Chapter 279: Cross-Temporal Language: Decoding Ancient Texts

Zhao Yang's fingers hovered over the keyboard for a few seconds; the oracle bone scan on the screen was still turning. He had just woken from a strange dream full of twisted, crooked symbols, as if someone had scratched them into the ground with a fire stick. But those symbols were now appearing one by one in the system's decoding area.

He rubbed his eyes, didn't go for the water cup on the desk, and clicked Run directly.

The language system had just been debugged last night; he originally wanted to see if it could translate some ancient recipes, but this morning the archaeology team sent over newly excavated fragment data. They said it was from the mid-Shang dynasty, the characters were blurry, and experts had stared at it for three days without making sense of it.

The screen flickered, and the progress bar began to move.

Zhao Yang leaned back in his chair, staring at the small window in the lower‑right corner. That was the system's status bar, usually dull gray, but today it glowed with a faint golden light. He ignored it, his mind still replaying the dream—someone standing among a pile of stones, holding a glowing plate, murmuring, "Six lines determine the mechanism, three fires form the array."

It sounded less like fortune‑telling and more like a boot password.

"Ding!" the first line of translation popped out.

"The creation of all things through heavenly craft, refining metal with fire—its principle lies within the six lines…… capable of encompassing all transformations."

Zhao Yang sat up straight. The wording was vague, but "six lines" are yin‑yang combinations, two states flipping back and forth, somewhat like binary. He dragged the whole passage into the deep‑analysis module, and added a parameter: using the ancient audio frequency recorded when restoring the Along the River During the Qingming Festival for calibration.

This was just a casual try. That tune was originally used to test audio resonance, but he didn't expect the system to actually accept it.

The interface suddenly jolted; the entire oracle bone diagram was disassembled and reassembled into a three‑dimensional structure. The characters began to arrange themselves automatically, as if being pushed by a hand. Lines of translation popped out one after another, finally settling on a single sentence:

"This is a structural diagram of the 'Ling Shu Machine' drawn by Shang dynasty artisans—that is, what later generations call a quantum computing prototype."

Zhao Yang remained silent, his finger slowly moving to the Enter key, then lifting again.

He knew he should call someone, but his throat felt locked. This wasn't the first time he'd seen something strange, but this time was different. Before, it was the machine malfunctioning; now, it was history itself that had gone wrong.

Footsteps came from outside, then the door was pushed open.

It was the archaeologist he'd seen yesterday, hair neatly combed, lenses thick as bottle bottoms. Behind him followed two assistants holding rubbings and a notebook.

"How is it?" the old man stood before the screen, voice steady, "Can your system recognize any characters?"

Zhao Yang didn't move; he just turned the screen toward him.

The old man lowered his gaze, his brows immediately knitting. He leaned in, his nose almost touching the display.

"Who changed this?" he asked, lifting his head. "The original text isn't like this at all! There's clearly a 'rain' character here—how did you translate it as 'energy loop'? And this, the shape resembles ox horns, traditionally interpreted as a ritual vessel—how can it be a circuit node?"

Zhao Yang pointed to the waveform diagram in the corner, "Look at this frequency—does it match the depth rhythm of the oracle bone grooves? We compared 372 sample sets, with an error under 0.03 percent."

The old man said nothing, bent over to flip through the rubbings he'd brought. He muttered while his fingers traced back and forth on the paper. Suddenly, his motion stopped.

"This symbol…" his voice dropped, "we've seen it on another oracle bone before; we thought it was just a crack…"

Zhao Yang nodded, "It appears seven times, each at a crucial junction. We've defined it as the 'switch symbol,' functioning like a transistor."

"Absurd!" the old man snapped his head up, "What would people three thousand years ago know about transistors? They could barely smelt copper!"

He finished, his face flushing red, his breathing ragged. The assistant beside him hurried to steady his arm.

"Professor, please calm down…"

The old man waved a hand, still wanting to speak, but he opened his mouth a few times, his gaze went blank, and the next second he collapsed.

The two assistants panicked, one shouting for help while they laid him flat on the ground. Someone felt his neck, saying his pulse was still there—he'd just fainted.

The laboratory doorway instantly filled with people—archaeology team members and duty technicians. Everyone talked over each other, the noise unbearable.

Some said to shut down the system, blaming a computer error for misleading the expert; others urged to seal the data immediately, preventing any leak; still others whispered, wondering if this kid had secretly altered the program to fabricate a scare.

Zhao Yang ignored them, remaining seated in his chair.

The screen still glowed with the phrase "quantum computing prototype," below which was attached a reconstruction: a bronze plate etched with fine lines, a hexagonal recess at its center, surrounded by strange symbols. It looked less like an antique and more like a motherboard.

He reached out to tap that image, wanting to zoom in on the details.

The instant his fingertip touched the screen, the status bar in the lower‑right corner flashed gold, and a line of text popped up:

"【Detected a major blind spot in human civilization's history, successfully decoded trans‑era knowledge remnants, reward: 【Ancient Technology Specialty】】"

The characters appeared and vanished instantly, but Zhao Yang felt something extra in his head. Not a memory, not knowledge, more like a sensation—he now knew how to read these characters as naturally as breathing.

He closed his eyes, then opened them; his vision had shifted. The formerly chaotic scratches now appeared as clear pathways to him. Every groove's direction, depth, and start‑and‑end points carried information.

This wasn't writing; it was a schematic.

He suddenly recalled what Zhao Chen had said: "What we dream of might not be the future, but the past."

The people outside were still arguing, some suggesting to pull the power plug, others insisting on waiting for superior orders. Zhao Yang neither moved nor explained. He knew they wouldn't accept this anytime soon, just as no one once believed earthquakes could be predicted in advance.

He simply placed his hands back on the keyboard, created a new document, and titled it in three characters: "Ling Shu Machine".

Then he began to write.

The first line read: "The earliest known non‑electronic logic device yet discovered, which achieves state changes via metallic stress variation, operating on the principle of……"

He wrote slowly, using as simple wording as possible. He knew someone would surely come to scrutinize this later, and that many would object. He didn't expect to convince everyone at once, but he needed to leave something behind.

At least to let those who come after him take fewer detours.

The surveillance probe in the corner twitched slightly.

That spot originally held a regular camera, replaced just last week. Nobody noticed that the new probe had an extra tiny hole, hidden beneath its black housing.

Right now, the lens was pointed at Zhao Yang's occiput, silently recording. Inside, the crystal rapidly compressed the data, preparing to transmit.

A low whisper came from deep within the equipment, voice extremely faint, almost inaudible:

"They have already begun awakening the slumbering technology…… these ought not to appear now."

When the words faded, the probe's tiny hole retracted, the surface smoothing back as if nothing had moved.

Zhao Yang typed a few characters, then suddenly stopped.

He turned his head to glance at the corner, his brows slightly furrowed.

There was nothing there except the probe hanging quietly.

He gave it no further thought, turned back, and kept typing.

The document was already half a page long; he was about to draw a schematic when the door was pushed open again.

This time a young researcher entered, face pale, clutching a sheet of paper.

"Zhao Yang!" his voice trembled, "Just got the news—over at Xu Da Mao's warehouse…… his robot started up on its own this morning. It's been drawing a bunch of symbols on the floor, identical to the oracle bone script you all decoded…"