The Three-Body Problem: The Most Competent Wallfacer of All Time

Chapter 146 Gene Shackles
Pei Yunqi talked eloquently: "I mainly study hieroglyphics, which is the earliest writing form of human beings. Today, our nation is the only country that has preserved the inheritance of pictographs.

"However, due to the influence of the general environment, our Chinese characters are also developing in the direction of 'phonetic'.

"The task of those of us who study ancient Chinese characters is to take advantage of the role of 'expression' in characters, and try to leave as many relevant documents as possible for future generations.

"In order not to be like the Egyptians and Middle Easterners who don't even know the script of their ancestors."

Jiang Yu listened carefully, and Pei Yunqi spoke more vigorously: "The first batch of characters in all human civilizations are pictographic.

"And the ancients in the Aegean Sea were doing business everywhere, and there were obvious differences in the writing and language of different places at that time.

"In order to facilitate communication, Westerners have unified the pronunciation of characters in the form of letters.

"Although the Mediterranean Sea is connected to the ocean, there are almost no strong winds and waves because it is inland, and there are many islands, and other islands can be seen almost as far as the eye can see.

"In this way, people who go to sea will not get lost, and a small boat can cross the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, since ancient times, there have been frequent exchanges between civilizations, and the 'phonetic' text has spread rapidly."

Speaking of this, Pei Yunqi grinned: "But when it comes to the orthodoxy of writing, it has to be our pictographs.

"There is a description of the ancient man-made characters in the "Book of Changes": Take the body from the near, and take the things from the far away.

"It means that there are two sources of ancient man-made characters, one is the observation of people themselves, and the other is the general symbols drawn from the observation of various things.

"So in ancient hieroglyphics, a character generally expresses the meaning of a word or a sentence.

"The current Chinese characters have been simplified for the convenience of writing, but most of the Chinese characters can still directly see the original meaning expressed by the ancients.

"Just like the word 'Tai', it has two meanings: comfortable and tall."

Pei Yunqi took out a pen and a small notebook from his pocket, and wrote the character "Tai" in the notebook: "The upper part of this character is a 'three' and a 'person'.

"The 'three' is simplified, and the ancient characters draw beards.

"The upper part of the character 'Thai' depicts a bearded person, that is, a man.

"And the bottom half is a piece of water, not a man standing on the water, but a man peeing!

"Of course the feeling of holding back the urine is very uncomfortable. After peeing, I feel comfortable, so 'Tai' means calm and comfortable."

Jiang Yu smiled, but he didn't expect the hieroglyphs to express such a straightforward meaning.

Pei Yunqi continued: "The other meaning of 'Tai' is tall. In ancient times, there was no difference between Chinese, Americans, and Europeans, only the difference between men and women.

"The two are about the same height in normal times. Only when peeing, the man is taller than the woman, so 'Tai', which means a man peeing, has the meaning of tall."

Jiang Yu smiled and said, "I didn't expect this subject to be so down-to-earth."

Pei Yunqi adjusted his glasses: "Words are actually the ancient people's summary and induction of some underlying logic, which originally came from daily life."

Jiang Yu asked: "What do you think the characters of the Trisolarans will look like?"

Pei Yunqi shook his head: "I don't know, our words and the pronunciation of words are inseparable from the organs of human beings to receive and express information.

"Writing is the transmission of an idea from vision to vision, and language is the transmission from sound to hearing.

"We don't even know what the communication organs of the Trisolarans are, and it's hard to have a clear idea of ​​their writing."

Jiang Yu then asked again: "If, I mean if, the style of the three-body star is also pictographic, can we decipher it?"

Pei Yunqi shook his head again: "Although the artistic conception of hieroglyphs is profound, they can only be used on the earth, and they are very regional.

"Let me give another example, such as the word 'bei'."

He wrote "North" in his little notebook again: "This character describes the scene of two people back to back, and the shorter one also represents the shadow.

"Because the Chinese civilization is in the northern hemisphere, the sun shines from the equator, and the shadow always faces north, so this word means north.

"If it is a civilization in the southern hemisphere, it may be understood as 'South'.

"So what if we assume that it is an extraterrestrial civilization without a shadow? How do they understand this text?"

Jiang Yu looked at the "North" written by Pei Yunqi in a daze for a long time before saying: "I have a top-secret plan here, and I would like to invite you to participate.

"But the level of secrecy of this project is higher than that of the 'Black Square' research team. No one will know your contribution, but it can smash a conspiracy of the Trisolarans and ETO."

Pei Yunqi thought for a while and said, "I am willing to participate."

"You can think about it, don't rush to agree."

Pei Yunqi shook his head: "The battle for human survival is above all else, and I am obliged to do so."

Jiang Yu was somewhat moved: "Thank you for your trust in me."

At this moment, Jiang Yu felt as if he had returned to the era when everyone was united as one, and everyone's dedication was obligatory.

After a night of nothing, Jiang Yu bid farewell to Professor Jiang and Pei Yunqi early the next morning.

The transfer order to Pei Yunqi will not come until a few days later.

Back at the camp, Jiang Yu asked Wu Zheng to settle in 36, and he went to the "Super Soldier" laboratory not far away.

There are barbed wire fences on the courtyard walls of the laboratory, and there are sentries with live ammunition at the door, which has a higher security level than the "Black Fang" research team.

Although the two confidential units are very close to each other, they never communicate with each other.

Even if it was Jiang Yu's car, the guards had to stop him to check his ID, and he called Bai Xiangdong to confirm the purpose of Jiang Yu's visit.

Bai Xiangdong and several researchers greeted Jiang Yu in the yard. The two chatted briefly before entering the laboratory building together.

Bai Xiangdong is darker than five years ago, and his skin is much rougher, but his spirit is much stronger than five years ago.

Entering the laboratory building, Bai Xiangdong reported: "Our first experiment was not very successful. Originally, we hoped to use hormones, radiation and other means to stimulate genes to produce emergency responses.

"But the shackles of genes are stronger than we imagined, and with the current means, there is no way to break through this shackles.

"This is Experiment No. [-], please look!"

In front of an iron gate was a space the size of a basketball court. There was a three-meter-tall giant walking slowly and awkwardly under the guidance of two researchers.

But after only taking two steps, he fell to the ground.

Bai Xiangdong introduced: "Experiment No. [-] is four years old this year, and his height is expected to reach about six meters.

"But he has a serious heart and lung disease. It's hard to say whether he can live to grow to six meters!"

　Huh, I didn't expect to catch up with the normal update time. I only changed it once. There may be typos. I will change it again in the afternoon.

　　Ask for a monthly ticket, ask for a recommendation ticket.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)