I went back to Shandong to pay tribute to my father-in-law on New Year's Day. In the afternoon, I had nothing to do and chatted with my husband's uncle's sister. This cousin is a makeup artist and often goes out to do makeup for brides.
I originally thought that there would be no supernatural events in their romantic and festive industry, but when I talked to them in depth, I found out that my cousin's "master" had personally experienced a horrifying and strange thing.
Although he is called "master", he is actually an old employee in the company who taught my cousin personally, a girl in her early thirties who is still unmarried. Everyone in the company calls her "Xiao Ye".
Xiaoye has been in the company for five or six years. She is competent, responsible and good at makeup and hair styling for various occasions. The makeup she creates is fresh and elegant, with just the right amount of light and dark, and has an indescribable cool and lonely charm.
My cousin and Xiaoye are both master and apprentice and close friends. Although they are seven or eight years older than each other, they are very compatible. Once, when my cousin was practicing makeup on a model's head, she said, "Oh! This model's head is so cold and white, it feels like a dead person's face!"
Xiao Ye was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said to her, "What nonsense ! How could you have touched a dead person's face? A dead person's face… is much more disgusting than this."
Xiaoye's hometown is the most impoverished county in the most impoverished area of Shandong. His family is extremely poor and relies on his parents to dig food in the fields to support the family. Xiaoye is the third child, with two older sisters, two younger sisters, and a youngest brother.
Such a family structure is self-evident. The parents and sisters seem to exist only for the youngest brother, and all family affairs, big and small, revolve around this sun-like child.
The elder and second elder sisters were married off to different places one after another by their parents like selling their daughters. Xiaoye took on the responsibility of supporting the family, mainly supporting his younger brother.
At that time, Xiaoye was just a fledgling makeup artist with very limited income. She had no choice but to take on jobs day and night. However, the little money she earned through hard work was almost all taken away by her cruel parents.
Unexpected events happen all the time, and people are subject to misfortunes and blessings at any time. Not long after, Xiaoye's younger brother was diagnosed with neuroblastoma by the hospital, an almost incurable terminal disease for adolescents. Xiaoye's father therefore drank every day to drown his sorrows, and when he was drunk, he beat Xiaoye's mother to death to vent his dissatisfaction and grief.
On the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month of that year, a cold winter night with heavy snow, Xiaoye's mother, overwhelmed by the burden, committed suicide by taking poison! Xiaoye buried her mother, and looking at her father who was addicted to alcohol all day and her younger brother who was on the verge of death due to illness, she made a major decision in her heart.
After the Chinese New Year, Xiaoye resigned from the wedding company and changed her career to work as a body beautician in a funeral home. The work content of body beautification and makeup is not much different from wedding makeup, but the nature of the work is completely different. In order to have more income to prolong the life of her little brother and treat his illness, Xiaoye resolutely changed her career and fell from great joy to great sorrow.
Xiaoye told her cousin that at first she was not used to the cold and hard touch of the dead skin, which felt like a piece of frozen meat that had been refrigerated for many days, which was disgusting. But for the sake of her little brother on the sickbed, Xiaoye gritted her teeth and persevered.
At that time, she had a rich and handsome boyfriend who she had been dating for more than two years. Xiaoye had been relying on him to support the family. At first, her boyfriend didn't know that Xiaoye had changed her career. After thinking it over again and again, Xiaoye couldn't get around the questioning of her conscience, and finally told the truth. Since then, her boyfriend's attitude has quietly changed. He has become increasingly cold towards Xiaoye and often makes sarcastic remarks.
One day, a young corpse was sent to the funeral home. The workers said that the boy was a college student who had a car accident when crossing the intersection and was hit and killed on the spot by a speeding transport truck. Due to the huge impact, half of the boy's head collapsed and deformed, and one of his eyeballs was bulging and burst. Although it was repositioned with silicone filling, it still looked abrupt and terrifying, which was shocking.
It was not Xiaoye's shift that day. When she was about to go home from work, she heard the boy's mother's heartbreaking cry coming from the hall. The grief-stricken mother tried again and again to rush into the plastic surgery room to take one more look at her beloved son who was separated from the Yin and Yang, but was repeatedly stopped by her relatives and friends, who were afraid that she could not accept her son's hideous appearance.
Just as she was feeling sad, the makeup artist on duty found Xiaoye and tremblingly begged her to help her put on makeup for the boy. The face of the corpse was so horrifying and she had just arrived and was afraid to get close to him.
Xiaoye agreed without hesitation. She carefully and meticulously prepared the boy's face and applied light makeup. When she was done, she turned the bed so that the boy's intact cheek was facing the direction of the entrance.
After everything was ready, Xiaoye opened the door and invited the boy's relatives to come in. When everyone supported the boy's mother and staggered towards the plastic surgery room, the first thing that caught her eyes was her son's profile, which was lifelike and looked as if he was asleep.
Because she came home late that day, Xiaoye was once again scolded by her boyfriend. She walked up to him and touched his hair to show her affection, but he pushed her hand away. Her boyfriend said to her with disgust: "Don't touch me with your dirty hands. You smell like a dead person. It's disgusting!"
The two of them slept in separate rooms that night. The next morning, Xiaoye, who had not yet gotten up, heard her boyfriend scream in horror. She quickly got out of bed and put on her clothes. She saw that her boyfriend's cheeks were red and covered with rashes. It was painful and itchy. While scratching with his hands, his boyfriend said to Xiaoye viciously:
"You stinky bitch, what kind of dirty thing did you provoke? I dreamed last night that there was a guy with half a face, slapping me repeatedly. Look at this! Look at this! Get out of here! I want to break up with you!"
Xiaoye instantly realized that it must be the college student who died in the car accident who was venting his anger for her, punishing his mean boyfriend as a reward for her efforts in making the final repairs and beautification of his remains.
My cousin said that Xiaoye's younger brother eventually died, and her father died of liver cirrhosis due to years of alcoholism. Xiaoye was freed from the burden of family, left the crematorium and returned to her old job as a wedding makeup artist.
She told her husband's cousin that now when she recalls the days of applying makeup to corpses, she really doesn't feel scared at all, because she has a clear conscience and is helping the souls who are about to go on a long journey to preserve their final dignity. If the dead knew about this, they would definitely be grateful.
Think about what it was like before birth, and what it will be like after death? As Mr. Nan Huaijin summed it up: "The living are temporary; the dead are home." The body is just a humble house where the soul temporarily resides in this life. Whether alive or dead, the soul's residence does not need to be magnificent and full of guests, but it must have the dignity of standing tall and clear conscience.