Lin Banxia spent a peaceful night in the bedroom. It was a quiet night, nothing happened.

The next day, he got up full of energy. After washing up and getting ready for work, he gave Ji Leshui a call.

The phone rang for a long time without anyone answering. Just as worry was starting to surface in Lin Banxia's mind, he heard a soft "Hello" from the other end. It was Ji Leshui's voice.

Hearing Ji Leshui pick up the phone, Lin Banxia breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Good morning. How did you sleep last night?"

"Not bad." It was unclear if it was a bad signal, but Ji Leshui's voice sounded faint and blurry.

Lin Banxia said, "Then I'll go to work today. I'll bring your luggage over tomorrow."

"Okay," Ji Leshui said.

Lin Banxia said, "Why do you sound a little listless?"

"I'm not," Ji Leshui mumbled. "I'm fine. You go ahead. You don't need to bring my luggage over for now."

Lin Banxia wanted to say more, but the call had already been disconnected.

Herein lies the sorrow of adulthood: no matter how devastating the situation, one must still go to work. Lin Banxia's job was a bit special; he dealt with the funeral parlor. But he wasn't officially part of the funeral parlor. Most of his time was spent handling severely damaged bodies from accidents. Mutilated bodies from falls, like jumping off buildings, were a common sight. The worst were the bodies that suffered severe trauma in traffic accidents; if you were unlucky, they were basically shoveled up in clumps, and you could forget about a complete corpse.

Because of the special nature of his work, Lin Banxia's workload wasn't high. He worked when there was a job, and had plenty of free time when there wasn't. However, very few people could handle this line of work; most couldn't stand it for more than two or three months. Lin Banxia was an anomaly among them. He had been in this profession for two years, never changing jobs since graduating from university. After all, besides being a little scary, the pay and benefits were quite good.

Today, Lin Banxia's luck was good; nothing had happened since he started work. But with Ji Leshui on his mind, he couldn't relax.

Since that morning call, Ji Leshui had disappeared. He didn't reply to WeChat messages and didn't answer his phone. Later, his phone couldn't even be reached.

Lin Banxia sat in the office, extremely worried, thinking, 'I must go over and check after work.'

Lin Banxia's colleague, Liu Xi, was a warm-hearted person. Seeing him with a rare worried frown, he asked curiously, "Yo, Banxia, what's wrong today? Why the long face?"

Lin Banxia said, "It's nothing."

"This doesn't look like nothing," Liu Xi said. "Look at your brows, they're all scrunched up." He leaned in and said with a grin, "Besides, we're free today with nothing to do~"

Before he could finish, a colleague behind him slapped him on the back. That person said angrily, "Liu Xi, shut your mouth! Don't you know what you shouldn't say?"

Liu Xi mumbled, "It's not that jinx-prone."

In their line of work, there was a taboo: never say you're free. The moment you did, something would surely happen. It was a rule that never failed. This Liu Xi was new, having worked for less than three months, and he never paid much mind to such things.

Less than half an hour after Liu Xi said those words, the office phone rang.

Another colleague answered the phone, glared at Liu Xi, and said irritably, "See? We've got a job."

Liu Xi let out a cry, scratching his head in frustration. "This is way too effective!!!"

Lin Banxia patted his shoulder in consolation.

Half an hour ago, on the highway at the edge of the city, a major traffic accident occurred. A large truck filled with steel suddenly lost control of its brakes and went on a rampage, creating an extremely tragic scene. Several small cars near the truck were caught in the disaster, with the most severe case being a car directly crushed underneath the overturned truck.

The small car was completely flattened. The people inside were most likely dead. They were being called over to quickly clear the accident scene and prevent a chain reaction on the highway.

Lin Banxia and his colleagues changed into their work clothes and sat in the vehicle heading to the accident scene.

The atmosphere in the car was very quiet. Everyone was in a somber mood. To be honest, even though this was their job, no one's mood could be good when encountering such an accident and seeing people who died unexpectedly.

Lin Banxia checked his phone one last time. It was 6:30 PM, and Ji Leshui still hadn't replied. He let out a deep sigh and stuffed his phone deep into his coat pocket.

An hour later, Lin Banxia and several colleagues arrived at the accident scene.

The police team had already arrived and was organizing a crane to lift the large truck. Then, the firefighters began cutting into the flattened small car.

Lin Banxia and his team waited on the side with their tools. Several ambulances had already taken away the injured who were still breathing. They didn't wait for the injured in this small car, because everyone knew that in such a severe accident, there was no possibility of survival.

The small car before them had been crushed almost flat. When the roof was cut open, the blurry shapes of the passengers inside were revealed.

It was impossible to see how many people there were; one could only faintly make out from the clothing that there were at least three or four.

Liu Xi chanted "Amitabha" under his breath and carefully began to clear the bodies. Lin Banxia put on a mask, lowered his eyes, and also started to work.

The thick smell of blood permeated their masks and filled their nostrils. Lin Banxia heard sorrowful wails by his ear. He turned his head and saw a woman collapsed behind him. She seemed to be a family member of the deceased in the car. She was being supported by several people, already a mess of tears.

"So pitiful," Liu Xi mumbled under his breath. "They're in such a state, probably can't even be separated..."

Lin Banxia said, "Don't talk."

Liu Xi said, "Sigh, it's really hard to watch."

Lin Banxia shushed him again. After a sigh, Liu Xi resentfully fell silent.

At times like this, it was best not to speak. No matter what was said, the grieving family members wouldn't be able to hear it, and it would only make them more upset.

As Lin Banxia placed the bodies into body bags, he overheard the police officers next to him discussing the case in low voices.

It turned out to be a family out on a trip in two cars. The wife in the front car avoided the crash, but the husband, child, and an elder in the car behind did not survive. After the accident, the wife quickly stopped her car and came back, only to see the crushed car upon her return.

Watching her family perish right before her eyes—no one could endure that.

Given the condition of the bodies, Lin Banxia and his team didn't dare let the victim look for long. Instead, they quickly loaded them onto the vehicle, planning to transport them to the funeral parlor for processing.

The bodies had just been loaded when the wailing woman stopped them. She clung to the vehicle, refusing to let it leave, desperately crying that she wanted to see them one more time.

The police initially tried to persuade her, but seeing her firm attitude, they had no choice but to agree.

Lin Banxia and Liu Xi sat in the vehicle and exchanged a look. Both felt it probably wasn't a good idea to let her see, but the woman refused to yield, so they had to open the door.

Crying and shouting, the woman practically scrambled onto the vehicle. With trembling hands, she unzipped the body bags one by one, revealing the shapeless corpses inside. Due to the extreme compression, the bodies were completely unrecognizable. An ordinary person would probably vomit on the spot. Perhaps due to her overwhelming grief, the woman reached out and hugged one of the bodies, crying out something.

Lin Banxia was standing relatively close and vaguely heard the woman shouting, "It's all my fault, it's all my fault, it's all my fault—I killed you—" He found it a bit strange why the woman was shouting this. 'Did she insist on going out? Is that why the accident happened?'

"She's the only one left, how tragic," Liu Xi began to lament again.

Lin Banxia looked at the woman, a little puzzled. "She's the only one left? Who is that person?"

Liu Xi said, "What? Who?"

Lin Banxia, with some sensitivity, looked carefully behind the woman, pressed his lips together firmly, and mumbled, "It's nothing, I think I saw wrong."

How could he have seen wrong? About a meter behind the woman, a person in a long black dress stood with their back to them. This person was of a similar height and build to the woman, standing quietly behind her like a shadow. The highway was closed off at this time, with only police and staff present. The existence of this woman in black suddenly became strange. However, no one around the woman seemed to have noticed this person's existence; they were all engrossed in their own work.

When the woman finished crying, she was helped out of the vehicle by the police and limped into the police car. The woman in black standing behind her followed her movements and also got into the police car. As she sat down in the police car, Lin Banxia saw her face and was slightly startled. This woman in black looked exactly like the woman whose family had been in the accident, only her face was deathly pale, and her pupils were an eerie white. She was like a puppet; when the woman took a step, she took a step. Lin Banxia couldn't tell if it was his imagination, but he felt that the distance between the two of them was getting closer and closer...

"Banxia, what are you looking at?" Liu Xi looked at Lin Banxia strangely.

"Nothing." Lin Banxia withdrew his gaze and glanced at his phone nonchalantly. "Let's go first." The remaining colleagues needed to clean up the scene to help the police restore traffic as soon as possible.

"Let's go." Liu Xi started the car.

The two of them, carrying the bodies, headed towards the funeral parlor.

Sitting in the car, Lin Banxia was somewhat absent-minded.

Liu Xi, beside him, was not in a good mood either. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and offered it to Lin Banxia. Lin Banxia shook his head, declining.

Liu Xi then lit one for himself, took a deep drag, and said, "What are you thinking about?"

"Thinking about things at home," Lin Banxia said. "I think my roommate is possessed."

Liu Xi said, "Possessed?"

Lin Banxia thought for a moment and explained the situation in his apartment complex to Liu Xi. After listening, Liu Xi's eyes went wide. "Are you serious? Your job is already so intense, and you live in an even more intense place? No normal person could stand that." After his rant, he saw Lin Banxia with his eyes half-closed and said tentatively, "But it seems like you're not too scared of this stuff."

Lin Banxia said slowly, "Actually... it's not that I'm not scared."

"Then why do you show no reaction at all?" Liu Xi said. "My former colleagues told me they threw up for half the day on their first time at a scene, but you were completely fine."

Lin Banxia started to speak, then stopped.

Liu Xi said, "What's up, bro? Why aren't you talking?"

Lin Banxia said, "Did they tell you that I didn't eat meat for over half a year?"

Liu Xi scratched his head.

"It's not that I'm not scared, I'm just slow to react," Lin Banxia sighed. "It's like when you're walking down the street and something taps your shoulder. You turn around and see no one. A normal person would definitely be scared, but me... I might only process it an hour later."

Liu Xi looked at Lin Banxia speechlessly, as if looking at a monster.

Lin Banxia said, "It's been like this for a long time." He rested his hand on the car window, feeling the cold night wind. A light rain had started to fall outside, drifting in through the window and hitting Lin Banxia's cheeks.

Liu Xi suddenly shivered and said, "It's so cold, Brother Lin, can you close the window?"

Lin Banxia hummed in agreement and rolled up the window.

"When did you realize you became like this?" Liu Xi continued the topic.

Lin Banxia said, "In college, there was a girl... She said, 'Lin Banxia, I don't want to celebrate Singles' Day anymore.'"

"And then? And then?" Liu Xi asked.