Bana is the village where A Gui and the others live, and it is a typical Yao village. However, we have only been here for a few days, so we have no concept of the village’s terrain. When Yun Cai mentioned it, I was quite surprised.

“Where does it look similar?” The fat guy took the map and said, “Aren’t all the villages around here pretty much the same?”

Yun Cai didn’t dare to be too definitive. She handed the map to A Gui and said, “Dad, take a look.” We immediately leaned in closer.

A Gui looked at it and seemed to be confused at first. Yun Cai turned the map around and spoke a few words in the local dialect to him. Only then did he suddenly understand, scratching his head and saying, “Oh! It really does look a bit similar.”

I became interested. After all, we are not locals, and we are not as sensitive to many details as those who have lived here for generations. Moreover, women tend to be particularly observant, so I let her point out the similarities for us.

At first, I thought that the resemblance might simply be due to the mountains around the lake and those surrounding Bana being similar, which could lead to some buildings in the village being somewhat alike. But when Yun Cai mentioned it, I couldn’t help but gasp.

The similarities pointed out were actually the roads and fences.

Yun Cai told me that upon first seeing the map, she immediately noticed that the layout of the roads and fences in the “ancient village at the bottom of the lake” I drew was exactly the same as in their village. This made her realize that something was unusual, and then she began to notice that many other parts of the village were also very similar.

I couldn’t possibly recall the exact layout of all the bluestone roads and steps in Bana, but I did have a memory of the roads near A Gui’s house. When I compared it, it was indeed so. As soon as I rotated the map, I could immediately find several small roads next to A Gui’s house, and their intersections were very close to those on the map.

A wave of cold sweat washed over me; this was getting a bit too much. This map depicted a village submerged under the lake, possibly hundreds or thousands of years old, but now it was discovered that the submerged village had countless striking similarities with a real existing village. What on earth was going on?

Despite my efforts to suppress the inexplicable chill running down my spine, I couldn’t help but shiver. My intuition told me that there might be a serious problem here.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm my goosebumps, I asked Yun Cai to point out all the similarities. I needed to determine which of these similarities could plausibly be attributed to some special, reasonable cause.

Perhaps my expression was a bit frightening; seeing me so serious, Yun Cai became scared and didn’t dare to speak. The fat guy gave me a pat, reminding me not to scare Xiao A Mei, and only then did I realize that I had lost my composure.

We started discussing from the entrance of the village all the way to the end, and the more we talked, the colder my heart felt. I realized that this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. From the positions of several decorative archways at the village entrance to the numerous bluestone roads, fences, and the arrangement of houses inside, everything was eerily similar.

For such a situation to arise, there could only be one possibility: the ancient village at the bottom of the lake and Bana were designed by the same designer.

But how could a village be designed by a designer? Villages are naturally formed, created over thousands of years by all the villagers spontaneously coordinating and finding the most suitable places to build houses and the most reasonable routes, gradually shaping the layout of the roads and houses.

What concerns me the most is the striking similarity in the height of the roads. Once a village is formed, especially a mountain village, the roads are unlikely to change for a long time, hence the saying “ancient roads and western winds.” For roads, the villagers mostly do repairs; it is not feasible to remove an entire road and build a new one. The roads we walk on in many mountain villages mostly existed during the Two Jin Dynasties. Even in Hangzhou, the stone paths on the mountains were built long ago by monks from the temples, and what the government does now is merely continuous repairs.

Therefore, the ancient roads in Banai village and the roads of the ancient village submerged at the bottom of the lake being so similar is quite abnormal, even bizarre. For someone like me, who studies architecture, it is even more torturous; my mind is swirling with various things I have seen before, yet I do not know what I am looking for.

The胖子 (Fatty) has not yet realized how deeply I am thinking and asks, “Tian Zhen, have you heard of such things before?”

I shake my head and tell him not to ask; this is not simply a matter of having “heard of it.” The occurrence of two similar architectural groups in history has only been done by one person: Wang Canghai. The cities he designed, Qujing and Macau, are completely identical, but that is on a city scale, where planning is possible. Villages are entirely different; I have never heard of two completely identical villages existing anywhere.

Moreover, if both villages existed, it could be considered a wonder or the quirky taste of some reclusive master. However, now there is one that exists and another that is actually submerged at the bottom of the lake. No matter how much I tell myself not to think in complex directions, my intuition always tells me that what is happening here is definitely not straightforward. The fragments I hold in my hands are merely the outer layer of the “truth” onion.

Seeing that I had no reaction, Fatty asked the silent oil bottle (a nickname for a character). The silent oil bottle also did not respond, seemingly uninterested, just staring blankly at the map.

A Gui, looking evasive, said, “We’ve heard legends that the village was originally not in that place but in Yangjiao Mountain. Maybe, just like what Boss Fatty said, the village below is our ancient village. The village wasn’t burned down; it was submerged by water, and then our ancestors built a new village in a similar place, following the original layout. After all, the mountains here are quite similar to the ones outside!”

I replied to him, “Unless your ancestors had a profound knowledge of geomancy, it would be very difficult to replicate to such an extent, even if they intended to imitate.”

To achieve such similarity, precise planning and measurement must have been conducted before the original village was submerged. At that time, the Yao people were still in a pre-civilized stage and could not have had such expertise.

Yun Cai pouted and said, “Boss, why do you look down on the Yao people? Maybe there really was such a person!”

I smiled wryly; it’s not that I want to think this way, but if that were the case, then things would get complicated. So I replied, “Even if there was such a person, it wouldn’t make sense, because there was no necessity. Yao culture is not strict about architectural planning; why would they need to make it exactly like the previous village? The layout of this village itself does not hold any special implied meaning.”

There are many villages in China built by skilled individuals. For example, Yuyuan Village in Zhejiang was constructed by Liu Bowen based on celestial phenomena, and the entire village resembles a gigantic star chart. However, the layout of this ancient village at the bottom of the lake appears very unplanned, and based on my experience, I can’t discern any peculiarities.

“What do you think?” the fat man asked me. “You must have some thoughts on it.”

Indeed, I have some speculations, but they are ultimately useless, so I shook my head: “I can only say for certain that this was done intentionally and required significant effort, because ordinary people wouldn’t be able to achieve such a similarity even if they tried.” What I find most difficult to understand is that there are no local legends about such an obvious matter.

A Gui has several generations of memories, and their village is quite ancient. This means that the act of copying must have occurred a long time ago. However, judging from some signs in Zhangjialou, the jade mining probably didn’t start too long ago. The backflow of the lake water must have happened after the jade mining began; otherwise, the mining pit wouldn’t have been able to be constructed.

If we arrange the three events—copying, the backflow of lake water, and jade mining—in chronological order, copying must have occurred before jade mining, with the backflow of the lake water happening last.

This implies that the lake did not exist before jade mining began. The village was not submerged; even if it has been abandoned, it still remains there.

Therefore, the locals should know about two identical villages. Even if one was later submerged, given the great distance of time, there would at least be some legends about it. Moreover, the reach of such legends would be quite broad, likely spreading to other villages several dozen miles away.

However, A Gui said there are no legends mentioning the village at the bottom of the lake. This hidden ancient village seems to be an accident, completely forgotten in the course of history.