A Guess Sparked by a Surname

"So, your name is Zhou Qing?"

Qingzhu Zhu asked, "You're quite cautious."

"So, is your name Zhu Zhuqing?" Zhou Qing countered. "A young lady like you would definitely use a different name in public, just like Xiao Wu, I still don't know her surname."

Tang San was taken aback and asked Xiao Wu, "What's your surname again?"

"Rou, my full name Rou Wu," Xiao Wu said proudly. "What do you think? Isn't my surname beautiful?"

"All I saw was a perfunctory job; they just took the first character of ' Soft Bone Rabbit '," Zhou Qing complained.

"Tch, so what's the story behind your name?"

Xiao Wu stared wide-eyed and retorted.

"My surname was given to me by my parents and I can't change it. The character 'Qing' comes from the fact that I was born in Xia Tian, when the mountains and fields were covered with green grass, so I was named Zhou Qing."

Zhou Qing explained it this way, and then added, "But people can always add some meaning to themselves later. Just like the name Zhou Qing, Zhou means complete, and Qing is the color that represents the prosperity of summer. Growing vigorously means that I am a sapling that is growing vigorously and will eventually be lush and leafy in the middle of summer."

"Keep bragging!" Xiao Wu said disdainfully.

Zhou Qing shrugged, unconcerned, and then said to Qingzhu Zhu, "I have some knowledge of the names of people and places on the Douluo Continent, whether they are royalty or ordinary people. Generally speaking, they can be divided into two categories. One type is like Romantina, Barak, and Fasinuo Xing, whose names are completely unknown to others because they are unfamiliar with the history and culture behind them. The other type is like Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Xiao Wu, whose names allow others to roughly guess what their families were thinking when they named us."

"I've already explained the origin of my name; Tang San, the 'San' in this name usually means either that he is the third child in his family, or that his parents named him in memory of someone; Xiao Wu, 'Wu' means lively and active, which is very appropriate."

"As for your name, Qingzhu Zhu, only the first two characters are taken. Qingzhu does have the meaning of uprightness, but Qing is the surname, right? Zhuzhu is the given name. But I don't understand why the character 'Zhu' is added at the end. Whether it is the 'Zhu' in pearl, the 'Zhu' in pig's head, or the 'Zhu' in cinnabar, the meaning of any of them combined with Qingzhu feels too forced."

This was actually something Zhou Qing made up, mainly to give himself a reason for knowing Qingzhu Zhu's real name.

"Only if it's reversed, Zhu Zhuqing, with Zhu as the surname and Zhu Zhuqing as the given name, would it be both auspicious and virtuous, yet also upright and honest. After all, large families are very particular about naming their children, unlike me, who used to have a nickname, Gou Dan (Goudan)?"

The nickname "Goudan" was given to him by Old Jack.

However, after Zhou Qing learned the local language of the Douluo Continent and discovered that his full name was the same as in his previous life, he insisted that Old Jack erase the down-to-earth nickname "Goudan".

"Pfft!"

Qingzhu Zhu burst out laughing, covering her mouth. "Goudan? That's a hilarious name!"

Zhou Qing wanted to slap himself.

They actually revealed this!

Really!

This copper!

It cannot be refined!

Seeing Tang San also chuckling, Zhou Qing said irritably, "San'er, what are you laughing at? Grandpa Jack gave you a nickname back then, San Dan."

"Gah?" Tang San made a strange sound, his laughter abruptly stopping. "How come I didn't know?"

"You were too young to know back then, of course you wouldn't know. Grandpa Jack told me this himself!"

Bang bang bang!

Tang San, his face dark, continued to hammer the red-hot iron block.

"Speaking of which, I have read a lot of materials in the Nuoding Library. The names of people and cities all over the continent can be categorized into the two major categories I mentioned: ' Zhou Qing ' and ' Romantina '."

Zhou Qing's gaze swept over Qingzhu Zhu and her personal maid without making a sound, and he said in a deliberately profound tone, "A name like mine, Zhou Qing, is easy to guess its meaning; but a name like Romantina, although it uses the same characters, seems to require learning a set of characters that have been mostly lost and are only passed down orally."

"I have a theory that there were once two different empires, or rather, two different civilizations, on the Douluo Continent. The writing systems and languages they used were not unified. However, one civilization later destroyed the other civilization, not by killing all the people of that civilization, but by erasing their language and writing system, thus assimilating them and becoming a member of the victorious civilization. And the writing systems and languages we use today are the writing systems and languages of that victorious civilization."

"But the descendants of the civilization that has vanished have forgotten the writing and language created by their ancestors over the long course of time, and have completely integrated into the current civilization. As for names like Romantina, I feel that they are more like a translation of the language of that vanished civilization into our current civilization, and it is the most basic kind of transliteration. Just like a rooster clucks, so we define this sound as the word 'cluck'."

Tang San stopped forging and stared in disbelief.

Although he already knew of Zhou Qing's intelligence, hearing such a guess still made him feel that Zhou Qing was simply monstrous to an unbelievable degree.

By categorizing names in two different ways, we can deduce the history of the past—

Even if it's just speculation, it's still terrifying!

Moreover, this conjecture also brought Tang San's thoughts back to his past life: the dynasties of the Central Plains had always been at odds with the barbarians, but since the barbarians could not be completely eradicated, the court officials took another measure: education.

How similar is the situation in the Douluo Continent to that of my previous life?

However, although the barbarians of this world have been successfully "civilized," it seems that the suffering of the people has not been changed. In fact, the once vast empire that had the potential to unify the continent has split up again.

The world, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of unity, tends to divide...

Tang San sighed inwardly and continued hammering the iron block.

Xiao Wu could no longer understand what Zhou Qing was saying.

But Qingzhu Zhu and her maid were astonishingly beautiful.

Qingzhu Zhu, or rather, Zhu Zhuqing, began learning various etiquettes, the history of the Star Luo Empire, and the entire Douluo Continent from a young age.

Among them, the conflict between the two great civilizations that Zhou Qing speculated about might actually be real.

However, it wasn't recorded in the history of the Star Luo Empire, but rather in a story or rumor resembling a myth found in casual conversation—

Twenty thousand years ago, the founder of the Spirit Hall, the owner of the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul, gathered faith, Divine Throne, and led a people with strange surnames to rule the world.

However, the Angel possessed great love for all beings and was perfectly just and impartial. She felt that the language and writing of the civilization she had defeated were more refined and efficient, so she directly adopted them and abolished her own language and writing. Furthermore, she set an example by changing her surname to Qian, meaning that all the ethnic groups with thousands of surnames on the continent were children of the Angel.

From then on, written language and spoken language were standardized...