According to the unwritten rules set by Master Lu Bingyi himself, each apprentice must participate in the farewell ceremony after completing the body makeup independently for the first time. But after seeing Sambo's depressed mood, Master Lu vaguely felt that today's events might have touched Sambo's experience. So he instructed Sambo to send the body to the cremation room, and he accompanied the girl to the hall.

Sambo is really uncomfortable, today's workload is relatively light, just a simple facial makeup, but it evokes Sambo's memory of the missing mother. He rubbed the goldfish pendant he was carrying on his chest through his overalls, as if he had touched his mother's memory.

Sambo breathed a sigh of relief as he listened to the cries of people coming from the hall. This cry was obviously not the family of the deceased just now, at least a dozen people. Mostly women's voices, shrill and hoarse, heartbreaking.

In the well-ventilated building environment of Sanqing Funeral Home, as long as there is a farewell ceremony and cremation procedures, such cries are endless. Sammara hasn't gotten used to it these days, and when you want to be quiet, your ears are buzzing and crying, and there seem to be many sad people living in your head, most of whom cry when you sleep, and your ears can't stop.

Sambo slowly pushed the woman's body towards the cremation room, the sunlight cast by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the hallway shining on them. The body was shrouded in a holy golden yellow, perhaps the last tribute to her motherly love if God existed, and when she entered the gate ahead, everything about her would be wiped out in flames.

Cremation Liu sat on the stool in the corner of the cremation room, looking a little tired, he had just finished performing the cremation procedure and ashes sorting procedure of the two bodies, his face was a little blackened by the residual heat of the hot stove, plus his skin was black, he looked like a Southeast Asian, no wonder Cremation Liu also has the nickname of "Indian Ah San".

"Sanbao, I'll take a break first, hey, they all said that we must have two more assistants, our curator has been dragging it, and you have always given me a hand." Cremated Liu watched Sanbao come in, chattering to himself.

"It's okay, I'm more familiar with the process, and it doesn't hurt to learn more." Sambo put the car containing the body in the parking area. Then waiting, by the way, glanced at the cremation room, although he had also come in during the trial period before, but the future was uncertain, put down the morgue and left, he had no intention of looking twice, and now Sanbao's mentality was completely different from before, and he was able to re-examine this place with the eyes of the master.

The cremation room of the Sanqing funeral parlor has an old-fashioned revolutionary style, with a faint red five-pointed star relief on the front wall. Earlier, revolutionary slogans such as "Heart to the Red Sun...... were written on the walls, and even further back to the Kuomintang period, this may be a torture confidential room. In the later restoration process, the former revolutionary symbols and slogans were all painted and covered with marble patches. The floor is an old-fashioned gray and white stone cement polished floor, a bit like the floor effect of an old Beijing bathhouse. The cremation room is rectangular in shape, with the sides and the working corridor connected, and the remains are treated and accessed from the sides. A one-meter-square double glazing is reserved on the wall facing the crematorium, which is convenient for the deceased's family to say goodbye to at the end. After all, no matter who it is, it is not comfortable to stay in this cremation room with a perennial indoor temperature of 30 degrees.

The three cremation furnaces are inlaid in the main wall, the operating panel is on the side, and the all-steel shell covers the entire wall, leaving only the frame of the operating table and the furnace door. If the work of the Three Treasures is the final transit station for the body, then the end of life and death can only be here, exuding the coldness of metallic color and the solemn hardness that swallows everything. Somewhat ironically, only two of the three end-of-life stations were able to work effectively, and the other even attracted the support of the fire brigade at the time when it burned a 150-kilogram male body some time ago, which produced a large amount of fat and caused the incinerator to be damaged by overloading the temperature of the incinerator. Originally, this old Soviet incinerator was overwhelmed, and after this accident, it completely stopped cooking. Not to mention replacing the new incinerator, even the cost of dismantling it is not enough. It was simply placed here and became an exhibit. Fortunately, the amount of body disposal in Sanqing Funeral Home has shrunk year after year, and the remaining two incineration equipment are still enough except for special circumstances.

No matter who comes to you, when the door of the furnace is opened, and you look at the cremation table where the remains are parked and the red and black refractory bricks around it, you will know that all this is true, whether it is a handsome man or a beautiful woman or a loser of waste wood; Whether it is the rich second generation or the white rich beauty; Whether you are a commoner or a dignitary; No matter how fresh and precious life is, when the furnace sprays thousands of degrees of heat, title, identity, fate, gender...... Everything ceases to exist, and this is the final outcome for most people; It was a more utter destruction than death, every tissue cell and DNA was lost in the flames, and only the embers of the body and the endless thoughts of the living remained.

After the body was decompressed, Sanbao watched the cremation Liu put the beautiful mother he had just put on the cremation table, and the cremation Liu bowed slightly to say his final goodbye to the mother. This time Sambo did not see the soul of the deceased in the world, perhaps her soul had been relieved by her daughter's final call and kiss; Maybe it's still on that road full of hardships.

Cremation Liu started the furnace door opening button, as the furnace door slowly rose, a strange burnt smell came out, the heat came from the furnace, even if there was ventilation equipment, the smell in the cremation room always had a choking temperature that could not be dissipated, and the fine dust floated in the room, which was the smell of ashes.

The cremation table where the remains were parked slowly entered the furnace on the track, and a blue flame erupted from the top of the furnace, as if a blue holy light connected the remains, and then, a yellow and red flame appeared in the middle of the blue light, at this time, the furnace door would not close immediately, cremation Liu observed the situation in the furnace, and then pressed the button. Raging yellow flames began to erupt from both sides of the furnace, and the door slowly lowered. The breathtaking flames disappeared behind the silver-gray blue metal door, and soon the temperature inside the furnace caused by diesel fuel would rise to about 1,300 degrees. In addition to clothing, the body's hair will first be ignited, then the fragile skin tissue, which squeaks in the heat, and soft bodies such as muscle tissue and internal organs will also turn into a flame. The epidermis of the human body immediately becomes black, like the remains of a fire scene. Soon the bones will be revealed, especially the head is very obvious, and the hair disappears in an instant, becoming a bald head. Then the eyes disappeared into their sockets in the flames, leaving dark holes in their orbits. In this way, after the body is burned for half an hour, it tends to fall apart, and some have to be turned over, or the skull or hip bone that is not easy to disperse is moved to a position with a tool, slightly mashed, and then burned. Finally, an hour later, I exited the almost red-hot table from the door, emitting a great white smoke and the smell of burnt meat and bones. After the temperature in the furnace cools, some humanoid ashes and some broken bones will be left on the cremation table. It is usually the remains of a relatively large thigh bone and skull. And the ugly or beautiful avatars on those photos are no longer what they used to be, but have become gray-white fragments on the cremation table. After that, it is also necessary to carry out sorting work, and the incinerated ashes should be stored separately according to their size and buried in a unified manner. The last thing the relatives of the deceased got was the ashes that had been sorted in the box, showing an ivory white texture.

To the end, people only have a handful left in their hands.

The muffled hum of the incineration equipment kept coming from the wall, and after the cremation Liu had finished the work of the two bodies, he sat down next to Sambo, took a sip of tea, rinsed it in his mouth, and swallowed it again. Without looking at Sambo's face, he said to himself.

"Sanbao, you are delicate work, you have to be skillful, your fingers are long, it's a bit like playing the piano, engaging in literature and art, I don't think it's a bit like a steelworker."

"Steelworkers...... Kind of like, but not really. Sambo thought for a moment and replied.

"Yes, steelmakers make steel, but I make life...... That's more important than steel. Cremating Liu raised his head to relieve the neck pain caused by exertion, and continued.

"At the beginning, I watched the door of this furnace open and close, and the life of a person was over, and I was a little uncomfortable, and then at most, I burned non-stop for 12 hours a day, and the three stoves worked at the same time, and I forgot what I was busy with. Now, I don't feel like a steelworker. ”

"What does that look like?" Sambo asked curiously.

"Look at that furnace door, isn't it a door of life and death, if it is really a door, then death is not the final end, but the completion of transcendence, to the next journey, the same as the door, the door outside the door and the door inside the two worlds. I'm here, guarding this door, just a gatekeeper, pressing a button to send people away from thousands of homes. Then I said in my heart: Be careful on the road, we will always meet again. ”

Speaking of this, Cremation Liu took a breath, and through the mask, his breathing was slightly heavy. Then got up and muttered to himself.

"The door is going to open......"