At the Cai family funeral, eight men couldn't lift a single coffin.
A charlatan circled the coffin three times. "The dead are demanding money. Burn thirty thousand. U.S. dollars."
Chen Du crouched down and glanced at the ground. "They're not demanding money. They refuse to leave."
He was the funeral director at Chen Family Funeral Services on West Street in Minzhou. He had inherited his grandfather's seal and made his living dealing with the dead.
He had a pair of eyes: by touching something left behind by a deceased person, he could see the last thing they saw before they died.
Those eyes came at a price: each time he saw an apparition, he lost one day of his life.
They dug beneath the stove and found a female corpse buried there, dressed in a red bridal gown.
No name, no family, no gravestone. No one remembered who she was.
Chen Du always carried a ledger called The Book of Good Deeds.
Whenever he saw an apparition, he entered a loss. Whenever he set something right, he entered a gain.
Three years of life. Fifteen thousand three hundred and seventy-two people who could never repay what they owed.
Eighty percent of funerals in Minzhou passed through the Mutual Aid Society's hands.
The chairman, He Jingtang, said, "I'm the one who makes the rules."
Chen Du said, "Then I'll change them."
Later, the eighth freezer at the funeral home was empty.
A layer of incense ash lined the bottom of the drawer, and three characters had been written on it with a fingertip.
They were his assistant's name.
If someone remembers you, you haven't been erased.
Anyone who keeps the books must declare the price.
