Chapter 344: Light Underwater

The solitary light deep within the ancient village at the bottom of the lake was unknown from which part of the village it had lit up—whether from the depths or from a window of some ancient building. The color of the lone light was truly indescribable; the glow was very opaque, as if it were shrouded in a dark greenish veil, hazy and unlike any worldly flame.

This eerie lake had already given me too many surprises; this tranquil place beneath the clear water hid too many secrets. What had happened here to make everything seem cursed? In this ghostly environment, I was alone diving to the bottom of a lake deep in the mountains, without any support or help, feeling for the first time immense panic and loneliness. This helpless despair frightened me more than death. For a moment I had an illusion, thinking of a hideous deep-sea fish that uses light to lure prey; this ancient village gave me the feeling of a giant creature using that light to attract victims into its trap.

I checked the oxygen gauge. My pounding heart was consuming oxygen rapidly, and that spine-chilling nightmare feeling lingered. I forced down my panic and silently recited: 'If I want to get to the truth, I must risk my own life. If Fatty and Poker-face are still alive now, they must be trapped in a very strange situation. I may be their only hope. Since I've come here, there's actually no turning back. This green solitary light, whether auspicious or ominous, is a beacon calling me forward.'

This was almost self-hypnosis, but in that environment, I truly didn't know where to find the courage to continue deeper. I recited it three times before feeling the panic ease a little. I drew the bayonet and held it in a reverse grip—though I didn't know what use it would be against ghosts, at least it gave me courage.

I kicked my fins and swam along the stony shore toward the ancient village. I hadn't gone far before the dim light in the village was gradually blocked by the ancient buildings as my angle lowered, and soon disappeared. The surrounding darkness slowly closed in, and the village deep within returned to the gloom.

I gradually calmed down. Miraculously, the panic began to recede. It seemed the panic came entirely from that greenish dim light. I couldn't help but feel a temporary relief. With my personality, watching the light gradually approach would have driven me crazy.

My position wasn't far from the edge of the ancient village. As I got closer, I noticed that at the edge of the village, on the rocky slope, there were many decaying trees, some still standing, some already collapsed and lying across the lake bottom. Clearly, before this village was submerged, there had been many large trees around it. The feng shui here was indeed excellent.

In less than a moment of descending, I reached the topmost part of the ancient village. The nearest stilted wooden building's roof was at most two or three meters away from me. Since I was diving from the slope downward, the water depth might now exceed seventy meters, and the water pressure made me quite uncomfortable. 'You cannot see the true face of Mount Lu because you are right in the middle of it.' At this spot, I couldn't see the village's overall layout at all—only the dense rooftops, and I could faintly see the greenish light not far off within the village. At the same time, I saw below me, at one edge of the village, many stone tablets standing like tombstones.

I descended a little and shone my exploration light on them. I found the stone tablets covered in water stains and rust. Apparently these stones originally contained limestone, which had dissolved in the water, leaving the stone pitted and full of holes. The characters on them were completely illegible, but they were not tombstones; they were a type of stele unique to the Yao and Miao peoples.

The ancient Yao had a tradition of establishing laws through stone tablets. When the Yao encountered matters that required collective discussion, they would hold a 'stone tablet meeting' and afterward erect a stele in the village, called a 'stone tablet law' (shibei lü). This was like a code of law for the Yao, which everyone including the Yao king had to obey. The Yao people called such a stele 'Achang'.

The sacredness of such laws was beyond the imagination of us Han people. The Yao believed that 'the stone tablet is greater than heaven.' Many ancient Han-Yao conflicts arose because the Han wanted to undermine the stone tablet laws. Each stele had a manager called the 'stone tablet headman' (shibei touren), who held great power.

There were many stone tablets here. If they were stone tablet laws, they must have recorded many very important matters. Unfortunately the inscriptions were already illegible. Moreover, many stone tablet laws involved obscure ancient secrets of the Yao village, so most of them were wordless steles, relying entirely on the people's self-discipline to uphold the regulations. I thought that if I could read the characters on these steles, I might learn what had happened in this ancient village.

Passing the stone tablets, I once again floated above the village. Being so close, the dilapidated stilted wooden buildings and the paths between them became incredibly clear. At this moment, the greenish dim light revealed itself again. I couldn't see the source, but a faint halo was just ahead. My scalp began to tingle again, my heart beat even faster. The panic hadn't diminished at all; it suddenly flooded all my senses. At the same time, I felt that this panic was very strange—it seemed to come from the deepest, most primal fear in my memory, indescribable, impossible to dispel. What was I so afraid of? Looking down from this height at a thousand-year-old ancient village, probably fewer than a hundred people in the world have had such an experience. Watching the decaying wooden buildings within arm's reach below, you feel as if you are floating leisurely in midair over an ancient path. The scenery from a thousand years ago inevitably forms in your mind, but then currents and some instinct drag you back to reality. This interplay makes it feel very unreal.

This was my first close look at this underwater ancient village. I found the whole village very similar to Banai. The stilted wooden buildings were built very densely, with two-to-three-story structures interspersed with bluestone paths and stone steps wide enough for three people to walk side by side. These decayed wooden buildings all leaned to one side, looking ready to collapse at any moment. Some roofs had slid onto the walls of adjacent buildings, forming a 'door' shape. I floated and swam above these doors, watching my bubbles rise, and my heart tightened involuntarily. If I dived into the village, any slight mishap could cause the surrounding wooden buildings to collapse. If I couldn't escape in time, I would be buried alive. Being buried alive underwater meant no chance of rescue at all.

I skimmed over the roofs of several dilapidated stilted buildings. The location of the light was getting closer, and my heart felt more suffocated. Judging from the angle between the light and the stilted buildings, I figured the light came from inside one of the ancient buildings, possibly shining through a window. Just as I gritted my teeth and prepared to dive down, suddenly it dimmed—the light vanished.

My mind was extremely tense. This shock almost made me faint; my breathing tube fell out of my mouth. But in that instant, I had already seen where the light was.

It looked like a very large compound stilted tower, made up of several stilted buildings combined together, probably the tower of an important Yao family, typically formed where the wealthiest families in the village clustered. That moment was too fast; I hadn't had time to see which window of the tower the light came from.

I slowly descended, shining my exploration light downward, and was stunned at once. My god, what kind of building is this?

This tower was indeed somewhat different. Its outer edges were actually made of stone, and moreover, the tiled roof with upturned eaves was actually in the Huizhou style.

This wasn't a Yao tower; it was a Han Chinese building.

I was stunned. What was going on? Why was there a Han-style building in a Yao ancient village?