The Human Foundation

Bai Lingmiao stared at the blurry afterimage before her and remembered: that child was her as a little girl. This had happened before. A very, very long time ago.

She watched as her grandfather lifted her onto his shoulders, carrying her through the rows of porcelain figures. He ran and jumped like a child, making noises to get a giggle out of little Bai Lingmiao.

She followed behind them in silence, and gradually the memories of everything she had done here came flooding back.

“Wah wah wah… wah wah…” The little one was crying. Sitting on the ground in her split-crotch pants, she tipped her head back and howled. Her clothes and hands were covered in mud.

“What’s wrong, little treasure? Who bullied you?” An old woman with graying hair hurried over and picked up Bai Lingmiao.

“Wah… wah…” Nestled in the old woman’s arms, Bai Lingmiao pointed a chubby finger at the wall corner and babbled something only she could understand, her three baby teeth showing.

“Oh—that thing scared my good little girl, did it? Don’t cry, don’t cry. Watch Grandma get even for you!”

The old woman took Bai Lingmiao’s hand, walked to the wall, and stomped her foot. “Hey! Scaring my good little girl, are you? Bad thing! Stomp you, stomp you dead!”

Just as Bai Lingmiao saw her younger self stop crying under her grandmother’s comfort, a terrifying image slammed into her mind. Her face changed abruptly. “I remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember what scared me back then!” Bai Lingmiao rushed forward and ran straight through the past versions of herself and her grandmother.

She reached the wall, raised her sharp black nails, and dug them into the exceptionally hard rammed earth. She began to dig.

“Miao Miao! What’s wrong?” Chun Xiaoman came over, watching her good sister with deep concern.

After asking several times without getting an answer, she steeled herself and drew her longsword, jamming it into the earth to help dig.

Gao Zhijian saw this and charged over. He pried off a piece of his armor and drove it into the dirt with all his strength.

“A treasure? Is there treasure buried in the ground?” Gouwa ran over too, his face full of excitement as he joined in.

But the effort didn’t last long. A bloodcurdling scream from Gouwa stopped everyone’s hands.

Bai Lingmiao’s trembling fingers touched the woman buried in the soil—eyes tightly shut, the eyeballs dried and stitched shut with thread. Her face was a ghastly, iron-blue color, horrifying to behold.

A large hand reached out to block Bai Lingmiao. “…Th-this… this is a hu-human pil… pillar…”

Before he could finish stumbling over the word, Bai Lingmiao kept digging. More and more bodies were pulled from the earth. They were packed tightly together, like bricks stacked close in a wall.

Not just adults. Young and old, every age was buried in that soil.

After a while, Bai Lingmiao stopped digging. It was clear to her now. These people weren’t buried at random. Their positions formed the exact boundary of the main hall. And on the back of each hand was drawn a lotus. This was clearly intentional.

“They’re using people as the foundation,” Gouwa said, utterly shaken. “To build a place this big with that kind of foundation… how many dead must be under here? What kind of monster would do such a thing?”

No sooner had he spoken than he realized his mistake. He immediately covered his mouth and glanced at Bai Lingmiao.

This was the Bai family shrine. Anyone with half a brain could guess who had buried all these dead beneath it.

Bai Lingmiao fought to hold it in, but how could she? She cried as loudly as she had when she was a little girl wearing her tiger-head hat. Only this time, there was no grandmother to comfort her.

Every good memory she had of home collapsed in that moment. The worst part was that there was no one left for her to accuse or condemn.

Li Huowang had burned them all. Turned them to ash. Not one left.

“Why! Dad! Mom! Why did you kill so many people!! Why did you have to be the bad guys!!”

“Didn’t you know those people might be someone else’s parents? Someone else’s grandparents? Do you have any idea how much it hurts to lose a family member?!”

Seeing Bai Lingmiao on the verge of collapse, Chun Xiaoman quickly pulled her into an embrace and whispered, “It’s okay. This isn’t your fault. It’s not your fault.”

Gradually, Bai Lingmiao’s sobs stopped. She had cried enough, and she understood now that crying wouldn’t help anything.

She wiped her stubborn tears and pulled herself out of Chun Xiaoman’s arms. “No. It is my fault. It’s our Bai family’s fault. And since it is, then as a member of the Bai family, I have to take responsibility!”

One by one, the stiff bodies were dragged out of the hidden chamber, then loaded onto a cart and taken to Niuxin Mountain to be buried.

The bodies were incredibly rigid, as if filled with lead—completely set, like stone. Bai Lingmiao couldn’t even give them a proper burial position.

With every corpse buried and every tombstone erected, Bai Lingmiao bowed and lit incense to apologize. She knew it might be useless, but it was the only thing she could do.

There were many dead in that hidden chamber. They worked for a long time, and only finished after the Lü troupe returned from performing outside.

By the time the work was done, Bai Lingmiao looked utterly haggard, her face thin and hollow from exhaustion.

After knocking her head three times at a grave, she raised her head. Her pink pupils, threaded with red, looked at the row of tombs. Her cracked lips parted and she asked Chun Xiaoman, “Sister Xiaoman… if they could do such evil things, then why did they raise me to be so kind-hearted?”

“If I were as bad as them, I wouldn’t hurt this much.”

Chun Xiaoman had no answer.

Lü Zhuangyuan, who had been helping with the shoveling, stopped to wipe his sweat and sighed. “Little girl, I’m a father myself. I think I can guess what your parents were thinking.”

“See, your mom and dad knew that doing this kind of thing would bring divine punishment. So they didn’t want you involved. Plus, you’re a girl.”

“A married daughter is like water poured out. As long as they kept it secret, found you a good husband, then whatever happened back home wouldn’t have anything to do with you. In the end, they did it for your own good.”

“For my own good?” Bai Lingmiao opened her mouth to say something, but the words got stuck in her throat.

Chun Xiaoman sighed and gently hugged her again. In this situation, she could say nothing as an outsider that would help.

“Sister Xiaoman.”

“Mm? What is it?” Chun Xiaoman tipped her head slightly to let her white hair brush against Bai Lingmiao’s.

“Even though my family were all such evil people… I still can’t forgive Senior Brother Li for killing them.”