<h4>Chapter 1142: Dying Language</h4>


    Trantor: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio


    When Zhang Zian and the others entered the shop, the girl from earlier stayed outside the shop to watch the happenings. The old person wearing short sleeves covered the shop door and waved their hands at them, gesturing to them not be in a hurry to ask questions first.


    Gao Ke and He He were worried. Although the old man and his sister had kind faces, nobody had the words “I am a bad person” written on their faces. How could they know whether they had just left the wolf’s den only to enter the tiger’s?


    Zhang Zian wondered when Fina hade. Just now, when he had gone to rescue He He, he’d acted with Famous, because he knew that Fina could not lower itself to saving a woman who was not rted to it and had gotten into trouble all by herself.


    He thought that Fina had stayed with Gxy and Pi. Unexpectedly, Fina, Gxy, and Pi had all arrived here. He He and Gao Ke and the rest just could not see them.


    In fact, the shop was quite close to the ident site, and they could still hear the noise of the ident site. The onlookers seemed to find that they had slipped away, and they were cursing a bit before they scattered.


    The door was pushed open, and the girl from before came in with another local boy. She closed the door again, nodded to the old man, took off the robe covering her body, and threw it aside at will.


    Under the long robe, her outfit was the same as Zhang Zian’s and everyone else’s, abination of a polo shirt, sneakers, and jeans.


    While they were at the door, Old Time Tea also leaped in. He had not managed to find Fina and the rest just now and had chased them by following their scents. He had found that Zhang Zian and the elfins’ scentsbined here.


    The old man looked at the crowd with a sigh of relief and a smile. He said in English, “Wee, you all must be surprised. Take a rest first. I know you must have a lot of questions to ask, but it’s safe now. Don’t worry. I’ll exin to youter. Sit down, please! ck tea, or coffee?”


    Their ears were sore because of the loudmotion and speaking in Arabic just now, and now, hearing someone speak English, they felt a sense of closeness. Gao Ke and the others had made it to graduate school, so their English was certainly good. Zhang Zian’s daily conversation in English was not a problem, and then there was Jack, who had traveled to many countries when he was a child.


    Zhang Zian and the rest did have a lot of questions to ask, but the guests followed the rules of the host, and, affected by the old man’s calmness, they gradually rxed.


    After going through that mess for so long, they were thirsty, and they found chairs to sit down, asking for the drinks they wanted.


    After a few minutes, the young man and woman carried a tray out from inside, ck tea and coffee arranged on it, and gave it out to Zhang Zian and the rest.


    Zhang Zian had asked for ck tea, and after taking a mouthful, he could not help but grin in secret. How sweet! Was the white sugar free of charge here?


    Egyptians, men and women alike, were fond of sweets to the point where they did not like things that were not sweet. Most of the food and drinks were especially sweet, presumably because they felt that under the cover of their robes, nothing could be seen, so their figures did not matter, and they could do what they wanted.


    After the young man and woman served their drinks, they stood next to the old man. The old man said, “I’m called Lazart. These two are my daughter, Kate, and my son, Chris.”


    Zhang Zian and the rest looked at each other. The young brother and sister’s names... They did not sound local at all. They were verymon European and American names.


    Jack was a mixed-blood who had grown up in a foreign country. His parents’ name choice wasn’t surprising. But all three of them looked like very ordinary local people. Why was it that...


    Could it be that they were like Zhang Zian, who had felt that foreigners pronouncing ‘Zian’ was not very urate and hade up with an English name like ‘Jeff’ for himself?


    It wouldn’t be very good for them to ask them straight out, and so they were all randomly wondering, but Lazart’s next sentence made them understand instantly.


    Lazart could see their confusion. He smiled and said, “Oh, right. We are Copts.”


    Zhang Zian was moved in his heart and looked at Fina, then at Kate and Chris, who were frank and unflinching, and carefully observed their looks. Although they looked roughly like the local people, under careful observation, he could find that their thick eyebrows, deep eyes, and high cheekbones were slightly different from those of the ordinary local people and closer to the characteristics of the Southerners of Egypt.


    So it was like that...


    That was understandable.


    Copts were Egyptian minorities, ounting for about 10% of Egypt’s poption. They imed to be descendants of ancient Egyptians and pharaohs. Most importantly, they were followers of Christianity, so they didn’t care about physical contact between men and women who were strangers.


    Lazart took a sip of ck tea and said, “I’ll talk about what happened, and perhaps I can answer your questions after I’m done speaking if you have anything you want to ask.”


    After He He and the rest got in trouble, Zhang Zian had rushed to help, and Fina and the other elfins had stayed where they were.


    On the other side, Lazart hade back from the church with his two children and heard the noise of riotsing from the street ahead. He was nervous about the political instability, so he had his daughter Kate stay beside him and told his son Chris to go ahead and check the situation.


    When Lazart interacted with his daughter and son in private, so as not to forget the origins and history of his nation, he normally spoke Coptic, and their conversation was coincidentally heard by Fina.


    The origin of the Coptguage was veryplex. It was the final form of the ancient Egyptiannguage and the product of Hellenization of the Egyptiannguage under the rule of Rome and Byzantium.


    Thisnguage system was founded in the third century A.D. It was based on Greek and borrowed some letters from the “secr” style of writing that had evolved from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to express pronunciations that did not exist in the Greeknguage, and it was considered abination of Greek and ancient Egyptian.


    At present, the Coptguage was close to extinction. Few people used it. Only a small number of Copts still used it privately, and people did not know how long it would be before the official extinction.


    Historically, however, thisnguage had yed a great role—Champollion, a French philologist, was proficient in Coptic so he could discover the secrets of the Rosetta Stone and ultimately to crack the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. Coptic was like Chinese Pinyin, while ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were like Chinese words. When Pinyin and glyphs corresponded one by one, the secrets of hieroglyphs were revealed.


    As Zhang Zian had suspected, Fina was not interested in helping He He, who had gone to make trouble for herself. It satzily and yawned. It was still secretlyining about Zhang Zian being a busybody.


    At that moment, however, it heard a pronunciation very simr to that of ancient Egyptian, like hearing the local ent of its home town again after many years. Its whole body suddenly became stiff.


    It turned around, alert, and just happened to meet Lazart’s gaze.