The Next Life

"My father taught me his silversmithing skills."

Zhuoma pondered, "I can take on jobs making silver and copperware, gradually save up some money, and then I can buy a place, build my own house, just like my father..."

"And what about Aji?" Gonpo interrupted Zhuoma, pointing at Zhou Yang and asking, "Can Aji still make silver and bronze utensils?"

"No, no." Zhou Yang shook his head repeatedly.

Aji's consciousness was completely unable to control his body.

Zhou Yang had never learned such delicate crafts as silver and bronze making, so naturally he couldn't do it.

"No matter how much work one person does, it can't equal the work of two people," Gonpo said. "Besides, you're going to marry the eldest son of the Maji family, so you need to save some dowry for yourself."

"Otherwise, you'll definitely be bullied when you get to their house."

Upon hearing about "Maji's family," Zhou Yang's ears perked up immediately.

Maji's family is the murderer who killed Queji.

Zhuoma also knew that it was the sorcerer hired by Maji's family who killed Queji and made her younger brother an idiot.

Why would she want to marry the eldest son of her Maji's family? "I won't marry into their family."

"They probably won't marry me again." Zhuoma sneered. "I've figured it out—from the very beginning, Akang from Maji's family wanted to marry me for our family's silversmith Cang, for our family's wealth!"

"That's why they later asked a sorcerer to ambush Father and Aji on their way back."

"After I kill my father and Aji, I can take all the family's property and marry into their family!"

"But while people can deceive others, they cannot deceive the sun, moon, or the sacred mountain!"

"Before Aji returned, the Master of Zhandui to Linzang —the ' Gedeng Nobleman' who valued my father—was killed by a ghost... After Gedeng Nobleman died, Ding Gui took away all of my family's property."

"The Maji family is just a leader; how dare they steal money from the head steward?"

"So although my family suffered a great calamity, Maji's scheme ultimately failed."

"I have no property, and I'm not good-looking, so Akang won't marry me."

Our engagement is null and void!

"So pitiful..." Gonpo sighed repeatedly, at a loss for words.

He lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then slowly said, "If Aji can't make money, why don't you let him come with me? We can let him be a corpse carrier first, like Jiekan."

"I taught him the rituals for making 'offerings,' and once he had learned them and the spirits were willing to accept the offerings he made, I then had him truly learn the skills of dismantling corpses from me."

"Offerings..." Zhou Yang's eyes flickered slightly.

The offerings here are similar to, yet different from, the "offerings" that Zhou Yang knew.

Offerings, like other offerings, are food given to spirits and deities.

Offering different things to spirits, gods, and the heavens can produce various effects on people.

Although these offerings are given to ghosts and spirits, they are enjoyed by the living.

It's just like a variety of secret medicines.

Zhou Yang couldn't help but daydream—if he learned how to make offerings, perhaps he could make them for his parents and family to enjoy back in Guan Village?

He was secretly interested in the job that Gonpo had introduced him to.

But when Zhuoma heard what Gonpo said and looked at Aji, she hesitated.

"If I become a corpse dismantler..." Zhuoma murmured.

There were many things she couldn't say to Gonpo.

Having become a dismantler, Aji will probably never be able to marry a woman in his life.

From then on, people would avoid him when they saw him. He had no friends or social connections, and no one wanted to associate with him.

In the future, he will only deal with those horrific corpses every day.

If Aji were conscious now and willing to be the dismantler, Zhuoma wouldn't have much of an objection.

But he's foolish now—what if he regains his memory someday? Would he resent his older sister, Zhuoma, for making this decision for him?

Zhuoma has to consider these things.

She hesitated, refusing to nod.

Gonpo then stopped trying to persuade him.

But at this moment, Zhou Yang himself took the initiative to say, "I want to be a corpse dismantler!"

"I need to earn money to buy ghee and tsampa! Eat! Eat!"

He spoke in seemingly disjointed sentences, his words appearing completely unrelated.

But it was precisely these few nonsensical words that jolted him awake from his reverie!

Zhuoma suddenly realized!

What age are the two siblings now?

The tsampa they carried on their backs would last no more than ten days, or even half a month, before the steward, Master of Zhandui, would come to them to collect errands.

They needed to eat and deal with the errands; they were at their wits' end!

At this point, since Uncle Gonpo was willing to teach Aji the skills of dissecting corpses, what else was there to hesitate about?

To live, one must eat; to eat, one must work!

Becoming a body dismantler may lead to a lonely and miserable life with fewer friends, but it also means fewer people will come looking for help!

"Aji!" Zhuoma looked at Zhou Yang seriously and earnestly, "Are you really sure?"

"You want to work as a body dismantler with Uncle Gonpo?"

"I want to be a body dismantler!" Zhou Yang replied immediately.

This region is shrouded in mystery, and he has no clear way to access its secrets.

According to Zhuoma, if she were to become a monk in the monastery, she would either spend her entire life as a laborer, or, on the way, be chosen by the lamas to make ritual implements because of her special nature.

The path of becoming a monk in a temple is simply not viable.

However, among the common people, there are practitioners of Eba Mijutsu and sky burial, who have one foot in the "secrets" of this region.

Zhou Yang followed a sky burial master to cultivate, and was able to enter the path of enlightenment!

"You're not going back on your word?!" Zhuoma shouted.

Zhou Yang raised his voice as well. "I will never go back on my word!"

Every step he takes now is a struggle for survival.

Now that we've chosen our goal, we'll brave any storm to reach it!

Zhuoma stopped talking to Zhou Yang and turned to look at Gonpo. Gonpo straightened his back slightly as he sat on the wood, looking at Aji with bright eyes.

He didn't say anything.

But Zhou Yang looked at Zhuoma, then at Gonpo, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him.

He sat up abruptly and kowtowed deeply to Gonpo: "Master!"

"Good! Good, Aji!"

Gonpo immediately helped Zhou Yang up, patted Zhou Yang's shoulder hard, and said with a radiant smile, "I have an apprentice now!"

"Aji, you follow me and learn well!"

"I will pass on to you all the rituals I learned from the tantric practitioners!"

"You have great potential; you might become a great tantric master like ' Gangba Aga ' someday. Then I, your master, will also become famous because of you!"

He was so happy that he rubbed his hands together, wanting to give Zhou Yang some gifts as a testament to his apprenticeship.

But after searching the house, he couldn't find anything decent.

So he took the Gangba Aga tsa-tsa that he had shown Zhou Yang earlier out of his bosom and handed it to Zhou Yang: "Here you go! Keep it for protection, good Aji!"

"Thank you, Master! Thank you!"

Zhou Yang took the rag and put it in his pocket, immediately feeling the rag emitting a slight warmth in his arms.

He paused for a moment, then realized that this wiping device probably also contained some kind of "secret".

Why didn't Aji remind him this time?

In front of his master, Zhou Yang couldn't very well take the wiping cloth out to study it again.

The three sat down again and continued chatting for a while.

Gonpo was still feeling excited, so he talked a lot.

He explained the entire process of dismantling a corpse to Zhou Yang: "When someone in a family dies, the body is carried here and placed on the 'piles' in the outer room. The person carrying the body must walk around the pile three times and recite the Rebirth Mantra ten times."

"This way, the resentment of the corpse can be eliminated, allowing the soul to enter the next life."

"We also took this opportunity to examine the body."

"Those who die a violent death cannot be given a sky burial." Those whose heads were cut off are the ones who died a violent death.

"--Some corpses have wounds on their bodies, looking like they were strangled or had their internal organs removed, which are also considered violent deaths, but we can still accept them. We have to tell them verbally that we don't accept corpses of violent deaths and refuse them."

"They are afraid that the dead cannot be sky-buried, which would affect their blessings and next life, so they ask us for help."

"If they have fleshy faces, we'll ask them for some ghee; if they're thinner, we'll just give them some tsampa and a couple of bundles of firewood, and that'll be enough."

"But a headless corpse must never be collected!"

"These people who died the most violent deaths will surely become Tsen Demon and haunt us for a long time—and may even attract evil spirits!"

"There is another type of violent death, even more gruesome than a headless corpse, and even more unacceptable to handle—that is—"

Before Gonpo could finish speaking, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the door.

Footsteps were still in the distance, but shouts were already coming, "Roshapa! Gonpo Roshapa!"

"The body has arrived!"

"Ruoshaba" is also a title for a sky burial master.

But this title doesn't carry the same respect for the sky burial master as it does in Duobudan. "Perfect timing, I have something to do!"

"Come with me!"

Gonpo slapped his knee, stood up, waved to Zhou Yang, and walked towards the door.

Zhou Yang also stood up and looked at Zhuoma.

As Zhuoma Ajia listened to Gongbu's words, her face showed some fear. When she suddenly heard someone bringing a corpse over, she became even more frightened. However, when her younger brother looked at her, she forced a smile and said, "Go ahead, younger brother."

"Since you've decided to take Uncle Gonpo as your master, then you should wholeheartedly follow him and do his work."

"Good!"

Zhou Yang nodded, walked up to Zhuoma, and pushed her towards the side room where the siblings lived. "Go and rest in that room, sister."

Sky burial masters who perform body dismantling year-round often suffer from mental illness or even suicide due to excessive stress; how much more so for an ordinary person like Ajia?

Zhou Yang would do everything he could to prevent Zhuoma from encountering the corpses.

He ushered Zhuoma into the inner room, and then followed Gonpo, whose eyes were full of approval, out the door.

"So kind and loyal, good Aji." Gonpo patted him on the shoulder.

As the two stepped out the door, the three or four people who had been calling out outside had already entered the courtyard at the foot of the hill.

The man leading the way wore a felt hat and had a smile on his slightly chubby face. He held a string of prayer beads in his hand and his lips were moving. Even when he saw Gonpo and Zhou Yang leave, he did not come up to greet them but continued chanting his sutras.

Two men behind them were carrying a sheepskin bag like it was being carried on a shoulder pole.

The bulging sheepskin bag, which looked about half a person's height, contained the corpses they had brought.

The two men carrying the shoulder pole smiled when they saw Gonpo come out of the house.

"Hey! Ruoshaba!"

Please help us send our daughter away!

"May she be reborn as a skeleton in her next life, so that she may bring us much good fortune!"

As the two men talked, their smiles became even more enthusiastic and sincere when they mentioned words like "afterlife" and "blessings."

Zhou Yang looked closely at their dusty faces. He saw only genuine joy on their faces and did not detect a trace of sadness.

A chill seeped from Zhou Yang's very bones, and he felt a chill run through his entire body.