Cremation

The makeup artist was applying makeup to Zhang Youzhi.

Generally, people were not cremated immediately after death. There was a process to follow.

Usually, the body would be cremated after three to five days.

Zhang Youzhi's body had just been pulled out of the freezer. After two days on ice, he was frozen stiff, but the White Jade Capital Company's makeup artist clearly knew her way around this. She had brought her own insulated gloves and was ready to get to work with her brushes and powders.

Even if you were dead as a doornail, you still had to look gorgeous on your way out~

The makeup artist loved her job. Compared with doing makeup for the living, she preferred working on the dead, especially young people like this who had died a nice, clean death.

Corpses did not fidget or interfere with her creative vision. Most importantly, they never complained that her makeup looked ugly.

She gave Zhang Youzhi rosy cheeks, brushed his teeth spotless, arranged him in a pose, and dressed him in a new outfit. She also concealed the large scar across his abdomen. Hidden neatly in his carefully styled hair was a little braid.

It was one of her little pleasures.

Zhang Youzhi's body lay quietly on the table. He Min sat beside him without a word, simply keeping Jingjing company.

The master of ceremonies announced the formal start of the cremation ceremony.

"Everyone present, please observe one minute of silence."

The Funeral Director, makeup artist, and master of ceremonies all lowered their heads and closed their eyes. Only He Min remained sitting quietly beside him.

"Representatives of the deceased's family and workplace, along with his superiors and relatives, will now offer brief remarks in his memory."

Zhang Youzhi had died a miserable death. What relatives did he even have?

After an awkward silence, the master of ceremonies continued without a change in expression. "Please pay your final respects by walking once around the deceased."

The White Jade Capital Company employees expertly gathered around Zhang Youzhi and circled him several times.

"I now declare the cremation underway. Staff or family members will escort the deceased to the cremation chamber and watch him enter the furnace."

Four Funeral Directors dressed in black began wheeling Zhang Youzhi's little bed toward the furnace room.

But it would not budge.

They looked over and saw He Min biting her lip, gripping the bed and refusing to let go.

The makeup artist went over to comfort He Min. "Ma'am, the dead cannot come back to life. Let him rest in peace sooner rather than later."

The little bed was wheeled up to the furnace opening.

Everyone felt a chill at the sight of that pitch-black opening.

"Push him in." The lead Funeral Director gave everyone an encouraging look, then began pushing Zhang Youzhi inside.

Zhang Youzhi's head went in first, followed by his neck, chest, and waist.

Inside the cramped cremation furnace, Zhang Youzhi lay with his eyes peacefully closed, quietly awaiting the high-pressure, high-temperature flames.

A worker slowly secured the furnace's iron door.

"The family may wait in the reception room for the ashes." The master of ceremonies broke the silence and began ushering everyone out of the cremation chamber.

The White Jade Capital Company employees returned to the reception room with practiced ease, then just as expertly pulled peanuts and sunflower seeds from their pockets and started chatting.

With gentle coaxing, the makeup artist persuaded He Min to return. Xu Nayuyan happened to have finished his work and come back as well. After confirming that He Min was emotionally stable, he headed to the Cremation Room.

"Have you burned him yet?"

"He's burning now. Look at that fire-so big, so fierce, so beautiful. Give it half an hour, and the ashes will be ready."

"Good." Xu Nayuyan let out a long breath.

The company's senior management had repeatedly instructed him to make absolutely sure Zhang Youzhi was reduced to ashes. Now that things had reached this stage, he could finally rest easy.

[Supervision Regulations remain in effect]

The corpse heard those words through a haze, then opened his eyes.

High-temperature, high-pressure flames enclosed his entire body, devouring his battered flesh.

The charred corpse twitched, then sat up.

"There seems to be some movement inside. Is that all right?" Xu Nayuyan asked the worker.

"Perfectly normal. Bones crackle as they burn to ash. To ensure the finest possible ashes and the perfect scattering experience, we use the smallest, gentlest flame. It might take a long time, but it's a very comfortable burn." The worker proudly thumped his chest in assurance.

He had been burning people here for over a decade. What kind of well-done person had he not seen?

Feeling uneasy, Xu Nayuyan focused his attention on the burning furnace.

The worker was right. The fire really was not very fierce. After several minutes, the corpse was still only charred.

The corpse shifted in bewilderment, "looking" thoughtfully at his carbonized arms.

He knocked against the furnace's inner wall, producing muffled metallic thuds.

Thump, thump, thump.

There was that sound again.

Xu Nayuyan nervously moved closer to the furnace, feeling the heat wash over him through the metal chamber wall.

"What's going on?"

"Perfectly normal. As everyone knows, bones can sometimes explode while burning, but they'll turn to ash in the end. Based on my decade-plus experience burning people, that should have been some bones cracking and then hitting the inner wall."

The worker thumped his chest in assurance.

Another ten minutes passed. After burning for so long, the spine finally softened. Unable to support a seated posture any longer, the skeleton crumbled into a loose heap.

The corpse's skull rolled twice and struck the furnace's iron door.

By now, all the flesh had burned away, leaving only gleaming white bones crackling in the fierce flames.

Perhaps because the area near the iron door was away from the center of the furnace, its temperature was much lower. The bones in the center had already blackened and were turning to ash. The skull, however, remained smooth and white, gleaming with strange colors beneath the golden flames.

The skull watched his bones gradually turn to drifting ash. After a moment's contemplation, he rolled a little closer to the door, making sure he was farther from the flames in the center.

A human-shaped apparition remained seated in the furnace, taking a long time to come to his senses.

"Where am I?" The apparition looked at the ashes beneath him, then at the skull trembling by the exit, and pondered for a moment.

"That's me."

The apparition recognized himself the instant he saw the skull, for no other reason than that the skull was simply too handsome.

Sharply defined cheekbones, a beautiful jaw, deep and sorrowful eye sockets and lacrimal fossae, a smooth cranium, teeth like jade-everything was perfect.

He rested there at an angle, silently watching the surging flames, aloof beyond measure.

He was practically the dream skull of every medical and art student.

Only after seeing this skull did the apparition finally grasp the situation.

"Oh~ So I'm dead."

Perhaps he had spent too long frozen in the freezer, because his normal thinking faculties clearly had yet to recover. Bone and soul stared at each other for a long time. Finally, the apparition came to his senses and asked a philosophical question.

"Who am I?"

The apparition pondered in silence, but time would not wait for him. Soon, the furnace went out.

The interior of the furnace sloped downward, gathering the pile of ashes like a whirlpool before funneling them into a container.

Perhaps because the skull was missing, the box contained noticeably fewer ashes than expected.

The apparition gave the skull hiding in the corner a long look, then slowly drifted out through the metal chamber wall.

"Strange. Why does this feel so much lighter?" The worker held the urn, baffled.

In the reception room, He Min rushed forward first, snatched the urn, and hugged it to her chest.

Xu Nayuyan patted He Min on the shoulder, then turned to the worker. "We can't afford to waste time. We'll go arrange the funeral. You can clean out the furnace yourself."

With that, the group left.

The apparition circled above He Min's head. Though still bewildered, he drifted after his urn.