of resentment, a poignant, venting sound.

Li Di is not unfamiliar with this kind of sound, but no matter how many times he hears it, he still can't adapt to it and get used to it.

Occasionally, when she was also a body to bid farewell to work, Li Di often stood on the side, silently watching her family members cry in the hall, and then quietly carried out various work according to the preset process.

Occasionally, I only ask: "Is the furnace running properly" and "Who is next?"

It is like staying in the morgue with the general body for a long time, and people have lost their emotional activity and temperature.

Others think they have become accustomed to it, but only they know the torment of their hearts.

Some of the peers Li Di knew each used various ways of self-help to dispel the shadows in their hearts. The only time some people feel comfortable and respite in a day is when they go home and take a shower.

Some people go shopping after work, as if they have become ghosts, and they can't wait to see the face full of life and absorb the yang qi between heaven and earth in order to recover their vitality and transform into people again. Some people choose to blog online.

Seeing Ah Zhao, seeing her standing there, seeing her giggling, is the best cure for Li Di.

Ah Zhao is a being that he wants to protect well, a power that soothes his soul.

The only way he could guard her was not to touch her.

It's like having to be light on your hands to preserve the frost on your fruit.

Ah Zhao still appears from time to time.

Although her mother was strongly forbidden, once she got busy at work, she still couldn't control her daughter running around.

And she is still young, fearless, has unlimited curiosity, and is more willful and stubborn, and the more her mother does not allow it, the more she has to do it.

Besides, she also had feelings for Li Di, and she felt that he was like a big brother who was willing to tease her, talk to her, and tell her stories, full of intimacy.

Later, when Ah Zhao came back, Li Di consciously wore gloves to hand her candy and other small snacks. It's not because he feels dirty.

To tell the truth, he didn't know if there was such a thing as anger on his body.

Who can say that?

But if there was, even if it did, he understood Ah Zhao's mother's concerns.

He himself didn't want Ah Zhao to be contaminated with anything bad because of him.

She was still so fresh, budding, watery.

And his hands were mostly touching the dead, old, decaying corpses. He can't.

5

Once Ah Zhao asked him, "Why did they scold you just now?"

Li Di was stunned at first, and then immediately understood: she had obviously witnessed the chaotic scene just now. He touched his face, and the fiery feeling of being slapped in the right place had subsided, but the bitterness was still too thick to melt away.

According to the convention, every time a body is transformed, the mortician will ask the family to look at it to see if it is satisfied.

Although most of the family members will express gratitude, there are also those who are as emotional as the family members they have just met, turning the grief and anger that have nowhere to vent into resentment towards the mortician.

"She's not like this!" Li Di often heard this mournful roar.

He understood that it was more of a rejection than a rebuke, more of a denial of facts than a denial of makeup.

Understand and understand, but every time the family members pointed at the nose and scolded, inexplicably bearing the other party's overwhelming sorrow, gritting their teeth and complaining, Li Di's inner sense of misery was unscrewed again and again, soaking him all over.

I don't know if it's for the deceased, or for the sake of the family, or for myself.

He didn't know how to answer Ah Zhao's question, he wanted to tell her that adults were often scolded for no reason and took for granted compared to children being scolded for doing wrong things.

As long as you live, it will happen.

But he just said, "Adults will be scolded too."

"That's no different from a child!" Azhao Nu mouthed.

Li Di shook his head: "Children can cry when they are scolded, and adults often have to laugh when they are scolded!"

Ah Zhao naturally couldn't understand and couldn't understand this.

She stared at him blankly with big innocent eyes, and half a day she said, "You adults are so strange!"

"But no," Li Di agreed, "someone can't wait to become an adult."

As if he finally remembered this incident, Ah Zhao quickly picked up the conversation: "Or don't tell ghost stories today, will you help me put on makeup?"

"Today I'm going to tell two ghost stories. Makeup, no." Li Di sighed.

6

Gradually, Ah Zhao went to junior high school and then entered the middle school.

Gradually, Ah Zhao finally became an adult.

Losing the curiosity that swayed around in childhood, and no longer needing to stick to his parents all day, Ah Zhao had his own circle of friends and the joy of life, and he became more and more alienated.

After all, this is not a good place, and it is not suitable for visiting relatives and friends.

What's more, the work of the mortician is three shifts, and every time Li Di is busy, it is several hours in a row, and it is not always possible to encounter it.

But Ah Zhao still maintained contact with Li Di, and every time he met outside for dinner, he called him affectionately: Brother.

After Ah Zhao graduated, he planned to go to other cities to work, and came to say goodbye to Li Di before leaving.

Li Di said, "You should pay attention to everything, a young girl, protect herself, the world is too chaotic."

She was dismissive, and looked at him like she had rejected her mother's advice.

Yeah, she was never afraid, she had to use her own eyes to confirm the world, not someone else's warning.

Ah Zhao said: It doesn't matter, it's all fate, I'm not afraid.

"You're not afraid of death?" Li Di felt incredible.

She said she wasn't afraid. Li Di asked why.

Ah Zhao then asked back, "Don't you have to face it every day?" Are you still afraid? Growing up, I felt that death was not terrible, and I just thought it was funny that you used to tell me ghost stories." Li Di asked, "Do you think I'm bluffing you?"

She said, "Not really, I just felt that I was more afraid than I was afraid of death, and I was afraid that I hadn't experienced anything before I was afraid of anything."

Li Di asked, "Are you still coming back?"

She said, "Back, the kind of homecoming."

"Which kind of?"

She smiled, "For example, a super sparkling chain of pearls and diamonds hanging around her neck, majestic and shiny, comes back."

"Shiny back, and then?"

"Go travel." Make a lot of money and go out and see farther away."

"How far?"

"Closer than where they went." Li Di turned his head and looked into Ah Zhao's eyes and saw the spirit hall opposite.

When Ah Zhao was leaving, a torrential rain began, the thunder flowed, and the rain hung all over the world, smashing down like a crisp explosion of soybeans.

Li Di sent her to a taxi.

On a rainy day, the taxi was always full, and he used the ride-hailing app for the first time that day, but it wasn't very easy.

After waiting for more than half an hour, no one answered.

And the rain is like not money, and the light mud splashes on Ah Zhao's calves, like the tender bamboo shoots in the sludge, making people feel particularly sweet, without making people feel filthy.

She was not impatient, but Li Di felt very sorry, and this could not help her do a good job. Ah Zhao shrugged and said it doesn't matter, it will come later.

But the empty car still does not come, and the taxi software still has no one to answer the order.

Then Ah Zhao said in a nonchalant manner, "Oh, I'll take a look."

Reaching out and taking the mobile phone from Li Di's hand, he poured it upside down for a while, and then returned it to him.

It didn't take long for a driver to get an order.

Ah Zhao got into the car and rolled down the car window to say goodbye, and Li Di nodded.

"Take care of yourself." He couldn't say the rest.

He can't say "goodbye next time" or "go all the way", which is the unspoken rule of people in the funeral industry, just like not taking the initiative to inform the profession, not handing out business cards, not shaking hands with people.

When they were young, they thought that they would become social people when they worked, but it did not apply to them.

Although Li Di really wanted to say to Ah Zhao: goodbye. Goodbye Azhao, goodbye, Azhao.

After sending Ah Zhao away, Li Di curiously opened her mobile phone to look.

Ah Zhao changed the location he entered, "Yinchuan Funeral Home," to "Galaxy Cemetery."

Li Di had mixed feelings, and his heart was like a clump of salt under moisture, both salty and gentle.

Later, Li Di did not see Ah Zhao for a long time.

He often imagined her as if she were like green tea or like a white lotus.

He used to be very eager for a fresh life, but now he was just worried about Ah Zhao's news, and it was okay if it wasn't fresh.

For him, Ah Zhao is the freshest in the world.

7

A few years later, Ah Zhao returned from his annual leave.

The eyes are slightly no longer clear, the eyebrows are slightly vulgar, but they do not look old-fashioned.

The corners and corners are still that fresh energy, which makes people clearly feel that even if she steps into society, she has not yet poured herself out, not a single point.

When they met again, they greeted each other frankly and sincerely, without the slightest twisting and rustling.

For Li Di, Ah Zhao is a shot of active agent, and her return makes Li Di feel that she has found a clear spring from the ruins again, and a flame from the iceberg.

Ah Zhao said that she was doing massage in a big city, and she had just changed into a clubhouse and made more money. It's just that the clubhouse is open 24 hours a day, so the massage work needs to work three shifts, starting at six o'clock in the morning and working the night shift until one o'clock in the morning.

Li Di found out, and Ah Zhao's face also began to faintly have some tiredness of survival.

She said there has been a lot of competition in the industry lately, and she has had an unpleasant relationship with the department manager and a conflict with masseuse No. 36.

Li Di asked why it was the number.

She said everyone was a number and we basically didn't know each other's names.

In fact, it is all the same, what is the point.

"Isn't every corpse the number on the freezer for you?" She asked Li Di. Li Di said, "But those you are referring to are all living people."

Ah Zhao shook his head, "Dead people and living people are the same." People who don't have anything to do with us are just a bunch of numbers that we can't dial."

A Zhao vividly told Li Di how advanced her part-time job would be, how perfect the supporting services were, all kinds of fruit drinks for lunch and dinner, and a spa room in the fitness room of the single sofa theater.

She spoke with great energy, but Li Di just asked, "Have you enjoyed all this?"

"Of course not!" Ah Zhao was full of frankness, and he couldn't see the slightest bit of loss.

But Li Di knew that it was false to have honor, and the loss without a trace was real.

Li Di said slowly, "I heard a story when I was a child. A country woman who raised silkworms went to the city and saw many women dressed in silk. As a silkworm farmer, I can't afford to wear that kind of clothing."

Ah Zhao grinned after hearing this, "This is the most terrifying story I've ever heard you tell."

Ah Zhao said, even so, don't look down on me, those of us who want to go in, we have to measure the height with a ruler one by one, and it is not good to look good.

Li Di smiled and asked, "Are you good-looking?"

Ah Zhao glanced at him and said, "You haven't seen me wearing makeup, that's really beautiful."

Li Di remembered that when she was a child, she pestered him to let him help with makeup, but now she didn't mention it.

Ah Zhao said that they would make work suits, which were small short skirts with 12 cm high stiletto heels, revealing large long legs.

Seeing Li Di frowning, Ah Zhao hurriedly said, "Don't think about crookedness, these are just small tricks to make an image." We also wear this when we help female guests to clock. That's the requirement, nothing else."

As soon as Ah Zhao explained, Li Di immediately felt guilty, for his own moment, even if it was only for a moment, the misunderstanding of Ah Zhao.

He had lived all his life under the colored glasses of others, lonely and aggrieved.

How could he, how could he, in turn, become such an "other" as Ah Zhao?

Li Di looked embarrassed and whispered, "I'm sorry."

He in turn became a child who had done something wrong in front of Ah Zhao.

Ah Zhao shook his head gently, "I know."

She knew that Li Di's carelessness and apologies, and she also knew that the four words "Massage Lady" appeared in news reports and people's eyes every time because of something.

She clearly understands how much of a dirty and gray area she has in her profession, but she doesn't feel inferior in her industry and says she does a dignified job that earns money on her own.

"Just like yours," Ah Zhao said to Li Di, "so I always remind myself that I must have self-respect and self-respect, and I can't let others look down on me."

Her tone was full of stubborn hardness, but there was a certain kind of weakness in her expression.

Li Di said, Ah Zhao, you should find someone to take care of you.

Ah Zhao said, "Love is too luxurious for me."

Ah Zhao was originally talking about an object, and on weekdays he claimed to respect her choices and not care about her profession.

But during a quarrel, he yelled at her, "Don't I love you enough!" Who else but me would want to be with a massage woman like you?"

After that time, Ah Zhao took the initiative to propose a breakup.

Ah Zhao did not doubt his love for himself, but she also knew that he did not respect and love her from the bottom of his heart.

"His words were like the sound of sharp fingernails across the glass, and I woke up from a dream that could be understood." Ah Zhao said.

Ah Zhao's heart also had helplessness and pain, and Li Di's expression changed from a momentary surprise to a gentle pity.

This kind of mood Li Di did not understand.

The so-called dignity of making money by oneself more or less contains the heartache that you can only earn money in this way.

It seems that this is always the case, even if Li Di is born in a science class, even if Ah Zhao has skills and strength that others cannot master, in this position in this society, it can only be like this.

Mortician, massage woman, strange eyes.

No matter how top-notch you are in the industry, no matter how self-respecting you are, whether you can get respect and recognition is sometimes not something you can decide.

Ah Zhao, in turn, also asked Li Di to quickly find a companion.

Li Di said it was difficult.

Ah Zhao said, you have to be romantic.

Li Di quipped, "How is it tidy?" Others may play romantic and say, I will be responsible for your life in the future. I may only say: I will be responsible for your death."

Ah Zhao did not laugh after listening to it, but suddenly fell silent.

It was an unusual silence, and Li Di sensed that there was something extraordinary in it.

He felt Ah Zhao's eyes become piercing.

Ah Zhao looked at Li Di softly and said softly, "When you see me, you always wear gloves." Then suddenly, hands were held out to him.

Understanding Ah Zhao's intentions, Li Di was full of excitement, like an electric shock, and quickly shrunk his hands back and hid behind his back.

Ah Zhao's hand stopped awkwardly in mid-air.

"Brother Li Di," Ah Zhao's voice was astringent.

She withdrew her hand and put it in front of herself and stared sheepishly for a moment.

Then he looked up at Li Di again, "Should I feel ashamed of my hands too?" Should I also feel embarrassed and feel filthy for these hands that have touched the flesh of countless people? Should I also hate myself for these hands and dare not touch anyone?"

Her voice was first gentle, then more and more indignant.

When he grew up, Ah Zhao understood one day why Li Di was reluctant to wear makeup for her, and why he always wore gloves when he saw her. The world had never been gentle with her, but she felt the greatest tenderness that the world could give her from Li Di's hands, which had never touched her.

She looked at Li Di's hands hidden behind her back, and her eyes were a little red, "You always hide them as if they are invisible."

Ah Zhao's eyes slowly burst into tears: "In this world, how many living people cannot be treated gently, but how many dead people have been given respect by your hands?" In such a cold world, how good would it be if a gentle pair of hands could hold the living and soothe their exhaustion?"

The helplessness and impermanence of this cold and warm world are not only death.

Indifference and warmth, pain and sweetness, tears and smiles, scene after scene are intertwined every day.

Life is not only struggle, and death is not all liberation.

Throughout his life, whether he lives or dies, he seeks no more than a consolation.

Li Di only knew that Ah Zhao was the luck in his life, but he did not know how much comfort he had given Ah Zhao.

He didn't know that Azhaodo needed such a pair of hands.

She needs to be held tenderly by such a pair of hands, and she needs to be truly respected and loved by such a pair of hands.

Life is so ordinary, as long as you have such a pair of hands, you can live well.

But Li Di was ashamed of these hands, refusing to touch Ah Zhao and rejecting his own happiness.

"You're not only responsible for the death of others!" Ah Zhao was angry at Li Di's heartache.

She's gone.

Gone again.

"Next time, next time let me shake your hand, okay?"

She said before leaving.

She also said that next time come back to help you massage, put on makeup and let you see.

8

She arrived as promised and was sent to the refrigerator no. 88, a very auspicious number.

Hearing that she was raped violently by a drunken client, she desperately resisted.

The man said: Aren't you dressing so revealingly just to give people a fuck!

A pair of hands violently grabbed her neck, and there was no sound when she pinched it. I've heard about it.

Putting on a disposable isolation suit, mask and gloves, Li Di walked through a small hall with wreaths.

Walk through the warehouse where the coffins are stored, walk through the refrigerated room where the remains are stored, open the door of the cabinet number 88, move the bodies onto an iron cart, and finally come to the makeup room next door.

He unwrapped the blue cloth that wrapped the body, and then Ah Zhao lay in front of him.

Her body was sent back for funeral and cremation at the request of her relatives, so she was afraid of aging at the moment, and she had some more preservatives than the average body, especially in her perishable abdomen.

Li Di saw a circle of dark purple hair and black blood on her neck, a bit like a rope on the neck of a person who wanted to keep peace, but the color was different.

He remembered what she had said when she left to come back wearing a diamond chain and shining brightly.

The dressing room was empty and dark, and an air conditioner blew cold wind vigorously.

Next to Li Di are tweezers, combs, potions, oil paints, sponge blocks, special foundations, lipsticks and various models of whitewashes.

Then Li Di began to help Ah Zhao put on makeup.

He first cleaned Ah Zhao's face with a cotton dipping potion, then painted the base, applied blush, and then gently pinched her lips with tweezers, carefully closing her slightly open mouth, and finally wiped her nails one by one with a cotton swab stick.

Another female mortician, as a deputy, helped give No. 88 a full body massage to make her body soft, and then changed her clothes.

The room was silent, and the two were as engrossed as if they were doing delicate surgery.

It was raining heavily outside, and thunder was rolling through from time to time, but the whole process was quiet and meticulous.

This was the first time Li Di's hand touched Ah Zhao.

He had never been careful not to touch it, for fear of bringing her obscurity, but why.

But why?

After putting on makeup, Ah Zhao's face was rosy, and he regained his youthful beauty and lay quietly.

Li Di stared at the face in front of him and suddenly remembered what Ah Zhao had said, "Closer than where they went."

But why, but why?

Pushing Ah Zhao into the front of the farewell hall, Li Di pressed to hold the trembling of her body and held her cold hands.

Until death, people still can't get rid of a sense of ritual.

Even if it becomes a corpse, it still has to complete a series of procedures honestly.

Take it out of the freezer to thaw, put on makeup and be pushed into the farewell hall, and then pushed into the crematorium, you can't help it at all.

Throughout the funeral compound, mourning, crying, footsteps, instrument operation, vehicle driving...

All the big and subtle sounds, near and far, are intertwined, lively, and will not stop for a moment, more popular and steaming than anywhere.

In the end, the life and death that broke the routine were still firmly packed into the human routine of unified packaging.

It's like a pack of crushed instant noodles, still in a decent plastic bag.

Ah Zhao is gone and will never come back.

Li Di washed his hands according to the custom, washed for a full ten minutes, and washed until his hands were red, before he washed away all the smell of blood, leaving only the smell of hand sanitizer.

Li Di suddenly felt that he had done something wrong.

He felt that he had washed away the last of Ah Zhao's flesh.

He never thought that he would one day help Ah Zhao put on makeup.

Nor did he ever think that it was he who personally sent Ah Zhao on the journey.

But why, why?

Li Di supported the washbasin with both hands and finally lost her voice and cried bitterly.

It was the first time in so many years that he had been a mortician and cried over a corpse.

Because this corpse is not Number 88, but his Azhao.

How to recall precious things, ah, are the dust left by wild horses.

Watch the wild horses fall out of orbit, watch the star stones sink into the sea.

Li Di felt that the best time in his life had been fully cleared up with the departure of Ah Zhao.

Without Azhao, the earth would still rotate, but what good would it be?

The earth will not smile at Li Di, and will not call Li Di brother.

Li Di felt herself slowly sliding into the loneliness of the abyss.

He felt that he had become a body left by Ah Zhao in this world, which had not yet been burned and disposed of.

Those who leave leave leave, and those who remain become relics of time because they have memories.

During the slide, Li Di saw Ah Zhao again, and she spontaneously lit up in the darkness, laughing and asking him what was the difference between life and death.

Li Di felt that everything around him was flowing, only Ah Zhao stood there, still and unchanged, like a frame of frozen frames, which was extremely fascinating.

Li Di looked at Ah Zhao in front of him and showed a bleak smile: "I don't know what the difference is between life and death, I just know that we will never really be separated." I remember you, and you have a part of me that survives, and when you leave me, I have a part of me that dies with you."

Ah Zhao smiled and said to Li Di, "I don't have to listen to you tell ghost stories anymore, I am your ghost story."

Li Di said, "And ghost stories are the most endless."

Ah Zhao smiled and waved to Li Di, like a drop of ink falling in the water, scattered.

Li Di finally said the words to the emptiness:

Good bye.

Goodbye Azhao, goodbye, Azhao.

- END -

Author | Das

Edit | Mei

Editor-in-Chief | Chel-chi

Producer | Water grid