The ghost lying on my back was blurred, looking like a faded black-and-white photo.
Only the tongue sticking out of her mouth was clear and colorful.
There was bloodstain on her tongue, a dark red color.
The dirty blood was flowing down her tongue and landed on my ear.
Did the strange red mark on my ear appear in this way?
Seeing this scene, I subconsciously looked back, but I couldn't see the eerie ghost at all.
While turning around, I couldn't help patting my right ear.
That's how I used to drive away poisonous insects and wasps when they landed on my ears.
My hand slapped on my right ear, but I didn't touch anything.
Then I realized: How could I possibly touch it?
This was not something an ordinary person could touch.
"Chen Feng, what are you messing around with gestures here for?" A colleague passed by and asked.
"Didn't you see it?"
"See what?" The other person asked back.
I pointed at the dressing mirror and was immediately stunned.
In the mirror, there were only me and my colleague. There was no eerie ghost behind me, let alone a tongue wrapped around my ear.
"Let's go. We'll be late later." The colleague greeted me and rushed to punch in.
I stood there stupidly: Was it just my imagination because of the psychological pressure?
I looked at the mirror a few more times. After making sure there was no problem, I quickly walked towards the office.
Before I entered the office, I heard Huang Po shouting angrily, "How can they arrange it like this?! We were on the night shift for the traffic police team yesterday. The corpse was like minced meat. We were busy all night. It should be our turn to go to the cremation room today."
"You're just too fussy! You and Chen Feng will be in the cremation room tonight."
By the time I entered the room, everything was settled.
Where there are people, there is Jianghu (a complex and often competitive social arena similar to the martial - arts world in Chinese culture), and the funeral parlor is no exception.
No one wants to do the dirty and tiring jobs, and you still have to fight for what you deserve.
Huang Po has more seniority than me. He usually takes care of such things.
When Huang Po saw me, he winked at me. The meaning was obvious: Am I badass?
I secretly gave him a thumbs up.
The cremation room is the easiest job for corpse carriers. You just need to take the corpse to the cremation room and then put it into the furnace for incineration. The only strenuous part is moving the corpse a few times and then waiting beside it during the cremation process.
The cremation takes several hours. You can play with your phone or lie down and sleep during the waiting time.
After cleaning up a particularly tragic corpse on the night shift the previous day, you'll be arranged an easy job the next day.
This is also an unspoken rule in the funeral parlor: You always get some compensation after hard work.
Of course, you still have to fight for the compensation. After all, there are many easy jobs, but the cremation room is the most relaxing and comfortable one.
After getting ready in the staff changing room, the two of us picked up the corpse collection form and pushed the stretcher bed towards the morgue.
In the elevator, Huang Po couldn't help saying, "Chen Zi, what did you put on your ear? Is your ear uncomfortable?"
"Let's get to work first. I'll tell you all about it later. It's related to last night."
Hearing that it was related to what happened yesterday, the smile on Huang Po's face disappeared: "Then let's hurry up and finish the work. Let's have a good chat after that."
As we were speaking, the elevator reached the morgue on the second basement floor, and the elevator doors slid open.
The two of us pushed the stretcher bed into the morgue. I reached out to pick up the corpse collection form and checked the number of the refrigerated cabinet.
I pulled open the refrigerated cabinet and confirmed the name tag hanging on the corpse's toe. Only then did I, together with Huang Po, lift the corpse from the cabinet onto the stretcher bed.
Due to the special nature of the funeral parlor, all work must be carried out strictly according to procedures.
We collect one corpse at a time, making trips according to the corpse collection form and double - checking everything carefully.
It seems quite troublesome and time - consuming, but there's no other way.
If they cremate the wrong body, and the family comes for the memorial only to find their loved one has been cremated like a stranger, there'll be hell to pay!
We pushed the corpse to the cremation room and placed it on the iron plate of the incinerator. That completed our task.
The remaining work is for the cremators, and the subsequent steps are quite easy.
All they need to do is send the iron plate back into the incinerator, close the incinerator door, and press the button. Then the incinerator will automatically spray oil, be electrified, and start burning.
Therefore, being a cremator is the easiest job in the entire funeral parlor, no contest.
However, not just anyone can be a cremator. One has to go through training and pass a qualification exam. Only those with a cremation certificate can take up the job.
The training and exam aren't actually that difficult. The hard part is getting the recommendation from the funeral parlor.
This is a special type of job. If everyone were to get a cremation certificate, what would the extra people do?
Go set up a street - side barbecue stand?
The cremators' salaries are much higher than ours as corpse carriers, not just a little bit.
So, cremators are all well - connected and have official positions, which is completely different from our situation as corpse carriers.
This is an old - fashioned problem. I've heard from the old - timers about how it all works.
Now, being a cremator is indeed easy. The supporting facilities like the incinerator have been upgraded.
But decades ago when cremation was first promoted, it wasn't that simple.
At that time, both electricity and fuel oil were in relatively short supply in the country, and there weren't enough resources to use.
Cremation had to rely on charcoal or coal, and the incinerator often couldn't reach the temperature required for cremation.
Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that three - quarters of the human body is water.
Cremation isn't as simple as it's shown on TV, where the body turns to ash as soon as the fire starts. For a long time at the beginning, it's all about drying the water in the body.
Moreover, there's food and water accumulated in the intestines and stomach of the abdominal cavity.
If you just burn it directly, it's like baking a soup dumpling. The outside gets burnt, but the inside is still cold.
For these reasons, there used to be a rather terrifying step in cremation:
They had to cut open the abdominal cavity of the corpse, pull out the internal organs with a large iron hook, pierce them open, and burn them separately.
The principle is probably similar to how a piece of paper is easier to ignite when it's spread out than when it's crumpled up.
That kind of cremation step was even scarier than a forensic doctor's autopsy, so of course, one had to pass a qualification exam and be screened.
Now that cremation technology has advanced, there's no need for such a bloody and terrifying step.
But the economy has also developed, and the funeral industry has become very profitable. Naturally, the well - paid cremator jobs won't be given to outsiders.
In fact, many times, cremators don't even need to come to work.
Pushing the corpse into the incinerator and pressing the start button doesn't require any professional skills. Anybody can do it.
It was the same tonight. The cremator, Tong Dayou, came to clock in for the night shift. He barely accompanied us in sending the first two corpses into the incinerator before sneaking off.
"Damn it, Tong. He's so addicted to playing cards. Instead of staying at home with his wife, he clocks in for the night shift and then sneaks off to play cards. Isn't he afraid his wife will end up with the neighbor Lao Wang?"
"Come to think of it, his wife has a really good temper. She never checks up on him."
"Maybe his wife is actually looking forward to him going out?"
"How about you go and knock on his door later?"
...
There were a total of five corpses to cremate tonight. Huang Po and I were chatting nonsense while working, and soon we were down to the last one.
Going back into the morgue, I picked up the last corpse collection form. One glance at it and I was stunned.
Refrigerated cabinet No. 44, Jiang Lixin.
No. 44. Isn't this the female corpse we brought back from the traffic police team last night?
Is she really Jiang Lixin?
I even confirmed via video last night that Jiang Lixin was still alive. When we put the female corpse into the refrigerated cabinet, we didn't register her name on the form.
Then how was the name of this female corpse determined?
Huang Po was also spooked, but he was more experienced than I was. He said, "Who cares? Just open it up and see."
I summoned up my courage, gritted my teeth, and pulled open refrigerated cabinet No. 44. What I saw inside made me hardly believe my eyes.