Chen Yu, the Embalmer

Chen Yu has worked the night shift at a funeral home for eleven years. He has painted 2,317 faces and never missed a shift.

He has a secret no one knows: while applying makeup to the dead, he can see the last 24 hours of their lives.

For most people, their final day is heartbreakingly ordinary: buying groceries, bickering, watching the clouds.

Until recently, a string of young people died in the city. Unemployed, living alone, with their cause of death listed as natural causes.

The same thing appeared on all their made-up faces: a smile slowly rising from beneath the skin.

Chen Yu has painted 2,317 faces.

Not one of them smiled after he finished.