The drunk driver, alleged, should have been brought to the funeral chapel. Made to watch. Made to listen.

He would have heard Rixin Zhu-Li sobbing over the open casket of his 19-year-old son, stuffed animals tucked around the dead teenager.

He would have seen Jun Jie Zhu-Li — face ravaged by abrasions above his left eye, across his cheek, and leaning on crutches — try to comfort his bereaved father.

He would have witnessed the inconsolable grief of the brothers’ mother, Qiulan Li. Of their aunt and uncle.

The table in front of the casket, laid out with items, in the Chinese tradition: incense sticks, apples, oranges, moon cake, cookies, tea, a silk sash.

Wreaths cascading with flowers — white and yellow roses, lilies, daisies.

A video that played overhead showing photos of Wei Jie Zhu-Li at significant moments in his too-short life — entering elementary school, in cap and gown at his high school graduation — and photos of the insignificant moments but precious all the same — as a baby in his high chair, as a child running with his arms upraised, over and over again in the smiling company of his older sibling, as a student wearing a Canadian hockey jersey.

The hour-long chanting led by a Buddhist monk.

All the crushed, tear-stained faces of friends and teachers, still disbelieving and bewildered over what happened early in the evening of Dec. 22.

Three international students, pals, who’d left their Centennial College campus residence — they’d remained over the holiday break because home was too far away — and gone out for a bite to eat. Walking south when a 2014 Mazda going eastbound at “a high rate of speed,” according to police, ran through the intersection at Progress Avenue and Markham Road, mounted the sidewalk, struck a guardrail and plowed into the three young men.

Wei Jie Zhu-Li and Damir Kussain, also 19, succumbed to their injuries that night. Jun Jie Zhu-Li, 21, sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The ethnic Chinese parents, who run a restaurant in Colombia, made the wrenching decision to have their younger son buried in Canada.

They sent both their children to this country in pursuit of a college degree. They were among the more than 700,000 foreign students studying in Canada at all levels. Some 250 of them attend Centennial.

An emotional hardship, separated from one’s children. But this was what the family deemed best to secure a good education and bright future for their sons.

“Dear friends, fellow students and members of the Centennial College, our beloved Wei Jie passed away unexpectedly on the 22nd of December, just a few days before Christmas,” his aunt, speaking for the family, told mourners on Tuesday morning at the jam-packed Chapel Ridge Funeral Home in Markham. “You left us forever. On behalf of the family, we thank all the friends, all the students, the principal coming to this memorial service today. We are thankful from the bottom of our hearts.

“We all miss Wei Jie. Wei Jie was an obedient son, a good son. He never let the parents worry. He would share the burdens with his parents. He was the pride of his parents. The parents, they will be strong to go through this, especially with the support of you. To his friends … he was very considerate, very compassionate. I hope that he will be remembered by all of us.

“Go peacefully, Wei Jie. We believe that we will be with you in the future.”

The teen did not go peacefully. He went in a crunch of steel on flesh, likely never knowing what had happened, if that’s to be considered a small mercy. He died — was killed — because someone, allegedly, got behind the wheel of a car inebriated. He and Kussain — an international student from Kazakhstan — are the third and fourth victims in 2019 of what Toronto police say was a drunk driver on the road. Three of them were pedestrians.

According to figures compiled by the Star, 42 pedestrians have been hit and killed by vehicles in Toronto in 2019.

But numbers don’t tell the story. These stricken faces at the chapel tell the story.

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Wei Jie had been in Canada for just four months, in his first semester studying hospitality and culinary arts at Centennial.

College president Craig Stephenson — his words translated into Chinese — described the teen as “polite and respectful” with “a beautiful smile,” who “held himself to a very high standard of excellence.” He hadn’t missed a single class all term and was doing extremely well in his studies.

In a menu for a theatre district restaurant he’d devised in one of his classes, Wei Jie wrote: “On tonight’s Canadian menu, Chef Zhu-Li is offering the following special — maple and mustard slow-cooked whole pork. And save your fork for dessert.”

He’d overcome a natural shyness and had transitioned easily to life in Canada.

“It was obvious that Chef Zhu-Li already possessed a great flair for food and cooking,” continued Stephenson. “He was well suited to the fast-paced world of food service and hospitality. He met every challenge with creativity and aplomb. He was also disarmingly friendly and courteous.

“How then do we even begin to make sense of Wei Jie’s tragic loss and carry on in such a moment of grief? I have no easy answer to that.”

There is no sense to it. A senseless death.

“There were no warning signs,” said Stephenson. “The split-second moment that no one could ever anticipate is the moment that haunts us.

“This is all too common a calamity that shatters families and destroys dreams.”

There was, in fact, little direct reference to the event that took Wei Jie’s life. Maybe this wasn’t the time for it.

But Katherine Ma, president of the college’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association, a fellow student in the culinary program and, like the Zhu-Li brothers, living at the Progress Campus residence hall, spoke for everybody in attendance at the service, cutting to the quick of their shared pain, voice dampened by weeping.

“He had just started his new life in Canada. But his young life has been ended by this drunk driving accident. We cannot even begin to understand the grief being suffered by Wei Jie’s family and relatives. As an international student myself, I never thought that such an accident would happen.

“As a classmate and friend, after hearing this news, I was shocked and extremely devastated. We strongly condemn drunk driving as a crime. We also firmly believe that the perpetrator will be punished by law. And we will remind our classmates and friends to never drink and drive. Always be responsible to others and treat other lives with care.”

Funeral arrangements are still being made for Damir Kussain.

Michael Johnson, 40, of Pickering, is facing nine charges, including impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

Last Monday he was denied bail, the judge saying his refusal was necessary for the public to have confidence in the justice system.