A visit

There was a story behind how Tianmen County got its name.

Tianmen County lay right in the angle between the ends of two mountain ranges. There were mountains outside both the north and south of town, and a lone hill rose to the west.

Seen from above, the whole county looked as though it sat inside the Chinese character for "gate," formed by mountains.

As for why it was called "Heaven's Gate" rather than "Dragon's Gate" or "Jade Gate," legend had it that an immortal had once descended onto the solitary Mentou Mountain west of town!

If an immortal had descended there, what else could it be but Heaven's Gate?

Of course, that account was open to debate.

Although Tianmen County was surrounded by mountains, it was not some impoverished county deep in the wilderness. On the contrary, its position at a mountain pass had helped it develop quite well in recent years.

The most famous mountain in Tianmen County was Mentou Mountain. After all, it had an immortal!

But the mountain that drew the most visitors was not Mentou Mountain, but Jingshan to the north of town, because it had the Old Mother Shrine and a winding mountain road.

To the south stood Twin Ridge Mountain. Unlike Jingshan and Mentou Mountain, it remained undeveloped and consequently little known.

It only had a name because its two connected peaks gave it an unusual shape.

At the foot of Twin Ridge Mountain ran Twin Ridge River, a tributary of a larger river. It flowed from west to east, passed one side of Mentou Mountain, and ran through the southwestern corner of Tianmen County.

And the Tianmen Funeral Home stood right in that southwestern corner, beside Twin Ridge River!

A short walk out of the funeral home's south gate brought one within sight of Twin Ridge River. Twin Ridge Mountain stood on the opposite bank. When people said the funeral home was nestled between a mountain and a river, those were the ones they meant.

Twin Ridge River was over ten meters wide and around three meters deep, with a thick layer of sand beneath its bed.

Before regulations were introduced, villagers near Tianmen County had made money dredging river sand. Chen Miao's grandfather had once taken his eldest son and Chen Miao's father along to do the same.

Nobody regulated it back then, and his grandfather's group had clashed with plenty of thugs who dredged sand. After all, only so much riverbank was suitable for it. Who got to claim it?

With his two sons beside him, his grandfather had not been afraid at first. They were three grown men, after all. But after hearing that one of the thugs had stabbed someone, he abandoned the idea of fighting over stretches of river.

Safety mattered more. Earning a little less would not leave them starving.

Later, when Elder Uncle's family received compensation for the demolition of their home, they had considered buying a sand-dredging boat to make some money.

After all, the bolder sand yard owners could earn over a million a year!

But they soon discovered that having money and a boat did not mean they could dredge sand.

Without connections, plenty of things were difficult to get off the ground.

River management measures happened to begin around then, too. The authorities banned sand dredging, and Elder Uncle gave up the idea.

The twins had drowned about a kilometer west of the Tianmen Funeral Home, where a road ran along the river.

When the summer heat hit, many people liked to drive there for picnics.

The two little girls had wandered out of the adults' sight while picnicking with their family, fallen into the river, and drowned.

Fortunately, the thick aquatic weeds along the bank had caught their bodies. Otherwise, finding them would have taken considerable effort.

Had it taken several days to recover them, decomposition would have left them bloated beyond recognition.

Chen Miao leafed through the documents but found no detailed account of the two girls' lives.

He checked the date of the twins' memorial service. It was in two days.

So he did not rush to call. Their family might still be overwhelmed by grief and unwilling to cooperate.

He would give them some time first.

That afternoon.

Chen Miao went to the cold storage room and helped the newly hired attendant, Tang Rui, receive the twins' bodies.

Tang Rui had started work two days earlier. He had not worked in funeral services before; he had been a programmer.

That was why Chen Miao had often been coming over to teach Tang Rui how to operate the equipment.

Through those visits, the two had gotten to know each other.

Tang Rui had been "streamlined" out of his company just after turning thirty-five.

Afterward, Tang Rui had spent a full month looking for work. Employers either thought he was too old or wanted too much money. Even after lowering his expected salary from fifteen thousand to ten thousand, he still could not find a suitable job.

In a fit of anger, Tang Rui had returned to his hometown.

As it happened, the Tianmen Funeral Home had been recruiting for a week without finding anyone. During his interview, Tang Rui said he could stay up all night, understood technology, and had plenty of nerve. Only then had Chen Weiyi hired him.

In truth, cold storage attendants were difficult to recruit in the first place. On top of that, Chen Weiyi wanted to save money and refused to hire two people to work shifts.

As a result, the funeral home's cold storage attendant had to stay in the facility almost every day, with only one daytime period off each week.

Conditions that harsh naturally made it difficult to attract people who actually worked in the profession.

Fortunately, although Elder Uncle saved on one employee, he did increase the salary for the lone attendant.

So after two days on the job, Tang Rui was quite satisfied with a position in this small county town that paid five thousand during probation and eight thousand once he became permanent.

Apart from being an awkward occupation to mention to others and having somewhat long hours, it was more than ten times easier than his old life as a corporate workhorse. At least he did not have to rack his brains or argue with product managers.

Tang Rui was already married, so he did not have to worry about how entering this line of work might affect his marriage prospects.

"I'll head off, then."

Chen Miao said goodbye to Tang Rui and left the cold storage room.

Back in his office, Chen Miao opened the Notes on Achieving Divinity in the Mortal World.

No new chapters had appeared beyond the main text and side story of the first chapter.

For some reason, he felt a little disappointed.

Since the incidents involving Old Wang and Qian Xiaomei, the cold storage room had received several more guests, but nothing had happened.

Chen Miao also made a daily round of the cremation room and the ashes hall, but those visits had not triggered any changes in the book either.

He had assumed that the twins' violent deaths by drowning would leave them with considerable resentment, making some kind of incident fairly likely.

But that had not proved to be the case.

There seemed to be something at work that he did not yet understand. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for the Tianmen Funeral Home to operate for so many years without encountering a single supernatural incident.

"So what was special about Qian Xiaomei and Old Wang?"

Chen Miao thought about it for a long time but could not reach a conclusion. In the end, he could only let it go.

The next morning, Chen Miao called the twins' parents at ten, but nobody answered.

He made five calls in succession between ten and eleven, without getting through once.

Thinking the phone number might be wrong, he went to Kong Fang, but Kong Fang checked it and found no mistake.

That afternoon, Chen Miao called twice more. When neither call was answered, he decided not to wait any longer.

He went straight to the address listed in the documents.

The twins' family seemed fairly well off. Both their booking of the main farewell hall and their home address suggested as much.

Only a handful of residential complexes in Tianmen County had average prices above ten thousand per square meter. Jingshan New Residence, where Chen Miao's Elder Uncle lived, was one. Jinmao Mansion, where the twins' family lived, was another.

One distinguishing feature of complexes that cost over ten thousand per square meter in a small county town was that visitors were stopped before entering. That simply did not happen at other complexes in Tianmen County.

After Chen Miao gave the apartment number, the security guard contacted the twins' father.

Upon learning why Chen Miao had come, the twins' father agreed to receive him.

Five minutes later, Chen Miao was sitting in the family's living room. Across from him sat the twins' father, Li Liang.

Li Liang looked terrible. His hair was a mess, dark circles ringed his eyes, and his bloodshot gaze was lifeless.

It was not hard to imagine what he had been through lately.

"Mr. Li, please forgive me for coming by unannounced."

"Could you tell me about Li Shilei and Li Shirui's lives? What they liked, for example, and what their personalities were like. All of that would help me write their eulogy."

Seeing Li Liang grow emotional, Chen Miao continued, "Mr. Li, the departed are gone. Please accept my condolences."

"In our profession, a eulogy represents the last conversation between the living world and the world of the dead. The more fitting it is, the more likely the departed are to hear it and leave without regrets."

"If there's anything you'd like to say to them, you can tell me, and I'll include it in the eulogy. But it would be best not to ask them to stay or say anything along those lines. That could make them linger in this world, unable to be reborn."

Chen Miao's heartfelt words finally moved Li Liang.

For the next hour, Li Liang did all the talking.

Chen Miao took notes while recording him on his phone.

By the time he finished, Li Liang seemed much better.

Perhaps those words had weighed on his heart for a long time, with nobody there to listen.

Judging by the state of the apartment, some problems had probably arisen between Li Liang and his wife as well.

Whether because of blame or something else, the two were not living together at the moment.

Once he had finished taking notes, Chen Miao said goodbye and left.

Just as he stepped out of Li Liang's apartment, two people emerged from the elevator.

The first was an elderly man whose features resembled Li Liang's. He was probably a relative.

The short, middle-aged man following him, with his drooping mustache, was rather unusual.

Despite the summer heat, he wore a black, long-sleeved cloth jacket.

His sparse black hair was white at the roots, clearly showing that it had been dyed.

Most striking of all was his waxy yellow complexion, which looked distinctly unhealthy.

As Chen Miao studied him, he suddenly met a pair of half-open, Triangle Eyes.

For no apparent reason, a chill washed over him.

Even after entering the elevator, Chen Miao was still thinking about the middle-aged man with the drooping mustache and Triangle Eyes.

Meanwhile, the mustached man entered Li Liang's home and learned from the conversation between Li Liang and his father that Chen Miao was from the Tianmen Funeral Home.

His half-open Triangle Eyes widened slightly for an instant, then returned to their calm state.