Requiem Chapter 10: The Dignity of the Dead
After the ceremony, the family members dispersed, and the old mother who was so excited just now seemed to be carried away by two men. Yin Hui shook his head and was about to tidy up his mood and arrange the next memorial service, but he saw a girl lying on the crystal coffin, crying in pain, and refusing to leave for a long time. Judging from the back and the hat, the girl was quite similar to the deceased. Yin Hui was curious and poked his colleagues with his hands, Hey, Xiao Sun, the girl next to the coffin, who is the deceased! Sister or younger sister, why do they look more and more like twins, quite similar!
The colleague called Xiao Sun stretched his neck and said in astonishment after a while, "Hey! Are you dazzled? There is no one next to the coffin!"
How is it possible? Isn't that right? To prove his words, Yin Hui walked up to her with great vigor, gently patted her shoulder, and said softly, "Girl, please accept my condolences!"
But Yin Hui's hand passed through her shoulder without any obstruction. It was as if there was only a ball of air in front of her, a mirage. In an instant, Yin Hui understood everything, and her entire back was soaked.
In this way, Yin Hun successfully completed the first exam in his life and officially became a trainee embalmer with a monthly salary of 8,000 yuan and an upper-middle living standard.
At noon, his colleagues held a small party at a nearby fast food restaurant to welcome him as a new employee. Although it is said that when in Rome, do as the Romans do, after all, not everyone has the fighting power to eat vegetables in a crematorium with a rice bowl in hand, because this requires strong defense and mental immunity as a backing. After all, being calm in the face of a collapse of the mountain only exists in martial arts and fantasy, and can basically be ignored unconditionally in reality. Just imagine, if the strange smell of burning people gets into your nostrils while you are feasting, it will be a bit unappetizing.
After dinner, Yin Hui put on his gray work clothes, packed up the makeup box containing various drawers, and entered the dressing room office. The entrance to the funeral home is the guest room, and on the left is the freezer room. The freezer room with twenty freezers occupies fifty square meters, which means there are twenty places to keep bodies. I don't know why many funeral homes have twenty freezers. Next to it is the dressing room which is only fifteen square meters.
There are not many items in the dressing room, only a few props such as a makeup box and an operating table. It looks empty and lonely.
But it is in this emptiness and loneliness that people feel a strong sense of depression.
As the saying goes, the master can only lead you to the door, but the practice is up to you.
There are 360 professions, and every profession has its own top talents. Every profession has its own rules of master-apprentice relationship. When Yin Hun walked in smoking and reading a newspaper. Yin Hun lowered his head and sat opposite him. He didn't like to greet people, so even though Lao Zhao was his master, Yin Hun didn't call him.
At this time, Lao Zhao said without looking up: "You saw it!"
"Who did you see?" Yin Hui looked around in surprise, wondering why this old man only talked about the first thing and didn't mention the second thing! After thinking for a while, he felt that Old Zhao was talking about a colleague again, and was about to speak. But he didn't expect that Old Zhao adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and said lightly: "Anyway, it's not a human."
Yin Hui was startled and almost dropped the paintbrush in his hand. "How did you know?"
"Haha! Don't talk so loudly! You deafened the old man. Are you going to support me for the rest of my life?" Old Zhao slowly put away the yellowed newspaper: "Actually, in our business, it's all about fate. Who should do what and who should meet whom is all destined by fate. Maybe in other businesses, there is still the concept of taking your chances, but here, it's all fate!" Zhao Deshui is a master craftsman in the museum. He is in his fifties and wears a Tang suit embroidered with copper coins. He is not tall and has not much hair, and it is all white. He looks older than his actual age.
Yin Hun said nothing and just looked at him casually. He felt that there was an indescribable feeling about this old man. He felt that he was like an elder in the family, so familiar that others didn't bother to pay attention to him. He just sat there quietly, yawning quietly.
"When I was young, I worked as a helper, a mason, and even learned to repair radios for a while. Look, this radio in my hand was assembled from parts I bought when I was young." Old Zhao fiddled with the old radio in his hand, the white plastic of which had been oxidized and turned yellow.
Yin Hui was impatient and didn't want to hear these roundabout words: "How do you know I saw a ghost?"
At this time, Old Zhao finally raised his head. He peeked out from his reading glasses wrapped with tape, looked at Yin Hui, and suddenly laughed: "You have to go through this, young man. What you eat in this life is given by God. I haven't seen what you have seen. Of course, you may not be able to see what I can see!"
At this point, the old man suddenly winked playfully like a child: "Congratulations, boy who was born with the ability to see the yin and yang, you are now in the industry."
"Entering the industry, what did he see that I didn't see?" Yin Hui was a little confused. Later, he realized that it turned out that fate was really the key in their industry, and what Old Zhao meant was that he had decided to accept him.
"As for what you see, you have to solve it yourself, because you choose the road, but you don't choose them, they choose you, do you understand?"
"who?"
"Those are your friends who put on makeup!" Old Zhao's words made Yin Hun's heart skip a beat for no reason.
He was just about to find out what was going on when the business department called and asked Old Zhao to go and "get someone".
The so-called "passing by" simply means checking the makeup of the deceased. The general work flow of a body beautician is as follows: receive a notification from the business department → go to the freezer to get the body → determine the makeup plan → cleanse the deceased (bath) according to the wishes of the family → set the makeup → dress the deceased → put him in the crystal coffin.
After answering the phone, Lao Zhao waved to Yin Hui and said, "Let's go!" Before Yin Hui responded, he had already walked out.
Walking to the freezer, Lao Zhao pointed to the third drawer on the left, and then started to pull it out. He pulled it for a while but it didn't move. Then, he called Yin Hun over, and the two of them pulled together, but it still didn't move. It seemed that something was stuck. Yin Hun was about to go out and call someone over, but Lao Zhao shook his head at him and said, "It seems that we are not destined to be with this friend!" Then he walked to the front row again, gently pulled, and the drawer opened. Later, Yin Hun learned that every time the business department called to assign a shift, there were usually three friends, just to worry that you would not be destined to be with some of them.
As soon as the drawer was opened, a gust of cold wind blew out from inside, like ice in the coldest days of winter blowing in one's face, making people's faces seem to be frozen. Old Zhao skillfully lifted up the shoulders of the dead, and then asked Yin Hui to lift up the legs of the dead. With a little force, he put the dead on the cart, and then he smiled and said to Yin Hui: "Get out of the way!"
Yin Hui moved his feet, but before he could get out of the way, Old Zhao handed the cart to him: "Push your cart, where are you going? I'm not talking to you."
Yin Hun was startled and looked back, but saw nothing.
"Sometimes, when the body is taken out of the freezer, the body is stiff. There is no one to help, so when putting clothes on, you have to put the deceased's hands on your arms like I did, and then you can put the clothes on." Old Zhao said as he did it. During this process, he was almost in "zero-distance" contact with the deceased.
"It's not bad today. He passed away not long ago and his body is still warm!" Yin Hun helped Lao Zhao to support his friend. The coldness seemed to penetrate into his bones. He did not feel the warmth Lao Zhao said at all. It was not until many years later, when Yin Hun was dressing Lao Zhao, the deceased teacher, that he suddenly remembered the warmth Lao Zhao said to him. At that time, Yin Hun touched his hand that had just been taken out of the freezer and really felt the warmth. The tearing feeling that burned his heart like charcoal fire made Yin Hun cry like rain.
Powder puff, rouge, lipstick, eyebrow pencil. The tools in Lao Zhaotou's makeup box are similar to those used by ordinary people. The only difference is that there is a brand new hemostat. He opened the mouth of the deceased and slowly put the sanitary napkin of the hemostat in. Yin Hun then noticed that this friend was an elderly man. His hair was completely white, but very neat, with faint hair lines. There were many wrinkles on his face, and he looked very kind. At this time, Lao Zhaotou took out the hemostat. The originally white sanitary napkin was now stained with a large black blood spot: "Cerebral congestion, myocardial infarction, and lung disease will cause coughing up blood. You have to clean your mouth. Alas! This old man loves to be conceited!" Lao Zhaotou still said and did it. In a blink of an eye, this elderly friend was already clean.
Watching Old Zhao's skillful techniques, Yin Hun suddenly felt a sense of reverence for his profession. He felt like he was an engineer of the soul and a architect of life, guaranteeing the final dignity of the dead and giving the final comfort to the living.
