Chapter Seventeen: Words

The vast and mighty ancient primal races swept in from all directions, and in the blink of an eye, the two tribes of ancient apes were completely surrounded. If at first the conflict was merely an outlet for their rage, it soon shifted in purpose. The ancient primal races were astonished to discover that the flesh of the ancient apes was surprisingly delicious—far tastier than the wild fish, and lacking any unpleasant, fishy odor.

Stimulated by this newfound delicacy, the battle grew ever more brutal, reaching a fevered pitch of one-sided slaughter. Faced with the overwhelming force of the ancient primal races, the ancient apes had not the slightest advantage. Except for their astonishing reproductive speed, they were utterly inconsequential before these ancient beings, as weak as plankton. They could not hope to strike down their foes, nor even break through the defenses of the primal races. Whenever encountered, they were devoured in a single bite—crunching, brittle, final.

Blood stained the water’s surface, blooming like scarlet roses. Wails mingled with the sounds of flesh being chewed, echoing across the waves. In the end, of the ancient ape tribe that once numbered in the tens of thousands, fewer than ten thousand managed a hasty escape, eluding disaster.

Those survivors dared not linger in the water. Over countless years, following the crevices of strange stones placed by Fang Zhuowei, they finally climbed atop the rocks. Breathless from their ascent, they were stunned by the scene before them.

Endless black earth stretched as far as the eye could see, with ravines and gorges carving hundreds or thousands of meters of depth, dense forests crowding the land, and in the distance, towering peaks rose ten thousand feet, like giants propping up the sky.

Bewildered and dumbfounded, their expressions vacant, the ancient apes had learned only the simplest means of communication, their intelligence still pitifully low. Yet they cried out in excitement, ran about in all directions, expressing in the simplest language their joy at surviving calamity.

Here, not only was there no natural enemy, but the resources for food far surpassed those of the sea. To them, it was paradise on earth.

They settled and made camp. The ancient ape tribe established themselves firmly upon the continent.

In the thirty-three thousand and two hundredth year of the primordial era, nearly a hundred years had passed since they first landed, unnoticed by time. Through a century of peace and recovery, the ancient apes regained much of their vitality. Their numbers stabilized around fifty thousand. With no fear of predators, their days were filled with play, eating, drinking, and sleeping—activities that made even Fang Zhuowei envious.

Beside a canyon...

“Yah yah yah yah!”
“Wah wah wah wah!”

Great swathes of ancient apes frolicked and splashed in the water, their laughter and shouts echoing throughout the canyon. They inherited the fine genes of their ancestors, born knowing how to swim and dive. Though they could not hold their breath for hours as their forebears did, they could dive dozens of meters deep.

Just then, an elderly ancient ape stumbled and suddenly collapsed to the ground. Young apes hurried to support it, but no matter what they did, the old ape’s body would always fall.

The tribe grew restless. Death was still an unknown concept in their minds, yet deep within they felt an uncontrollable panic.

An ancient ape with a higher degree of intelligence stepped forward. This ape, with black and yellow fur dulled by age, hunched and leaning on a cane, looked extremely old. As it walked, it muttered to itself, repeating the same tone over and over, resembling a madman.

Many apes gathered around, drawn by the elder’s strange behavior, babbling and scratching their heads, unable to comprehend the meaning of its repeated tone.

“It means death...”

As the creator, Fang Zhuowei understood what the old ape was trying to express.

The elderly ape, tottering on unsteady legs, approached, trembling all over, so frail it seemed a gust of wind might topple it.

“Oola, oola...”

The crowd of ancient apes around it grew larger, each one staring in amazement at the elder. These young apes, their intelligence only beginning to develop, were much like five- or six-year-old children. They instinctively feared the word spoken by the elder, yet could not suppress their fascination with it, like eager students in a classroom, fiercely curious about all things new.

“Oola, oola...”

The old ape kept repeating the word. Though aged and worn, its voice was unexpectedly steady and strong, ensuring every syllable rang clear in the ears of the surrounding youth.

But that was not all. When the sound faded, the elderly ape suddenly, with trembling hands, picked up a leg bone and laboriously drew strange patterns on the ground.

The patterns were abstract, rivaling the works of Picasso at his peak, shapes assembled into obscure symbols.

“Is this... writing?”

Fang Zhuowei, who had always observed the ancient apes, caught sight of the elder’s actions and was momentarily taken aback. His gaze sharpened, fixed on the symbols etched into the earth, and a wide smile slowly spread across his face.

Though the elder’s writing was abstract, Fang Zhuowei, as creator, saw clearly that these rough sketches were not random scrawls, but contained a special order. They resembled pictographs—images conveying meaning.

In the earliest civilizations, pictographs evolved from drawings, the most primitive method of creating written symbols, and the original form of writing. Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian script, ancient Indian characters, and the oracle bone and stone inscriptions of the Huaguo civilization all independently arose from the simplest pictographs of primitive society.

This form of writing had its limitations, for some concrete and abstract things cannot be drawn, yet even so, the pictorial script created by the old ape was without doubt the most advanced civilization in the aquarium world.

Truly worthy of being the bloodline he had so carefully selected!

Fang Zhuowei’s heart surged with excitement. The ancient primal races, in all their millions of years, had never created writing—only developed language. But how many years had the ancient apes’ civilization existed? Not even a fraction of the primal races’ history!

The birth of writing was a monumental event—the mark of entry into civilized society, a crucial watershed in the journey from ignorance to civilization, bearing profound significance for the transmission and communication of culture.

“This old ape…”

Fang Zhuowei’s gaze shifted to the aged ape surrounded by the younger ones, a look of admiration on his face.