Chapter 347: White Lotus Sect

"Gao Zhijian, what are you talking about? Did you read it wrong?" Chun Xiaoman looked at the brown-covered book in his hand, a puzzled expression on her face.

The content he was reciting was completely jumbled, and she simply couldn't understand what he meant. What was this about no birth and no death? What about things growing from the Dantian? And her own son crawling out of her corpse? Was that even human? A strange thought popped into Xiaoman's head. "The person who wrote this book... are they crazy, just like Senior Brother Li?"

Feeling his companion's suspicion, Gao Zhijian put his hands in his pockets and silently continued walking along the wall. "Hmph..."

Chun Xiaoman was about to pull Bai Lingmiao along when she touched Bai Lingmiao's hand and felt how cold it was.

"What's wrong, Miaomiao?" Hearing Chun Xiaoman's question, Bai Lingmiao, whose face was pale, shook her head and followed Gao Zhijian's retreating figure in the distance.

As they walked, they soon encountered another book. This seemed to be a place for books, but the content of this one was even more obscure and difficult to understand than the last; it was almost better not to read it at all.

"Miaomiao, why does your family's ancestral hall have such strange books?" Chun Xiaoman asked the only surviving member of the Bai family.

The place didn't seem dangerous, but between the white lotus banners and the content of the previous books, everything felt very peculiar. What kind of person would build such a large space filled with these bizarre things beneath their ancestral hall? Wouldn't they fear disturbing their ancestors in the hall above, perhaps even getting scolded by them in dreams?

Bai Lingmiao paused for a moment before answering, seemingly struggling to recall something. "I... I don't know. I'm a woman. They never let me in for ancestral worship in the past."

Just then, Gao Zhijian stopped again. His tall frame stood rigidly, preventing the two behind him from seeing what was ahead.

"Horse," Gao Zhijian said, unusually without a stutter.

Bai Lingmiao suddenly let go of Chun Xiaoman's hand and walked in front of Gao Zhijian, looking up at the ceramic horse head, which was larger than her own body. The horse head was incredibly lifelike, as if it were real. Its two eyes stared straight ahead, exerting immense pressure on anyone standing before it.

Bai Lingmiao walked beneath the horse and touched its smooth, hard body. A hint of confusion appeared in her eyes; the feeling was so familiar.

"This porcelain horse is enormous! What kind of furnace would you need to fire something like this?" Dogwa exclaimed.

"Huh?!" A surprised Chun Xiaoman turned to look at the suddenly appearing Dogwa. "When did you get here?"

"Why couldn't I come? Seeing you two running over here, I thought you were dividing up loot behind my back," Dogwa said, circling the large ceramic horse and examining it.

"Junior Sister Bai, did your Bai family used to be in the ceramics business? A horse this size would surely sell for twenty or thirty taels of silver, right?"

As he spoke, he turned around and accidentally bumped into a figure in the darkness, which made him jump in fright. When he realized the figure was just a headless, armless ceramic statue, he muttered curses and kicked it.

"This place... I've been here before," Bai Lingmiao's voice drew everyone's attention.

Bai Lingmiao stared at the tall horse, trying hard to recall very vague memories. "My grandfather brought me here when I was very, very young."

"That day, I was crying because I wanted to ride a horse, but Grandpa said a real horse was too dangerous. So he brought me here and let me ride this ceramic horse. That day... I had so much fun."

As she spoke, Bai Lingmiao's brows furrowed. "I think I remember... this horse flew! It took me into a painting to play. It was so lively there, with lots of adults and children playing with me! Yes! There are paintings here!"

Remembering something, Bai Lingmiao quickly turned and rushed towards the darkness. The others were startled and hurried to follow.

They had only taken a few steps when they saw Bai Lingmiao stop in front of a wall. There were paintings on the wall, but they only depicted pure white lotuses blooming on an inky black surface, not the many people she had mentioned earlier.

"What... what exactly is this place?" At this moment, Bai Lingmiao recalled that Senior Brother Li seemed to have told her something, perhaps that the Bai family had done something bad. However, she had been so overwhelmed by the immense despair of her entire family's demise that her emotions had almost collapsed, and she hadn't paid any attention to it then.

"No, how could it be? My grandfather... my father and my mother..." Bai Lingmiao thought of the perfect image of her family in her mind, and a trace of hesitation appeared on her face.

"Look quickly! Those small lotus flowers on the wall are actually oil lamps," Dogwa said, taking out his tinderbox and lighting them.

As each white lotus flower lamp was lit, the surroundings gradually brightened, revealing the full extent of the vast underground hall before them. What first caught their attention was a massive mural at the very front of the hall. In front of it stood an incense burner, indicating the mural's significance to its original owner.

The mural depicted six lifelike black horses galloping, each carrying a blooming white lotus flower. Strangely, the lotus flowers themselves were empty. The original background color of the mural was bright yellow, but on top of the lotus flowers, a distorted area oddly lacked any background color, exposing the uneven adobe wall beneath, making it appear strikingly abrupt.

After examining the mural, whose meaning was unclear, they began to look around the entire hall.

The hall was rectangular, with a ceiling two *zhang* high. It had passages leading in all directions, with numerous openings whose destinations were unknown. It seemed that beneath Niuxin Village lay another entire underground village.

The upper parts of the walls were adorned with various exquisite patterns, mostly featuring white lotuses, with ink-black shading at the bottom. Combined with the three huge ceramic black horses in the center of the hall and the hundreds of unfinished ceramic figures surrounding them, the sight made Dogwa's jaw drop. "Tsk tsk tsk, even the emperor's palace might not be this grand!"

Seeing no immediate danger, Gao Zhijian put down his spiked club and scratched his head, looking at Bai Lingmiao with concern.

"Miaomiao? What's wrong? You look so pale. Are you feeling unwell? Shall we go back up for now?" Chun Xiaoman asked softly, supporting Bai Lingmiao.

Bai Lingmiao shook her head and gently pushed Xiaoman away, her expression complex as she surveyed everything around her, searching for the vaguely existing memories.

As Bai Lingmiao continued to think, she saw a blurry image of a small child among the surrounding ceramic figures. The child wore a tiger-head hat and tiger-head shoes, wrapped in a padded jacket, with large, charming pink eyes.

"G-Grandpa!"

The child tottered forward, and just as she was about to fall, she lunged into the arms of a smiling old man.

"Oh, my dear little girl~ Do you like Grandpa?"