When Ai San was released from prison early, his daughter was already fifteen, and his wife had long since run away. Ai San searched for jobs upon his release, but no legitimate business would take him. Even when nightclubs were hiring security to maintain order, the owners would politely escort him out with clasped hands, then turn to the manager and say, "This guy has a manslaughter record and no sense of propriety." How could I dare hire him? What if he loses his temper one day and stabs some drunk? I’d have to flee. I just need someone who can intimidate troublemakers—not someone who’d actually resort to violence. This is a business; I need people who can rough up anyone causing trouble, but I’m not running a gang. Why would I want a ruthless person like him?"
Desperate for work, Ai San followed a friend to Fushun Second Hospital, carrying stretchers and pushing hospital beds for the emergency center, earning three hundred yuan a month. His days were monotonous: a twenty-cent steamed bun and a five-cent fermented tofu cube for breakfast; two forty-cent buns and two ten-cent tofu cubes for lunch; and two forty-cent buns with one ten-cent fermented tofu and stinky tofu for dinner. Life was tasteless. When his daughter Ai Chen needed five yuan for a school workbook, Ai San delayed for half a month without managing to pay. Her homeroom teacher visited their home on Dandong Road, arriving by bicycle. Upon seeing the household’s condition, the teacher burst into tears. The bed had only three legs; a faucet was installed on the radiator with a basin beneath it, and in winter, they washed clothes with the hot water from the heating pipes. To prevent clogs, the water contained additives that dissolved impurities but were corrosive, causing clothes to itch when worn and tear easily over time. Yet, they had no choice—it saved money and water.
Years passed like this.
One night, a patient passed away, and Ai San was tasked with transporting the body to the morgue. Only one family member was present—an old accomplice from Ai San’s past. This man, also jobless and alone after release, was overwhelmed handling his father’s funeral arrangements alone. He pleaded, "Brother San, could you help dress my dad in burial clothes?"
Ai San replied, "Your dad is my dad. Go handle the paperwork—I’ll take care of this."
Poverty meant the wreath for the deceased was handmade from toilet paper by fellow ex-inmates or their friends, and the mourning shed was a borrowed Coca-Cola shade umbrella from a convenience store. However, Coca-Cola provided red umbrellas, which were too unconventional for a funeral. So, Ai San knocked on the store’s door late at night to buy ink and dye it black. They set up four umbrellors with a white cloth draped between them, finally assembling the mourning shed.
Once the shed was up, the group heartlessly set up a mahjong table. The clattering of tiles echoed through the quiet retirement community, blending with the funeral music in the dark, lamp-less environment, creating a complex atmosphere of sorrow and absurdity.On the second night, the brothers were keeping vigil while playing mahjong. Ai Chen was burning paper offerings while listening to Guo Degang's crosstalk "Funeral Association" on his phone. Suddenly, the sky darkened and rain began to fall. The Yidege ink applied earlier formed dozens of black water columns along the ribs of the sunshade umbrella. Muddy black puddles accumulated in the courtyard of the Soviet-style workers' dormitory, resembling coal wash water from the previous night. The sunshade umbrella turned red, and people wept until they laughed, then laughed until they wept again. The funeral was so lively that from a distance, it could have been mistaken for a fast-food restaurant's grand opening.
On the third day, during the funeral procession, Ai San brought out his father's suona and played while weeping. He cried for his own miserable life, for how all the brothers had become down-and-out wanderers, and especially for how his own father's passing had been even more desolate. The brothers joined in crying along the way, their wails carrying so far that people two streets away found it eerie. As Ai San wept passionately, Ai Chen also shed tears like pear blossoms in the rain. Ai San glanced at his daughter: "What are you crying for?"
Ai Chen returned the glance: "What are you crying for?"
The group continued weeping until they reached the cemetery. The gravesite was chosen in a corner of the memorial park, facing neither east nor south - the cheapest location. After the weeping subsided and the weeds around the tombstone were cleared, Ai San deliberately took out a bag of lime and evenly spread it around the tombstone, saying: "This should keep the weeds away for at least a year."
After paying respects and sealing the tomb chamber, as they were about to leave, Ai San said: "Let me play a suona piece for the old man. I sent his son to prison, and now it's so hard to start anew. I want to apologize to him." He then performed a solo of "Hometown Melody" on the suona, filled with profound sorrow.
After kowtowing three times, as the group prepared to leave, a man and woman stopped them. The couple were there to select a gravesite in advance for their family member who was critically ill. Witnessing the scene had moved them deeply. The woman said: "Brother, which funeral service company are you with? Could you leave me your contact? We might need your services in a few days. Seeing how sincerely you wept and the proper rituals, I'd like to hire you for my father's send-off too, to give him a lively funeral procession."
Ai San was momentarily stunned, unfamiliar with the business. But quick-witted Ai Chen immediately asked: "How much can you pay?"
The woman inquired: "For the full service from shrouding to burial - would five thousand work?"
Ai San asked: "What do other families usually pay?"
The woman looked confused: "You're in this business, yet you're asking me? Who goes around asking about these prices for no reason."
Ai Chen calculated briefly and said: "How about this - you give us three thousand as deposit first, and we'll make the arrangements."
The woman began to suspect something: "What's the name of your business?"
Having listened to Guo Degang all night, Ai Chen instantly recalled the lyrics: "The wild geese may return someday, but the departed soul never comes back," and blurted out without thinking: "Funeral Association."Father and daughter took the three thousand yuan and first went to the wedding service shop to arrange vehicles. Funerals differ from weddings—odd numbers of vehicles are preferred over even. Each small car cost 150 yuan, with seven cars totaling 1,050 yuan, rounded down to 1,000. A large coach cost 200 yuan, bringing the total to 1,200. Next, they bought tarpaulin at the building materials market, asked neighbors to write condolence banners and scrolls, and welded the steel frame for the mourning shed themselves, spending 140 yuan. They placed a 500-yuan deposit at a struggling mid-sized pork stew restaurant for five banquet tables. They then purchased four zhang of white cloth and three meters of black cloth to make mourning bands at home. For the urn, they paid a carpenter from the refractory factory. In Northeast China back then, nanmu or yellow rosewood were unheard of; the region had poplar, pine, and birch, but these woods had a flaw—if the fibers weren’t fully dried, they’d crack and splinter, making them unsuitable for urns. If the family later wanted a joint burial, opening the tomb might reveal a disintegrated urn with ashes turned to paste. Ai San found a wild peach tree in Gaowan Farm, cut thick branches, dried them by the heater for a week, then got half a bucket of tung oil from a friend at the tarpaulin factory to lacquer the peach wood urn before drying it again—finally completing the task.
The total cost came to just under three thousand yuan.
This business was profitable—you named a price, and no one haggled. Fixed costs were just the vehicles and restaurant; everything else could be improvised. If clients had money, they paid more; if not, Ai San devised budget-friendly solutions.
Ai San, always at the hospital, would be the first to know when a patient passed away and the first to approach the family. With a few words, he’d secure the deal. Each job brought in five to eight thousand yuan, plus extra for rituals. By reciting a few lines of Errenzhuan shamanistic dance chants like, "The sun sets behind the western hills, darkness falls, every household bolts its doors, magpies and crows flee to the forests, sparrows and finches perch on eaves, the five-clawed golden dragon returns to the northern sea, the millennia-old turtle crawls back to the sands," he’d instantly create a sense of ceremony.
Ai Chen’s core team was different from others—all had criminal records and had served time, but they understood hardship deeply. Unlike reckless, dyed-haired youths who shouted and swaggered, they were humbler and more subdued. When crafting paper offerings together, if someone needed the bathroom, they’d initially habitually say "report," but over time, they’d just mention it casually.
Their youthful mistakes left a permanent mark—fearful of trouble, they’d avoid young brawlers and even hesitate to glance at tattooed, shirtless men, dreading a confrontational "What are you looking at?" They couldn’t afford more strife.
Within two or three years, Ai San and his daughter thrived. With the team’s effort, they opened three to five branches. Cemetery prices in Shenyang were higher than in Fushun, so they expanded services to Dadong District. To maximize profits, they started their own vehicle and restaurant businesses, controlling the supply chain and boosting margins. As Ai Chen grew older, continuing funeral work harmed her image as a young woman, so she took over the restaurant, leaving the funeral services to Ai San and his crew.
It was a classic case of "after darkness, dawn."
Seeing Liu Zhengliang, Ai Chen smiled and approached: "Dr. Liu, since when did you start working at the Second Hospital?"Liu Zhengliang naturally broke into a smile when he saw Ai Chen: "Just got here. What job are you on today?"
Ai San offered him a cigarette, but Liu Zhengliang declined. Ai San said: "Dr. Liu, I heard another car accident victim just arrived in the emergency room and needs craniotomy surgery soon? Can you give us the inside scoop - will they make it?"
Liu Zhengliang found Ai San's words inauspicious and immediately lost his smile: "You funeral business people don't have much overhead anyway. Whether they survive or not, just wait for the surgery results. How would I know right now?"
After speaking, with the surgical preparations complete, Liu Zhengliang jogged all the way into the operating room. Ai San said to his daughter behind Liu Zhengliang's back: "That kid seems quite skilled. Our business at Second Hospital might become harder to get."
Chen Junnan wasn't in a hurry. Since he needed to return to the emergency room to help Liu Zhengliang with the finishing work, he asked Ai San: "Uncle Ai, I still don't understand - what job is worth your personal visit?"
Ai San smiled and said: "You just don't get it. This girl was in a car accident, right? She must have broken arms and legs everywhere. Plus this craniotomy surgery - she's been completely messed up inside and out. If she really passes away, shouldn't we dress her up properly? She's just a young girl, only fifteen. Would she be buried with white gauze wrapped around her head? That wouldn't look good either. She came into this world once - shouldn't she leave clean and beautiful? When we fix her up and make her presentable, that's when our business makes money. Your Uncle Ai here only knows how to play funeral music, recite eulogies, perform consecration, lead funeral processions, break the mourning pot and carry funeral banners - basically just talking. But this is skilled work. Even if I wanted to learn, I couldn't. How to stitch the head without bleeding or showing stitches, whether to use glue on the eyelids, what to put in the mouth, how to plug the anus - all these require training. Do you think encoffining just means painting the face rosy red? If you don't use glue on the eyelids, when the skin dries out plus the freezing, the skin pulls the eyelids open. Wouldn't it be terrifying if the eyes opened? That would become 'dead but not closing the eyes.' Some rural traditions require keeping the body for several days, so the anus must be plugged and treated with chemicals. Both the mouth and anus need sterilization, otherwise bacteria multiply too fast. In hot weather, the stomach might swell within three days. Other money in our business is routine income, but only when we get this kind of job do we really make money. This girl's parents must cherish their daughter deeply. However poor they are, they won't let their daughter leave all bloody and messy. Well, today we're waiting for this one job."
OpenNovel