For families with average economic levels, buying a cemetery for a deceased relative is not a small expense. In the past ten years, the real estate industry in Dongye City has developed rapidly, and the funeral industry has not fallen behind. When people are alive, they struggle desperately for a temporary shelter. If death suddenly comes, they may not be able to settle down immediately.
"Xiyue" funeral home is not the best funeral home in Dongye City, but it is the one with the most traffic, because there is no funeral home in the city that has a better ashes preservation business.
Under normal circumstances, funeral homes will provide ashes storage services for guests for a fee. Those who have not had time to buy a cemetery for their deceased relatives, or who do not have the money to buy a cemetery for the time being, will store their ashes in a funeral home.
With changes in policies and economic conditions, all walks of life may fall into a cold winter, only funeral homes will not. With so many people dying every day in the city, as long as there are people, the business of funeral homes will last forever.
Because of the poor geographical conditions, other funeral homes in the city cannot build a large "Fu Shou Tang" for storing the ashes. Therefore, rules have been formulated requiring guests to take the ashes within half a year at most. The ashes are disposed of.
The "West Moon" funeral home is different. Although its location is remote, it happens to be close to a mountain. It only needs to develop a small piece of the mountain, which is enough to store countless urns. Therefore, it sets a time limit for the preservation of the ashes of the guests. Longer, save for a year or two without a problem.
Many people who really can't afford a cemetery send their relatives' remains to the "West Moon" funeral home to be burned. The ashes can be stored for an extra day for another day. After two years, they can always save enough money for the last cemetery.
However, there are also many people who finally give up taking the ashes of their relatives. It seems that two years have passed, and their thoughts have faded, and they are unwilling to spend the money they have saved through blood and sweat for a pile of meaningless ashes.
Where did these forgotten ashes end up, the relatives who have forgotten them are reluctant to ask.
Today is the second time for Meng Shan to come to the "West Moon" funeral home. It is more crowded than before. The hall where the formalities are processed and the urn is collected is full of people. This is a tertiary hospital. Meng Shan arrived in line at 2 o'clock in the car carrying the remains. After waiting for about half an hour, she finally received the cheapest urn.
Five years ago, at this point in time, she and her father bought the cheapest urn for her mother who died of illness. Now, her father's body is being thrown in the processing room to prepare for cremation.
She lowered her head, looked at the plain urn, and laughed at herself: "I'm good enough for both of you. If you two die, you can still sleep in a 'couple box'."
From the formalities hall to the cremation hall, there is a long distance. Those rich people throw white paper money along the way. People walking on this road will inevitably be stained with paper money.
They were all mourners, and no one cared about them, but Meng Shan suddenly felt scared.
She tore a piece of paper money from her hair, squeezed it into a ball, and fell to the ground.
It was still early in the morning, and it was still a long time before dawn. In winter, the cold wind was blowing, and this place was next to a mountain. The wind blowing from the mountain was always gloomy, like a shadow with ghosts and corpses. gas.
Meng Shan thought of her mother, and then thought of the ashes scattered somewhere.
When she went through the procedures for storing the ashes, Meng Shan paid half a year's money, thinking that she could buy a cemetery for her mother in half a year. But in that half year she worked tirelessly, but the money she saved was secretly used by her father to drink and play cards, and she lost all of it.
She cried and cursed her father, who kept his head down and admitted his mistake. What's the use of admitting mistakes? Lost money will not come back on its own.
No way, she can only do the ashes to keep the ashes.
But until the ashes had to be taken away, neither she nor her father was willing to spend that sum for her mother.
Living people are living so hard, why should they think about a pile of lifeless ashes
When a person dies, he dies, isn't it the same where the ashes are thrown
The money to buy the cemetery is enough for the family to live a good life for a long time.
Over the past five years, Meng Shan occasionally thinks of her mother's ashes. Although she feels guilty, the guilt is so shallow that she can forget all about it by fighting the landlord.
But now, Meng Shan is afraid.
The boundless paper money in front of her eyes, the long road leading to the cremation hall, and the swept wind made her feel that her mother was complaining about her unfilial piety.
The premise of filial piety is money.
She is poor.
Sitting in the lounge of the cremation hall, Meng Shan felt the pain of poverty again.
She had already received the number, and after two more numbers, it would be her father's turn to enter the incinerator. But just now, someone cut the queue for the so-called "auspicious time", and she had to wait for one more number.
People always say that "only death is equal", but when you go to the funeral home, you will find that even death is not equal.
Rich people can jump the queue at will by paying more money, which is different from jumping in line in ordinary life. The latter will face contempt from everyone, but the former is decent.
Meng Shan heard someone in the lounge say, "That family gave me an extra 30,000 yuan. It's really rich."
Meng Shan hugged the empty urn and closed her eyes wearily.
The old man who had been foolish all his life finally died. He died at home and was cremated only after the street police station issued a certificate.
In the early days, funerals were held all day long in the old residential area. The older generation cared about this. Which family died and could sing songs for three days and three nights, because she herself was beautiful and her voice was okay. She was dragged into a funeral group at the age of ten and sang funeral songs for more than ten years. Later, the city was reformed, and these noisy and disturbing activities were not allowed. The funeral team was disbanded. She knew nothing and was cut off from income The source, life is in embarrassment for a while...
When her father passed away, she didn't even have a mourning hall. Anyway, this old man was never lovable, and no one would come to give gifts. The body was kept at home for two days. After 2:00 this morning, it was transported to the funeral home.
Crying sounded from time to time in the lounge, Meng Shan's mind was very confused, and she wanted to quickly burn the person and leave, but after waiting, it was dawn, but she still didn't wait for her turn.
There are too many rich people jumping in line.
They not only cut the line, but also spent tens of thousands of dollars on paper fireworks before sending the body into the incinerator, allowing the body to slowly slide into the incinerator with the deafening sound of fireworks.
At nine o'clock in the morning, Meng Shan heard her number.
She wiped her face and stood blankly in front of the door of the incinerator.
The father's body has been placed on the drive belt, and the ceremony at this time is "the last goodbye".
Meng Shan looked at the old face, but felt bored, and even bowed very perfunctorily.
The cremator waiting by the side probably also felt strange. The "Final Farewell" ceremony is usually performed by a large group of people, crying and calling, and some who are too emotional have to be pulled aside to prevent tears from spilling on the body.
In the custom of Dongye City, if the body is stained with tears, the soul will linger for a long time.
And Meng Shan was only one person, and not a single tear was left.
The cremator asked if he wanted to buy paper fireworks.
Meng Shan has long been impatient, and said in a bad tone: "Do you think I can afford something that costs tens of thousands of dollars? You have to have a vision for business, I... "
Halfway through speaking, Meng Shan suddenly stopped.
Because this cremator is very different from the cremator she imagined, it turned out to be a young, tall and handsome man.
"I..." Meng Shan looked away and said embarrassedly, "Hurry up and burn it."
"There are also cheap paper fireworks." The cremation master said: "The most common twelve rounds cost 90 yuan. Many people will buy them. This is the last ride. Don't you want your father to go a little more lively?"
90 yuan is not expensive, and Meng Shan can afford it, but she suddenly felt a burst of anger and yelled at the cremator: "A lot of people will buy it, so should I buy it? You are so good at making money!"
The cremator frowned, and then Meng Shan realized that she had lost her way, and bowed her head: "Sorry, I don't need it."
The cremator nodded, "Then please go back to the rest room and wait. After the cremation is complete, the door will automatically open."
Meng Shan returned to the rest room absentmindedly, watching other people's grief and longing, feeling like a cold-blooded animal without emotion.
An hour later, Meng Shan got the urn that was filled to the brim—the one that the cremator had just handed it over to her.
She lowered her head and whispered, "Thank you."
The cremator only made a sound of "um", then turned to greet the assistant and put the other body on the conveyor belt.
A new round of crying began.
Meng Shan quickly left, and it took more than an hour to store the ashes. It was noon when she was able to leave the "West Moon" funeral home.
She looked at the receipt in her hand, which said to take the urn within six months. She kneaded the documents into a ball like paper money before dawn.
Take the urn
Take it for burial
Impossible.
She shook her head with a wry smile, walked to a trash can, and threw the document in.
"Goodbye, old man." She said softly, "It's not that I'm unfilial, it's that I really can't give you so much money to buy a cemetery for you. You know best what life I live. Don't blame me like my mother, You guys should be good companions. In the next life, you will have a good baby, and you will have a good life before you consider having children. Otherwise, even if you are born, you will not be able to raise them well—just like me. If I don’t live well, I can’t afford a cemetery, and you will even be buried in the ground. Wei Andu can't do it. Isn't this a vicious circle? I'm gone, don't come to me."
There was a long row of cars parked outside the funeral home. There were millions of luxury cars and scooters worth tens of thousands of dollars. Meng Shan came by the car that transported the body. The bus goes back.
Fortunately, her residence is not far from here, and the bus is four stops away.
Guangdan Road is an old street with many wreaths on the road. Because it is close to the funeral home, many people living on Guangdan Road are engaged in funeral business. Some have made a fortune and bought millions of houses in a good location in the city center, but they still live here usually, making wreaths, pressing paper money.
Meng Shan used to think that this street was like a yin street, and it was better in spring and autumn. When autumn and winter arrived, when the white lanterns at the street were put up, it looked no different from the underworld.
Her house is in the innermost unit.
"Xiao Meng is back?" A woman in her fifties leaned out halfway, "Is it done?"
Meng Shan smiled perfunctorily, "Okay, thank you."
"It's all neighbors, thank you." The woman wiped her apron with her hands. "That what..."
Before the woman could finish speaking, Meng Shan had already taken out her mobile phone, "A total of 1,130 yuan, I'll transfer it to you."
The woman smiled wrinkled, "Okay, turn around."
The Meng family's funeral this time, although there is no mourning hall, is still unavoidable. Meng Shan finds it annoying and handed it over to a neighbor's "one-stop funeral". 1130 yuan, which is already the lowest price.
After paying the money, Meng Shan really felt that she was alone and had nothing to do with her parents.
She stood on the road for a while, feeling hungry, and only after thinking about it did she realize that she had not eaten for more than ten hours.
There is a small restaurant on the roadside, the kind that was renovated by one's own house, the meat and vegetables are the worst, the oil is all gutter oil, a lunch box and fried noodles are about ten yuan, and the target customers are people who work nearby. These people are not particular about what they eat, and they have two criteria for what they eat, one is more oil, and the other is cheap.
Meng Shan's father often buys this kind of lunch box. Meng Shan feels disgusted. Every time she sees him eating, she can't help arguing with him. Now that the people are gone, as soon as Meng Shan smells the familiar smell coming from the small restaurant, she feels nauseated in her stomach.
Or go to the market to buy vegetables and come back and make a meal for yourself.
Meng Shan thought so, turned and walked in the opposite direction.
In fact, there are small-scale vegetable and fruit shops in this street, but Meng Shan always goes to the vegetable market one kilometer away to buy vegetables, because she feels that even the vegetables on this street are contaminated with yin, and people eat too much. Vegetables with yin qi may suffer from strange diseases.
It was noon at this time, but the temperature dropped for several days, the sky was gray, and it looked like the face of a dead man.
Meng Shan walked quickly towards the vegetable market, which is the most popular place in this area.
"Red Dust and Rivers and Lakes" is really popular, and even the vegetable market is playing the theme song in the play. Meng Shan hasn't watched it yet. Before the funeral leave, she heard female colleagues talk about the characters in it, and knew that there is a male star named "Hu Ying" who is very popular now.
I bought enough vegetables and meat for one person, Meng Shan thought, anyway, there are still a few days of funeral leave, and there is no other place to go, so it is better to watch dramas at home.
On the first night of her father's cremation, Meng Shan chased the drama until midnight. When she got up to go to the toilet, she suddenly felt flustered.
It was a creepy feeling, like having a pair of eyes looking at her grimly from somewhere she couldn't see.
She turned around quickly and looked around in horror.
The house is very old. It was the wedding room of her parents when they got married in the past. The walls have not been painted for many years, and the walls are yellow and black. Those prints only look dirty during the day. At night, it looks like something is hidden behind the wall. It's getting closer and closer, as if it's about to burst out of the wall!
Meng Shan shuddered and walked to the door again to check if the door was locked—she had repeated this action no less than three times after returning home.
As she passed the living room, her heart tensed without warning.
Where she was standing, her father's body had been placed a day earlier.
The room was quiet, but the silence seemed to have a form, like an approaching ghost. She looked at the curtains that were constantly blown open by the wind, and when the curtains were lifted to the maximum, she saw a torn smiling face.
"Ah!" She exclaimed, her legs softened and she fell to the ground.
The wind stopped and the curtains fell.
She shivered violently in the cold sweat, and it took a long time before she stood up tremblingly and walked slowly towards the window.
This is the sixth floor, there can be no one outside.
The trembling fingers held the curtains and opened them with a "swoosh". There was only the silent night and the unlit building opposite.
Meng Shan's pounding heart finally calmed down. She sat beside the bed and wanted to continue chasing the drama, but fear followed her, and no matter how attractive the plot was, she could no longer attract her.
·
People who are in the funeral business don't take any national holidays, and work regardless of day or night. Wherever the family dies, they will be there.
Winter is the best time of year for funeral business.
It is easy to get sick in the changing seasons. Although the term "frozen to death" has long been lost in big cities, in fact, many elderly people die in winter because of a series of problems caused by cold.
So much so that there is a folk saying that if an old man survives the winter, he will live an extra year.
Wang Hongying yawned while driving. In one night, she had made eight deliveries to the "West Moon" funeral home. This job was supposed to be done by her son. The neighbor Meng family died a while ago, and it was also her son Yun's body. The girl from the Meng family finally gave her more than 1,000 yuan. If it wasn't for living in the same place for so many years, She was too lazy to accept this business that only cost more than 1,000 yuan.
Money is hard to earn and shit is hard to eat. Wang Hongying cursed in her heart, but she still had to go to the next house to retrieve the body.
Her son went to the hospital the day before yesterday for an operation on the cecum, and for more than a month, she, the mother, had to transport her body in the middle of the night.
Having dealt with the dead for half of her life, Wang Hongying was not afraid of corpses at all. Her car was refitted for the transport of the remains, and the back was empty for the purpose of holding the remains.
Now there is a corpse behind it, another old man - all the old people are lucky today.
Originally, the old man's son should be sitting in the co-pilot, so that it is convenient to call the soul.
But the children and grandchildren of this family are all unconscionable. They feel that it is unlucky to take the car that transports the body, so she asks her to take the body to the funeral home alone, and they drive their own car away.
Wang Hongying looked down on these people, glanced in the rearview mirror, and slammed on the brakes in fright.
When the car stopped, she panicked and looked back, but there was clearly nothing behind except a body.
But just now in the rearview mirror, she saw a sitting stranger.
"Blindfolded again..." Wang Hongying rubbed her face vigorously and took a sip of hot tea.
It is common for people doing business like them to see someone behind them in the rearview mirror. It is not a supernatural event, but an illusion caused by long-term fatigue and vigilance.
Wang Hongying had a similar situation before.
Before starting the car again, she looked at the notepad. After the trip, there were three more to pick up. But she was frightened this time, knowing that if she continued to drive, she might have an accident, so she had to call someone who did the same business to pick up the job. Going to finish this one run, go home and go to sleep.
It was bright, and Wang Hongying drove away from the funeral home in an empty car. From the funeral home to Guangdan Road outside the four stations, there is actually a small road that only people who live nearby know.
Wang Hongying turned and drove into the path, her mind getting heavier and heavier, and suddenly she saw a wild dog rushing out from the side with something in its mouth.
Because of exhaustion, Wang Hongying's reaction has been very slow, and now she is even more unprepared, and hits the trash can diagonally ahead with the steering wheel.
"boom-"
All the trash cans were knocked down, and the stagnant water was sprinkled everywhere.
The trash can in the back street was terribly dirty, and Wang Hongying was dumbfounded when she saw the trash on the windshield. What surprised her even more was that there seemed to be a person in the farthest trash can!
Why is there anyone in the trash can
The trash can fell sideways, and the man's legs were exposed, and he seemed to be struggling to crawl out.
Wang Hongying suddenly thought that it might be a homeless man who was rummaging in the trash can for food. Didn't the dog that ran past just have food in his mouth
"I don't think I hit someone to death, right?" Wang Hongying was anxious and scared. Seeing no one around, she wanted to drive the car away, but then she thought about the chaos at the scene. The police must have a way to find the person who hit the person. It's her car, and then she'll be a hit and run, and the crime will be added!
"It's really unlucky!" Wang Hongying sat in the car and thought for a long time. Seeing that her legs were motionless, she was even more afraid. In the end, she walked over cautiously.
"You, are you all right?" Wang Hongying squatted beside the trash can and tugged at the other's calf.
No one in the trash can respond.
"It's over, it's really dead!" Wang Hongying was helpless, crying for a long time, and picked up the phone to call the police.
"Hello, police? I...I killed someone...but I didn't mean to. Come and see?"
Criminal Investigation Bureau, Serious Cases Unit.
"Beijing Branch just received a case. Someone found a woman's body in the trash can in Fengshui Lane." Yi Fei put a tablet in front of Mingshu, "Look at it."
A dead body in a trash can, a common case almost always solved by the precinct itself, but it's the end of the year. At the end of each year, the police are under great pressure. The current requirement is that all murder cases in the sub-bureau must be summarized to the Criminal Investigation Bureau, and the serious crime team has the right and obligation to participate in the investigation.
"Female corpse?" Mingshu clicked on the picture.
"The scene has been investigated, and the caller is a middle-aged man in the funeral business. She claimed that a dog rushed out at the time, causing her to crash into the trash can. When she found someone in the trash can, she thought she had killed someone. "Yi Fei said: "The identity of the deceased has not yet been determined. The preliminary examination by the forensic doctor found that she had a fracture in the back of her head that was beaten with a blunt instrument. This is likely to be the cause of death. What they were holding was not food, but meat from the corpse. The stray dogs ate the corpse, causing a lot of injuries on the corpse that affected judgment.”
Mingshu has a quick look at the pictures.
The pictures from the precinct were very detailed. The corpse was wearing dark blue jeans, his shoes had fallen off, and he was wearing a light yellow sweater with blood on it.
Because there is no clothing to cover, the feet, hands, neck, and face of the corpse were severely bitten, and it was completely impossible to identify the identity by the face.
Ming Shu maximized the details of his face, "Are you sure these were all eaten by wild dogs?"
Yi Fei shook his head, "The sub-bureau hasn't done the autopsy yet, do you think it might be caused by man-made?"
Mingshu stood up, "I haven't seen the body yet, so I can't make a judgment. Go, go to the scene and see."