102: Chapter 102: Global mythology features spaceships, missiles, vehicles, and more!

Xiaoyu frowned in thought, her beautiful eyes darting. "Looking at history, it seems that the mythological systems of various civilizations all worship the heavens. It feels like this started ten thousand years ago!"

"Yes." Jiang Zhe nodded gently. "The emergence of modern Homo sapiens is almost always related to offering sacrifices to heaven and respecting gods—the Ancient Egyptians worshiped the sun god Ra, the Sumerians worshiped Anu—the god of heaven, and Ancient India worshiped Varuna—the god of the sky."

"Our Xia civilization is the same as theirs; we all have our own worship and awe of deities."

"Even if we modern people say we no longer revere the heavens and have started respecting our ancestors, believing that heaven doesn't help us much and thus stop worshiping 'Old Man Heaven'..."

"But!"

As his tone shifted, his gaze became like a torch:

"In the very bones of us Xia people... don't we still maintain a reverence for the heavens? We wouldn't dare point at the sky and say [profanities] during a thunderstorm, right?"

"That's why since ancient times, there has been a culture of practicing the Dao and immortality. The underlying logic is that the people of our Huaxia civilization have a rebellious streak, a plot to defy the heavens!"

Xiaoyu and the viewers were stunned.

That's right!

Even though Huaxia had predecessors like Great Yu who controlled the floods and stepped forward to turn the tide, and even though the children of Huaxia don't believe in gods but in ancestors...

In their very marrow, the reverence for the firmament has never disappeared!

Xiaoyu's eyes lit up as she tried to deduce, "Brother, is it because ancient people couldn't understand natural phenomena? For example, they called thunder the anger of the gods, so they placed their hopes in non-existent gods or even superstitions?"

"That explanation is very shallow, not deep enough!" Jiang Zhe shook his head gently. "Ancient people were just ancient, not stupid."

"Otherwise, how could those ancient masterpieces come into being? The tui bei tu, the Lianshan Yi, the Huangdi Neijing, the Shennong Ben Cao Jing—by modern standards, these were all created by ancient masters and predecessors. Ancient people weren't stupid; what they lacked was just the volume of information."

Xiaoyu lowered her brows in contemplation. True, if ancient people were really stupid, where did the Yongle Encyclopedia come from?

"Now, back to the topic. Why did these clever ancestors in different corners of the globe coincidentally spend massive amounts of manpower and resources to build Pyramids, temples, and altars? Why did they even hold complex sacrificial ceremonies to worship that heaven which can neither be seen nor touched?"

"Why was it mostly worshiping the heaven? Why not mountains or rivers? Why was the reverence for the heaven the greatest, and why did the fear of heaven exceed the fear of actual tsunamis, earthquakes, and forest fires?"

As he spoke to this point, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up.

"And, Xiaoyu, have you noticed an even weirder, perhaps even interesting phenomenon?"

"Hmm?"

Jiang Zhe picked up a tablet and casually drew a few stick figures along with scenes of flat deserts, grasslands, and sand dunes.

In the sky, he also sketched the outlines of some strangely shaped aircraft.

Aiming the tablet at Xiaoyu, he explained:

"Xiaoyu, imagine this: for a primitive tribe or pre-Qin commoners who had never seen an airplane, their wildest imagination would at most be people with wings or wooden birds that could fly, like Lu Ban's Wooden Kite."

"It is absolutely impossible for them to conceive out of thin air an aircraft made of metallic materials, with a streamlined hull, anti-gravity engines, or even jet engines, along with modern windshields and even lights inside the glass..."

"In other words, it's absolutely impossible for them to have known thousands of years ago the structures of aircraft that only we modern people know, right?"

Xiaoyu's expression gradually became serious; her brother was completely right!

Due to the limitations of the era...

No one could imagine that tools made of iron could actually fly into the sky.

The viewers also sat up straight, holding their breath as they listened intently.

"Yes, Xiaoyu; it's absolutely impossible for ancient people to fantasize about a combination of metallic streamlined shapes like airplanes, jet engines, and windshields."

Xiaoyu nodded with a serious expression.

"However!"

"Look at the myths of countries around the world." Jiang Zhe's expression also became solemn: "The Sumerian gods descended from the sky riding heavenly boats, accompanied by storms and loud noises."

"The Egyptian sun god Ra crossed the sky in a solar barque."

"And in our ancient records, it says [the Yellow Emperor was born riding a dragon] and [Xihe drives the sun]."

"There's also the Maya civilization in South America, which has legends of Quetzalcoatl riding a [serpent-shaped spaceship]."

"There are even the [Vimana] celestial chariots in the Indian epic 'Mahabharata'—which are spaceships. They directly provided descriptions: bell-shaped, cylindrical, or disc-shaped vehicles, similar to the UFOs discovered around the world today, but an even more ancient bell shape!"

At this point, Jiang Zhe paused for a moment to let Xiaoyu digest the flying apparatuses in global myths.

Xiaoyu's expression gradually turned to shock, because it wasn't just that...

She had even heard related content in Teacher Wang's class.

For example: in the seventh year of Jiajing (1528), on a summer night, a glowing flying object as large as a cartwheel appeared over Dali Prefecture. Its flight path showed characteristics of intelligent control—moving from southeast to northwest, then turning back to land at Diancang Mountain.

At the thought of this, Xiaoyu suddenly gasped, her expression becoming increasingly grave.

Could it be... true?

Seeing Xiaoyu's look, Jiang Zhe nodded gently:

"Isn't this strange? These civilizations, separated by vast oceans and high mountains, all equipped their [fantasized] [heavenly gods] not with the concept of flying or physical flight, but with extremely specific and highly similar [modern/future flying vehicles]."

"These vehicles were boats, chariots, dragons, discs, cylinders, and the like; most were accompanied by light, fire, wind, thunder, and so on."

"It's like a group of ancient children who had never seen a mobile phone, yet could coincidentally draw aircraft similar to our modern ones in their respective doodles. Not just aircraft, but even their design features and missiles launched by modern weapons... in the myths of countries around the world, they have it all!"

Jiang Zhe nodded slightly, "Do you still think this is collective fantasy or coincidence..."

At this point, his tone suddenly shifted,

"Or rather..."

"Did that existence they called [Heaven] once have some kind of... interaction with ancient people in some way?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Xiaoyu's pupils suddenly constricted. A clap of thunder seemed to go off as an incredible image surfaced in her mind.

She gasped, her steel body unable to stop trembling,

"Could it be that the Heavens... once descended?"

"Could it be that this isn't a metaphor, but that they truly came to Earth and were witnessed by our ancestors?"

Jiang Zhe didn't answer, merely nodding with a calm face.

Boom—

This time, the viewers in the livestream instantly felt their scalps go numb.

A tide of shocked, questioning, horrified, and excited comments poured out.

"Holy crap, from this angle, I got goosebumps immediately!"

"Damn, the more I think about it, the scarier it gets. There really are so many flying vehicles in global myths... even various scenes of launching missiles!"

"Oh my god, I just came to hear a story, and you're telling me 'Old Man Heaven' isn't a god, but a freaking real person?"

"I know about that Vimana from Ancient India; the description really is exactly like a flying saucer!"

"Myths aren't stories, but freaking historical records? No way, right?"

"Could worshiping heaven be the hope that heaven doesn't come back and start another war? Damn, I don't even dare imagine it!"

"The building of materialism is about to collapse!"

"..."

At this moment, countless viewers and experts held their breath.

In the faculty housing of Kyoto University of History, Old Liu and others were talking excitedly. As soon as history and myths were mentioned, they instantly got fired up!

Teacher Chen Min in Guangzhou was even more stunned. Although the myths were there for all to see, no one had ever taken them seriously.

He hadn't expected Jiang Zhe to bring those up tonight, yet make it seem like it wasn't without reason...

Meanwhile, inside Qingfeng Temple.

Zheng Ming was instantly in an uproar, his face flushing red. "Impossible, absolutely impossible, utter nonsense!"

"That is clearly the fantasy of our predecessors. The imagination of ancient people was no weaker than that of modern people."

"What mythical aliens or spaceships? It's clearly just their fantasy. Even if there really are heavens and gods, those would be sages who achieved transcendence, or even Daoist practitioners who communicate between heaven and earth."

"How can the incredible things in our civilization be so simply and crudely reduced to an alien descent?"

As Wang Chongyang's second disciple, he would not allow anyone to turn the profound national studies and myths into stories of the third, fourth, or fifth kind of alien contact!

Beside him, Celestial Master Zhang also showed a look of curiosity for the first time.

He hadn't expected myths could be understood in this way.

Just then.

Jiang Zhe's voice came through.

"Xiaoyu, if you want to know what kind of existence the 'Heaven' that descended on Earth really was."

"Then, Xiaoyu, what you need to know is..."

Speaking to this point, he paused for a moment before finally saying:

"Global Mythology!!!"