Sunday afternoon, May 7th. A dozen people lined up in an oval shape around a pile of bones. In the wide hall with dim lights, only the sobbing of relatives could be heard. "That child... is really too petite..." Aunt Yuanye Fangjiang pressed the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief embroidered with exquisite patterns, and said tremblingly.Yoichiro Mo raised his head slightly, and immediately turned his gaze back to his wife's remains. Sakieda's body has disappeared from this world, leaving only a pile of calcium phosphate barely maintaining a human shape.However, Yoichiro couldn't feel the slightest bit of sadness in his heart.

It's not because he can't accept the truth. The only difference between Yoichiro and other relatives is that Yoichiro knew beforehand that Sakueda's lifespan was coming to an end.Yoichiro has long been mentally prepared that this day will come sooner or later.Sakie's doctor in charge told Yoichiro her status of cancer cell erosion without any concealment.Looking at the emaciated Sakie lying on the hospital bed, Yoichiro's sadness had already been exhausted at that time.The emotions that can be experienced in a person's life, joy, anger, sorrow, and joy each have a certain weight, and perhaps they will never be able to feel any sadness in this life, Yoichiro thought.

"When my mother was cremated... she didn't become so broken... When my father was cremated, even the shape of his hands and feet was still very clear..." Fang Jiang rubbed his eyes with a handkerchief and choked up.Both her parents died in a car accident when she was young, and now her younger sister has died again, and now she has no close relatives anymore. Yoichiro stared at the cremation stand.Indeed, Sakieda's bones had been shattered to a surprising degree.If you don't look carefully, even the position of the skull is difficult to distinguish. "However, having few bones left is not necessarily a bad thing."

Yoichiro's words made the sobs around him disappear in an instant.The relatives raised their heads and looked at him suspiciously. "This means that most of Sakieda's body has gone to heaven." Someone moaned softly, as if agreeing with Yoichiro's statement.The relatives bowed their heads again, and the sobbing sounded again. When someone important dies, every word is hypersensitive.Everyone tries to find self-comforting sentences from these words, or sentences that make themselves more sad. "Dad... what are you going to do next?" Huang Jie, who was standing beside him, reached out and pulled Yoichiro's mourning sleeve and asked.Hearing such an innocent question, the choking sounds all around became louder.

"The next thing is to put mom in that white jar and bring it home." "Will that jar always be at home?" Huang Jie has not yet entered the voice-changing period. Judging from the average development speed of the fifth grade of elementary school, it seems to be a bit slower. He is also very petite, and the sleeves of the children's mourning dress on his body look loose. "After a while, I will bury my mother under the grave, so that everyone can come to see her anytime." After listening to Yoichiro's explanation, Huangsuke blinked slowly, and turned his gaze back to the remains, the eyes under the lens showed a pure look.

Yoichiro wasn't sure his son really understood what was going on.Can he understand what death is?Does he know that his mother no longer exists in the world, but only stays in his heart?In the years to come, I will definitely worry about how to get along with the "mother in my heart".It is not easy to solve this trouble, and it will take a long time. "Dear relatives," The young man in charge of the funeral ceremony coughed twice, folded his white-gloved hands on his abdomen, and said solemnly: "The bone-picking ceremony will be performed next. Please use the two pairs of chopsticks here to pick up the remains into the ashes in a group of two."

The waiter explained in detail how to pick up the bones, and told everyone that the chopsticks used to pick up the bones symbolize the "bridge", which means to help the deceased cross the Santu River safely. First up was Yoichiro, who picked out a bone that looked like a celery stalk, but he didn't know where it was.The bones fell into the pot with a crisp sound of "click".The two pairs of chopsticks were continuously passed to the next relative, and the same sound was heard intermittently from the hard bottom of the pot.After all the relatives present had passed by, there were still some tiny bone fragments and ashes left on the cremation table that could not be picked up with chopsticks.The waiter took out two blank sheets from nowhere, neatly collected the bone fragments and ashes and poured them into the urn, and the bone picking ceremony was thus completed.

Yoichiro left the hall with his relatives holding the columbarium.Osuke, who was walking beside Yoichiro, didn't say a word, but just looked at the toes of the sneakers on his feet that didn't match the mourning clothes.Yesterday Yoichiro said he would buy him a pair of leather shoes, but Huangsuke kept his mouth shut and shook his head violently, insisting he refused.Perhaps it was because he didn't want to link his mother's death with the materialistic behavior of shopping. Walking through the door opened respectfully by the waiter, the early summer sunshine made my cheeks feel warm.The breeze blows slowly, and the papaya flowers extending to the left and right are past their full bloom, and the white petals sway weakly in the wind.Looking at Shirakawa, Yoichiro suddenly had a wonderful feeling as if he was dead.

Yoichiro had previously encountered a patient who claimed to be a corpse. That was almost twenty years ago.At that time, Yoichiro was still a graduate student in the Psychopathology Laboratory of the Institute.Under the guidance of the instructor at the time, Munehei Tanji, a psychiatrist at the Affiliated Hospital of Sagami Medical University, Yoichiro and other graduate students visited the neurology department of a certain hospital.The patient was a young woman who had just been transferred from psychiatry to neurology.She claimed to be dead, reeking and covered in maggots.The name of this disease is Cotard's Syndrome (Cotard's Syndrome), which belongs to a kind of cognitive dysfunction caused by abnormalities in the brain.The part that feels the body in the sensory realm has somehow lost touch with the Limbic System, which is in charge of human emotions.In other words, her emotional experience with her body was cut off, which is why she insisted that she was a corpse.

The patient's eyes were bewildered and lifeless. Yoichiro had never seen anyone look like this before.At that time, he was very surprised, completely unable to understand what kind of mood would have such eyes.But now, he seemed a little more understandable. Maybe that's how I feel right now. It's like feeling like you're dead. "I am Mao..." Yoichiro raised his head when he heard someone calling.He saw Toru Mizushiro getting up from the black granite bench and walking towards him.Shuicheng's wife, Huihui, and his only daughter, Yaji, are also by Shuicheng's side.

"Shuicheng, did you come here specially?" "When I'm cremated, I want to be at least close to Sakie." Shuicheng stroked the short beard on his chin.His face was dark, with prominent cheekbones. "Why didn't you come in just now?" "It's not convenient to come in. Isn't the bone picking ceremony only for relatives to participate in?" Mizushiro and Yoichiro have been friends since college.Although he is a classmate, Shuicheng has retaken the exam once, so he is one year older than Yoichiro, and he should be forty-five years old this year.After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine of Sagami Medical University, the two entered the graduate school of their alma mater together to study for a doctoral program.Shuicheng is still working as a researcher at the university, while Yoichiro works at the affiliated university hospital. "Mei said that she also wanted to pay homage to Sakieda's remains." Shuicheng looked at his wife beside him.Megumi had been looking at the urn in Yoichiro's arms just now.She had dark circles under her eyes and a red nose.Because of her fair skin, her appearance is even more sour now.Megumi bowed silently to the columbarium, exhaled slightly, said Sakie's name silently, then raised her head to look at Yoichiro. "Mr. Mao, you must be very sad, right?" "I've already seen it..." The relationship between Megumi and Sakie is like that of Mizushiro and Yoichiro, who were classmates in college.They did not enter Sagami Medical University until the third year after Yoichiro and Mizuki became graduate students.At that time, Yoichiro and Mizushiro participated in the first-year special course in charge of Tianchi as graduate student assistants, so they met Sakieda and Kei.These two women have completely different styles, but they also have good faces.At that time, Yoichiro and Mizushiro each uttered bold words in the tavern, and they must chase one of them.As a result, both of them successfully achieved their wishes.Before the woman graduated, Yoichiro had already married Sakieda, and Mizushiro married Keiko.Due to the financial situation of her natal family and plans for the future, both Sakieda and Kei dropped out of school after marriage. Because the habit of school days is hard to get rid of, Kei still calls Yoichiro "teacher" until now.Although Yoichiro was just a graduate student and not a teacher at that time, most of the students in the undergraduate department referred to the graduate students as teachers. "Huang Jie must have suffered a lot, right?" Kei bent her knees and moved her face to Osuke who was beside Yoichiro.Huang Jie stared straight at Kei as if frightened, with a certain panic in his eyes.Yoichiro was quite puzzled, Huangsuke had met Kei countless times since he was a child, why was he so flustered all of a sudden today? Silence lasted for a while. "Huangjie, is it alright?" Aki, who was standing next to Kei, asked with a worried face.Yaji has short hair, bangs swaying gently in the wind.Yaji and Huangjie are also classmates in the same elementary school, but they are in different classes.In other words, the fathers, mothers and children of these two families are all classmates, which is really a rare friendship. Huang Jie didn't seem to hear Ya Ji's question, but just showed a confused expression, staring at Hui in front of him intently.Seeing Huang Jie's strange eyes, Kei seemed confused. "Hey...Huang Jie?" Yaji yelled again, and Huangjie finally turned his head at this time. "Ah... well, it doesn't matter." "If you need help, such as contacting the teacher or something, please tell me." Yaji's tone was like a mature adult, but he didn't have any airs of domineering. "No need, I can do it myself." "When will you come to school?" "Probably next Monday." Yoichiro once called Huangsuke's senior mentor and asked for a week's funeral leave for Huangsuke. "Oh...then you won't participate in the sports meeting?" Hearing Ya Ji's words, Huang Jie let out an "ah". "By the way, I forgot that there will be a sports meeting this Sunday." "Well, it seems that you can't participate." "Huang Jie, if you want to participate in the sports meeting, go." Hearing what Yoichiro said, Osuke showed a hesitant expression, and shook his head after a while and said: "Forget it..." Yoichiro shifted his gaze to the parking lot, and relatives stood in front of the shuttle bus looking at Yoichiro and the others. "Shuicheng, we have to go. Did you come by car?" "Yeah, stop by the bus." Watertown's black Audi is in the shadow behind the pickup bus.Yoichiro and the other five walked towards the parking lot.The crematorium is located on a high platform with a good view, and the other side of the parking lot is the clear and wide sky. "Thank you for coming here, Shuicheng. And Huihe Yaji, thank you too." Yoichiro and Huangsuke get on the shuttle bus, and the Shuicheng family also get on the Audi.The next itinerary is a meat feast at Yoichiro's apartment.The big and small trivial matters of the funeral are all handled by the elder sister-in-law Fang Jiang. "Aki and Aunt Hui look alike." On the swaying bus, Yoichiro turned his head to look at Osuke next door. "Why did you say that suddenly? Didn't you know each other since childhood?" "Well, that's right..., but I just felt like this for the first time. Maybe it's because they are all wearing black mourning clothes. The eyes and skin color are also very similar." "Well... maybe." "Will Aki be a beauty when she grows up?" "Dad doesn't know, maybe not." The bus descended slowly from the high platform along the ramp. The relatives on board were all silent, and occasionally whispered very slightly. "Dad, when will you be on leave?" "Same as you, one week. During this period, Dad asked Mr. Tian to help take care of the patients." "Take care of what patients?" "It's the patient my father is in charge of treating." Hearing Yoichiro say that, Osuke's expression instantly became very disturbed. "dad……" "You still remember Mr. Tian Di?" "Ah, um...he also came on the night of the wake." Tian Di was the mentor of Yoichiro and Shuicheng in school days.At that time, he was the head of the medical department. He is currently teaching at the university, and also a colleague of Yoichiro. He is also a part-time physician in the hospital affiliated to the university. He is almost seventy years old. The two stopped talking.Yoichiro let his body sway along with the body of the car, staring blankly at Sakieda's ashes urn. "Teacher Tian Di's face seems to be upside down." Huang Jie suddenly popped out such a sentence.For a moment, Yoichiro couldn't understand what he meant. "Upside down..." After thinking about it, I finally understood.Huang Jie was talking about the fact that Tian Di had a white beard but was bald on the top of his head.Really know how to joke, Yoichiro couldn't help turning his head to look at him.However, the son's expression was very serious. It turned out that he was just frankly expressing his inner feelings.Yoichiro couldn't help but burst into a smile. For a moment, what came out from between the lips was not laughter, but a choked sob. Before he knew it, Yoichiro burst into tears, the tears could not be stopped at all, the sadness that he thought he had used up his life, now welled up in his heart again. It turns out that sadness is just repressed... At this time, Yoichiro finally understood the fact.Moreover, the power to suppress sadness is so fragile that it will collapse as long as it is slightly affected by other emotions. "dad……" Huang Jie put his hand on the sleeve of Yoichiro's mourning dress, he wanted to inspire his father, and he wanted to cheer for his father.But this made Yoichiro even more emotional. Yoichiro kept crying like a child until he entered the house.

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