The formation of a village community is a long evolutionary process, but it is not a historically linear one. Rather, it reflects a change of cultural values brought about by the transformation of the village's spatial fabric. Generally, the various spatial meanings of China's villages went through three phases of value: ″the ethical value of traditional culture,″ ″the symbolic value of the nation-state,″ and ″the modern value of urban civilization.″ The spatial meaning of traditional villages refers to fengshui and the ethics of local culture, which are considered to be ″spatial reflections of family ethics.″ In comparison, village planning in the process of China's New Rural Construction follows the logic of modernity construction that is based on urban civilization and demonstrates a power pattern of function, wealth and modernization. The primary issue in rural reconstruction is to reconsider who the subjects of reconstruction are among all the stakeholders. It is the villagers who should play a dominant role in the process of reconstructing rural society, because they are building their own hometown and not that of others. The self-awareness among the subjects as well as their behaviour and their values are the dynamic forces that restore rural society. However, the guidance of the government, the participation of both the intellectual elite and village construction experts are also indispensable. The key point is, firstly, to draw up a collaborative action plan among different stakeholders on the premise of respecting the villagers; secondly, in practice, to realize the reconstruction of cultural values and the spatial fabric of the village so as to rebuild a cultural ecological space. Nowadays, the mainstream village planning follows a developmentalist approach and is heavily influenced by the discipline of planning, which prioritizes practice and efficiency. As a result, the cultural ecology and spatial values that once existed in the villages often disappear under the impact of modernization and the market economy. Such ways of village planning have not only brought about standardized new villages but also destabilized traditional villages. The present paper is based on a ten-month ethnographic study of Linggen village in Zhejiang province. Through collection and analysis of local gazetteers, genealogies, notes, and in-depth interviews with villagers, officials from the local government, and village planners, this paper presents a comprehensive historical and cultural investigation of a village which was founded over 700 years ago, and explores its three kinds of village values: first, important historical figures, their former residences and corresponding historical narratives; second, metaphors and narratives of the ecological landscape and the human environment; third, the reinvention of traditional rural life. The case study of Linggen village shows that traditional dwelling spaces were embedded in the natural environment, which, together with the human settlements, led to an organic combination of the natural landscape and the human environment. This kind of arrangement reflects rural traditional culture, which guides a clan on how to choose a location for a residence and on how to expand its settlement, hereby realizing the ideal of living together as a lineage. The innovation of this paper is to interpret how to reproduce the cultural values of the village space in the context of village planning. By interpreting legendary stories of the first settlement, the Liwang Village, the paper connects intangible historical cultural resources with living memories of villagers. Moreover, it gives tangible cultural heritage such as residences, trails, wells, tea pavilions, and stonerollers distinctive spatial meanings with the aim of reproducing cultural spaces. Moreover, the paper critically reflects on today's village tourism. Village tourism in contemporary China often involves fabricated historical stories to mark the historical and cultural value of the tourist destination, but which turns the village space into a ″zoo of human beings,″ in which villagers become mere objects for the tourist gaze. More importantly, this reinvention of so-called historical stories and staged folklore cultures diminishes the aura of village culture, makes village tourism non-sustainable and brings about damage to traditional cultures. In the conclusion, the paper puts forward a practical model for village reconstruction, involving guidance by the local government, the emic perspectives of villagers, and the participation of experts, among which the emic perspective of villagers and their cultural consciousness is the most crucial aspect. The blind spots in the reconstruction of cultural values of villages is the preservation of elements of intangible culture, which are often neglected in preservation due to their specific qualities of being living transmissions, community-based, and practice-based. However, we need to be very cautious not to engage in a form of village reconstruction that is purely done by elites, with villages being considered as a testing field and villagers treated as objects for experiment. This will not only cause accidental social conflicts, but also erase the local character of the village community and lead to non-sustainable development.