Tang Ren was once an ordinary, obscure man, down on his luck. As a child, he envied his father's dazzling new clothes more than anything. Only later did he learn that his father wore them only when working as a funeral attendant. From then on, he and his older brother resented their father, even taking pleasure in squandering the ill-gotten money he brought home.
After weathering a series of life's ups and downs and seeing off the older brother he admired most, Tang Ren finally understood that laying out the dead had nothing to do with religious belief. It was simply a way of saying goodbye.
