Becoming Rich with Daily Scavenging APP-Chapter 656: Student Homework from Over a Thousand Years Ago

After spending a night in Hami, Chen Yiyang woke up the next morning to find an update on a piece of treasure-hunting intelligence on his phone.

Today's intelligence, homework from a thousand years ago: A batch of ancient fragments of the Analects is being sold at an antique market in Hami. Buying these fragments is a chance to find a hidden gem.

Images and location details of the relevant items are attached on the second page.

It's been a long time since the last treasure hunt for antiques.

After seeing today's intelligence, Chen Yiyang immediately changed his itinerary.

Due to the climate issues in the Western Province, many ancient artifacts here have been remarkably well-preserved.

Especially many papers, utensils, with writings, are also preserved intact.

That's why Chen Yiyang is very interested in this treasure hunt opportunity.

Upon arriving at this particular antique market, Chen Yiyang quickly found what he wanted to buy.

The seller didn't look like a proper second-hand dealer, but Chen Yiyang didn't mind, opting instead to briskly purchase all the old items that seemed to have aged significantly from the seller.

After the transaction, Chen Yiyang took his purchases back to the hotel.

Most items among these appeared to be burial objects from ordinary families during the Tang Dynasty.

Although they count as somewhat rare artifacts, they hold little research value, and Chen Yiyang had encountered many similar items before.

So he put these items aside and devoted himself to studying a scroll of paper he bought from the seller.

This was a fragment of "The Analects Commented by Zheng" that measured 5.38 meters in length and 0.27 meters in width.

However, the writing on this fragment looked very childish, unlikely to be written by an adult, rather more like a child's handwriting.

After fully unrolling the fragment, Chen Yiyang found a line at the end: "Jinglong fourth year, February 1st, private student Bu Tianshou."

Jinglong fourth year?

Chen Yiyang looked it up.

This was more than twelve hundred years ago, during the Great Tang period, under Emperor Zhongzong Li Xian's reign.

This emperor did not rule for long, so he is not well-known, but his mother was the famous Wu Zetian, and after his father Gaozong passed away, he actually became emperor once.

However, he was dethroned by Wu Zetian after just over fifty days as emperor.

Later, after Wu Zetian's death, he returned to the throne.

But that lasted less than four years, as he passed away in the fourth year of Jinglong, four months after Bu Tianshou finished this homework.

Chen Yiyang further examined the fragment and found a note next to it: "Bu Tianshou aged twelve."

This means that when writing this homework, Bu Tianshou was only twelve years old.

A twelve-year-old Bu Tianshou's homework.

Even though this fragment has survived over a thousand years of history.

It is well-preserved, with clear handwriting.

Chen Yiyang could understand the text on the fragment effortlessly without any tools.

The fact that people today can still recognize most of the words from over a thousand years ago.

This is a kind of romance inherent to the Huaxia people.

Globally, only two nations possess this romance and ability.

One is Huaxia, and the other is Greece.

Indeed, Greeks can also understand their ancestors' script, and this is somewhat of an esoteric knowledge.

Though Greek is not a pictographic script, Greece has always maintained its own set of alphabets.

Even if pronunciation changes, they don't alter the spelling, only the pronunciation.

This is vastly different from English, where even unchanged pronunciation may have several spelling variations.

If modern British were tasked to read Old English from before the Norman Conquest, no one would understand it.

Previously, a fragment of Greek papyrus dating around 1 AD was unearthed in Egypt.

The contents on this papyrus could be read by Greeks directly, allowing them to comprehend seventy to eighty percent without additional study.

Similarly, if characters from the same period were shown to today's Huaxia people, they could understand nearly eighty percent.

And unquestionably, when young Bu Tianshou wrote this assignment, it was already the year 710 AD.

Chen Yiyang continued reading the fragment.

Besides transcribing the content of "The Analects Commented by Zheng", Bu Tianshou wrote some poetic notes at the end of the homework.

However, Chen Yiyang hadn't heard of any of these poems, likely because Bu Tianshou was writing down popular verses of the time akin to 'hit songs'.

In one particular piece, Chen Yiyang even suspected it was written by the child himself.

Because it goes: "The book is finished today, sir, don't mind it's late. Tomorrow is a holiday, let students leave early."

Indeed, regardless of the era, a student's greatest wish is an early break.

After discussing a cooperation proposal with people from the floating power generation company in Hami, Chen Yiyang returned to Lin'an with a pile of items.

After placing the items in his private collection gallery, Chen Yiyang called over the historian.

"Take a look at this," Chen Yiyang said to the historian, "I bought it in the Western Province."

"These, Tang Dynasty text?!" The historian was astonished upon seeing Bu Tianshou's homework.

After a thorough examination, he confirmed.

This fragment is indeed a student's homework from the Tang Dynasty.

"It's incredibly rare for something like this to be preserved." The historian was deeply shocked, "This is my first time seeing student homework from the Tang Dynasty.

It's important to know that preserving written works is inherently challenging, and the ones that survived wars were generally texts from literary masters with collector's value.

A primary school student's homework like this one is very rare.

In a sense, this primary school student's homework now has more research value than many literary masters' works.

"Exactly, I'm also very curious."

Chen Yiyang curiously asked the historian, "Works of primary students like this generally weren't specifically collected or preserved, how has it survived until now?"

"If I'm not mistaken, these were probably dug up directly from a tomb by grave robbers."

The historian continued to explain while looking at the fragment, "During the Tang Dynasty, paper was also a very scarce item.

So, many people at the time would repurpose paper. Like how we used newspapers or old books as wrapping paper for food.

In the Tang Dynasty, some families would reuse paper to make paper burial clothing for the deceased.

Thus, this child's homework was probably used by his family to make a burial garment, and that's how it remained in the tomb until now."

Honestly, such circumstances are nothing short of miraculous.

The odds are akin to a present-day middle schooler posting a few excessively dramatic messages on social media.

And someday, millennia later, humans retrieve that post from a pile of discarded hard drives for research purposes.

If such a scenario as described in novels, where ancient broadcasts could be exposed by heavenly screens, truly existed.

Chen Yiyang thinks that this young Bu Tianshou might devote himself to writing proper homework for the rest of his life, avoiding any frivolous verses.