Chapter 2.2

She knew that Chen Maidong was rough around the edges, but she didn’t expect him to have gone to the juvenile detention center. She had a good impression of Chen Maidong. In the third year of junior high school, her family went through a financial struggle. She could only go to school with a cane every day. So, the teacher would have the boys in the class to help her out. Occasionally, when it was raining, it was more. Chen Maidong even followed her to the restroom twice without even being asked to watch out for her.

     Wang Xixia replied to her: Chen Maidong’s nature is not bad, but he was not raised by his parents, and his grandparents couldn’t control him, so he went astray and got into the wrong crowd.

     Zhuang Jie thought for a moment and asked how Chen Maidong, who used to be a complete jerk, ended up being a mortuary cosmetologist.

     Wang Xixia responded: His grandfather had ties with the funeral parlor before his death, so there was at least a connection there. It’s assumed that the main reason was that he couldn’t do anything else.

     Zhuang Jie replied clearly: No wonder, I thought he looked holy.

     Wang Xixia replied to her: Don’t talk crazy. He is just messing around.

     Then she sent another message: It is said that he is very powerful and has a professional level certificate. He was in a funeral home in Beijing two years ago. He came back after his grandfather passed away. His grandmother had to be taken care of daily.

     Zhuang Jie was curious: Isn’t his father really rich?

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     Wang Xixia replied to her: I will come back and accompany you in the next two days.

     Zhuang Jie replied: Stop talking nonsense. I’ve almost come to terms with it, anyway.

     Wang Xixia asked her: Have you let it go completely?

     Zhuang Jie replied: Let it go or not. The truth of the matter is that I have made it clear to him. I told him that he had been flirting with me all this time and never gave me a clear response.

     Wang Xixia was surprised: You took the initiative to point it out?

     Standing on the street, Zhuang Jie lit a cigarette and replied to her: Yep.

     Zhuang Jie has a man she has loved for three years, who also happened to be her boss. That man also knew that Zhuang Jie liked him, but he never expressed his opinion. Zhuang Jie was annoyed this year, so she simply made it clear.

Zhuang Jie wrote back: I confessed my love to him in 520 words, but he didn’t reply a single word. Before going abroad, he called me and said that he would also arrange for me to go abroad later. But I was like eff it and I just blocked him.

     Wang Xixia replied to her: That’s fine, your family backgrounds are too different anyway. Long-term pain is way, way worse than short-term pain.

     Zhuang Jie replied to her: The family background is not the fundamental problem, the problem is his attitude towards me. He didn’t give me a clear answer from the beginning to the end.

     “I am ambitious, and I also want to go abroad, but I definitely won’t go out under his arrangement. But whenever he nods, I will go with him regardless. Even if he says his family can’t accept a disabled person, I just went with whatever he said.”

     “I can feel that he likes me and appreciates me. It’s just that this kind of liking is not enough for him to accept my disability.”

     Wang Xixia replied to her: Ji Tong is used to being cautious, and he won’t make a promise if he is not fully sure that he can keep it. Then she wrote back: He is a typical egoist, and he will leave too much room for himself. You are shallow, and you can’t bring him down.

     Zhuang Jie didn’t respond back to her.

     Wang Xixia replied to her again: My cousin introduced me to a partner when Guo Qing returned to Nanping Town.

     Zhuang Jie replied to her: Didn’t you swear you wouldn’t come back?

     Wang Xixia replied: Why shouldn’t I?

     Zhuang Jie replied to her: OK, we will meet up again when you come back, then.

     She closed the phone and was about to go home, but was stopped by an older lady and asked: “Have you seen our Dongzi?”

     “Who is Dongzi?” Zhuang Jie asked back at her.

    The lady let go of her arm and went to pull another passerby. Asking the same question, if she had seen Dongzi? The other person was a tourist, who shook her head and said she didn’t know Dongzi. A person from the neighborhood next to her answered, “Grandma Chen is confused again, Dongzi is at work and will be back soon.” After speaking, he helped Grandma Chen head home, and said, “Hurry up and cook, Dongzi will be hungry when he comes back.”

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     It was already seven o’clock in the evening when Chen Maidong finally made it home. The neighboring village had invited him to bury an old man that afternoon. He was originally going to be sent to the funeral parlor, but this was a happy funeral. The old man was just three years shy of turning a hundred. His son believes in Feng Shui and said that the old man should be buried at home. He also invited two groups of oboe and song and dance troupes to hold the lively event.

     In general, normal deaths in rural areas were carried out by relatives, and it was rare to invite a mortuary cosmetologist for the occasion. But Chen Maidong is associated with the funeral homes of Beijing, and there are many rich people in Nanping Town. So, when the elderly family members pass away, for them it seems that being able to afford a mortuary cosmetologist is a way to still be dignified and display grandeur.

     The funeral parlors in the town are small in scale and have very few special requirements. Since most deaths here are from natural causes,  it is a relatively easy job. His funeral home in Beijing only accepts abnormal deaths, such as traffic accidents, suicides, homicides, drowning and other deaths caused by man-made or natural disasters. If it is an extremely unique death, they have to be spliced and stitched little by little. It is normal for a corpse to take three or two days to process.

     For those who died normally, it is necessary to use special techniques to restore the body to its natural state as much as possible, and then clean and disinfect, dress, repair the face and apply make up.

     Chen Maidong’s first year in the industry was all about adapting, from psychological to physiological. It was only in the second year that he slowly calmed down and was able to face and sort out each corpse peacefully. Giving them a final dignity and decency.

     When Chen Maidong came out of the shower, his Grandma had already put the meal on the table. She was talking about going to the brigade, and asking the town to assign her a daughter-in-law. Her logic was simple. Since her grandson is under the management of the civil affairs department and serves the people of the town, the state should assign a daughter-in-law.

     Chen Maidong sat down to eat. Grandma Chen pointed at him and said he was not competitive enough. If other people’s phones were ringing, it was because it was their daughter-in-laws. Instead of sleeping, he should be holding his mobile phone all night waiting for it to ring, too.