Folk customs begin with the entire funeral procession

Chapter 13 Come to the door
There is a story behind the name Tianmen County.

Tianmen County is located right between the ends of two mountain ranges. There are mountains to the north and south of the city, and a small hill stands alone to the west of the city.

Thus, when viewed from above, the entire Tianmen County appears to be situated within a "gate" shape formed by mountains.

As for why it's called 'Tianmen' instead of 'Longmen' or 'Yumen', it's because, according to legend, a deity once descended upon the isolated Mentou Mountain west of Tianmen County!
A deity has descended; what else could this be but the Heavenly Gate?
Of course, this statement is debatable.

Although Tianmen County is surrounded by mountains, it is not actually a poor county deep in the mountains. On the contrary, because of its location at the mountain pass, it has developed quite well in recent years.

The most famous mountain in Tianmen County is Mentoushan, after all, it is said to be home to immortals!

But the most visited mountain is not that one, but Jingshan Mountain in the north of the city, because it has the Old Mother Temple and a winding mountain road.

To the south, there is another mountain called Shuangling Mountain. Compared to Jingshan and Mentoushan, Shuangling Mountain is relatively unknown because it has not been developed.

It has a name simply because it is a twin-peaked mountain with a unique shape.

At the foot of Shuangling Mountain flows the Shuangling River, a branch of a large river that flows from west to east, passing the Mentoushan side and flowing through the southwest corner of Tianmen County.

The Tianmen Funeral Home is located in the southwest corner of Tianmen County, next to the Shuangling River!
Not far from the south gate of Tianmen Funeral Home, you can see Shuangling River. On the other side of the river is Shuangling Mountain. The saying that Tianmen Funeral Home is nestled against the mountain and by the water refers to Shuangling Mountain and Shuangling River.

The Shuangling River is more than ten meters wide and about three meters deep, with deep sand at the bottom.

Before the river was cleaned up, people from villages near Tianmen County made money by dredging river sand. Chen Miao's grandfather once led his uncle and Chen Miao's father to dredge river sand.

At that time, nobody cared. Grandpa Chen Miao and his gang had conflicts with many shady sand dredging operators. After all, there were only so many riverbanks suitable for sand dredging, so who should they belong to?

Originally, Grandpa, along with Uncle Chen Miao and Father, were three grown men who weren't afraid. But after hearing that a thug had stabbed someone, Grandpa gave up the idea of ​​seizing the river section.

Safety is important; earning a little less won't kill anyone.

Later, when my uncle's family received the compensation for the demolition, they even considered buying a sand dredging boat to make a profit.

After all, those daring sand factory owners can earn millions a year!
It turned out that having money and a boat wasn't enough to dredge sand.

It doesn't matter; many things are difficult to carry out anyway.

Just then, river management began, and the authorities prohibited sand dredging, so my uncle gave up the idea.

The place where the twins drowned is about one kilometer west of Tianmen Funeral Home, where there is a section of road along the river.

When the summer heat arrives, many people like to drive there for a picnic.

The two little girls ran out of the adults' sight while having a picnic with their families, fell into the river, and drowned.

Fortunately, there was plenty of water plants along the riverbank, which blocked the bodies of the two children; otherwise, finding the bodies would have been a difficult task.

A few days later, when the body was found, a giant statue appeared, but its appearance was unrecognizable.

After flipping through the documents, Chen Miao did not find any specific biographical descriptions of the two little girls.

I glanced at the date of the twins' memorial service; it was two days later.

Therefore, Chen Miao did not rush to make the call, as the family members might still be in grief and might not be willing to cooperate.

Let them take a break first.

In the afternoon.

Chen Miao went to the cold storage and, together with the new cold storage manager Tang Rui, received the twins into the warehouse.

Tang Rui joined the company a couple of days ago. He wasn't in the funeral industry before; he was a programmer.

So during this period, Chen Miao would often come to teach Tang Rui how to operate some of the equipment.

Over time, Chen Miao and Tang Rui became acquainted.

Tang Rui was laid off by the company when he was just 35 years old.

After that, Tang Rui spent a whole month looking for a job, but either people thought he was too old or that his salary expectations were too high. Even when Tang Rui finally lowered his expected salary from 15,000 to 10,000, he still couldn't find a suitable job.

In a fit of anger, Tang Rui returned to his hometown.

At that time, Tianmen Funeral Home had been recruiting for a week without success. After Tang Rui came for an interview, he said that he could stay up all night, knew technology, and was bold, which is why Chen Weiyi kept him on.

In fact, it is already difficult to recruit people for the position of cold storage manager, and because Chen Weiyi wanted to save money, he did not want to hire two people to take turns.

This means that the cold storage manager at Tianmen Funeral Home has to stay in the cold storage almost every day, with only one day off per week.

Such stringent conditions naturally make it difficult to attract people who are truly committed to this line of work.

Fortunately, my uncle saved one person's labor, but it also increased the single-person salary of the cold storage manager.

So after working for two days, Tang Rui was quite satisfied with the job in this small county town where the probationary period was 5,000 yuan and the regular salary would be 8,000 yuan.

Aside from the fact that this identity is not easy to reveal to outsiders, the working hours are a bit longer, but it's more than ten times easier than when I was working like a beast of burden. At least I don't have to use my brain or argue with product managers.

Tang Rui is already married, so he doesn't need to worry about finding a spouse after working in this line of work.

"Then I'll go first."

Chen Miao said goodbye to Tang Rui and then left the cold storage.

Back in his office, Chen Miao opened "Notes on Becoming a God in the Mundane World".

Apart from the main text and the side story of the first chapter, no new chapters have appeared.

For some reason, Chen Miao felt a little regretful. Since the incident involving Lao Wang and Qian Xiaomei, the cold storage had received several guests, but nothing had happened.

Chen Miao would also visit the crematorium and columbarium every day, but this would not trigger any changes to the book's content.

According to Chen Miao's guess, the twins' violent drowning death should be considered a sign of great resentment, and the circumstances of the accident must be quite serious.

But that's not actually the case.

There seemed to be something Chen Miao didn't know about; otherwise, it was impossible that the Tianmen Funeral Home, which had been open for so many years, hadn't encountered a paranormal event.

"So, what's so special about Qian Xiaomei and Lao Wang?"

Chen Miao thought about it for a long time but couldn't come up with a solution, so he had to give up.

……

The next day, Chen Miao called the twins' parents at 10 a.m., but no one answered.

I tried calling five times in a row, from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock, but I still couldn't get through.

Chen Miao thought the phone number was wrong, so he went to Kong Fang, but Kong Fang checked it and found no error.

In the afternoon, Chen Miao called twice more, but still couldn't get through, so he decided not to wait any longer.

I went directly to the address on the document.

The twins' family situation must be quite good, as evidenced by their booking of the main farewell hall and their home address.

There are only a few residential areas in Tianmen County with an average price of over 10,000 yuan per square meter. Chen Miao's uncle's Jingshan New Residence is one of them, and the twins' Jinmao Mansion is another.

A characteristic of small county towns with average prices exceeding 10,000 yuan per square meter is that outsiders are stopped before entering the residential area, something that simply wouldn't happen in other residential areas in Tianmen County.

After Chen Miao gave the house number, the security guard contacted the twins' father.

After learning the purpose of Chen Miao's visit, the twins' father agreed to Chen Miao's visit.

Five minutes later, Chen Miao sat in the twins' living room, opposite the twins' father, Li Liang.

Li Liang was in very poor condition; his hair was messy, he had dark circles under his eyes, bloodshot eyes, and looked listless.

One can guess what he went through during this period.

"Mr. Li, please forgive my unauthorized visit."

"Could you tell me about the lives of Li Shilei and Li Shirui? For example, what they liked, what their personalities were like, these things would help me write the eulogy."

Seeing that Li Liang's emotions were beginning to fluctuate, Chen Miao continued, "Mr. Li, the deceased has passed away, please accept our condolences."

“In our line of work, eulogies represent the final dialogue between the living and the dead. Therefore, the more appropriate the eulogy, the greater the chance that the deceased will hear it and have no regrets.”

"If you have anything to say to them, you can tell me and I will include it in the eulogy, but it's best not to say anything like pleas for them to stay, as that would make them reluctant to be reincarnated."

Chen Miao's sincere words finally touched Li Liang.

For the next hour, Li Liang did all the talking.

Chen Miao took notes while simultaneously recording the audio with his phone.

After he finished speaking, Li Liang felt much better.

Perhaps these words have been weighing on his mind for a long time, but no one has listened.

Judging from the state of the room, it seems that Li Liang and his wife have also encountered some problems.

Whether it was blame or something else, the two were not living together at this time.

After completing the recording, Chen Miao said goodbye and left.

Just as he was leaving Li Liang's house, two people walked out of the elevator.

The person in the lead was an old man whose face resembled Li Liang's; he was probably a relative of Li Liang.

The short, middle-aged man with the mustache who followed was somewhat unusual.

Despite the sweltering summer heat, he was dressed in a long-sleeved black cloth jacket.

Her sparse black hair had white roots, clearly indicating that it had been dyed.

Most importantly, his face was sallow, which made him look abnormal.

As Chen Miao was looking around, he suddenly met a pair of half-open, triangular eyes.

For some reason, he felt a chill.

Even after entering the elevator, Chen Miao was still thinking about the middle-aged man with the mustache and triangular eyes.

Meanwhile, the middle-aged man with a mustache who entered Li Liang's house also learned from Li Liang's conversation with his father that Chen Miao was from the Tianmen Funeral Home.

Those half-open, triangular eyes widened slightly for a moment before returning to calm.

……

(End of this chapter)