Chapter 329: A Family Together

"Dad, this is a mooncake with date paste filling. I remember it was your favorite." Bai Lingmiao carefully held a mooncake marked with a red stamp, tiptoed, and placed it in front of a spirit tablet.

"Brother, you liked red bean paste, but I couldn't find any in the village. Try this sesame one instead; it tastes quite good too."

After distributing the mooncakes, Bai Lingmiao took out three more incense sticks, lit them, knelt, bowed to them, and then placed the sticks into the remaining mooncakes.

Wisps of faint smoke slowly drifted among the spirit tablets, and the Bai family ancestral hall was once again filled with the scent of incense.

Bai Lingmiao looked up at the black wall in front of her, seemingly lost in thought. After a long moment, a smile appeared on her face as she said, "Tonight is the Mid-Autumn Festival; I'll celebrate it with all of you."

She picked up a mooncake from the platter, took two steps forward, and sat down on the steps of the ancestral hall. She looked at the bright moon in the sky, eating the mooncake in small bites.

As she ate, a figure appeared beside her. Bai Lingmiao extended her right hand, offering the mooncake she held into Ershen's red bridal veil. Then, she gently leaned her head to the left, resting it on Dashen's red silk satin robe.

And so, on the steps outside the Bai family ancestral hall, two women with identical heads silently nestled together, sharing a single mooncake and gazing at the same full moon in the sky.

Suddenly, a light flared up in the distance. Bai Lingmiao stood up and looked, spotting an earthen kiln built from tiles and stones far away.

The earthen kiln was very tall, taller than any other house in Niuxin Village. Flames shot into the sky, engulfing the kiln like a massive bonfire.

Gouwa stood on a nearby rooftop, making strange noises as he threw various old clothes into the flames.

Burning the earthen kiln on the Mid-Autumn Festival was an annual tradition, Bai Lingmiao remembered. However, it was usually something the brothers and boys in the village enjoyed, not so much the girls.

Looking at the towering flames in the distance, Bai Lingmiao thought of her troublesome younger brother.

As the eldest sister, she was like a mother. With their parents always busy, she had practically raised her brother alone.

She had watched with her own eyes as the child in the cradle slowly grew into a boy who could jump and run, but then everything had come to an abrupt halt.

Her longing for her family reached its peak. Finally, with trembling hands, she reached for the drum at her waist and began to beat it.

"Thump, thump, thump... thump, thump, thump..." The rhythmic drumbeats echoed through the desolate village.

After a few moments of hesitation, Bai Lingmiao tremblingly opened her mouth and began to sing. The tears she had held back all evening finally flowed.

She sang the "Crying Smoke Soul Tune" of the Bei family, her voice seemingly imbued with profound sorrow. Everything around her seemed to tremble along with it.

"Oh, clear breeze, oh, smoke soul..."

In that moment, she resonated with the lyrics. If everything before had merely been a forced imitation under the immortals' coercion, she now suddenly gained a deeper understanding and feeling for the "summoning spells."

Only when enough family members have died can one truly understand the feelings required to sing the "Crying Smoke Soul Tune."

She realized that her emotions were affecting the immortals, a very peculiar sensation.

One could even say that, regarding the Bei family traditions, Bai Lingmiao now surpassed Li Zhiqiang from before, but this was a price Bai Lingmiao never wanted to pay.

The drumbeats continued, and the profoundly mournful divine tune still played on.

"Oh, smoke soul... In the three realms of the living, people await... In the three cities of the underworld, oh, smoke souls dwell."

"They say heaven is a precious canopy and earth is a pond... Humans are like murky water fish in the three realms of the living..."

"Muddled for a while, then two moments... Muddled for two moments, then less than one, oh..."

This time, it was Dashen's turn to watch from the side as Bai Lingmiao sang the soul-summoning divine tune. Wisps of ghostly wind swept through the main entrance of the Bai family ancestral hall, passed Dashen's red bridal veil, and finally extinguished the white lanterns, then began to slowly circle Bai Lingmiao.

Seemingly sensing something, Bai Lingmiao could barely continue singing. Yet, she ultimately gritted her teeth and forcefully beat the drum at her waist.

"Upon hearing the smoke soul shed sorrowful tears, my heart feels as if it has consumed bitter goldenrod... Oh, smoke soul, with grievances nowhere to tell, with injustice nowhere to cry out for redress..."

The ghostly wind intensified, causing all the spirit tablets inside the ancestral hall to clatter and shake. The tiles on the ancestral hall roof also rattled loudly, as if the entire Bai family ancestral hall had come alive at that moment.

As she sang, a wisp of ghostly wind lightly brushed past Dashen's skirt and seeped into the blood-red bridal veil.

A burnt smell began to emanate from Dashen. She tremblingly raised her hands and slowly, hesitantly, reached out towards Bai Lingmiao. "Nannu..."

The moment she heard that voice, Bai Lingmiao's heart trembled. Immediately, she threw all caution aside and rushed forward, embracing Dashen. "Mother!!"

The moment she embraced Dashen, Bai Lingmiao felt as if she had found solace once more. She immediately poured out everything that had accumulated in her heart.

She spoke for a very long time with her eyes closed, but even after she stopped, she received no response.

When she looked up with reddened eyes at Dashen's red bridal veil, she was met with a disappointing realization: the moment she stopped the divine tune, 'she' had already left.

"Did my mother say anything when she left?" Bai Lingmiao asked softly.

Through her red bridal veil, Dashen stared at Bai Lingmiao for a long time before slowly saying, "She is not your mother..."

"No, she is my mother! My father, my grandfather, everyone just came back! They are all blaming me!" Bai Lingmiao vehemently denied, shaking her head.

Dashen said nothing. She opened her arms and embraced Bai Lingmiao again, then knelt down, picked her up entirely, and gently rocked her in her arms.

Bai Lingmiao kept her eyes open, silently watching the roof beams above the ancestral hall as she was gently rocked, seemingly pondering something.

The earthen kiln outside had extinguished at some unknown time. The two of them simply sat in silence within the dark ancestral hall.

"If I leave, can you stay with Senior Brother Li for me? He really can't be without someone by his side." Bai Lingmiao suddenly spoke.

Dashen merely held her, offering no response.

"I'm sorry, but I really can't go on. I can't do anything; I can't even avenge my family!"

Tearful, Bai Lingmiao broke free from Dashen's embrace and pulled out a rope she had already prepared from her clothing.

She walked to the center of the ancestral hall, threw the rope over a roof beam, and began to tie it.

Dashen stood up as well. She walked behind Bai Lingmiao, held her slender calves, and assisted her in completing the next steps.

When Dashen gently lowered her hands and stepped back, the immediate creak of the tightening rope and uncontrollable gasps began to sound.

Dashen ignored these sounds. She quietly circled back to the steps of the ancestral hall, sat down again, and continued to gaze at the full moon in the sky.

Behind her red bridal veil, Bai Lingmiao's small white shoes swayed slightly, and beyond the shoes were the densely packed spirit tablets of the deceased, as dark as a solid black wall.