Sixteen years ago, at the end of winter, there was a heavy snowfall in Dongyan Town, and the snow was half a person's thick, sticking together, and the light did not melt. Once you step into it, it is difficult to lift it up again, if you are lucky, you will lose one leg to save your life, and if you are unlucky, the whole person will be frozen alive in the snow, in a hideous stiff shape. After more than a month of water and food cuts, the streets are full of such human statues. The skin is covered with frost, painted purple, and the eyes are scared. For several days, the corpse could not move, and tears could not fall, and dozens of people on several streets, without exception.

The old people in the village said that this is a disaster that will kill people, and this disaster will take their lives.

The village chief selected a few strong men, and every household demolished the door panels, worked together to build a bridge on the snow, and went into the mountains to seek rescue from a master, and that person was my master, Shen Pei.

Many of the details have been blurred over the years, and I remember what Master looked like when he did it, but I don't remember what happened. I only know that when someone took me out of the snow, Master knelt on the ground and said that if he protects him for the rest of his life, he will treat each other well, and he just wants to let go of his obsession and let all things return to nature.

The corpses on the street wailed and fell to the ground, the ice and snow melted under the corpses, and the dead trees sprouted in the village in the cold winter, and the grass was everywhere, which was regarded as auspicious blessings, and the whole village knelt down in front of the door and wept to thank God.

I was nine years old that year, living in calamity, the eyes of heaven were open to connect yin and yang, and my connections could not be cut off, except for my name, all my memories were lost. Master said that my life will be a guardian of my life, and I will have to take the snow from the last leaf on the tree, and set a seal in my body, and the world suddenly loses all color, only black and white. I asked Master how to break this seal, and Master shook his head, and only gave me a sandalwood seal, giving me the word Huaiyu, saying that when I grow up, I will naturally understand.

Everyone in Dongyan Town knows that Master has a skill, and some people have spent a lot of money to invite him to go out of the mountain to do things, but Master warned me that Shen Ji has been a single biography for hundreds of years, only making coffins, not fighting with the sky, if he violates the teacher's way, he will be punished by heaven.

Shen Ji coffin shop is located at the foot of Zhang Qingshan on a hillside, from the ancestors and grandfathers, has never changed, the feng shui is excellent, the people nearby have white things, the first thing that comes to mind must be Shen Ji.

I remembered the teachings and learned a craft, and I thought that life would always go on like this, but ten years ago, Master received a letter saying that he had owed a debt to an old friend in the past, and when it was time to pay it off, he was going to leave for a month, and asked me to keep Shen Ji. But I never thought that this guard was ten years.

"Master—Master—" A knock on the door cut through the drizzle, and I stood up and closed the window, interrupting my train of thought.

Ziwei stood at the door with a respectful posture, "The woman of the Zhang family has arrived, and the things are ready." ”

I nodded, and went out the door, seeing that the body was already in the outer hall.

The daughter of the Zhang family died in the water, and her body soaked in the river for several days, so swollen that she could not accept it, and when her mother found me, she hoped that I could let her walk a little more decently.

In Shen Ji's ancestral handicraft, there is a technique of painting skin, which is not difficult, blended with cinnabar and glutinous rice, and borrowed the skin to redraw a face into the burial in an ordinary way. Borrowing skin mostly refers to bean skin, and human skin is also available, which is not commonly used, and it is a method that harms people.

Ziwei handed over the things he needed to me one by one according to the steps, whispered the color, painted his eyebrows, carmine crimson, and painted his makeup, and he was a delicate face that did not lose the living.

"Is it pretty?" I looked at the soul of the daughter of the Zhang family behind me, the borrowed skin hung on her face, I couldn't see anything unusual, I covered my face and wept, tears penetrated my fingers.

I stood up, sealed the coffin behind my son, and my mother's family began to cry.

My name is Shen Qing, the seventh generation of Shen Ji's shopkeeper. Ancestral rules, craftsmanship from generation to generation, must be a man and a woman, women into the burial, men buried, but where to enter, lifelong can not be overcome.

Before I entered the master's door, there was a strange incident in Dongyan Town, the widow of Xijiekou was pregnant for no reason, crazy, not to let people get close, she was pregnant for 12 months before giving birth, it is said that she cut the umbilical cord herself, and committed suicide after giving birth to a baby boy. In those years, everyone was in danger, and they whispered a few words after dinner, saying that this child was a ghost fetus, and the more they talked about it after a long time, the more mysterious it became, and there was no way to distinguish between truth and falsehood. This child lived in a small house and had no fixed place, survived with the help of well-wishers, and grew up begging for food in Dongyan Town. When I got here, he was only six years old, hungry and cold, his eyes were vigilant, and from a distance, he looked like a demon. In the winter of the second year of Master's disappearance, he hid in a coffin to escape the cold and fainted. I saw that he had a fate with Shen Ji, and when he woke up, he accepted him as an apprentice, performed the teacher ceremony, and according to the year and hour of the meeting, he took the name Zi without taking it with him, and eight years have passed, this child knows his grace, and has never lived up to any of my expectations.

When I was washing my hands, there was a sound of footsteps outside the house, and the man's clear voice came into my ears, "I heard that Shen Ji didn't do bad white things, but when I saw it today, I lived up to my real name, and I had a beautiful skin!" ”