331: Chapter 331: Discussion Across the Internet

Following the announcement of the selected list, the popularity in the livestream room reached a new peak.

Jiang Zhe sat on the sofa, suddenly thought of something, and looked at Xiao Yu with an intriguing expression, "Xiao Yu, how long has it been since Brother last did some fortune-telling?"

Xiao Yu thought for a moment, "It seems like a long time ago. Apart from that time at Jingxuan Pavilion, the fire hero incident, and the red router incident, I don't think there's been any since."

Jiang Zhe nodded, looked up at the clock on the wall, and saw it was past eleven o'clock.

He then raised his hand to look at his black wristwatch, and Xiao Hei popped up a disaster alert that only he could see: [...]

Soon, after seeing the location where the disaster would strike, he smiled slightly, "Around the time of the New Year, Brother will give you, and the whole world, a super big gift."

"It's just that this big gift will be accompanied by an earthquake near the coast."

Xiao Yu's eyes lit up: "What kind of gift?"

The less Brother said, the more anxious Xiao Yu and the countless viewers became.

A disaster, an earthquake—is this a gift? This is clearly a catastrophe, right?

Jiang Zhe smiled slightly, did not answer, and just stood up, "Good night."

Xiao Yu was just about to continue questioning, but seeing Brother's back, she nodded, "Good night, Brother."

Jiang Zhe walked into the bedroom and gently closed the door.

Looking down at his watch, Xiao Hei appeared on the watch face and said: [Meteor detected in one month...]

...

Inside the physics professor dormitory at Huaqing University.

Guan Jingming looked at the finished livestream screen, "Are we still writing our paper?"

Professor Wu Ming shook his head gently, "No need to write it. We can't write about the things he talked about; it's not that we can't write it, but it's not appropriate. We do rigorous physics; these things are too cross-disciplinary."

Li Mo chimed in: "Then let's not write it. Let the people from the history department write it."

Ouyang Baili immediately took out his phone, "I'll give Professor Chen Runzhi a call."

The phone rang twice and was answered.

"Old Guan?"

Professor Chen Runzhi's voice came through.

"Old Chen, a few of us discussed it, and we aren't writing the paper. It's not suitable for our physics department. What about you guys in the history department?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking."

A rustling sound came from the other end of the phone, as if Professor Chen Runzhi had stood up from the sofa.

"Old friends, we are continuing with the paper."

"We'll write about the limits of civilization and the human blank period, as well as out-of-place artifacts, using this direction as a baseline."

Qian Mingyi's excited voice came through: "Old Chen, what did you say? Huaqing University isn't writing it?"

"Yes. Order takeout, order barbecue, let's go! Tonight, we four old guys are going to pull an all-nighter!"

Soon, laughter came from the other end of the phone.

...

That night, topics on the internet spread like wildfire.

On the trending list, seven of the top ten items were related to Jiang Zhe.

But the hottest one wasn't about Jiang Zhe knowing he was being livestreamed, but about how ancient people knew that stone could preserve information for ten thousand years.

The view count for the Weibo topic broke 100 million within half an hour after the livestream ended.

Midnight.

An account verified as the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, posted a long article.

An Archaeologist: Putting a Hat on Qin Shi Huang.

"The recursion problem that Xiaoyu's brother talked about tonight made me, someone who has been doing archaeology for thirty years, sit in my study and think for a long time."

"We have always subconsciously assumed that ancient people chose stone because there was no paper."

"But we have never asked, how did they know that stone could preserve information better than wood, animal skins, or silk?"

"To prove that stone can last for ten thousand years, we have to wait ten thousand years; ancient people couldn't wait that long."

"Therefore, they must have seen it; they saw the information on the stones left behind by the previous round of civilization."

"In the face of this logic—[ancient people saw information on stones from further back]—it is simply impeccable!"

"..."

This article was very long, and it was followed by more professional reports and supporting evidence.

Twenty minutes after the article was posted, it had over ten thousand retweets, and the comments section was on fire.

"I didn't expect Professor Wang to come out and take a stand!"

"So, did a civilization really exist during that 140,000-year blank period?"

"We are not the first round of civilization; this thought is too terrifying."

"If the previous round of civilization could leave behind stone tablets, what will our round of civilization leave behind?"

"..."

Ten minutes later, a second topic quickly surged onto the trending list.

[The limit of human civilization is only five thousand years]

The person who ignited this topic was an ordinary Weibo user: Aijia Is Bald.

"I've been thinking about a question all night: Sumerian 6500 years, Ancient Egypt 5000 years, China 5000 years, Ancient India 4500 years. The starting time of all civilizations around the world is between 4500 and 6500 years ago."

"What about before that? During the 140,000-year blank period, what was humanity doing?"

"If Xiaoyu's brother's logic is correct—that the knowledge that stone can preserve information for ten thousand years was told to the Sumerians by the previous round of civilization—then the previous round of civilization most likely also lived until the five-thousand-year mark and then was destroyed."

"So five thousand years is not a coincidence; it is the limit of civilization."

"Are we also approaching our limit now? Chinese civilization has five thousand years of history; doesn't that put us right on the node?"

"I can't talk about this anymore; I've got goosebumps."

"..."

This Weibo post was retweeted eighty thousand times in twenty minutes.

The comments section was filled with expressions of shock.

"Five-thousand-year limit? Should we be preparing for our funeral?"

"Don't panic. The five thousand years of Chinese civilization is counted from the Yellow Emperor; in reality, we are still within the limit."

"That's not far off, it's just a matter of a few hundred years!"

"Calm down, upstairs. A few hundred years is over a dozen generations; what are you panicking about? Although resources are tight now, haven't we seen hope in new energy?"

"It's not panic, it's terrifying when you think about it. If the previous round of civilization really existed, they probably thought the same way, and then they were wiped out by history."

"Damn, that sentence gave me goosebumps."

"..."

At one in the morning, a third trending topic quietly reached the top.

[How many out-of-place artifacts are there in history?]

An account verified as Professor Chu from China University of Geosciences posted a long article.

"I am in geology, not archaeology."

"But the 140,000-year blank period and the out-of-place artifacts he talked about tonight made me, someone who plays with stones, re-examine stone."

"He talked about over a dozen OOPArts tonight: Klerksdorp spheres, trilobite shoe prints, Siberia metal tubes, Oklahoma iron pot, Ural nanospiral coils, Baigong iron pipes, Rama's Bridge, and so on."

"I can responsibly say that what he mentioned is only the tip of the iceberg."

"According to incomplete statistics, there are at least several hundred out-of-place artifacts unearthed around the world."

"Every one of these artifacts could overturn textbooks, so the academic community has never dared to openly discuss them; he is the first person to dare to talk about all of this in a public setting."

"..."

Immediately following the long article, many, many out-of-place artifacts were attached.

Some were explained even more professionally than Jiang Zhe himself, and were even more terrifying to think about, directly proving that the previous round of civilization truly existed and was not a fabrication!

After hundreds of out-of-place artifacts were posted, the comments section exploded on the spot.

"Hundreds? Damn, I'm falling apart."

"So, Xiaoyu's brother's topic tonight was actually a question: The previous round of civilization left behind stones to tell us that stone can preserve information for ten thousand years, their civilization lived to the five-thousand-year limit, and they left behind countless out-of-place artifacts; so, shouldn't we now leave something for the next round of civilization?"

"What will our round of civilization leave behind?"

"It's plastic. Professor Chu said that in ten thousand years, apart from semi-artificial natural objects, the only thing we can leave behind is plastic, and it's plastic at the bottom of the ten-thousand-meter-deep sea. A while ago, a foreign director discovered a lot of plastic at the bottom of the Mariana Trench..."

"Stop talking; I've already started feeling emo."

"..."

The popularity on Weibo continued to climb.

This was mainly because these topics had never appeared in this backward parallel world.

In fact, there are many hypotheses about out-of-place artifacts and civilizations, but no one has ever talked about them publicly—resulting in the unprecedented enthusiasm of netizens.

On the other side, Zhihu had already begun a deeper discussion.

At two in the morning, on the Zhihu trending list, six of the top ten questions were related to Jiang Zhe.

The most popular question among them was: [How to evaluate Xiaoyu's brother's livestream tonight regarding the limits of civilization and out-of-place artifacts?]