The setting sun sank lower. In the evening breeze, paper ash swirled through the cemetery, carrying tiny sparks. The Formation held it fast, keeping it from drifting beyond the grounds.
July had already brought a chill to the Northlands, and the crops in the fields were nearly ripe. If a spark escaped now and started a fire, who knew how many families would be left without food or clothing to see them through the bitter winter?
Only Pan Shou, Pan Lei, and Pan Long remained before the Pan Family Tomb. The others had taken the offerings home. Tonight, they would mix them into dinner and share the meal with the entire lineage.
In some places, people left offerings before the tombs, but Northerners did not. For one thing, waste was shameful. For another, descendants sharing a meal with their ancestors showed filial devotion and a flourishing lineage.
If their ancestors had spirits, surely they would rather see the whole lineage eating and drinking together in harmony than sit alone with a piece of cold pork.
When the last trace of sunlight vanished, the cemetery fell completely dark. Pan Lei walked to the tomb and pressed a mechanism. A hidden door behind it opened, revealing a staircase.
The three followed the stairs down into the tomb.
The Pan Family Tomb was much like any other grand tomb belonging to a wealthy house: ancestral tablets stood on one side, and the forebears' coffins on the other. The difference was that these coffins were all small. They held no bodies, only ashes.
Cremation had long been a Pan Lineage tradition.
Charged with a mission to rebel, the lineage dared not leave the bodies of its members behind.
More precisely, each successive head of the lineage dared not leave his own body behind.
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