Chapter 177
Chapter 177
A hall at the funeral home had been rented as the mourning hall. Granny Xu was close friends with Qin Ying’s maternal grandmother, and the grief of having to bury her own son had made her faint several times from crying.
Granny Shi had always been quick to tears. Seeing her old friend so devastated, then thinking about how the Xu Family’s Third Son was also a child she had watched grow up, she could not help feeling heartbroken herself.
She had come to comfort Granny Xu, but after only a few words, she ended up hugging her and sobbing too.
Qin Ying wasn’t comfortable in situations like this. Strictly speaking, she should have addressed the deceased as Third Uncle, but she had barely known him.
She left the small room, intending to offer the deceased a stick of incense.
Funerals in Yunlan City still followed the old customs, and there were countless finicky rules.
The deceased’s family had to return the mourners’ respects in the mourning hall, while the children were expected to circle the coffin and keep vigil over the body.
Any guest willing to stay and join the vigil was considered to be doing the family an enormous kindness.
As a result, a rather bizarre scene often unfolded.
Under a black canopy outside, guests would crowd around several mahjong tables, calling out melds and wins as they played through the night.
Inside the mourning hall, the family dressed in white and wailed their hearts out.
As soon as Qin Ying entered the mourning hall, the master of ceremonies presiding over the service directed her to offer incense.
The family members kneeling inside all looked exhausted and haggard.
The youngest among them was a girl of about four or five. Dressed in rough mourning clothes, she knelt beside the brazier and burned joss paper.
She was too young to understand what had happened and kept looking around uneasily.
Behind the mourning hall stood the refrigerated coffin containing the body. As Qin Ying offered incense, she thought she could smell something unpleasant beneath the fragrance of the burning incense.
It was hard to describe. It smelled like the freezer compartment of an old refrigerator that had been in use for years.
Qin Ying was already feeling unwell, and the odor only made her feel worse.
She hurried through the incense offering, then moved to the side to burn a few sheets of joss paper.
Just as the deceased’s family was returning her respects, the little girl Qin Ying had noticed earlier suddenly lost her balance and pitched headfirst toward the brazier.
Cries of alarm rose from the family.
Third Aunt Xu, the child’s grandmother, caught sight of it from the corner of her eye. Her heart lurched so violently that she couldn’t even scream.
Just as the child was about to fall into the brazier, Qin Ying, who happened to be standing in front of it, reached out, caught the back of her collar, and hauled her away from the flames.
Only then did the girl’s father snap out of his shock. Still shaken, he scooped his daughter into his arms.
He was about to thank Qin Ying when he felt the child begin convulsing.
Qin Ying looked down. The little girl, who had been perfectly fine moments before, had turned blue-gray and was clenching her teeth tightly.
It looked like a seizure.
The girl’s father panicked. He grabbed at her cheeks and tried to hold down her legs to stop the convulsions by force.
He was so frantic that it seemed he hadn’t even known his daughter had this condition.
Unable to stand by and watch, Qin Ying stepped around the brazier and snapped, “Don’t hold down her legs!”
Restraining someone by force during a seizure could injure their muscles or even break their bones.
“It looks like epilepsy. Turn her onto her side.”
The girl’s father kept muttering to himself, unable to understand why his child would suddenly suffer an epileptic seizure out of nowhere.
Qin Ying pulled out her phone, intending to call an ambulance.
Just then, the little girl abruptly stopped convulsing and began to cry softly.
Her father held her close and was about to comfort her when she whimpered in a tiny voice, “Grandpa, don’t pull me.”
Hearing those words in front of the mourning hall sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
The girl’s father’s face turned ashen. Qin Ying watched cold sweat stream down his temples.
The other family members nearby had heard the child too.
Except for the funeral music playing in the background, the entire mourning hall fell into an eerie, unspoken silence.
In the end, it was the girl’s father who forced an awkward smile and tried to smooth things over. “Don’t talk nonsense, sweetheart!”
The little girl’s complexion still looked terrible. Qin Ying raised the phone in her hand. “Should I call an ambulance anyway?”
What the child had said was terribly ominous, and Qin Ying couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a bad sign. It would be safer to have her taken to the hospital.
Scientific reason and superstition warred in the girl’s father’s mind, but his concern for his daughter ultimately won out.
“Please do,” he said.
Plenty of people had witnessed the incident, and word soon spread like wildfire.
Third Aunt Xu had gone deathly pale and seemed to be struggling to breathe, so Qin Ying helped her into the small rest room next door. The little girl who had just suffered the seizure was brought in as well.
Only after clutching her granddaughter did Third Aunt Xu finally burst into tears.
Qin Ying had sharp eyes. As Third Aunt Xu wept, she clearly saw fear flicker across the woman’s face from time to time.
She wanted to ask what was wrong, but with a child who had just suffered a seizure waiting there for an ambulance, she ultimately kept her questions to herself.
Unexpectedly, even though Qin Ying said nothing, Third Aunt Xu began treating her as a confidante.
“You’re Qin Ying from the Qin Family, aren’t you?” Third Aunt Xu studied her closely and finally recognized her. “Thank you for what you did just now.”
Before Qin Ying could reply, she continued, “Your Third Uncle loved this granddaughter more than anything while he was alive. He must still miss her.”
“That old fool! He behaved himself while he was alive, but now that he’s dead, he’s started causing trouble!”
Qin Ying forced a smile. There was no good way to agree with that. Third Aunt Xu could curse her own dead husband all she liked, but Qin Ying could hardly join in.
After Third Aunt Xu had cursed to her heart’s content, she let out a long, mournful sigh. “My old man died so unfairly.”
“He never smoked or drank in his entire life. His checkup last month showed that everything was fine. How… how could he have suddenly dropped dead at the station?”