The Night I Collected My Fiancé's Body - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The quietest time for a night shift at the funeral home is usually between one and three in the morning.

By this time, the crying has stopped, and the TV in the duty room is turned off. All that remains is the intermittent blast of the air cooler at the end of the hallway, making the fluorescent lights hum softly.

Dressed in sterile scrubs, I stood before Restoration Table No. 3. My gloved hand hovered in mid-air, hesitating to descend.

Lying on the table was a male corpse recently delivered from a fire scene.

Charred, curled, and with extensive facial carbonization, the body showed obvious explosive burn marks on the right side of the neck and collarbone. Strangely, a small patch of fabric on the chest had survived without being completely burned through. Pinned to that fabric was a silver ring, blackened by the high temperatures.

I had picked that ring out myself.

Three years ago, I bought it for seven hundred and ninety-nine yuan at a riverside night market and had three tiny letters engraved inside.

GYZ.

Gao Yanzhou.

“Yuxi.”

Beside me, my assistant Xiao Wu’s voice was tight. “Do you… want to go out and catch your breath first?”

I didn’t speak.

Director Zhou, the veteran forensic doctor at the home, stood at the door. His tone was as gentle as possible. “His police ID was among the items sent for inspection; the identity is basically confirmed. The Municipal Bureau called and said this body is very likely Gao Yanzhou. Procedurally, you need to confirm the family identity first before deciding on the subsequent handling.”

I stared at the corpse, feeling as if something were being driven into my chest inch by inch.

Three years ago, while investigating a serial warehouse arson case, Gao Yanzhou went missing at the Jiangbei Pier.

That night, an explosion rocked the port area. The sea breeze whipped the flames into the sky, and only a scorched, deformed epaulet and a blown-apart car key were found at the scene. Everyone said he most likely wasn’t coming back, but I was the only one who didn’t believe it. I sat outside the Municipal Bureau for two whole days, waiting for a decision to “continue the search,” only to eventually receive the words: “handled as a missing person.”

Missing.

Those are the most sickening words.

It isn’t as final as death; it doesn’t let you cry your heart out, nor does it let you give up hope entirely. It only makes you guard an old photo year after year, going to work as usual during the day while always feeling like someone is knocking on the door at night.

I had kept watch for three years.

Now, those three years finally had a result.

A mangled corpse and the ring I had personally put on his finger back then.

“Teacher Li,” Xiao Wu’s voice dropped even lower, “how about letting Director Zhou do it?”

I shook my head and reached for the bone forceps on the instrument tray.

I am a reconstructive mortician.

After doing this job for a long time, I’ve grown accustomed to final goodbyes. There are car accidents, falls from buildings, sudden deaths-some people don’t even have a complete face left after they die. My job is to take those broken, burned, and mangled pieces and put them back together bit by bit, so that the living can say a proper farewell.

But I never imagined that one day I would stand here, personally restoring the features of my own fiancé.

I leaned over, first checking his left hand.

The second phalanx of Gao Yanzhou’s left ring finger was missing a small piece of bone.

That was an old injury from catching a thief when he was twenty. With a corner of the bone missing, rings always tended to get stuck when he put them on. I used to tease him, saying his hand was naturally unsuited for a proposal. He would pinch my ear and laugh, saying that when we actually got married, he’d just get a size larger.

I remembered it very clearly.

So, when my hand landed on the second phalanx of his ring finger, my fingertips were practically trembling.

The flesh was burned away, making it hard to see clearly. I could only pick up a small probe and feel along the edges of the charred tissue bit by bit.

Director Zhou waited outside for my conclusion.

Xiao Wu held his breath.

But in that moment, I heard my phone vibrate once inside the locker.

It wasn’t a call.

It was an email notification.

I didn’t want to pay it any mind, but for some reason, my heart suddenly skipped a beat, as if someone from far away had given me a gentle tug.

“Wait a moment.” I stripped off my gloves, walked quickly to the locker, and took out my phone.

In the sender column, three words were clearly written.

Gao Yanzhou.

The time displayed showed it was a scheduled email set three years ago.

My palms broke into a cold sweat instantly; I almost thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

After clicking it open, there were only two short lines of text inside.

“Yuxi, if they deliver me into your hands, look at the second phalanx of my left ring finger first.”

“If it’s really me, there’s a piece of bone missing. If it’s not me, don’t let him enter the furnace.”

I felt as if I had been struck over the head.

Seeing my expression change, Xiao Wu hurried over. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t answer. I turned and rushed back to the restoration table, feeling that section of bone once more.

It was whole.

That missing piece wasn’t there.

My heart suddenly thudded violently, as if it were trying to burst through my chest.
It wasn’t him.

This corpse wasn’t Gao Yanzhou.

But the ring was real, the police ID was real, and even the jacket-burned down to mere fragments-looked like the one Gao Yanzhou had been wearing the night he disappeared.

Someone had intentionally turned this body into Gao Yanzhou.

Someone wanted him dead.

Or rather, they wanted everyone to believe he was dead.

“Director Zhou.” I turned toward the door, my voice unexpectedly steady. “There’s an issue with this body’s identity. We cannot sign off on the cremation yet.”

Director Zhou froze. “But the personal effects sent over…”

“Physical evidence can be forged.” I held up my phone. “In an email Gao Yanzhou sent me three years ago, he noted a previous bone defect in his left ring finger. This corpse doesn’t have it.”

Xiao Wu was completely stunned.

Director Zhou’s expression shifted instantly, and he stepped inside to re-examine the body.

Ten minutes later, people from the Municipal Bureau arrived.

It was Gao Yanzhou’s former partner, Zou Jiashu.

He was thinner than he had been three years ago, with heavy dark circles under his eyes. He entered with such haste he practically brought a gust of wind with him. But when he saw the corpse on the restoration table and the email in my hand, he came to a sudden halt.

“You received it?” he asked in a low voice.

I stared at him intently. “You know about this email?”

Zou Jiashu remained silent for two seconds before saying, “I received one tonight as well.”

He handed me his phone.

The content of his email was even shorter than mine.

“If ‘I’ am sent to the funeral home, go check the Old Crematorium Building in the South City, Cold Storage Unit 079.”

“Don’t trust Liang Boyan.”

As I finished reading, my heart sank.

Liang Boyan was the deputy director of operations at our funeral home, and he was also the mentor who had brought me into this profession.

After my father passed away three years ago, it was Liang Boyan who took me from being a general laborer to the restoration room, teaching me bit by bit how to identify bones, apply wax, mix colors, and suture. He said my hands were steady and my eyes were sharp, making me suited for this line of work. Later, I truly became the youngest lead restoration artist at the funeral home. Others called me Teacher Li, while I called him Director Liang-and for a time, I called him Master.

If Gao Yanzhou had specifically named him in the email as someone not to be trusted, it meant this matter involved the inner workings of the funeral home.

“Where did the body come from?” I asked Zou Jiashu.

“A fire at an abandoned warehouse in the west of the city,” Zou Jiashu said. “A male was burned to death at the scene, carrying Yanzhou’s ID and ring. The person who reported it was a night security guard patrolling near the warehouse. He said he saw two people go in before the fire, but only one came out.”

“What about the DNA?”

“The samples are too degraded. The earliest we’ll have preliminary results is tomorrow morning.”

“We can’t wait until tomorrow morning.”

I turned back to the restoration table, my chest feeling as though it were being pressed by a block of ice.

Gao Yanzhou had been missing for three years and had never left me a single message. Yet tonight, just before the body was delivered into my hands, scheduled emails were sent to both me and Zou Jiashu at the same time.

This was no coincidence.

This was a contingency plan he had set for himself three years ago.

“Where is Cold Storage Unit 079?” I asked.

Zou Jiashu looked up. “The Old Crematorium Building in the South City. It’s the old facility that was decommissioned three years ago. Now there’s only a row of malfunctioning cold storage units left. No one goes there normally.”

I pulled off my gloves and started changing my clothes.

He frowned. “Where are you going?”

“With you to find Gao Yanzhou.”

“No.” Zou Jiashu refused immediately. “Since this email mentions Liang Boyan, it means your funeral home is no longer safe. You stay here, and I’ll go…”

“Zou Jiashu.” I looked at him. “This email was sent to me. The ring was also delivered into my hands. Gao Yanzhou had someone die in his likeness because he knew I would definitely be able to recognize it. You want me to stay here and wait? Wait for what? For someone to push this fake corpse into the incinerator and burn away every trace?”

He was silenced by my words, unable to argue.

I continued, “If you don’t take me, I’ll go by myself.”

Director Zhou, who had been listening for a while, finally spoke up. “The body will be sealed for now. I’ll keep an eye on the refrigeration logs and the evidence hand-off. Yuxi, if you’re really going, at least keep your phone’s location sharing on. Also, don’t go back to your office. If Director Liang asks, I’ll say I kept you back to finish the restoration records.”

I nodded.

Before leaving the restoration room, I took one last look at the fake corpse.

I gently removed the ring from its chest and squeezed it into my palm.

The engraving on the inside of the band had been blackened by the high heat, leaving only a very faint “Y.”

That was the engagement ring I had picked out for Gao Yanzhou three years ago.

If this ring had truly appeared on someone else, it meant that Gao Yanzhou wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t that far away from me.

It was just that for these three years, he had been hiding.

And tonight, he wanted to come back.