Chapter 602: The Method of Creating Characters

Xuanyuan took Baifeng's Jiyin and looked at it; it was indeed crafted with great exquisite detail. The dragon-shaped beast knob that Baifeng had designed himself, the wax mold carefully carved by the Artisan, then cast using the gold Shila method, and finally carved stroke by stroke by Baifeng—no matter how one looked at it, it was clearly of immense value.

Xuanyuan first asked Baifeng: "What kind of wild beast is this on top? Why have I never seen it before? Is it unique to your Huaxia?"

Baifeng explained: "This is a dragon, the totem of our Huaxia. It is a divine beast, a deity that governs thunder, rain, and dew, and is capable of summoning wind and rain."

Xuanyuan did not refute Baifeng's description of the dragon; after all, making negative comments or insulting the totem of another tribe was no different from declaring war.

Xuanyuan turned the seal over and saw the characters Baifeng had mentioned. He stared at them for a long time but could not make out what they were, so he handed them to Cangjie to see if he could recognize them. Cangjie also looked for quite a while before shaking his head and sighing.

Baifeng explained: "These are reverse characters, meaning they are written backwards. Only after being stamped will they appear correctly. What is carved on top are the four characters: Seal of Baifeng."

After everyone in the Xuanyuan Tribe had taken a look, they nodded repeatedly, agreeing that it was indeed a good object, and then returned it to Baifeng.

Xuanyuan said: "We do not have this seal. Besides signing, is there any better way?"

Baifeng held up his thumb: "A thumbprint. Using a thumbprint is the same. Every person's thumbprint is completely different and will never be repeated, so a thumbprint can also represent a person's identity."

Xuanyuan looked at his own thumb, then pulled over the hand of Count Qibo. They compared them and found they were indeed different. Then they compared them with Zhishou, and they were also different. The people of the entire Xuanyuan Tribe compared theirs with one another and did not find a single duplicate, which was when they finally believed what Baifeng had said; they had never paid attention to this before.

Since the method of signing was determined, Xuanyuan wanted to have Baifeng prepare to write the contract, as he felt they had chatted enough; it was just a matter of discussing the detailed conditions of the previous matters.

Baifeng, however, waved his hands repeatedly: "No, I think we have more areas where we can cooperate with each other."

Xuanyuan's expression turned serious: "Oh? What else can we cooperate on?"

Xuanyuan first pointed at Cangjie and said: "Cangjie is the only person in your Xuanyuan Tribe who knows how to write, right?"

Xuanyuan nodded helplessly, because Cangjie's characters were not yet fully perfected, as there were still many limitations. It was possible that after a character was created, Cangjie himself would forget it again.

Baifeng said: "I can provide Cangjie with enough paper, brushes, and ink so that he can record the characters he creates one by one. It would be best to also record why the characters are written that way. In this way, the characters can be fully disseminated and will not be forgotten again."

Cangjie appeared somewhat excited, as this was too important to him. However, Xuanyuan remained curious: "But what do you need? Your characters are already perfected, and everyone knows how to write them, aren't they?"

Baifeng shook his head and said with a slightly sorrowful tone: "No, our characters are not perfected. I can only say that the commonly used characters have already appeared, but there are far more than three thousand characters; characters should be measured in the tens of thousands.

However, we are stuck at the stage of creating characters. The characters we use are all ready-made; we don't know how to create them. You can understand it as, uh, we have a Boat, but we don't even know how to split the wooden planks, so we can only use those few boats and cannot build more. But you know how to make wooden planks; although you can only build small boats now, building larger boats is just a matter of time.

Therefore, I want to help you record and promote characters, and at the same time learn how to create them. This has another benefit: both sides will have people who recognize each other's characters, so there will be no errors in communication through writing in the future. Later, if you have messages to send to us, you only need to write them on paper; there is no need for a person to come in person, just hand it to a Soldier specifically tasked with delivering messages."

These words from Baifeng gave Xuanyuan a sudden enlightenment. He had previously only thought of using characters to record events, but now he realized that characters could also be used to transmit messages.

Xuanyuan wanted to finalize this matter immediately. Although Baifeng's example just now seemed to be pointing at their Xuanyuan Tribe, in fact, he could have explained it clearly without using the boat analogy.

Xuanyuan first asked for Cangjie's opinion: "What do you think? Are you willing to teach your method of creating characters to others?"

Cangjie immediately nodded in agreement: "I create characters to record everything, but now that only I recognize them and only I know how to write them, it seems to be of little use. But as long as they are disseminated, the characters I create will have meaning."

Since Cangjie agreed, Xuanyuan also made a decision immediately: "Good, no problem, let's do as you say. However, how do you plan to arrange the people? You aren't planning to keep Cangjie in your Huaxia, are you?"

Baifeng smiled and waved his hands: "That is not necessary. I think the characters Cangjie creates must be carved on stone walls; after all, without anything to record them on, stone is the most suitable."

The people of the Xuanyuan Tribe did not refute this; Baifeng had guessed correctly.

"Since that is the case, it requires our people to go to your Xuanyuan Tribe. First, work with Cangjie to write down the characters he has created on paper one by one, and then use both your characters and our characters to annotate them—that is to say, what this character is, how it came to be, and what its meaning is.

After all the characters are compiled, let the people of your Xuanyuan Tribe learn them. Only after everyone has learned them can the function of the characters be realized. And it's not just learning the characters of your Xuanyuan Tribe; someone must also learn the characters of our Huaxia. Our Huaxia people must learn your characters while learning the method of creating characters, so that the communication between our two tribes can be without obstacles."

Xuanyuan asked Baifeng again: "Shall we follow the Embassy method you proposed?"

Baifeng nodded: "That works too. However, I am willing to build a better house for Cangjie and the others to store the recorded characters. You also know that paper is very fragile; it turns to ash when burned, becomes a lump when soaked in water, and mice will gnaw on it. Without a sturdy house, it cannot shield them from wind and rain or block the mice."

Xuanyuan nodded solemnly: "Good, that is fine. However, since you are doing this for our Xuanyuan Tribe, I will provide the cost for building the house that Cangjie needs."