Chapter 54 Mirror Plot

Of course, this kind of forgetfulness could be accidental. In fact, I didn’t know how many legends had disappeared throughout history, but the kind of annihilation that happened here could be considered large-scale. And it wasn’t only one legend that had disappeared. The historical period when these legends should have taken place was also completely blank, and there was no information.

That was why I kept feeling like there was something fishy about it. There were many legends and old stories in this village that had no obvious date, but there clearly wasn’t any legend like “an identical ancient village used to exist, but it was submerged by water”. Did someone not want this legend to be circulated?

Regarding this kind of “copy”, I actually had a very strong hunch that this was a “mirror plot”.

“Mirror plot” was a common trick in Japanese mystery novels. The core of this trick was to conceal something; in other words, Agui’s village was fake. This fake village was built to prevent others from discovering that the real village had disappeared.

The reason why I had such a strong hunch was because of Pan Ma’s story about the magic lake. My theory at that time was that it was actually a mirror image trick. The old archaeological team was erased, and a new team of unknown origins replaced them without anybody noticing. This was the “mirror image”.

This could also explain why there was a legend that the old village had been burned by a big fire. I was certain that the village at that time wasn’t all on the mountain slope, and there would be many buildings scattered far away from the village. These buildings couldn’t be flooded, but they had to be destroyed, so a mountain fire might have been used. And they used this legend to cover up the traces of the fire.

It was possible there was a big and extremely bloody conspiracy behind this kind of trick, and the villagers were inevitably slaughtered. The killers might have then pretended to be the villagers and lived in the fake village while they implemented their next plan.

This trick happened a long time ago.

Then, another jade mine appeared here several years later, and the village was flooded again.

With so many things happening in one place, there obviously had to be something hidden in the villages, mountains, and rivers here.

This sounded too mysterious and seemed unlikely, so I was very resistant to think in this direction. I couldn’t prove it anyways, so all I could do now was suppress these doubts and wait for further investigation.

My brain was completely burnt out by this point. I was just about to grab a drink and get some air, but Fatty let out a tsk and pointed at the picture and asked me, “Mr. Naive, look at this. What are you drawing?”

I leaned over and found that he had blackened some places with his pen, making my drawing appear mottled. When he picked it up and put it under the light, I froze.

I found that after he had slightly processed it, the layout of the whole village turned into an animal with eyes and claws. After carefully examining it, I recognized it immediately– it was a Qilin.

“It’s getting more and more fun.” Fatty murmured.

All the hair on my body stood on end. From what I could tell, this Qilin’s appearance was very similar to the one Poker-Face had.

Fuck, we really came to the right place! 

Several concepts kept flashing through my mind: Qilin… tattoo… floor plan… and I had a sudden epiphany.

I immediately took the drawing to Poker-Face. He had been staring at the lake in a daze and had put a T-shirt on at some point. I went up to him and said, “Come on, take off your clothes!”

He paused, and had a puzzled look on his face, so I showed him the drawing in my hand. He still didn’t understand, but did as I asked and took his clothes off.

I was irked to see his slow movements, and really wanted to kick him over with one foot and paste the drawing on immediately. But it wasn’t until he took off his clothes that I remembered that his tattoo was usually invisible.

I asked Poker-Face what was going on, and he told me that the tattoo was made from the juice of a prickly plant. It was usually transparent, and only turned black when the body temperature exceeded a certain degree. Most Miao people in ancient times had wet fever, so this tattoo was often used to check the children’s body temperatures.

Of course, one’s body temperature would also exceed a certain degree by doing strenuous exercise, so Poker-face’s body temperature would rise if he was in a fierce fight, or excited.

Different concoctions had different temperature sensitivity, so Poker-Face’s entire tattoo would only appear after extremely intense fighting.

Fatty got a hot water bottle, and we forced Poker-Face to scald his chest. Sure enough, the black tattoo slowly appeared. Fatty said, “Shit, this is a smart move. Why didn’t I think of this before when I cheated?” As he said this, I began to look closely at the tattoo and the map I had drawn.

“Look at the position of the ancient building.” Fatty said, pointing to the direction of the path beside the tower. “If Banai is the same as this ancient village, then the position of the ancient building at the bottom of the lake happens to be in the position of Little Brother’s tall wooden building. If we place it over Little Brother’s tattoo, it’s the Qilin’s eyes.”

“Oh?” My heart stirred, and a closer look proved that he was right. I found that Fatty was surprisingly meticulous, but what did this mean?

Fatty said, “It seems that one thing is for certain: Little Brother, you must have something to do with this.”

I snorted and said, “Isn’t that just plain nonsense?”

Fatty said: “No, it’s significant to our search. Previously, we only estimated that there would be some clues here. Now, we can confirm that estimation and determination are two completely different concepts, and our approach will change in the future.”

I nodded, thinking that this was also true. Moreover, things in the village had only just begun, and we had something to do now.

Fatty then gave us some instructions: “This is a significant matter, so we don’t need to be in such a hurry. Anyway, it’s not like the village can suddenly disappear again. We definitely have to continue doing a systematic investigation. In addition, we have to ask around the surrounding villages one by one and see what we can find out. It’ll be a long process, so I think we’ll stay here a little longer and sort it out. We’ll have to go back and get some things, and then we may have to stay longer.” As he spoke, he grinned at Yun Cai: “Girl, we’ll be together for a long time.”

Yun Cai also smiled, but her eyes involuntarily moved to Poker-Face.

<Chapter 53 A Very Similar Village> <Table of Contents> <Chapter 55 Uninvited Guests>

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Updated 9/3/2020