Chapter 347 - White Lotus Sect
“Gao Zhijian, what are you talking about? Could it be that you read it wrongly?” Chun Xiaoman looked suspiciously at the brown book in his hands. The content spoken by him was messy and confusing. She couldn’t understand what was being said. What did it mean by no birth and no death? What were the things emerging from the dantian?
How could the son crawl out from the person’s own corpse? Was that still a human being?
A strange thought emerged in Xiaoman’s mind, “Could the person who wrote this book be just as crazy as Senior Li?”
Gao Zhijian sensed her doubts, and put his hands back into his pockets as he silently continued forward while sticking to the walls. “Hmph...”
Chun Xiaoman was about to pull Bai Lingmiao and follow along, but found that her hand was surprisingly icy to the touch.
“What’s wrong, Miaomiao?” asked Xiaoman.
Bai Lingmiao’s expression was pale, but she shook her head in response before following Gao Zhijian in the distance.
As they walked, they came across yet another book. This seemed to be a place where books were stored. However, the content of this book was even more obscure and difficult to understand than the previous one.
“Miaomiao, why does your ancestral hall have these strange books?” Chun Xiaoman asked the only living member of the Bai family.
This place didn’t really seem dangerous, but everything, right from the white lotus flags to the contents of the previous book, all felt weird.
Who would create such a large space beneath the Bai family ancestral hall and place such messy objects within? Weren’t they afraid of disturbing the ancestors in the ancestral hall above, and receiving their scolding in their dreams?
Bai Lingmiao paused, as though trying to recall something. “I... I don’t know. I’m a woman, and so they never let me enter during any of the ancestral rituals.”
Just then, Gao Zhijian stopped again. His tall figure stood stiffly, preventing the two behind from seeing what was ahead.
“Horse,” Gao Zhijian said, without his usual stutter.
Bai Lingmiao suddenly let go of Chun Xiaoman’s hand and walked in front of Gao Zhijian. She looked up and saw a ceramic horse head that was even larger than her own body.
The horse head was extremely lifelike. Its two eyes were staring straight ahead, placing immense pressure on the hearts of anyone standing before it.
After a moment, Bai Lingmiao walked under the horse before touching its smooth and hard body with her hands. A trace of confusion appeared in her eyes; this feeling was very familiar to her.
“This ceramic horse is really big. It must have taken a really large kiln to fire it,” Puppy exclaimed.
“Eh?!” Chun Xiaoman was surprised to see Puppy suddenly appear out of the blue, “When did you come?”
“Why can’t I come? I saw the few of you running over here, so I thought that you were hiding the spoils from me,” Puppy said as he examined the ceramic horse before them. “Junior Bai, was your Bai family involved in the ceramics business? Selling such a large horse would probably fetch at least twenty to thirty taels of silver.”
He turned around as he spoke, colliding with a person in the darkness startling himself. However, when he saw that the figure had no head and limbs, and was just made of ceramic, he cursed silently and kicked it.
“This place... I’ve been here before.”
Bai Lingmiao’s voice attracted their attention.
Staring at the tall horse head, she tried her best to recall the vague memories. “My grandfather brought me here when I was very, very young. That day, I was crying and wanted to ride a horse, but he said that riding a real horse was too dangerous. So he brought me here and let me ride this ceramic horse. That day... I had a lot of fun.”
As she spoke, her brows furrowed, “I seem to remember... This horse flew and took me into a painting. It was quite lively there. There were so many adults and children that played with me! Yes! There’s a painting here!”
Bai Lingmiao quickly turned and dashed toward a corner in the dark. The others were shocked as they hurried to keep up with her.
After a few steps, they saw Bai Lingmiao stop before a wall. There was a painting on the wall, full of pure white lotuses on an ink-black water surface. It was not full of the many people that she had mentioned.
“This... what is this place?” Bai Lingmiao seemed to recall Senior Li telling her previously that her Bai family had done some wrong things. However, she had been completely overwhelmed by the despair of losing her entire family, and had not paid attention to these things.
“No, it’s impossible... My grandfather... My father and mother...” Bai Lingmiao thought of the perfect image of her family members in her heart, while a trace of hesitation appeared on her face.
“Look, the small lotus flower on the wall is actually an oil lamp,” said Puppy as he took out a small tinderbox and went to light it.
As each white lotus lamp was gradually lit up, everything around them began to brighten. The entire expansive underground hall was gradually revealed to them.
The first thing that caught their attention was a large painting at the forefront of the hall. It was huge, and there was a censer for burning incense placed before it. This indicated the importance of the painting to the original owner.
The painting depicted six lifelike black horses galloping, carrying a blooming white lotus flower on top. There was surprisingly nothing else on the lotus flower.
The base color of the painting was a bright yellow. However, on this lotus, there was a twisted area that strangely lacked even the base color. It directly exposed the uneven adobe wall, making it appear even more abrupt.
After viewing this painting with an unclear meaning, they turned to look around at the entire hall.
The hall was rectangular, and was about six meters tall. It seemed to be interconnected, with many exits that led to other unknown places.
It almost seemed like there was another underground village beneath the entire Cowheart Village.
Various exquisite patterns were drawn on the top portion of the walls. However, most of them featured white lotus flowers against a black background.
In the center of the hall were three giant ceramic black horses, as well as hundreds of unfinished ceramic figures.
As he saw all this, Puppy’s jaw dropped in amazement, “Tsk tsk, is this the majestic style of the emperor?”
Seeing that there was no danger around, Gao Zhijian put down his wolf-toothed club and scratched his head in confusion, as he turned to look toward Bai Lingmiao.
“Miaomiao? What’s the matter? Your expression isn’t looking great. Are you feeling uncomfortable? Should we head up first?” Chun Xiaoman supported Bai Lingmiao and asked gently.
However, Bai Lingmiao just shook her head and gently pushed away Xiaoman. She had a complex expression on her face as she searched for the vague memories in her mind.
As she pondered, she saw a blurry childlike figure appear amongst the ceramic figures.
The child wore a tiger head hat, had tiger head shoes, and was wrapped in a cotton padded jacket. Her wide pink eyes made her look very adorable.
“Grand... Ah grand~!”
The child stumbled forward and tripped, but fell into the arms of a smiling old man.
“Ah~ Good girl~ Do you like Grandpa?”
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