Touch

The moment he touches a corpse, he can see the last thing the dead person saw. Shen Du, an embalmer at Linzhou Funeral Home, has worked in the field for five years. His rule is not to ask how anyone died. But every unusual death in Linzhou over the past fifty years has followed exactly the same pattern: seven cases in 1974, five in 1998, and another one this year. He can see the final image each victim saw before drawing their last breath. Piece those images together, and they form a line pointing to the same secret. He isn't solving a case. He's following the line to its end. The closer he gets, the less he recognizes himself. Someone is already waiting at the other end. That person can see, too, but uses the ability in the exact opposite way: turning the living into vessels.