Identity Crisis

"Brother, what are you thinking about?" Mina, who had just helped Karen take care of her nose, asked curiously when she saw her cousin looking out the window in a daze. In the past, her cousin may have been a bit withdrawn because of his parents' death. After finishing junior high school, he stopped going to high school and stayed at home all the time without communicating with others. After his recent serious illness, although his brother She may act a little "distraught", but she is much more cheerful than before, and she is also willing to talk to her brother.

"Oh, I'm wondering if I should continue going to school." Karen gently rubbed the tip of her nose. The pain was no longer as strong as before. There was a cotton ball stuffed in her nose. It should not take long to remove it.

Previously, he was actually thinking about what just happened in the basement and the scene in his dream. Was it an accident related to his "body" and "spirit", or was he really experiencing a "supernatural event"?

After all, for the latter, the previous basement already contained most of the triggering conditions. But, after all, it is just a dream. No matter how terrifying the nightmare is, after waking up, the feeling of heart palpitations will immediately dissipate. After that, Karen was still thinking more about her future path.

He does not feel that as a "traveler", he can casually make money every day and start a successful life; but as a self-made "struggler" in his previous life, he has enough confidence to rely on his own ability and quality to succeed in the world. This "new world" blends in with respectability.

After all, no matter what, the identity of "Karen" brings to me, let's not talk about the help, but anyway, there is no burden at all. that's enough.

"My brother used to dislike school the most." Mina said with a smile. In the past, Karen was a bit on the autistic spectrum, so naturally she didn't like crowded places like school. "Going to school is very important, especially when you are young." Karen said seriously. "Most people, when they grow up or become adults, will regret why they couldn't study harder when they were young. Suffer a little more."

"My brother said this in the same tone as my mother."

"Haha." Karen shrugged, "Mina, give me a glass of water."

"Okay, brother."

My sister obediently went to help pour water. Karen opened the window in the room, and the fresh air rushed into his face. He took a deep breath, and then Karen closed the window again. The wind was so cold. Looking back, Karen saw the black cat Pall appearing at the head of her bed at some point, crawling there, staring at her with cat eyes, and occasionally turning its neck slightly, as if looking up and down.

"Pall, tut tut tut tut..." Karen tried to tease the black cat using the "pronunciation language" used to tease cats and dogs. Pall tilted his head and did not take the bait. Karen stepped forward, and the black cat was not afraid. No matter what, Karen was still a member of the family. Karen reached out and touched the cat's head.

"Meow..."

Pall turned his head, as if he didn't like the caress.

"Why did grandpa give you such a hard-to-pronounce name?" Karen said to herself, "Pall... Pall, haha, I might as well call you Pu'er, it will feel a lot fresher at once."

The black cat moved his body, obviously not happy about this "new name" with a very similar pronunciation. Mina brought a glass of water over and said , "Mom is calling dad."

"Huh?" In this era, "mobile phones" have not yet appeared, and calling someone on a landline is actually very inefficient. Furthermore, if nothing else happens , Uncle Meissen should be "drifting" on who knows which street in his hearse.

After Mina delivered the water to Karen, she picked up the rag and wiped the window sill very familiarly. Originally, there were two maids in the Imles family, one was responsible for cleaning and doing housework, and the other was responsible for cooking, but in Uncle Meissen's family and Wen After Aunt Ni and her daughter came back one after another, the two maids were also fired by Grandpa.

Luunt , and her aunt's daughter Chris do the housework on weekdays . Aunt Mary and Aunt Winnie take turns cooking the three meals. Everyone in the family has a "job", so Karen is the most idle one. This can also be seen from the side. Grandpa Dis, who has always been dignified, is indeed different from others in treating his eldest grandson.

At this time, grandpa walked upstairs. Mina stood up immediately, and so did Karen, who was holding the water glass;

Many times, whether there are rules at home does not depend on the so-called "parental education" and "tradition", but on whether there is someone in the family who makes you awe and fear.

Dis' eyes swept over the grandchildren, and stayed on them for a while. Without saying anything, he opened the door to his room and walked in.

The stagnant atmosphere in the air finally returned to "circulation" after the sound of closing the door. Karen breathed a sigh of relief, looked down at Mina, and found that Mina was also doing the same action.

"Grandpa, it seems that you are very busy every day." Karen asked.

"Yes, there are a lot of things in the church, and grandpa often travels on business." Mina replied. While he was talking, Grandpa's door was pushed open from the inside, and Grandpa, who had changed into "priest" clothes, came out again, carrying a black box in his hand.

"I'm not coming back for lunch," said Deese.

"Oh, okay, grandpa." Mina responded immediately.

Dis walked downstairs. After a while, Karen saw her grandfather walking downstairs into the yard through the window sill. The clothes Dis wore obviously had the connotation of religious clothes, but they seemed to be a little different, giving him a very specific feeling. Perhaps in the eyes of outsiders, Dis's role as "priest" will help expand the family's business. After all, with his status, he can easily gain the trust of believers in the church, and he can... take more orders for the family; but Karen She didn't think it was that simple, but after her grandfather opened the courtyard door and walked out, Karen suddenly found the source of that "meaning".

"Our grandfather is a bit like Uncle Nine."

"Brother, who is Uncle Nine?"

"A priest who specializes in catching vampires."

"Oh, that's it. Is it from a drama?"

"Well, yes. Mina, do we have to drag it all over again?"

"Well, there are stairs."

"Let me help you."

"But brother, your body?"

"no problem."

Karen started to help Mina mop the floor. After mopping the floor, she went to mop the stairs. When changing the bucket, Karen came to the yard. There was a big faucet there, which was faster to fill the water.

At this time, Uncle Meissen came back in his modified "Nutshell" car. Ron and Paul pushed down a stretcher cart with an old man lying on it. Karen saw the white hair covered by the white cloth.

Uncle Meissen ran to the yard first and didn't notice Karen who was fetching water in the corner, but went straight to Aunt Mary.

"Father is looking for you," Aunt Mary said.

"Where's father?" Uncle Meissen's eyes were a little wandering.

This seemed like a sign of guilty conscience because she had done something wrong and was afraid of being blamed by her elders. Due to her professional habits in her previous life, Karen would pay attention to these details.

"Father just went out." Aunt Mary said.

"This..." Uncle Meissen seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and then said, "It's okay, it's okay. I'll go out and look for my father. Maybe he's in the church."

"Well, then you go ahead."

Uncle Meissen immediately ran out and stopped driving the car. Aunt Mary didn't notice anything strange about her husband, because her attention was on the old man who had just been sent from the nursing home. Soon, she heard Aunt Mary scream: "Oh my God, why is there still something on him?" shit!"

…

Paul and Ron, who failed to complete their instructions, were asked by Aunt Mary to be responsible for cleaning the body. Facing the angry Ms. Mary, they did not dare to resist at all.

Paul first transported the stretcher truck to the basement, and Ron walked up to Karen: "Master Karen, I need to borrow a bucket and mop."

"Let me lift it down for you."

"No, no need." Ron twisted his neck. He was tall and a little fat. Although he was not very old, his beer belly was already obvious. "We will just deal with it."

Karen asked with a smile: "So why didn't the nurse clean that person's body properly?"

This is supposed to be the job of a nursing home nurse, to initially clean up the body of a deceased client. Otherwise, it would not look good when the family comes over and sees that the body of their loved one is still dirty.

"Master, you are laughing." Ron scratched his head in embarrassment, "I made an appointment with the nurse in charge of Mr. Mossanen to watch a movie in the next two days."

That's it... Ron's face turned slightly red and he continued : "She said she likes watching movies and eating popcorn. When the time comes, she can feed it to me with her own hands when watching movies, so... so I don't want to think The hand that used to feed me popcorn had just wiped the thing on the body.

Master, do you know that it is really sweet for a couple to feed each other popcorn while watching a movie. Under dim light, when she puts the popcorn into your mouth, you can lick her fingers with your tongue. ;Oh my gosh, this is so wonderful! "

"Dream on you."

Paul's voice came. He had already carried Mr. Mossanen into the basement and was now coming up to get plastic gloves and washing powder.

"Paul, I know, you are just jealous of me!"

"Jealous of you? Come on, Ron, apart from Mrs. Hughes, the proprietress of Hughes Cremation Society, there is probably no other woman in the world who would like you."

"You're talking nonsense!"

Ron was so angry that he pointed at Paul.

"Mrs. Hughes?" Karen asked curiously.

It sounds like the proprietress of the cremation company must be a rich woman. Why is Ron so excited?

"Haha." Paul laughed first, and then explained, "Master Karen, you probably don't know that before the body is pushed into the furnace for incineration, gasoline needs to be sprayed on the body to assist combustion, and thin people often need more gasoline. , otherwise the bones will not be burned. But for fat people, the oil on their own body can help to burn.

Therefore, Mrs. Hughes of the Cremation Society likes people with Ron's body type best because he saves fuel. "

"So that's it."

"Damn it, Paul, how dare you arrange me like this in front of Master Karen!"

"Come on, let's go down and do some work first, otherwise Mrs. Mary will lose her temper again later."

Ron and Paul walked to the basement carrying their things while bickering. In the hall, Aunt Mary lit a cigarette, and she felt less bad. Because Paul told her good news, that is, this old man named Mossanen has children, and the children will come over later.

If it is not a welfare package, it means there is profit. Even the lowest level package is profitable. And Aunt Mary's "salary" must also be supported by her family's "performance". The remaining profits after deducting expenses and leaving the company will be paid to her family as allowances;

Aunt Winnie is in charge of the accounts.

This is why everyone in the family is afraid of grandpa, but no one speaks ill of him behind his back. He is very serious, but he is by no means a stingy and greedy old man.

Karen returned to the second floor and helped her cousin Mina wipe the furniture. When they were about to finish wiping, they heard Ron and Paul coming up from the basement. They had already cleaned up the bodies, and Aunt Mary had to take action next. Because family members may come over in the afternoon to arrange a condolence meeting, it is necessary to treat the elderly person well at this time.

However, there seemed to be guests at home, and Karen heard Aunt Mary calling to her downstairs: "Karen, come down and entertain Mr. Hoffen."

After putting down the rag, Karen first searched for "Mr. Hoven" in her mind: this is an old man, a retired teacher from the philosophy department of the university, with a good pension, a decent life, and is a good friend of his grandfather. He often comes to drink tea and chat with his grandfather. In addition, he is also very interested in divination. He once gave Karen a pair of exquisite playing cards, not Tarot cards... but the kind that can be used to play Landlords.

Karen first went to the kitchen on the second floor, made a cup of tea, and then mixed some simple refreshments and carried it to the living room on the first floor. Mr. Hoven is very tall but very thin; thin people tend to have more three-dimensional facial features and more intuitive emotional expressions.

When Karen saw him, she found that Mr. Hofen's eyes were locked directly on her. Even the pet dog lying next to Mr. Hofen, the golden retriever, seemed to sense the owner's mood swings and stood up slowly, but it was a little confused and didn't know what was wrong. Until it saw the prostrate Pu'er at the entrance of the stairs, it seemed to instinctively find a point of interest and wanted to get up.

But Pu'er just glanced at it with cat eyes, and the golden retriever immediately wilted and lay back down again.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Huofen, my grandpa is out, but I think he will be back soon. My uncle has already gone to find him." Karen put down the tea and said a few words.

Unexpectedly, at this moment, Mr. Hofen suddenly reached out and grabbed Karen's wrist. His whole face was pressed against Karen's in an instant, and his breathing became extremely rapid at this time. Zhu asked in an excited tone, "You're not Karen...who are you...?"

In an instant, a sense of crisis suddenly hit Karen's mind. This crisis came from the fact that the other party had directly torn apart her identity in one face to face, leaving Karen, who had been mentally building up for half a month, at a loss.

Karen subconsciously took two steps back, trying to distance herself from Mr. Hoffen. Coincidentally, Mr. Hoffen, who was holding Karen's wrist, was led out of balance and stumbled unexpectedly. He used his hand to He went to hold up the table, but unfortunately he couldn't hold it up again. His body fell forward and his forehead hit the edge of the table.

"Bang!" A muffled sound came out,

Immediately afterwards, Mr. Hoffen fell backwards, and the back of his head hit the tiles hard and without any hindrance;

"Snapped!"

Karen looked at the scene in front of her in astonishment.

The old man who had just directly pointed out his "identity problem" was now breathing out more than he was breathing in; moreover, a large amount of blood began to overflow on the tiles in the living room under his head.

At this time, Mina, who was still busy on the second floor, seemed to hear the sound and stood at the top of the stairs and shouted: "Brother, what happened downstairs?"