Chapter 2: Bluebells

By evening, the blood-red sunset poured down through the huge glass windows of the auditorium, and everything in sight was coated with warm gold.

Qi Xiaopang's heart sank.

He was so cold that he couldn't control his chaotic thoughts. He just started to tell outdated and boring jokes: "Hey, I thought you finally gave up and asked the family how they wanted the food cooked before cooking...haha."

He didn't know which was more serious: scattering the ashes or sending his leader to jail...

"Isn't it just scattering the ashes after burning? If they're all ashes, it means the burning was successful!"

Qi Xiaopang is the one who helps his relatives but not the others. No matter what, it is definitely not his brother Qing who is wrong!

"But, Brother Qing, what did your former boss do to deserve you to report injustice?" Qi Xiaopang muttered, but in his heart, he had already charged former boss Qing Bai with several serious crimes, ranging from civil law to criminal law. "If they fire you because of this, the funeral home will be in trouble!"

That's right, Qing Bai, a top student in the literature department of Peking University, a good student who is easy for teachers to worry about, and a great crammer for final exams in the eyes of classmates, has been studying and working hard in the funeral home.

When the young and naive Qi Xiaopang first learned that his brother Qing worked at a funeral home, where he would go whenever he had no classes and sometimes even had classes to find ways to escape, he felt a little uncomfortable. After all, the general environment in our country is too taboo about matters of life and death.

But after getting to know each other, especially after successfully getting close to the boss a few times, Qi Xiaopang felt relieved.

After all, because Qi Xiaopang has helped to "politely reject" those suitors who couldn't find the real person in recent years and instead set their sights on the real person's roommate and asked him to express his admiration, he often used the excuse: "My brother Qing doesn't like girls... Don't get me wrong! Don't get excited! He doesn't like boys either! No, I mean he doesn't like living people!" I knew that Qi Xiaopang was serious. I sincerely felt that there was no better place for his brother Qing to work than the funeral home. There are fewer people, more money, and it's quiet. After working for a few decades, he can directly continue to guard the cemetery with one-stop service after retirement.

When he was young, he was a melancholy, wabi-sabi-aesthetic young man, and when he was old, he was a detached, cold and handsome old man... It was exactly in line with the aesthetic taste of the girls in their college of literature.

Qing Bai didn't know that Qi Xiaopang had already planned his career for the next few decades, including his retirement life. He coldly dropped another bombshell: "A few days ago, someone brought a living person to the funeral home and asked me to cremate him."

This 'he'... is he the leader who went to the police station? He's really heading straight for the field of criminal law!

Qi Xiaopang was frightened by this brutal development and asked cautiously, "Then...then did you burn it?"

Qing Bai glanced at Qi Xiaopang, and his eyes, which seemed always cold and calm, became a little gentler through the sunset filter, as if saying, "What nonsense are you talking about? Of course -"

"It's burned."

There was a loud bang, which was the sound of the seat that caught Qi Xiaopang who had lost his balance due to weak legs.

"Brother...Brother Qing...how about...how about..." Fatty Qi was so frightened that his face turned pale, like a real white flour dumpling. "Let's...let's turn ourselves in?"

After he started talking, Qi Xiaopang's brain, which had been in a mess, struggled to work again. He was already thinking about where to find a defense lawyer for his brother Qing... It's not that Qi Xiaopang is simple-minded and believes everything others say, but the four years of being in the same class and dormitory have proven countless times that Qing Bai is not a liar. Let alone lying, he can't even tell a joke.

He said that if someone sent a living person to the funeral home, then someone sent a living person. He said that if the leader told him to burn the body, then he told him to burn it. Similarly, if he said it was burned, then it was really burned.

Qi Xiaopang believed every word, that's why he was so panicked.

"What should I do? What should I do? How many years should I be sentenced for murder under duress? If I turn myself in, I can get a reduced sentence, right? Sure, sure, right?!"

"It's not murder." Qing Bai corrected: "It's the corpse that's being burned."

Burned, but not completely.

Qi Xiaopang was confused: "Huh?"

Burned corpse? Whose corpse?

I don’t know if it’s because he didn’t get enough rest or because he encountered too many things these days, but Qing Bai’s already pale face became even more bloodless, and even his lips were pale, making his eyebrows and eyelashes look like they were painted with thick ink. The eyes under the thick eyelashes were like an icy lake covered with mist, occasionally revealing the clear light of the water behind the mist, but it only flashed for a moment before dimming again.

"He died not long after being brought here." Qing Bai was silent for a moment, then said something ambiguous, "Rather than killing someone to silence them...it's more like destroying the body to cover up the evidence."

No matter which one it is, it's scary!!!

Qi Xiaopang almost wanted to kneel down for his brother Qing, who could remain so calm even in such a situation. What on earth have you been through in the funeral home these past few years? We are both recent graduates, so why are you so outstanding?

No, that's not the point. The point is...

"If it's a corpse that's being burned, shouldn't it be a big problem? At most, it's the corpse that's being destroyed? Physical evidence? And he was coerced by bad guys. Finding a good lawyer should be... no problem, right?" Qi Xiaopang, who knew nothing about this, was worried sick and took out his cell phone to check it on the spot.

Qing Bai: "No need to find a lawyer."

"Brother Qing, we can discuss other things, but we can't give up on this just because it's too troublesome!" Fat Qi sniffed, his expression firm and his tone full of emotion, "We are victims too! We must resolutely defend our rights!"

What will happen to his brother Qing if he really goes to jail?

Qing Bai sighed: "The one who went to jail was my former boss."

Oh, that’s right. Qi Xiaopang, who hadn’t intended to say what was in his heart, just realized that Brother Qing, who was ruthless and taciturn, had already sent the person in…

"Then it's none of your business then?"

Qing Bai nodded.

Although he still didn't know the specific details, Qi Xiaopang was relieved to know that Qing Bai didn't have to go to jail. He finally had the mind to care about the cause of the incident and babbled, "How could such an unlucky thing happen to you, Brother Qing? How about we go to the temple to pray tomorrow... Oh, that's not right. Since that bastard is in jail, how come your job is still in vain? We are brave and brave, and we are eliminating the cancer of the organization without fear of power! We should be rewarded with a bonus and a banner!"

"That funeral home is privately owned," Qing Bai said.

"Well, so what?" Fat Qi didn't understand.

"The boss is the father of the guy in jail. His real father."

"...I see, you're sending the second generation of funeral officials to jail."

“…”

Qing Bai did not refute. In fact, he not only sent the second generation of funeral home to jail, but the process of sending him there was not friendly. After this incident, it is hard to say whether this funeral home can continue to operate.

It is a case of directly sending someone to jail, indirectly cutting off someone's financial resources and destroying their business. This is the deepest hatred.

Qi Xiaopang also figured this out. He looked Qing Bai up and down with some concern. "Brother Qing, you didn't get beaten... No, you didn't hit him, right?"

If a funeral home fails to operate, it's not just the owner's loss...

Fight? Fighting was inevitable when dealing with those two idiots before the police arrived. If the furnace hadn't been used to replace freshly baked ashes, it's hard to say what the outcome would have been, but...

"When encountering something like this, normal people should feel sorry for the victim, right? That person... is very young. Although he is covered with bruises, it can be seen that he is about the same age as us, or maybe even younger..." The scene in his memory reappeared. Qing Bai turned his head away with some reluctance, his eyes fell behind Qi Xiaopang, and he suddenly stopped talking.

Qi Xiaopang seemed to sense something and turned his head following Qing Bai's gaze——

"Brother Qingbai, hello."

He was a tall and slender young man, holding a bouquet of flowers and standing at the door of the auditorium against the light. His appearance was not very clear due to the light and distance, but his upright posture and the neatly ironed white shirt even in the middle of summer made him look very sophisticated and refreshed.

As I got closer, I saw that this man had a face that perfectly matched his figure. He was gentle, clean, and handsome. Although there was sweat on his forehead and he was breathing a little, probably because he had been running, he did not look embarrassed at all. Instead, his pure scholarly aura was even more prominent.

...You can tell at first glance that he is a good student.

"Brother Qingbai, hello." After standing in front of Qingbai, he calmed his breath and greeted him seriously, then handed over the flowers in his hand with a smile, "I am Bai Yu."

"Is" instead of "called", does it mean that he must have heard his name? Or that he must know him? Or even know him?

No matter which possibility it was, it was somewhat arrogant. But Qing Bai had an inexplicable intuition that the young man in front of him, who was looking at him seriously, was not that arrogant.

Qing Bai didn't move, and suddenly asked, "Have we met before?"

As soon as these words came out, not only did Bai Yu's expression pause and look a little stunned, but Qing Bai himself was also stunned.

Apart from going between the classroom, the cafeteria and the dormitory, he spent all his time at the funeral home. He didn't even recognize all his classmates from four years, so how could he get to know other alumni? Moreover, if he had really seen them before, he would recognize them at first sight with his memory...but he just felt that he looked familiar for some reason.

It was Fat Qi who spoke up to break the awkwardness: "Hahaha, Brother Qing, Bai Yu is our direct junior. We're in the same department. We see each other every day. It's normal for him to look familiar, it's normal..."

This is normal. If it were someone else, they might even be familiar with their junior or senior brothers and sisters in the same department, but I'm sorry, Brother Qing, I'm not interested in living humans.

And strictly speaking, they were more than just classmates. Bai Yu was also the second person in their department to reach the top of the school's "Hustler" throne after Qing Bai. After Qing Bai graduated, he would officially take over the heavy responsibility of competing with the most handsome men in every class, department, college, and school at the neighboring rival university. In every sense, he was Qing Bai's "successor"... although Qing Bai himself didn't know it.

But what was this scene all about? Did a junior student come to lay flowers after the graduation ceremony? Was it a testament to the deep bond between teachers and students in the College of Arts? Or was there something else going on? Or was it a ceremony to hand over the title of school hunk?

Although Brother Qing was his biological brother, it had to be said that Junior Brother Bai Yu clearly fit the temperament of their Academy of Literature. He immediately gave off a sense of scholarly elegance and a refined style. Unlike Qing Bai, who only reminded one of a snowy morning or a faint moon in the mountains, beautiful but also chilly. From a distance, he was unclear, and up close, he looked cold and icy... lacking in warmth.

However, things didn't develop as passionately as Qi Xiaopang had imagined. Bai Yu simply said, "Happy graduation, senior."

Qing Bai took the bouquet from Bai Yu's hand and simply said, "Thank you."

The first formal meeting between the two school handsome boys started inexplicably and ended uneventfully.

But the school hunk is the school hunk, especially those who come from the College of Arts. Their aesthetic taste is just extraordinary. The flowers given by other junior students are either a combination of boxwood, dahlia, and ivy, which symbolize a bright future, or a combination of okra, gladiolus, rose, lily, and sunflower, which symbolizes steady growth. But what the school hunk gave was... a bunch of white bellflowers?

Qi Xiaopang, who had studied the complete language of flowers in his pursuit of the goddess, subconsciously thought in his heart, bellflower, the flower language seems to be... gratitude?

Zhengjue was completely confused when he heard Bai Yu say, "Brother, were you just talking about how Mr. He from the capital colluded with the funeral home to destroy the body?"

When Qi Xiaopang heard the word "funeral home", he immediately reacted with stress and denied it three times in a row: "We are not, we don't have it, don't talk nonsense!"

Qing Bai: “…”