Xiuxian: I studied abroad in modern times

Chapter 572 Hidden Meridians of Two Realms, Returning to the Primordial State

Zheng Fa welcomed Professor Liu into the backyard of the nursing home. Professor Liu sat on a chair with his buttocks only touching the edge of the chair, his back straight, as if he were squatting in a horse stance.

Tang Lingwu lowered her head and chuckled to herself. With a gentle wave of her hand, a teacup drew a semicircle in the air and landed beside Professor Liu. The tea leaves rushed into the bottom of the cup.

A transparent, pure water sphere, about the size of a fist, appeared in the sky above the courtyard. The water sphere fell into the cup, and steam rose from the surface of the water.

A cup of Forget-Me-Not Tea is ready.

Professor Liu watched this scene intently, even though he was somewhat prepared.

"Tea, please."

Professor Liu curiously picked up the teacup, took a sip, and seemed completely stunned. His eyes were wide open, but a dazed smile played on his lips. In an instant, he looked radiant and appeared to have become ten years younger.

“This tea…”

“We offer ‘Forget-Me-Not Tea’ to every scholar who comes to provide guidance, as a token of our gratitude,” Zheng Fa said with a smile.

This is a rule that has been established over the years.

Learning from others naturally requires giving back, and given Zheng Fa's current status, he has invited only the top experts in the academic world.

Zheng Fa has always shown more respect to them, and has always done so. For example, he regards Old Man Bai and Teacher Tian as his elders.

But not anymore.

Because of his different status, it's difficult for others to get along with him as easily as they did with the old man in his early days.

On the other hand, he really didn't have that much time left.

As the Confederation Research Institute grew larger, he had more and more things to deal with, making it difficult for him to have time to build such deep relationships with people.

But he has always been inviting scholars to teach at the institute; Professor Liu is not the first.

Offering a cup of "Forget-Me-Not Tea" is both a sign of respect and part of the reward.

Professor Liu, after drinking this Forget-Me-Not Tea, will experience a period of rapid progress in his cultivation if he continues to practice in the future.

Besides, after finishing a cup of tea, he let out a long sigh of relief, finally no longer feeling restrained.

"To be honest, Dean, the research institute practically fought tooth and nail to get people here," Professor Liu exclaimed. "Those of us who work in this field are used to sitting on the sidelines, who knew we'd have such a stroke of luck..."

Zheng Fa smiled and didn't ask how Professor Liu "stood out"—he'd seen this kind of thing all the time in modern times.

To put it bluntly, academics are human too, and he's seen plenty of underhanded dealings among them over the years, but they just don't come to his attention.

Those who come to him are all good people.

Fortunately, the mentors he met when he first arrived in the modern world were indeed trustworthy.

This is one of his greatest strokes of luck.

"Professor Liu, what exactly is this Shang-Zhou transition you're referring to?"

Upon hearing Zheng Fa's question, Professor Liu took out a tablet computer from his backpack, turned on the screen, and explained:
"After you sent us those texts, Dean, we studied them for a long time before we came up with a preliminary hypothesis."

"What hypothesis?"

"These characters may be the origin of oracle bone script."

Zheng Fa perked up: "You just said they looked similar? How come it's oracle bone script again?"

"Because words are subject to change."

Zheng Fa understood immediately. He looked at the tablet and saw that it was full of text and images that he had sent back. He was excited and said, "Tell me in detail."

He suddenly thought of something.

The modern world was born from Lu Yao.

The Nine Luminaries Heaven is also related to Lu Yao. Is there any connection between the two?
Therefore, this connection between the characters exists.

This research might also be beneficial for him to enter the Nine Luminaries Heaven!
"We who study ancient scripts have always had two questions."

"what is the problem?"

"First, why is there such a big difference between the oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty and the inscriptions of the Zhou Dynasty? Second, why is our script so unique among mainstream languages?"

Zheng Fa was confused and asked, "What exactly do these two questions mean?"

"Dean, look." Professor Liu swiped on the tablet and showed Zheng Fa a few pictures, saying, "This is a bronze ding (a type of ancient Chinese cooking vessel) left from the Zhou Dynasty. There are inscriptions on the ding, and this is a photocopy of the inscriptions."

Old Man Bai and the others also came over, looking on curiously.

“We can recognize almost all of these characters. Perhaps the linguistic logic and historical details still need to be investigated, but we can understand the characters almost completely. This doesn’t even require modern research; all you need is a basic understanding of ancient writing.”

Zheng Fa nodded slightly, feeling a sense of感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a complex emotion encompassing both admiration and reflection).

He didn't know what Professor Liu meant by the special nature of Chinese characters, but the profound sense of history this script has spanned thousands of years was captivating.

“But when it comes to oracle bone script,” Professor Liu showed a few more pictures, “we might not be able to understand it. Dean, you see, we can decipher these oracle bone characters, but we still don’t know what those other characters represent.”

Zheng Fa looked at the tablet and said in surprise, "You don't know what most of them mean?"

"About two-thirds, perhaps some new research, but overall it's still more than half."

Professor Liu shook his head and said, "This is the change in ancient writing between the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Our writing system is still consistent with the Zhou dynasty, but it seems to have entered a completely different system in the Shang dynasty."

"system?"

"This brings us back to the patterns the dean gave us." Professor Liu swiped his hand across the tablet, comparing the runes on the bronze tripod with the oracle bone script.

Now, anyone can see that the two are indeed very similar.

Professor Liu looked at Zheng Fa and asked expectantly, "May I ask, Dean, are these patterns of yours related to immortals and deities?"

Zheng Fa nodded slightly.

"That matches up!" Professor Liu clapped his hands excitedly.

With a clap of his hands, the tablet fell from his arms. Zheng Fa caught it, smiled, and handed it to Professor Liu, asking, "What matches?"

“This is an academic viewpoint that I have always supported,” Professor Liu said, taking the tablet with a slight embarrassment. “The general idea is that the oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty is not writing. Or, it is not just writing.”

"……What's the meaning."

"As you, Dean, probably know, the Shang Dynasty was a civilization that placed great emphasis on sacrifices. They believed that their ancestors were gods who lived with them and could communicate with them from time to time. Therefore, they would hold grand ceremonies to communicate with the gods, and witchcraft was prevalent."

Professor Liu said quickly, still sounding excited: "So some people believe that many of these oracle bone inscriptions are actually symbols used by shamans to communicate with ancestors and gods, and are not used for daily communication at all."

Tang Mudao frowned and said, "Now that you mention it, it sounds a lot like Taoist talismans... spirit talismans!?"

"It's talismanic script!" Professor Liu affirmed. "Therefore, we believe that oracle bone script is a talismanic system, and these patterns that the dean gave us may... be one of the sources of oracle bone script!" Even Zheng Fa was stunned.

He hadn't expected Professor Liu to propose such a theory, which seemed to subtly reveal the connection between the two worlds.

"It is generally accepted in academia that many of the undeciphered characters in oracle bone inscriptions are related to ghosts and gods. We have always believed that this is the fantasy of the Shang Dynasty people..."

Professor Liu looked at Zheng Fa, his tone dazed: "But the runes the dean gave us show a second possibility. Either they really saw ghosts and gods, or they heard this connection from their ancestors. It's a memory passed down in their lineage."

"This..." the old man said in a daze, "This actually makes sense."

Zheng Fa suddenly remembered something else: the Shang Dynasty claimed to have been born from the Heavenly Mandate of the Black Bird, and Lu Yao's demon emperor body was from the Golden Crow clan...

So it seems that there has always been a subtle connection between the modern world and Xuanwei, and between the modern world and Lu Yao, but he was completely unaware of it before.

According to Professor Liu, the tradition of talismans still exists in modern times, only it has evolved into written form.

This ancient runic system developed differently in the two worlds—

In the Xuanwei Realm, its descendants are mostly spirit talismans.

In modern times, however, it has become written language.

Professor Liu continued, "But for some reason, these runes lost their power, and the Shang Dynasty also perished."

"The Zhou Dynasty was a completely different era. They respected ghosts and gods but kept them at a distance, and no longer held various sacrifices like the Shang Dynasty."

Professor Liu tapped the inscription on the tablet again and sighed, "Or rather, it has moved towards humanism."

Zheng Fa understood: "This is the Shang-Zhou transition you were talking about."

"Yes, although the Zhou people also inherited and learned the oracle bone script, they did not believe in the gods and spirits of the Shang Dynasty. So they discarded the characters related to gods and sacrifices, and created their own writing system based on another part of the oracle bone script. This is what truly formed the source of our language."

"That's why, when we look back at oracle bone script, there are so many parts that we don't recognize or understand."

"And the runes you brought out, Dean, may actually be closer to the earliest oracle bone script."

"Of course, because there is too little evidence, this is only a relatively likely hypothesis."

Zheng Fa nodded slightly. He knew, of course, that this statement might not be entirely accurate, but it did explain many of his doubts.

"Actually, the unique characteristics of our writing system that I just mentioned have been somewhat explained in this issue."

Everyone couldn't help but look over.

"Among mainstream languages, the script we use is one of the few non-phonetic scripts. In fact, it can be said that the core of our script has not changed much over thousands of years."

Professor Liu began, "There is some controversy surrounding this issue, but there is actually a theory that is somewhat related to oracle bone script."

"How to say?"

The old man asked with interest.

"One view holds that although the Zhou people did not talk about ghosts and gods, they still considered writing to be sacred. This led to a reverence for writing. Because these characters were sacred, they were able to resist history and change. It can even be said that our history is built on writing."

At this point, Professor Liu chuckled to himself and said in a low voice, "Did I... talk too much?"

Everyone laughed. They had seen plenty of scholars like this who would talk endlessly about things that interested them.

Moreover, they were indeed interested in this topic—especially Zheng Fa, who had been thinking about the relationship between Xiandai and Lu Yao, and even the relationship with Jiu Yaotian.

Professor Liu changed the subject and said, "If we consider these patterns as the origin of oracle bone script, we can use some of our current research findings to interpret them."

Zheng Fa was overjoyed and asked, "Have you figured it out?"

"Not completely yet."

Professor Liu tapped the tablet twice more, demonstrating to Zheng Fa and the others: "We can easily deduce the meaning of some characters."

"For example, this is the 'heaven' in inscription, this is the 'heaven' in oracle bone script, and this... should be the 'heaven' in runes."

Although the characters on the tablet are different in shape and stroke, you can indeed see similar patterns if you look closely.

“But there are some characters that we still don’t know.” Professor Liu pointed to many runes on the tablet. “These characters had already disappeared from the Zhou Dynasty inscriptions, and some of them did not even exist in the oracle bone inscriptions. Therefore, we have no way of guessing what they mean.”

"So, there's no way to deduce their meaning?"

“No, we just need more information.” Professor Liu looked at Zheng Fa and nodded. “For example, the eulogy you gave us before, Dean. Although there are many words we don’t recognize, we know they are about a sacrifice. By comparing it with other texts, we can roughly understand the meaning of the text and deduce the meaning of some words.”

"As long as there is more material, there is hope of deciphering this script."

Professor Liu's tone conveyed a strong sense of confidence.

Seeing that Zheng Fa did not speak, Professor Liu quickly added, "Actually, we have already achieved some very certain results."

"Ok?"

"We've figured out about half of the inscription on that bronze tripod."

Bronze tripod?
Zheng Fa certainly remembered this treasure. It was taken from the Gu God. The Gu God had once regarded this thing as his lifeline, but was ambushed by the Nine Mountains Sect and had no choice but to give it up.

It was precisely because of this bronze cauldron that the Nine Mountains Sect noticed the existence of this ancient script.

"The front of this cauldron, here," Professor Liu said, pointing to a photo of the bronze cauldron on his tablet. "There are two very large patterns on the cauldron."

Upon closer inspection, Zheng Fa and the others indeed found two very conspicuous runes.

"This one should be an alternate form of the character '天' from earlier."

Zheng Fa pondered for a while before realizing that the pattern was indeed very similar to the character "天" (tian, meaning sky) from before.

“This character…” Professor Liu said, pointing to the second pattern, “In our research, it probably represents something like earth or soil.”

The old man murmured, "Heaven...Earth...Heaven and Earth Cauldron?"

"It's the Qiankun Cauldron!" Tang Mudao exclaimed in surprise.

Everyone was stunned and looked at Professor Liu, who nodded and said, "We also thought it might be the meaning of the Qiankun Cauldron."

"...We can't make out many of the other characters on this bronze cauldron, but generally speaking, they should be some steps for using the Qiankun Cauldron."

The old man interjected, "Instruction manual?"

"You could say that, but the most interesting part is this last sentence." Professor Liu pointed to one of the legs of the bronze cauldron, next to which a string of runes was engraved from top to bottom.

"What does it mean?"

"According to our initial understanding, the general meaning of these words should be... returning to the original state."

(End of this chapter)