Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 162, Humanities Research Group, is now online!

"The earliest appearance of 'Quanxian' should be in Ren Fang's 'Shuyi Ji' from the Southern Liang Dynasty. The original text is 'Jiaoren, also known as Quanxian or Quanke.' This record is too late. Even the name 'Jiaoren' only appeared in the Han Dynasty. Before the Qin Dynasty, there were only records of 'Diren'."

“I don’t agree that ‘Quanxian’ is the same as ‘Quanxian’. I still maintain that the versions we’ve seen are all deliberately translated by that α thing. Who knows if there might be any inaccuracies?”

"Didn't Professor Qiu already decipher part of the text? Hey? Professor Qiu, wake up! Say something, Professor Qiu!"

"Cough cough cough... Ah, yes, yes, some of the texts have been preliminarily verified! Well, our group has discovered that many ancient books collected from chambers of commerce and alliances use characters that are highly similar to certain symbols in oracle bone script, and even most of the variations and evolutions can be explained. So our group is currently using the game's built-in translation function to reverse-decipher the oracle bone script. If the final result is a readable and logical textual record, then both sides can verify each other... Huff... Huff..."

"Oh well, he fell asleep again!"

"Let Professor Qiu get some more sleep. I heard he hasn't had a full night's sleep in a long time. He must be exhausted! Come on, let's continue our discussion!"

"What nonsense! Doesn't this just prove that the Guixu Realm and Blue Star have a close relationship?! It can't be that all the ancient myths and legends were true, and then one day, snap, everything recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas was cleaved into another world, which is why Blue Star is gone, right?"

"As expected of a great writer, his imagination is truly rich; it's not impossible after all!"

"Impossible! The timeline doesn't match up! Our history is only a few years old, while their written language alone spans tens of thousands of years. Oracle bone script is less than four thousand years old, and their more advanced and sophisticated writing system must be at least five thousand years old!"

"Hey, Professor Yuan, we can't use Earth's standards to speculate. What if they really do have some kind of time travel method?"

"To be honest, the various concepts in the Ruins of Return that are reflected in the myths and legends of planting flowers on Blue Star and the records in ancient literary classics appear in a completely chaotic chronological order! There is absolutely no pattern to be found!"

“We can indeed find many concepts corresponding to ‘Xiling Clan’, but the very contradictory point is that the records in the Wuwei Han bamboo slips unearthed in 1957 clearly prove that Xiping County was called ‘Xiling’ before the Han Dynasty. If the ‘Xiling’ in the ancient legends of China refers to the ‘Xiling Clan’ in Guixu, then what is the ‘Xiling’ in the Wuwei Han bamboo slips?”

"The earliest record of the Xiling clan is found in the Shiben. Coincidentally, the original text also mentions Leizu. The ancient character 'Lei' is the same as 'Lei', so Leizu is 'Leizu'."

"It's obvious that this is not a coincidence, but what's puzzling is why the history books of our Blue Star, the Flower Kingdom, record the history of the Guixu Realm?"

"Look on the bright side, isn't this just 'since ancient times'?"

"What kind of historical work is the *Shiben*? It can only be considered a reference!"

"In a broad sense, what records history is called history books!"

"But it is not authoritative and can only be used as a reference!"

"I don't agree with that. If ancient books from the pre-Qin period aren't authoritative, then what is? Even if there are artistic embellishments, they are still the primary reference!"

...The meeting room was filled with heated debate as several researchers of history, paleography, and Chinese mythology argued their points.

It's a little past 8 a.m. Beijing time now. The project team is almost at the last minute urging the members of the cultural research and text deciphering groups to come to a meeting and compile all the content of their conversation with Coral last night, giving everyone a copy.

The project team targeting the Guixu Realm certainly includes not only various science and engineering research groups, but also humanities research groups focusing on history, textual research, and sociology. However, they have not encountered any urgent matters, which is why they seem to be quite relaxed.

This time, diplomacy with the Quanxian people has been given high priority and even urgently listed as the top priority of the entire project team. Only then did the humanities research group finally come online and make its presence felt.

The human cultivators of the Guixu Realm are short-sighted and have little concept of the Quanxian Clan, but the scholars and leadership of the Zhonghua Clan are not stupid—a lineage that has been passed down for tens of thousands of years, has its own language, writing system and social system, and is suspected to have intricate connections with the ancient myths and legends of the Zhonghua Clan. There are too many things behind this!

The simplest question—are merfolk and humans so similar in appearance related? If so, why do merfolk live so long, while humans only live for a few decades? If not, what causes their striking resemblance? Surely there isn't some "God's hand" creating everything behind the scenes?

Just as everyone was chatting away, Aunt Wang, who had been waiting quietly, nudged the only science professor who had been deliberately brought over—the renowned paleoanthropologist and researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Wu, who was sitting calmly like her.

"Academician Wu? What are your thoughts on this?"

"Well……"

Professor Wu was a slow-paced person. He deliberately lowered his voice and said slowly, "I really don't have any ideas. Wang Rabbit, as you know, this is the first time I've ever seen a real mermaid..."

“Oh, how could we not have any ideas! Professor Wu, you're definitely the expert in human biology,” someone overheard Professor Wu’s words and immediately pulled him into the discussion, giving him a thumbs-up as they spoke. They then enthusiastically invited, “We’re all scholars of writing and history, and it’s easy to fall into professional pitfalls, isn’t it? Why don’t you talk about it from your more scientific perspective? For example, do you think the ‘Quanxian Clan’ is related to us humans?”

"Uh...this..."

Professor Wu felt a chill run down his spine upon hearing such a long and flattering statement. He glanced at Aunt Wang, only to see her shrug indifferently and give him a helpless look. He swallowed hard and tried to carefully choose his words, saying, "Well, I'm just a biologist, and I don't know much about these historical myths. But from a biological perspective, I think there's a high probability that the mermaids and humans have a very close relationship."

"First of all, merfolk live on the seabed, and in the deep sea. But what is the environment of the deep sea? Low temperature, no light, and pressure that most animals with air cavities cannot survive. In fact, some organisms have evolved to solve the osmotic pressure problem by regulating the concentration and composition of their body fluids in order to adapt to this environment. These structures are completely different from or even the opposite of those of the human body."

“The merman’s form, just looking at the upper body, has no gills and is likely to breathe with lungs. This kind of physiological structure is almost impossible to have evolved in the natural state and in the underwater environment.”

"Since these are humanoid features that appear in an unnatural state, we must make bold speculations about why this race living in the seabed has not evolved an appearance that is more adapted to the seabed environment, but instead has become more similar to humans."
"Of course, this is just my personal speculation based on my biological understanding, and it may be completely wrong, after all, the Guixu Realm has spiritual energy!"

Continuing from the previous chapter—

The record concerning Wang Shu reads: "Wang Shu led the way, followed by Fei Lian." (from "Li Sao" in the Chu Ci)
Regarding the record of Xian'a: The Huainanzi says: The moon charioteer is called Wangshu, also called Xian'a. (Hong Xingzu (Northern Song Dynasty) added a note to the Li Sao section of the Chu Ci)

Regarding the prototype of the Jinling tribe: There is a country called Dingling, whose people have hair from the waist down, and their horses have hooves and are good at running. (Classic of Mountains and Seas, Classic of the Seas Within)
Records concerning Lei Zu: Lei Zu was the wife of the Yellow Emperor, and they had a son named Changyi. (Classic of Mountains and Seas, Classic of the Seas Within)
Records concerning the Xiling clan: The Yellow Emperor resided at Xuanyuan Hill and married a daughter of the Xiling clan, named Leizu. They had two sons, Qingyang and Changyi. (Shiben, Volume 1, Imperial Lineage) (Note: Oracle bone inscriptions do not contain "Lei," but rather "Lei.")
Other records about places like Qingqiu are already commonplace in cultivation novels, so I won't post them all, since I'm lazy QAQ
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(End of this chapter)