Chapter 348
Chapter 348
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 348
>Chapter Title: White Lotus Cult
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“Gao Zhijian, what on earth are you talking about? You didn’t read it wrong, did you?” Chun Xiaoman looked puzzled at the brown-covered book in his hand.
The things coming out of his mouth were a total mess—she really couldn’t make heads or tails of it. What was all this about unborn and undying? What was this about something sprouting from the dantian?
How could her own son crawl out from her corpse? Was that even human?
A bizarre thought bubbled up in Xiaoman’s mind. “The person who wrote this book wouldn’t happen to be a lunatic like Senior Brother Li, would they?”
Feeling doubted by his companion, Gao Zhijian shoved his hands into his pockets and silently hugged the wall as he kept walking forward. “Hmph.”
Chun Xiaoman had just reached out to grab Bai Lingmiao and follow when she touched her hand and felt how ice-cold it was.
“What’s wrong? Miao-miao?”
At Chun Xiaoman’s question, the ashen-faced Bai Lingmiao shook her head and hurried after Gao Zhijian’s distant silhouette.
They hadn’t gone far when they spotted another book. This looked like a place for storing books, except the contents were even more obscure and incomprehensible—better off not reading them at all.
“Miao-miao, how come your family’s ancestral hall has these weird books?” Chun Xiaoman asked the sole surviving member of the Bai family.
The place didn’t seem dangerous at all, but between those White Lotus banners and the stuff in the last book, everything felt off.
What kind of person builds a space this huge under their family ancestral hall and stuffs it full of all this junk? Disturbing the ancestors upstairs—aren’t they afraid of the forefathers showing up in their dreams to chew them out?
Bai Lingmiao paused for a moment before answering, as if straining to remember something. “I... I don’t know. I’m a girl—they never let me in for ancestor worship or anything.”
Right then, Gao Zhijian up ahead stopped again. His massive frame stood frozen in place, leaving the two behind unable to see what lay ahead.
“Horse.”
Gao Zhijian spoke without his usual stutter for once.
Bai Lingmiao suddenly released Chun Xiaoman’s hand and stepped in front of Gao Zhijian, craning her neck to gaze up at the ceramic horse head towering even larger than her own body.
The horse head was startlingly lifelike, indistinguishable from the real thing. Its two glassy eyes bored straight ahead, bearing down on anyone who dared stand before it with crushing pressure.
Bai Lingmiao slipped beneath the horse and ran her hand along its smooth, unyielding flank. A flicker of bewilderment entered her eyes—this sensation felt so familiar.
“This porcelain horse is enormous. Must’ve taken one hell of a kiln to fire it.”
Gouwa sighed in admiration.
“Huh?!”
The startled Chun Xiaoman whipped around toward the suddenly appearing Gouwa. “When did you show up?”
“Why can’t I? You lot all sneaking off this way—I figured you were divvying up the loot behind my back.” Gouwa circled the massive ceramic horse, eyeing it closely.
“Junior Sister Bai, your Bai family used to deal in ceramics, huh? A horse this size would fetch twenty or thirty taels of silver easy.”
He had just turned when he collided full-force with a shadowy figure in the darkness, jolting him with fright.
Once he saw it was just a headless, armless ceramic statue, he spat curses and gave it a kick.
“I’ve been here before.”
Bai Lingmiao’s voice drew everyone’s eyes to her.
Bai Lingmiao stared hard at the towering steed, straining to dredge up those hazy memories. “Grandpa brought me here once, back when I was really little.”
“I was crying that day because I wanted to ride a horse, but Grandpa said real ones were too dangerous, so he took me here to ride this clay horse instead. I had a blast that day.”
As she spoke, Bai Lingmiao’s brows knitted together. “I think I remember this horse flying up—it took me into a painting to play. It was so lively in there, tons of grown-ups and kids keeping me company! Right—there’s a painting here!”
Something clicked, and Bai Lingmiao spun on her heel, dashing into the shadows off to the side. The others paled in alarm and rushed after her.
They hadn’t gone more than a few steps before Bai Lingmiao halted in front of a wall. A painting covered it, but it was nothing but pure white lotuses blooming across an inky black water’s surface—no throng of people like she’d described.
“This place... what exactly is it?”
Bai Lingmiao suddenly recalled Senior Brother Li mentioning something back then—something about the Bai family doing terrible things.
She’d been too shattered by the overwhelming despair of her whole family’s death at the time, her emotions on the brink of collapse, so she hadn’t registered it.
“No way... it can’t be. Grandpa... Dad and Mom...”
Images of her family’s flawless perfection in her mind brought a hesitant look to Bai Lingmiao’s face.
“Quick, look—that little lotus on the wall’s actually an oil lamp.”
Gouwa pulled out his fire striker and lit it.
One by one, the white lotuses ignited, gradually illuminating the surroundings and unveiling the full expanse of the vast underground hall before them.
The first thing to catch their eyes was a massive mural at the hall’s front, complete with an incense burner in front—clear proof of how much it had mattered to its original owner.
The mural showed six lifelike black horses in full gallop, bearing a blooming white lotus on their backs. Yet atop the lotus sat nothing at all.
The background was a bright yellow, but over the lotus loomed a warped patch devoid of any base color, exposing the rough, uneven mud wall beneath in a jarringly conspicuous way.
After taking in the cryptic mural, they scanned the rest of the hall.
Rectangular in shape, the hall soared two zhang high, with passages branching off in every direction and countless openings in the walls leading gods-knew-where.
It looked like all of Oxheart Village concealed an entire subterranean village beneath it.
The walls and ceiling bore exquisite paintings, mostly white lotuses set against inky black bases below.
Throw in the three enormous ceramic black horses at the center and the hundred-plus unfinished ceramic human figures scattered around, and Gouwa’s jaw hit the floor. “Tsk tsk tsk—even the emperor’s palace couldn’t be this impressive, right?”
With no sign of danger anywhere, Gao Zhijian lowered his wolf-tooth mace, scratched his head, and shot a baffled look at Bai Lingmiao beside him.
“Miao-miao? What’s up? You look awful. Feeling sick? Wanna head back up first?”
Chun Xiaoman steadied Bai Lingmiao and asked gently.
Bai Lingmiao shook her head and softly pushed Xiaoman away. Her expression complex, she gazed at her surroundings, chasing down those elusive fragments of memory.
As she pondered, a blurry little child’s silhouette took shape amid the ceramic figures around her.
The child wore a tiger-head hat and tiger-head shoes, bundled in a padded jacket, big pink eyes brimming with cuteness.
“Dada~!”
The toddler wobbled forward unsteadily, lunging with all her might just before toppling—right into the arms of a grinning old man.
“Ai~ my good little girl~ You like Grandpa, huh?”
(End of chapter)