Requiem Chapter 16: Bloody Guanyin
"It's really hard for you. Do you really want to get into this business?" After a moment, Lao Zhao looked at the three people's blue faces and seemed to feel some sympathy. His tone softened a lot.
The three of them looked at each other, and I could see the helplessness in each other's eyes, but in the end, they still nodded firmly.
"Okay! I respect your decision, just watch!" After Old Zhao glanced at everyone, he said nothing more. He straightened his copper coin Tang suit, pulled the sleeves back, and began the first step of preparation.
He took out a large bottle of colorless liquid from the bed, unscrewed the cap gently, and whispered, "This is distilled water. It's used to clean the blood on the corpse!"
Old Zhao poured some liquid into the measuring cup beside him, picked up a cotton ball with tweezers, and used distilled water to wipe the blood and brain matter on the face of the corpse. After a while, he wiped the bloody face clean, but some yellowish-brown liquid continued to seep out of the wound. Old Zhao frowned, took out a brown bottle, opened it and sprinkled some white powder on the wound. Gradually, the body fluids on the wound seeped out less and less until it stopped.
"What is this?" Shen Feifei asked in confusion, which surprised Yin Hui who was observing nearby. He had seen brave girls before, but it was rare to see such a brave girl! Inexplicably, he compared Shen Feifei with Tang Yan outside in his mind. Hmm! They are all the same kind of people. As the ancients said: Women have the most poisonous hearts, and they are not deceiving me. However, comparison is comparison. As the chief examiner of this interview, he still has to answer all the questions of the students. Yin Hui smiled faintly and started the live broadcast.
"Oh! This is alkaline powder. It will change the pH of the wound, and the acid in the human body will be secreted less and less!"
When working, Lao Zhao did not blink, his hands did not shake, his expression was extremely focused, and his every move was so orderly and logical, without any panic. Especially when Yin Hui was talking, he seemed to be unable to sense the changes in the outside world, his movements did not stop at all, and he did not even raise his head, as if he had entered a state of great tranquility and Zen.
He used a cotton ball dipped in a little distilled water to wipe off the white powder. His face looked much cleaner, but the gaping wound still looked horrifying.
"Everyone wants to go cleanly when they die, so that the King of Hell will be pleased and will let you be reborn into a good family in the next life. If you are in pieces, the King of Hell will not you, and may even drag you to the frying pan, which would be terrible. All those who are missing limbs during their lifetime will be buried together with their limbs after death! This is called complete!" Old Zhao took a breath, opened a cloth bag, and took out a sewing kit from it. Shen Feifei looked at his focused expression, then at Yin Hun, and felt very strange. Why does everyone who works here speak so fatalistically, and even their bodies exude three parts coldness and seven parts ghostliness? It's really inexplicable.
Could it be that they had all seen something? Thinking of this, the bold girl couldn't help but touch her pounding chest, not daring to make any further associations.
The temperature in the corpse dressing room was much lower than that outside. The temperature outside was only about ten degrees, while the temperature here was close to zero degrees. With Old Zhao's skillful operation, Shen Feifei couldn't help but feel waves of chills all over her body. Although her eyes were focused on the dilapidated corpse, her thinly dressed body began to tremble slightly.
Old Zhao put his hands together and squeezed the two halves of the head, which were almost separated, until the deep scar closed together. Then he opened a small box next to it. The students then discovered that the box was actually a sewing kit. The box was filled with needles of various thicknesses and sizes, but there was only one kind of thread, which was an almost transparent white thread. Needless to say, everyone could understand this. After all, who would want to sew up the dead in colorful patterns?
But Old Zhao was seen pressing the wound hard with his right hand, looking at the needles of various sizes and thinking for a while, taking out a thin needle from the box with his left hand, then holding the needle in his mouth, picking up the thin thread, and gently inserting the needle tip into the wound. While the students were amazed at his skills, they were also worried about the hygiene of his mouth. Although these needles were disinfected every time, they must have come into contact with dead people. It was too unhygienic!
Old Zhao threaded the needle and nodded to Yin Hui. Perhaps noticing the strange expressions on the students' faces, he smiled nonchalantly: "Don't laugh at me, old man. You'll get used to it in the future!"
As he spoke, he stabbed the needle into the wound of the corpse, and then moved it back and forth as if he was sewing clothes. After a while, the split scalp was sewn tightly, and the two halves of the face were put together again. The deformed facial features seemed to have recovered their shape, but the drooping eyeball was still a little difficult to deal with. Old Zhao carefully put the eyeball into the eye socket with his hand, but after a while, the eyeball slowly slipped out of the eye socket and drooped to one side. After going back and forth several times, the boy who was like a bull finally couldn't hold on any longer. His throat kept rolling up and down, and he swallowed a few mouthfuls of saliva fiercely, as if he had drunk a large bowl of undiluted Coptis chinensis.
Old Zhao seemed to be a little annoyed, so he simply pulled the eyeball out of the eye socket and threw it into the trash can at his feet. "Hey, master, aren't you desecrating the dead?" Seeing this, Shen Feifei's face changed, and her tone doubled for no reason, with a very dissatisfied tone.
"It's just like this sometimes, there's nothing we can do." Old Zhao spread his hands and said to her helplessly: "After all, I'm not a surgeon. I can't reconnect all his nerves. I can only make do with what I have!"
"Didn't you say that in this line of work we should respect the dead and try to leave their bodies intact? Isn't this inappropriate?" Shen Feifei continued to shout. Although her voice was sharp, it was very pleasant to the ear.
"It doesn't matter. I will put something in his eye sockets to make his face look fuller. The deceased like this will wear glasses during the memorial service, and the relatives won't notice. Besides, he will turn into a pool of ashes sooner or later!" After saying that, Old Zhao fumbled around for a long time and took out a black coal-like object and stuffed it into the deceased's eye socket. It looked like a real eyeball.
The students fell silent and watched Old Zhao continue to be busy. He opened a box of something like grease, and immediately a fragrant smell filled the air, making everyone feel a little nauseous when they smelled it.
"Woo..." At this moment, the old water bottle in the corner was shaking, and bubbles of different sizes overflowed from the mouth of the bottle, evaporating into rumbling white smoke. The temperature in the dressing room was below zero, and when the hot air flow met the cold air flow, they immediately fought, entangled, and made half of the room smoky. In the dim light, this already weird dressing room became even more terrifying.
"Oh my, sorry, sorry, the old man's water is boiling." Old Zhao put down the box, stroked his goatee, and went to the water bottle with a playful smile. He unplugged the plug and took out a long object from the water bottle. It turned out to be a "hot pot" that cost a few yuan on the street stall. Opening the cabinet where cosmetics were stored, Old Zhao fumbled around and found a shabby big teapot, then carefully took out a paper bag from his arms, poured some tea leaves into it, and brewed a big cup of boiling green tea.
"Children, if anyone is thirsty, come and pour yourself some!" Old Zhao picked up the teacup comfortably, blew a ripple with his mouth, and then slowly put it into his mouth, with an expression of enjoyment. The temperature in the dressing room was low, and it was not without reason that it cooled quickly. However, facing this strange fragrance and the corpse brother accompanying him, no one would try the tea brewed by Old Zhao himself.
Yin Hun knew exactly what kind of person his master was, but sometimes he couldn't figure it out. Why did this old white-collar worker with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands of yuan, no debts, and no children live so frugally? Was he born a masochist? I really don't know what he was thinking. But the leaders of the crematorium were replaced over the years, almost catching up with the metabolism, but our old Zhao was still the same old Zhao. After a while, Yin Hun was no longer surprised. Several students looked at each other and cursed in their hearts: Crazy, this old crazy!
About five minutes later, Yin Hun finally couldn't sit still anymore. His task was not yet completed, and he couldn't waste time with Old Zhao. He coughed awkwardly and said, "Master, do you think we should finish the work at hand first, and then... then..."
"Haha! I'm old and useless. I need to rest for an hour after working for a while. Let's put it this way! There are not many things left, so you do it for me!" Old Zhao put down his teacup and said with squinted eyes.
"Me?" Yin Hun pointed at his nose with his finger, his face showing all kinds of expressions.
"Yes! Raising a son is to prepare for old age, and raising an apprentice requires him to work, otherwise why would I accept you? You are here to eat for free! If this is the case, I might as well accept a cat or a dog." Old Zhao did not give in.
"Examiner, what this old teacher said makes sense. Please teach us by example!" Shen Feifei also interjected. Although he didn't know what her intention was, Yin Hun already felt that this girl had bad intentions and wanted to deliberately squeeze him and embarrass him.
"Okay... okay! It's just a corpse. What's the big deal?" Yin Hun put on rubber gloves with gritted teeth and took a deep breath. After scolding Old Zhao's direct descendants and distant relatives three times each, he slowly got into the state. He hadn't encountered such a horrific corpse for several weeks, and he was a little slack on duty.
Actually, not everyone can be a funeral makeup artist. There are two types of makeup for corpses: normal makeup and special makeup. Normal makeup is relatively simple. First, adjust the facial expression of the deceased to be peaceful, then use oil paint to apply a base oil on the face of the deceased, and then add some red. In this way, the face of the deceased looks rosy and shiny, and the expression is naturally peaceful.
Special makeup is much more complicated. The subjects of special makeup are usually people who have died due to disasters or serious physical injuries. For such dead people, first of all, we need to clean them up, and then find photos of the dead when they were alive to restore their original appearance as much as possible.
"Ahem... ahem... now it's time to put on makeup. Watch out, this may be the key thing for you to learn, after all, you don't encounter many damaged bodies like this!" Yin Hui used his fingers to pick up some grease, gently smeared it on the face of the dead, and then kept stroking it until the grease was completely absorbed by the bloodless face. Suddenly, the dry face seemed to have a little life. At this time, Yin Hui suddenly smiled at Shen Feifei and said, "This is the base color for the face, just like the foundation you girls use!"
Suddenly, Shen Feifei's face turned red, but she couldn't say a word of rebuttal. Yin Hun was very happy in his heart, fighting with me, huh!
Opening the powder box, Yin Hun used a powder puff to dip a little powder and kept applying it on the dead body's face. After a while, the whole face turned pale, like a zombie. The suture scars on the face were covered up. The whole face looked intact, but very scary, especially in this cold room, which made people feel cold.
"Why do all the dead have their faces painted white? It looks so ugly?" Wang Jun looked at the zombie-like costumes and felt a little uncomfortable.
"Haha! If you ask me, I don't know. Anyway, it has been like this for thousands of years. When corpses were stored in ancient cemeteries, they were made up like this! I also learned it from my master!" Yin Hun pondered for a moment and answered politely. He glanced at Old Zhao who was drinking tea next to him and found that the old man winked at him, which was very playful. So he drew eyebrows on the face of the corpse and cleaned up other places.
"Are you ready?" the strong bull said in a trembling voice.
"Okay, all done!" Yin Hui put down the things in his hands and said with a trembling mouth: "It's been a long time since I dealt with such a complicated corpse. By the way, how do you feel?"
Shen Feifei shook her head expressionlessly, while the other two students, their backs wet, each let out a long sigh, as if they were finally relieved of their torment.
"Haha! Classmates, how do you like it? Do you feel it's okay?" Throwing the rubber gloves into the trash can, Yin Hun patted Ma Tie's shoulder with a smile.
"Woo woo!" The bull-like boy waved his hands at Yin Hun, unable to utter a word.
"It's okay!" Wang Jun managed to say something.
Only Shen Feifei didn't say anything, but just let out a sigh. Naturally, all their actions fell into Shen Feifei's eyes.
"Thank you, Master. I'll take them out first!" Yin Hun ticked the names of Shen Feifei and Wang Jun, and then led the three students out of the dressing room and returned to the main hall. On a chair in the corridor, Tang Yan was playing a mobile game boredly. When she saw Yin Hun coming out, she winked at him meaningfully, as if to say, you must have suffered a lot, right? Yin Hun shrugged and smiled in return.
When finally walking out of the funeral home, Yin Hun left the contact information of two students. He was about to tell Ma Tie the bad news of his failure in the interview in a tactful way, but he was surprised to see this strong bull running to the middle of the road with a pale face, hailing a taxi, and leaving the wilderness at the speed of light.
"It seems that the hot autumn weather is coming." Yin Hun said to Tang Yan.
"Yeah! We'll have to turn on the air conditioning in a few days."
In the lounge, Old Zhao put down the teapot, took out three sticks of sandalwood from the drawer, walked to a corner, and gently inserted them into the incense burner between several apples. This was what he had to do every day, and he had been doing it for decades. The dim candlelight and the shadows in the corners danced together, illuminating the blank memorial tablet even more hideously. In the flickering light, gusts of cold wind blew, bringing a slight hum. In contrast, the statue of Guan Erye opposite at this time had white eyes under the alternating light and darkness, and it actually had a terrifying look!
Old Zhao sighed, clapped his hands and was about to leave, but suddenly he discovered that Guan Erye's eyeballs had turned into two blood holes, and two lines of blood and tears rolled down, splashing the table top.
Tick. Tick.
"That's it, it's coming, it 's coming again, why? It's been ten years, why is it coming again?" Old Zhao suddenly fell to the ground, muttering some incomprehensible words, his eyes filled with deep fear and pain.
