Chapter 367: Mirror Conspiracy

Of course, such forgetting can be accidental; in fact, countless legends have been lost in history, but such loss is generally large-scale and doesn't happen to just one legend alone. When a legend is lost, it must be accompanied by a complete blank in some historical period, with no information at all.

I felt there was something fishy about it. There were plenty of legends and old stories in the village, no obvious break in transmission, yet there was not a single legend about "there was originally an identical ancient village that was submerged by water." Was it that someone didn't want this legend to spread?

Regarding this kind of COPY, I actually had a very strong intuition that it was a "mirror conspiracy." "Mirror conspiracy" is a common trick in Japanese mystery novels. The core of the trick is concealment—that is, Agui and the others' village was fake, deliberately built to prevent others from discovering that the real village had disappeared.

The fundamental reason for such a strong intuition was the story of the Demon Lake that Pan Ma told. My speculation at the time was also a kind of mirror trick: the old archaeological team was erased, and a new team of unknown origin quietly replaced them—that's a "mirror."

This could also explain why there was a legend of a great fire burning down the old village. At that time, the village certainly wasn't entirely on the slopes of the canyon; mountain villages would have many scattered buildings distributed far from the main settlement. These buildings couldn't be drowned by water, but they had to be destroyed, so a mountain fire might have been used. To cover up the traces of the mountain fire, this kind of story was eventually employed.

Behind such a trick lies a grand conspiracy, and it was likely extremely bloody. The original villagers must have been completely slaughtered. The murderers probably disguised themselves as villagers, moved into the fake village, and carried out their plan. This trick took place a long time ago. Several years later, the jade mine incident occurred, and after that, the village was submerged.

With so many things happening in one place, it was obvious that something was hidden in the villages, rivers, and mountains here.

Everything sounded too far-fetched, seemed unlikely. I was very reluctant to think in this direction. Since I couldn't verify it anyway, I could only suppress my doubts and wait for further investigation results.

My brain was completely overloaded. I was just about to have a drink and clear my head when Fatty let out a "tsk" and pointed at the drawing, asking me: "Tianzhen, look at this. What does your drawing look like?"

I leaned over and saw that he had blackened some areas with a pen. Soon my floor plan became mottled. When he picked it up and held

After he processed it a bit, the entire village floor plan turned into the shape of an animal, complete with eyes and claws. Looking more carefully, I immediately recognized it—it was a Qilin.

"This is getting more and more interesting," Fatty murmured.

The hair on my body stood on end; what I could directly see was that the appearance of the Qilin was very similar to the one on Poker-face. Holy crap! Could it be that we really came to the right place? I thought to myself, several concepts flashing through my mind—Qilin, tattoo, floor plan—and suddenly a bold idea emerged out of nowhere.

I walked over to Poker-face with the map, and he was staring blankly into space.

I went up to him and said, "Hurry up! Take off your clothes!"

He was stunned for a moment, looking confused. I showed him the map in my hand and explained this and that, but he still didn't understand. Nevertheless, he took off his clothes as I asked. Watching his slow movements made me so impatient that I wanted to kick him down and immediately press close to look. Only after he had taken off his clothes did I remember that his tattoo was normally invisible.

I asked Poker-face what this was all about. He told me that this type of tattoo was made with the juice of a thorny plant and was normally transparent. It only turned black when body temperature exceeded a certain level. In ancient times, the Miao people often suffered from damp-heat diseases, and this kind of tattoo could be used to check a child's temperature.

Of course, body temperature could also exceed the threshold due to intense exercise, so Poker-face's tattoo would appear when he was engaged in fierce combat or agitated. Also, because of different concentrations, the sensitivity to temperature varied; only extremely violent fighting could make all the tattoo patterns appear.

Fatty got a hot water bottle, and we forced Poker-face to heat his chest. Sure enough, the black tattoo slowly emerged.

Fatty said, "Damn! That's a great trick! Why didn't I know about this when I used to cheat?" Meanwhile, I began to carefully examine his tattoo and the map I had drawn.

"Look at the location of this ancient building," Fatty said, pointing to the path direction next to the tower. "If Banai is the same as this village, then the position of the ancient building at the bottom of the lake exactly matches Xiao Ge's stilted wooden house. If you map it onto Xiao Ge's body, it would be the Qilin's eye."

"Oh?" My heart stirred. I looked closely and saw that it was indeed the case. I thought to myself, Fatty really is observant.

Is there some deeper meaning to this?

Fatty added, "Looking at this, we can confirm one thing: Xiao Ge, you definitely have some connection to this."

I scoffed, saying wasn't that obvious? Fatty said no, this had great guiding significance for us. Before, we only estimated that there might be some clues here, but now we can be certain. Estimation and certainty are two completely different concepts, and our approach from now on will change.

I nodded. That was true. Moreover, the matter of this village had only just begun—there was plenty to work on.

Next, Fatty discussed some directions with us. "This matter is starting to take shape. No need to rush—the village isn't going to suddenly disappear. We definitely have to stay and conduct a systematic investigation. Also, we need to go around to the neighboring villages one by one and see what we can find out. This is a long process. I think we'll have to stay here for a long time. Let's organize things, go back first to bring some supplies, and then probably settle in permanently." As he said this, he grinned at Yuncai. "Girl, we've got plenty of time together!"

Yun Cai also smiled, but her gaze unconsciously drifted towards Poker-face.