As it turned out, when it was time to turn back, you still had to turn back.
Especially when you were dying.
Zhang Youzhi and the man in the trench coat sat in the children's seats at KFC and began discussing the price.
Zhang Youzhi crossed out several useless options: "a grand funeral," "a premium plot at Haitian Cemetery," "a mysterious group of men in suits and sunglasses arriving in luxury cars with no license plates, holding black umbrellas and watching the cemetery from afar during the funeral," "burning three tons of gold paper ingots every Tomb-Sweeping Day for ten years after death," "a blonde woman weeping at the grave for seven consecutive days," and "two heavily pregnant women fighting over the inheritance at the funeral."
The price dropped to 49,800 yuan.
Still too expensive. He only had eighty thousand yuan. After leaving some for his parents and girlfriend, he would have twenty thousand left at most, and that money had to keep him going through the two months he had left.
He had to get this full-service package for under ten thousand yuan.
Pen in hand, Zhang Youzhi thought it over carefully, then crossed out another item: "When informing the family of the death, mysterious staff members will tell them the deceased 'died in the line of duty,' accompanied by the delivery of a commemorative plaque, an honorary banner, and generous condolence gifts."
When they revealed his death four or five years later, they could just say he had died of cancer. There was no need for any of that fake stuff. His parents weren't vain people. The two of them could simply live out their days in peace.
The price dropped to 39,800 yuan.
Zhang Youzhi began carefully rereading the beautifully printed service brochure.
One particular service caught his attention. It concerned managing relationships involving spouses, romantic partners, affairs, and illegitimate children.
Zhang Youzhi wasn't having an affair, let alone hiding an illegitimate child. But he did have a girlfriend who loved him deeply. If there was anything in this world he couldn't bear to leave behind, it was her.
This service cost 6,888 yuan, but its description consisted of just one sentence.
"Properly manage the emotions of the widow or fiancée, ensuring she does not remain in a state of extreme grief for an extended period."
Zhang Youzhi pointed to the item with his pen and asked Number Two about it.
Number Two was the funeral company's salesman. The brochure listed his company code name, and even now, he was still wearing his sunglasses.
"What does this one mean?"
"Exactly what it says. We help your girlfriend recover from her grief quickly. We'll also take out insurance for her to protect her against financial risks as much as possible. We're not charging you sixty-eight hundred for nothing. Your satisfaction is guaranteed." Still wearing his sunglasses, Number Two leisurely ate his fries.
He didn't dip them in ketchup.
This item mattered a great deal to Zhang Youzhi, and he pressed further. "How do you help her recover from her grief quickly? You can lie to my parents, but not her. You won't fool her. You have to tell her the truth right from the start."
"Of course. That's the client's request, and we can accommodate it. As for helping her recover from her grief, our company has three well-established approaches."
Number Two's fingers paused briefly around a fry before he continued.
"First: we arrange for one of our company's romance specialists to date your girlfriend. We'll assess her emotional state and psychological expectations, then choose the romance specialist best suited to helping her recover from her grief.
"From approaching your girlfriend to dating her and finally leaving her, the process will take approximately three months. If she recovers more quickly, our romance specialist can make an orderly withdrawal within a month.
"This is the most effective and reliable of the three approaches, refined repeatedly by our company's psychologists based on real cases."
"I know what you're worried about, but I swear on our boss's life that our romance specialists have undergone rigorous training. While on assignment, they will never engage in any excessive physical intimacy with your girlfriend. Physical contact is limited to 'hugging.' There won't even be any kissing.
"At the same time, our romance specialist will teach your girlfriend, free of charge, how to identify scumbags and put scheming women in their place. She'll learn how to use her looks and personality to carve out a path for herself in this dog-eat-dog society.
"If necessary, our romance specialist will also teach her a wide range of practical life skills, such as seeking medical care on her own, buying insurance, applying for loans, buying a home or car, managing her finances, and so on. In short, by the end of this service, your girlfriend will not only have recovered from the grief of your unexpected death, but she'll also be protected against bad people trying to exploit her vulnerability."
"I strongly recommend selecting this service," Number Two said earnestly.
To be honest, hearing this left Zhang Youzhi with an inexplicable ache in his heart. He gulped down some Coke, only for an explosive pain to suddenly tear through his lungs.
With trembling hands, Zhang Youzhi picked up a syringe of Morphine and barely managed to line it up with a vein in his wrist. But Number Two swiftly snatched the syringe away and handed him one of his company's painkillers instead.
Number Two had given him ten of those pills.
After swallowing the pill, Zhang Youzhi coughed a few more times, but the pain was already gone.
Suddenly, Zhang Youzhi felt completely healthy, as though his terminal cancer had all been a lie. He clenched his fists, then quickly relaxed them.
"For a short while, you can drink Coke and exercise vigorously again, but the effects won't last more than six hours. You can purchase these pills for a thousand yuan each." Number Two shrugged, as if mocking his own shamelessness for advertising at a time like this.
"What about the second and third approaches? Go on." Zhang Youzhi gestured for him to continue.
"The first approach is romance. The second is friendship. Our company will send dozens of friendship specialists, both men and women, close to your girlfriend's age and with similar personalities. They'll quickly establish connections within her network of peers. Then, based on her responses over the course of a month, we'll retain a select few to actively become her close friends."
"Please note, however, that the friendship approach carries a risk of turning into the romance approach. Emotions are difficult to predict, after all. If that happens, we'll have no choice but to switch to the romance specialist route.
"Of course, we aren't questioning the sincerity of your girlfriend's feelings for you. We simply have great confidence in our staff's professional abilities."
"Surrounding your girlfriend with warm friendship that reaches every corner of her life can alleviate her grief as much as possible. But there is one point you must face: the second approach is the one our clients choose most often. Precisely because of that, our internal data shows that it isn't as effective as the first. It can ease some of your girlfriend's pain, but it cannot fill the true void in her heart.
"Once our service period ends, the sudden loneliness your girlfriend faces may also trigger an emotional backlash. You should understand what it feels like to suddenly be all alone when your close friends are no longer around."
"Unfortunately, our company has limited human resources. Our friendship specialists cannot remain by your girlfriend's side indefinitely. They'll leave her using various excuses, such as working overseas or studying abroad."
For once, Zhang Youzhi said nothing. He simply listened quietly.
Number Two pressed his sunglasses firmly against the bridge of his nose. What he dreaded most on the job was a client showing this kind of despair, but the sunglasses effectively screened those emotions out.
Number Two continued.
"The third is the career approach. This requires a substantial deposit of approximately two hundred thousand yuan. But rest assured, we'll return essentially the entire amount-not to you, but to your girlfriend."
"As I understand it, your girlfriend teaches science at an ordinary elementary school in the county town.
"Her salary plus allowances comes to approximately 4,300 yuan a month. Based on that situation, we'll 'forge' a staff transfer notice-although it isn't really forgery. Our company does operate an established educational system covering elementary, middle, and high school."
"Our company will call in favors, using a generous salary as bait and the local elementary school principal's encouragement to help things along, urging your girlfriend to transfer to one of our private elementary schools.
"During the 'one-year' assessment period at our school, your girlfriend will receive a substantial monthly salary of over twenty thousand yuan. Most of that salary will come from your deposit, with the remainder paid by us."
"If your girlfriend proves to be an outstanding teacher, we'll retain her at the school and pay her a genuine salary of twenty thousand yuan, possibly even more. If not, we'll send her back to her original school."
"By now, you should understand that the career approach offers your girlfriend a genuine opportunity to take a major leap forward in life. At the same time, to achieve our original objective-helping her recover from her grief-
"We'll also make your girlfriend a homeroom teacher during that year's probationary period and assign her a heavy workload, with essentially no extended vacations. The intensive work will help her forget her grief. We'll select students with temperaments such as phlegmatic and melancholic for her class.
"Children are innocent. We believe this can also effectively ease your girlfriend's grief."
At this point, Number Two instinctively reached for another fry, only to discover that he had already eaten them all.
"Wouldn't such intensive work damage her health?" Zhang Youzhi asked hesitantly.
"Compared with emotional suffering, it's worth it. Our company will provide highly qualified medical caregivers, completely free of charge, to reduce that risk to a minimum.
"Of course, we'll also actively intervene if your girlfriend tries to escape her pain by working herself into the ground. We have a high-quality mental healthcare system in place to ensure our employees receive care and treatment."
"But the career approach has one fatal flaw that you must be aware of: if your girlfriend is completely unable to adapt to teaching at our company, cannot meet even the minimum job requirements, or chooses to resign-
"We'll deduct the corresponding losses from that two-hundred-thousand-yuan deposit-no more than twenty percent-and return the remaining principal to her in a single payment. If she insists on asking where the money came from, we'll tell her the truth. That will inevitably cause her another emotional shock."
"The career approach is also highly effective. In a sense, it can be even more effective and longer-lasting than the romance approach. Correspondingly, it is also less stable than the first two. Please consider it very carefully."
"And now, please make your choice."
Having finished his explanation in one go, Number Two leaned lightly against the backrest.
Zhang Youzhi had the feeling that the man before him was smiling with narrowed eyes, but the sunglasses hid them. He couldn't see, so he had no proof.
Zhang Youzhi sat there motionless, staring at the crumbs in the fry carton as though lost in a trance.
Choose? Choose what?
Zhang Youzhi tugged at his hair in anguish.
He would rather choose the career approach. For his girlfriend, who was determined to leave the mountains behind, this would undoubtedly be a rare opportunity. He believed she would be able to seize it.
If his girlfriend had any other obsession besides loving Zhang Youzhi, it was escaping the mountains of her hometown.
But Zhang Youzhi couldn't afford the two-hundred-thousand-yuan deposit. Even if he sold everything he owned, he still couldn't scrape it together.
Sell the house his parents lived in? He couldn't take that risk.
Zhang Youzhi wanted to ask whether they could let him owe the two-hundred-thousand-yuan deposit and give his girlfriend a chance. But before he could speak, he saw the man in sunglasses slowly shake his head.
That meant no.
"Then let's go with the romance approach."
Zhang Youzhi slumped heavily into the child-sized chair, like an old, dying cat curled up in a battered little cardboard box.
"Very well. There's no need to be so pessimistic. Our company allows you to monitor our services in real time."
Before you continue