13 Mink Street

Chapter 2: Immers Funeral Home

The washroom echoed with the sharp rush of splashing water as Zhou Xun threw it onto his face. After a moment, he lifted his head toward the mirror.

A fifteen-year-old boy stared back.

Two weeks had passed, yet he still could not get used to that face. Whenever he approached a mirror, he paused without thinking, as though steadying himself for the sight waiting on the other side.

He lifted a hand, pinched his cheek, tugged at the skin, then released it. Two red marks bloomed on his face.

If he could tear this face off in one motion and let everything in front of him, everything around him, and everything from these last two weeks shatter like glass, as if he were waking from a long, fevered dream, he would gladly do it. But he knew it could not be done.

He slapped himself across the face.

The features in the mirror resembled a young Leonardo, but he still struck hard, and a small, guilty trace of satisfaction flickered through him. He was not trying to wake from the dream. He was simply trying to stay alert enough to keep living inside it.

Since he was here, he would have to settle in. It was the only comfort he could offer himself.

A heavy pounding shook the washroom door, and a girl’s worried voice carried through it, asking Karon whether he was alright. It was his cousin Mina, Uncle Mason’s daughter.

Karon was the young man in the washroom—in other words, the body now occupied by Zhou Xun.

“I am fine,” Zhou Xun answered.

“Okay,” Mina said with relief. “I will bring breakfast up later.”

“No need, Mina. I will come down.”

There was a brief note of surprise in her voice, then she answered again, quick and obedient. “Alright, Big Brother.”

Zhou Xun looked at the mirror once more, took a cold towel, and pressed it over his flushed face.

He had once been a psychologist in Jinling City, running his own clinic and working part time as a consultant for the police.

During a kidnapping case, he had served as the negotiation expert. When the kidnapper tried to push a girl off the rooftop, Zhou Xun rushed forward and yanked her back. His footing slipped during the struggle. He fell.

The world went black the moment he hit the ground.

Strange dreams drifted past him for what felt like an eternity. When he finally opened his eyes, he found no hospital room, no doctors—only a crowd of unfamiliar faces. The eldest among them was his “grandfather,” Tiz Immers.

Karon was the old man’s eldest grandson.

Relief showed in Tiz’s eyes as Karon awoke. Yet beneath that warmth lingered a deeper expression, one Zhou Xun could sense, but not decipher.

At that time, Uncle Mason stood nearby, a man in his forties, smiling broadly. Aunt Mary, Mason’s wife, smiled at first. Her expression darkened a heartbeat later, then lifted again as if nothing had happened. There had also been another older woman present—Aunt Winnie—who had broken into tears of relief.

There were three children besides Karon in the household. Mina, fourteen, and Lent, thirteen, were Mason and Mary’s. Clarice, also thirteen, was Aunt Winnie’s daughter.

As for Karon, his parents had died years before.

This was the family he had awoken to.

He switched to a hot towel and covered his face again. After a long moment, he pulled it away.

He had spent much of the past two weeks in bed, partly because the body was frail, partly because he had been absorbing Karon’s memories.

The process was strange. Nothing collided and nothing tangled. The memories arranged themselves quietly inside him, like files lined along a shelf or folders partitioned cleanly within a computer. He was still Zhou Xun. Yet whenever he searched for Karon’s thoughts, they surfaced with ease.

Things had reached what seemed like a point of no return. There was no choice but to face the new life that had been forced upon him. He thus prepared himself to meet it head-on.

He opened the door. The family’s black cat, Poelle, lay stretched across the windowsill in a patch of sunlight. When it noticed him, it turned its head away, full of feline arrogance.

Zhou Xun paused, breathed in quietly, and murmured to himself that from this day forward he was Karon.

He headed down the stairs from the third floor to the second.

The Immers family lived on 13 Mink Street in the western district of Roja City. It was a detached villa with a large garden. By the measure of his former life, Mink Street wasn’t the center of Roja City, but it was unmistakably a prosperous district.

In the world he came from, owning such a house bordered on fantasy. He had never hoped for more than a modest apartment, certainly nothing as extravagant as a standalone house, let alone a villa. At least some things had worked in his favor. If one had to transmigrate, it was better to land somewhere comfortable. If he had crossed over as a boy selling matches on the street, that would have been a true tragedy.

The house functioned both as home and the family business. The kitchen and dining room occupied the second floor, while the first floor served as the workspace.

The Immers family ran a funeral company known as Immers Funeral Home.

Grandfather Tiz was the head of the household and the business. His word was final. He also served as the priest for the small church at the end of Mink Street.

Uncle Mason had once worked at the stock exchange. Aunt Mary had been a makeup artist with some standing in the industry, known for working with celebrities, and occasionally even appearing in small movie roles. They should have been living a modestly comfortable middle-class life on their own, but Mason’s failed investments had wiped out their savings, cost them their home, and left them in debt. In the end, he brought his wife and children back to his father’s house.

Grandfather never complained. He simply dismissed the family driver and the mortician soon after.

The Immers family did not raise idlers. Mason now drove the hearse, while Paul and Ron handled the transport of their “guests.”

Aunt Mary was still a make-up artist, except her new clients were... a lot quieter than her old ones. Their children, Mina and Lent, were both in middle school.

Aunt Winnie had worked as an accountant at a small clothing factory. After her marriage had fallen apart and she divorced her husband, she returned home with her daughter Clarice.

The house was large enough for all of them. Even with “guests” in the basement and a mourning hall on the first floor, there was still plenty of room. Karon had once shared a room with Lent, but after his illness, Lent moved to Tiz’s room upstairs. The latter also kept an office on the third floor. The second floor held three rooms: one for Mason and Mary, one for Winnie, and one shared by the two girls.

Home was peaceful. Tiz’s presence alone kept arguments at bay.

When Karon reached the dining room, Mina was helping set the table.

Aunt Mary looked at him, her expression sharp and mocking.

“Our young master can finally come down to eat without needing his loyal maid aunt to bring food upstairs.”

She had always been this way. Her tongue was quick and unforgiving. She spared no one except Tiz—not even her husband or her children, let alone her sister-in-law and Karon.

Karon offered a gentle smile and said sincerely, “Aunt Mary, thank you so much for looking after me these past days. I recovered so quickly because of you.”

In Karon’s memories, her tongue had always been sharp, but she treated him no differently from her own two children. A harsh mouth with a soft heart.

Meanwhile, hearing her normally gloomy and withdrawn nephew suddenly speaking so smoothly caught Aunt Mary completely off guard. She pursed her lips, unsure how to respond, and finally muttered, “Eat.”

“Okay.”

Karon took a seat at the table.

Breakfast was simple fare: sandwiches, fried eggs, milk, and a few small grilled sausages. He took a bite and chewed slowly. Two weeks here, and he already missed duck blood vermicelli soup with three spoons of chili.[1]

A car horn sounded outside.

“Your father is back.”

Aunt Mary washed her hands and removed her apron.

“You all keep eating. I’ll see whether your father brought me any surprises.”

Other husbands returned with jewelry or designer handbags, or at least a bouquet to soften the day. Mason returned with... bodies.

A simple, natural death was already a pleasant discovery. The unnatural ones were far worse to handle.

Karon put down his fork. Deep inside, he still felt like an adult, and when something happened in the house, he could not simply sit and continue eating. He followed Aunt Mary downstairs.

The first floor was spacious. A low platform with three steps stood in the southeast corner where the coffins were placed. Paul and Ron were pushing in a stretcher covered in white cloth. Mason stayed in the hearse, a cigarette between his fingers.

Aunt Mary lifted the cloth and let out a breath of relief.

The deceased was a young man. He lay flat, but his head was twisted to the right at an unnatural angle.

“Froze to death?” Aunt Mary asked. “Is it a welfare case?”

It was early winter, but deaths like this were already common.

The welfare program was a joint fund run by the city, the church, and several charities. It existed to give a proper funeral to those who had no relatives, which meant no one who could pay for their burial.

Funeral homes had to compete for these cases. Each layer of bureaucracy took its cut, and the profit that reached a funeral home was so small it was barely worth mentioning, but the steady trickle was enough to keep the place running. Workers needed wages, whether or not paying clients appeared. Moreover, welfare cases were easier to handle. There were rarely relatives to supervise or complain.

A simple cleaning, a coffin, Grandfather Tiz standing beside the body in his priest robes, and a few photographs taken by a government clerk for registration. After that, the case was finished and reimbursement came at the end of the month.

“Yes, ma’am, I knew him,” Ron said. “Jeff. A man who always lost at cards. Poor fellow. I am worse off. Every time he went to gamble, I was not around.”

“Ma’am, there is another job. Flowerwater Bay Nursing Home,” Paul said.

Aunt Mary raised her voice. “Tell the caretakers to wash the body first. If they do not, then don’t bring it here. The old man they sent last time still had dried filth stuck to him.”

“Yes, understood,” Paul said at once.

He and Ron left with an empty stretcher and returned to the hearse.

The car horn blared twice.

Mason sat inside with a cigarette between his fingers and gestured toward Karon. “My little Karon, looks like you are recovering well.”

“Yes, Uncle,” Karon replied.

Mason laughed. “Good, good.”

He looked toward his wife and raised his voice. “Darling, I want your meat pies for lunch. One of the only two things I have ever truly loved.”

“Eat them in the bathroom. I do not have time.”

Mason shrugged and grinned. “And that is the other thing I love.”

Aunt Mary’s face twitched as she turned away.

“See you soon, darling.”

Mason started the car and drove off.

Aunt Mary drew two steady breaths and reached for the stretcher. Karon stepped forward to help. She looked at him but said nothing. His confusion showed.

“Karon, you seem... different.”

“Perhaps.”

He did not bother trying to imitate the old Karon or feel paranoid about others finding out that he was a transmigrator. Of all the problems a transmigrator might worry about, that was the least important. No one would ever suspect their relative’s soul had been replaced. They would have to be loony.

“To the basement.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

Together, they pushed the stretcher around the corner of the hall and down the slope leading to the lower floor. The ramp had a flat landing in the middle. They had to keep the pace slow so the body did not slide.

“If only we had an elevator,” Karon said once they reached the basement. His hands strained against the stretcher.

“Like the ones in department stores?” Aunt Mary snapped. “Are you stupid? Do you know how expensive those are?”

The basement had only one floor, which was divided into three rooms.

The first was a supply room, filled not with random clutter, but with neatly stacked funeral materials.

The second was a holding room for bodies, empty at the moment. Karon noticed there was no refrigeration unit. He did not ask why. He already knew Aunt Mary’s answer would be the same as always: It was too expensive.

It showed that the Immers business was not large enough to need storage freezers. Yet it also reminded him that death, in every age and culture, was still a profitable trade.

The last room was Aunt Mary’s workspace, where she performed “beauty treatments” on the dead. After all, even the most attractive people in life became plain in death. The unnatural deaths were worse and required far more work.

For welfare cases, the face alone was usually enough. Paying clients were different. Their entire bodies had to be cleaned, nails trimmed, clothes chosen, coffins upgraded, prayers refined, and mourning hall arrangements elevated. Everything came in tiers.

Karon helped push the stretcher inside.

Aunt Mary pulled over a chair and sat, placing an ashtray on the stretcher near Jeff’s face. She lit a cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled in a slow stream.

Aside from her sharp tongue, Aunt Mary was rather attractive. Age had touched her features, but she carried a lingering charm. Sadly, even a well-bred woman forced into this line of work would naturally lose some of the composure she once had.

Karon watched the cigarette in her hand. She noticed and smiled faintly, nudging the pack toward him. He took one, lit it, drew in a breath, and immediately doubled over coughing. His stomach lurched and his chest tightened.

Aunt Mary burst into laughter, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

He had not faked it. He had been a heavy smoker in his previous life, but this body had never touched nicotine. It rejected the toxin outright, and because of that, so did his mind.

Aunt Mary put out her cigarette, checked Jeff’s body briefly, then tried to straighten the dead man’s head.

“You try. I can’t move it.”

“Alright.”

Karon extinguished his own cigarette and placed one hand on Jeff’s neck and the other on his cheek.

He pushed. Then pushed again. And again.

Jeff’s head slowly began to turn upright.

Karon felt it then, something Aunt Mary could not see. There was force pushing back; a resistance from the corpse, as if the dead man were straining to the right. It was not like adjusting a body; it was like wrestling with someone alive.

The realization made Karon’s stomach tighten. He was about to pull away when the resistance vanished. The instant he released Jeff’s head, it straightened by itself.

Jeff’s eyes snapped open and stared straight at Karon. His mouth writhed violently and a noise rose from it, a frantic rustling like rats gnawing wood.

Karon staggered back until his spine hit the wall. A sudden blow struck the back of his skull, heavy and sharp like a shovel swung hard. His body curled in on itself. His vision blurred. He fought to stay present, refusing to surrender to the darkness pressing in.

Red filled his eyes.

A high heel. A towering pale leg above it. Across from it, another heel, another leg rising impossibly high.

He felt the world stretch and tilt as if he had shrunk to the size of a mouse standing beside someone’s feet. He lost his balance and fell to the floor. Something thick splashed onto him and soaked his upper body.

Slowly, Karon lifted his head.

Between those towering legs hung a woman’s face, smiling down at him with curious delight. Drool slipped from the corner of her parted lips and fell toward him.

A faint crackling hiss, tinged with static, drifted through the air. Then a deep, magnetic male voice spoke.

“Don’t be afraid. This beautiful and enchanting lady is only hungry for your body.”

1. Duck blood vermicelli soup is a common street dish in many parts of China, made with duck blood curd, rice noodles, chili oil, and various aromatics. It is intensely savory, spicy, and comforting, often considered a classic late-night or winter bowl. ☜