A car accident.
A term that sounded as though it consisted entirely of chance.
His relatives hadn't told Li Xian the details of the accident over the phone. They had simply given him a location and hung up. When he rushed there, they told him his parents' bodies had already been transferred to the funeral home.
The whole process had been so swift it bordered on bizarre-and throughout it all, Li Xian had been an outsider kept in the dark. Because he was a minor and still had school to attend, he couldn't take part in any of it.
Taking them to the hospital, trying to save them, issuing death certificates, and transferring their bodies to the funeral home should all have taken considerable time, yet his relatives had only called to tell him after everything was already done.
Since it was a car accident, there should also have been a report determining liability, followed by discussions about compensation. But Li Xian had seen none of that, nor had he even heard anyone mention it.
Whenever he asked about it himself, his relatives either brushed him off with vague answers or claimed they didn't know the details either-there was something even stranger about it, too: the vast majority of the arrangements following his parents' deaths had been handled by colleagues from their company.
He had attended his parents' funeral in a haze of utter bewilderment and confusion.
Very few people had been there that day, barely more than a dozen even counting the officiant. His parents' bodies shared a single coffin, its lid shut. Once the final rites were completed, it would be sent off for cremation.
Throughout the memorial service, Li Xian had stared fixedly at the rectangular coffin before him. Then, when the proceedings ended, his relatives began