I Studied Abroad in the Modern Times-Chapter 479Book 2: : Two Realms’ Hidden Veins, Returning to Innate

Book 2: Chapter 479: Two Realms' Hidden Veins, Returning to Innate

Vol 2 Chapter 479 Two Realms' Hidden Veins, Returning to Innate

After Zheng Fa welcomed Professor Liu into the back courtyard of the nursing home, Professor Liu sat on a chair, his butt just touching the edge, his back straight as if he were squatting in a horse stance.

Tang Lingwu looked down and sneaked a smile. She gently waved her hand, and a teacup drew a semicircle in the air before landing by Professor Liu’s hand. Tea leaves eagerly poured into the bottom of the cup.

Above the courtyard, a transparent and pure water orb about the size of a fist appeared. The orb fell into the cup, and steam rose from the water surface.

A cup of Wangji Tea was brewed.

Professor Liu watched this scene intently. Even though he was mentally prepared, he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Please have some tea.”

Professor Liu curiously lifted the teacup and took a sip. His entire body seemed stunned, his eyes wide and unfocused, but the corners of his mouth carried a faint, dreamy smile. Instantly, his complexion brightened as if he had grown ten years younger.

“This tea...”

“Every scholar who comes to give guidance is served Wangji Tea,” Zheng Fa said with a smile, “as a token of gratitude.”

This had become a custom over the years.

When learning from others, it was only natural to offer some form of return. Given Zheng Fa’s current status, the experts he invited were all top-tier scholars in academia.

But Zheng Fa had always been respectful, even from the beginning. For example, with Old Man Bai, who was like a teacher to him, he treated him as an elder.

But now, things were different.

His identity had changed, and others found it hard to interact with him as freely as they did with Old Man Bai in the early days.

On the other hand, he truly didn’t have as much time anymore.

The Federation Research Institute was growing rapidly, and the matters he had to handle increased, leaving little time to build such deep relationships with people.

Still, inviting scholars to teach at the institute was something he always maintained. Professor Liu was not the first.

Serving a cup of Wangji Tea was both respect and part of the compensation—

Professor Liu drank this Wangji Tea, and if he continued cultivating in the future, he would enter a period of rapid progress for some time.

Besides, after finishing the tea, he exhaled deeply and finally relaxed from his earlier restraint.

“To be honest with you, Director, the research institute was almost torn apart over who could come here,” Professor Liu sighed, “Those who do this kind of work are used to sitting on cold benches. Who would have thought there could still be such a fairy fate...”

Zheng Fa smiled but didn’t ask how Professor Liu “stood out.” He had seen this kind of thing many times in the modern world.

Simply put, scholars were still human. He had witnessed plenty of petty struggles over the years, just none had reached his level.

Those who made it to his level were all good people.

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

That was one of his greatest blessings.

“I’m curious, Professor Liu, about this ‘Shang-Zhou Transition’ you mentioned. What exactly is it?”

Hearing Zheng Fa’s question, Professor Liu took out a tablet computer from his backpack and lit up the screen, explaining:

“Director, after you sent us those characters, we studied them for a long time and formed a preliminary hypothesis.”

“What hypothesis?”

“These characters might be the origin of oracle bone script.”

Zheng Fa’s spirit lifted: “You just said they were similar? Now they might be oracle bone script?”

“Because characters evolve over time.”

Zheng Fa understood this. Looking at the tablet, he saw the characters he had sent back displayed. His heart surged with excitement. “Explain in detail.”

ŗ₳Νö₿ĚⱾ

Suddenly, he thought of something.

The modern world was triggered by Lu Mo’s explosion.

Nine Luminaries Heaven was also related to Lu Mo. Was there some connection between the two? 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Hence the connection between these characters.

Perhaps this research could also help him enter Nine Luminaries Heaven!

“We researchers of ancient characters have always faced two problems.”

“What problems?”

“First, why is there such a big difference between the Shang dynasty’s oracle bone script and the Zhou dynasty’s inscriptions? Second, why is our language’s writing system so unique among mainstream languages?”

Zheng Fa listened, somewhat confused, and asked, “What exactly do these two problems mean?”

“Director, look.” Professor Liu swiped on the tablet and showed Zheng Fa several pictures, saying, “These are bronze tripods left from the Zhou dynasty. The inscriptions on them are copies of the original text.”

Old Man Bai and the others also came over curiously to look.

“We can recognize almost all these characters. Maybe the language logic and historical details still need investigation, but as for the characters themselves, we almost fully understand them. This doesn’t even require modern research—just a little knowledge of ancient characters.”

Zheng Fa nodded slightly, somewhat moved.

He didn’t know what Professor Liu meant by the uniqueness of Chinese characters, but just the heavy sense of these characters spanning thousands of years was intoxicating.

“But when it comes to oracle bone script,” Professor Liu switched to other pictures, “we can’t necessarily understand them. Director, look. We can decipher these oracle bone characters, but there are others whose meanings remain unknown.”

Zheng Fa looked at the tablet in astonishment. “More than half of them have unknown meanings?”

“About two-thirds. Some new research has emerged, but overall, more than half remain unexplained.”

Professor Liu shook his head: “This is the Shang-Zhou transition in ancient characters. Our characters trace back to the Zhou dynasty and remain consistent, but in the Shang dynasty, they seem to belong to another system.”

“Another system?”

“That brings us back to the characters you gave us, Director.” Professor Liu swiped on the tablet, comparing the runes on the bronze tripod with the oracle bone characters.

Now anyone could see the strong resemblance between the two.

Professor Liu looked at Zheng Fa expectantly and asked, “May I ask, Director, are these patterns related to the Immortal Dao or gods?”

Zheng Fa nodded slightly.

“That matches perfectly!” Professor Liu exclaimed excitedly and clapped his hands.

When he clapped, the tablet fell from between his arms, and Zheng Fa quickly caught it, laughing as he handed it back to Professor Liu. “What matches?”

“This is a scholarly theory I personally support,” Professor Liu said as he took the tablet, “The gist of this theory is that the Shang dynasty’s oracle bone script is not really writing. Or, it’s not just writing.”

“...What do you mean?”

“I’m sure you know, Director, the Shang dynasty was a civilization that highly valued sacrificial rites. They believed their ancestors were gods living among them, able to communicate from time to time. So they held grand ceremonies to communicate with the gods, and shamanism was widespread.”

Professor Liu spoke quickly, clearly very excited: “Therefore, some believe many oracle bone characters are actually symbols shamans used to communicate with ancestors and gods, not for daily communication.”

Tang Mu Dao frowned: “What you’re saying sounds a lot like Taoist talismans... spiritual talismans!?”

“Exactly talismans!” Professor Liu confirmed. “So we think oracle bone script is a system of talismanic symbols, and these patterns you gave us, Director... might be one of the origins of oracle bone script!”

Even Zheng Fa was stunned.

He hadn’t expected Professor Liu to propose such a theory, which seemed to hint at a hidden connection between the two worlds.

“It is academically accepted that many unrecognized oracle bone characters are related to ghosts and gods. We always thought that was just Shang dynasty superstition...”

Professor Liu looked at Zheng Fa, his tone dreamy: “But the patterns you gave us show a second possibility. Either they really saw ghosts and gods, or they inherited these memories from ancestors, passing down this connection.”

“This...” Old Man Bai murmured, “That actually makes sense.”

But Zheng Fa thought of something else. The Shang dynasty claimed to be born of the Mandate of the Mysterious Bird, and Lu Yao’s Demon Emperor body belonged to the Golden Crow clan...

In that case, the modern world and Xuanyi Realm, the modern world and Lu Mo, seem to share a subtle connection he hadn’t realized before.

According to Professor Liu, modern times actually have a talismanic heritage, only it evolved into writing.

This ancient talisman system developed differently in the two worlds—

In the Xuanyi Realm, its descendants are more like spiritual talismans.

In the modern world, it became writing.

Professor Liu continued, “But for some reason, these talismanic characters lost their great power, and the Shang dynasty perished.”

“The Zhou dynasty was a completely different era. They respected ghosts and gods but kept their distance, no longer holding the same kind of sacrifices as the Shang.”

Professor Liu pointed again to the inscriptions on the tablet and sighed: “Or rather, they moved towards humanism.”

Zheng Fa understood: “This is the Shang-Zhou transition you mentioned.”

“Yes. Although the Zhou inherited oracle bone script, they didn’t believe in Shang ghosts and gods, so they discarded the characters related to gods and sacrifices. Based on other oracle bone characters, they created their own usage, which became the true origin of our language.”

“That’s why, looking back at oracle bone script, we find so many unknown or incomprehensible characters.”

“And the patterns you brought out, Director, might actually be closer to the earliest oracle bone script.”

“Of course, due to limited evidence, this is just a plausible hypothesis.”

Zheng Fa nodded lightly. He knew this might not be completely accurate but explained many of his doubts.

“Actually, what I said about the uniqueness of our characters also finds some explanation here.”

Everyone looked over.

“In mainstream languages, our writing is a rare non-phonetic system. You could say the core of our characters hasn’t changed much over thousands of years.”

Professor Liu began: “There is some debate about this, but one view relates it to oracle bone script.”

“How so?”

Old Man Bai asked with interest.

“One theory suggests that although the Zhou did not discuss ghosts and gods, they still regarded characters as sacred. This gave rise to reverence for writing. Because these characters were sacred, they resisted historical change. In fact, our history is built upon writing.”

At this point, Professor Liu smiled self-deprecatingly and whispered, “Am I talking too much?”

Everyone laughed. They had seen many scholars who became talkative when discussing their favorite topics.

Besides, this topic genuinely interested them—especially Zheng Fa, who was constantly thinking about the connection between the modern world, Lu Mo, and even Nine Luminaries Heaven.

Professor Liu changed the topic: “If we regard these patterns as the origin of oracle bone script, we can use modern research achievements to decode them.”

Zheng Fa’s heart leapt, and he asked: “Have you decoded them?”

“Not completely.”

Professor Liu tapped the tablet twice and demonstrated: “Some characters we can infer simply.”

“For example, this is the ‘Heaven’ character in inscriptions, this is ‘Heaven’ in oracle bone script, and this... should be ‘Heaven’ in these runes.”

Though the shapes and strokes differed, careful observation revealed similar roots.

“But some characters we still don’t understand.” Professor Liu pointed to many runes on the tablet. “These characters disappeared in Zhou inscriptions and are absent even in oracle bone script, so we have no way to speculate their meanings.”

“Does that mean we can’t infer their meanings at all?”

“No, we just need more data.” Professor Liu looked at Zheng Fa and nodded. “For example, the sacrificial text you gave us had many unknown characters, but since we know it’s about sacrifice and can compare with other characters, we roughly understand its meaning and infer some characters’ significance.”

“With more material, this writing system has hope of being deciphered.”

Professor Liu spoke with confident certainty.

Seeing Zheng Fa silent, he hurriedly added: “Actually, we already have some fairly certain results.”

“Oh?”

“We’ve figured out a small portion of the inscriptions on that bronze tripod.”

Bronze tripod?

Zheng Fa certainly remembered this treasure. It was taken from the Gu God. The Gu God regarded it as a lifeline, but after the Jiushan Sect’s surprise attack, he reluctantly lost it.

Because of this bronze tripod, the Jiushan Sect noticed the existence of this ancient writing.

“The front of the tripod, here.” Professor Liu found a photo of the bronze tripod on the tablet and pointed to its body. “There are two very large patterns.”

Zheng Fa and the others looked carefully and indeed saw two conspicuous runes.

“This one should be a variant of the ‘Heaven’ character just shown.”

Zheng Fa pondered for a moment and realized the pattern was indeed very similar to the ‘Heaven’ character.

“This character...” Professor Liu pointed to the second pattern and said, “In our research, it roughly means looking at the earth, king’s land, or something similar.”

Old Man Bai murmured, “Heaven... Earth... Heaven and Earth Tripod?”

“It’s Qian Kun!” Tang Mu Dao exclaimed, “Qian Kun Tripod!”

Everyone was stunned and looked at Professor Liu, who nodded: “We also think it likely means Qian Kun Tripod.”

“The other characters on this bronze tripod we can barely recognize, but overall, it should be some instructions on using the Qian Kun Tripod.”

Old Man Bai interrupted: “An instruction manual?”

“You could say that. But the most interesting part is the last sentence.” Professor Liu pointed to one of the tripod’s feet, where a string of runes was carved from top to bottom.

“What does it mean?”

“According to our preliminary understanding, the general meaning of these characters should be... returning to innate.”