The first is hallucination.

According to this view, mermaids did not actually exist, and that ancient maritime merchants had very limited knowledge of marine life, and it was easy to mistake manatees and other mammal animals that they did not know about as monsters.

In fact, there are indeed some similarities between this thing's swimming and frolicking posture and humans, and it mainly lives in the South China Sea, where sharks frequently haunt it, so this view is more acceptable to the academic community.

The second is the Australopithecus theory.

This view is based on Darwin's theory of evolution, which holds that when man evolved to the stage of Australopithecus, it was divided into two tributaries, one developed to the land to become the current human, and the other developed to the bottom of the water, becoming a new type of sea creature - merman.

Over the course of their long evolution, the two have communicated less and less, and eventually become two separate systems.

The third is the refuge theory.

According to this view, the merfolk species are descendants of the vanished civilization of Atlantis.

The earliest description of Atlantis appeared in the Dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

It is said to have been destroyed by a super-powerful natural catastrophe around 12,000 to 9,600 BC, and its wreckage sank to the bottom of the sea along with the land.

In Greek mythology, the inhabitants of Atlantis were descendants of Poseidon, the god of the sea, who had ten sons in this territory, each ruling over different regions, among which the eldest son Atlas played a role similar to that of the princes, and the name Atlantis was also named after his existence.

However, according to the original version, the ruling class of the powerful Atlantis for some reason continued to corrupt and degenerate for a long time. This corruption even angered the presiding god Zeus, who in order to punish him, caused natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis overnight, and in an instant, the rich city was submerged in the ocean.

As descendants of the god of the sea, a significant number of the inhabitants of Atlantis still show unparalleled adaptability. They grew gills and tails, and gradually evolved into the indigenous inhabitants of the sea, the mermaids (mermaids).

According to current research, a large number of architectural remains have indeed been found at the submerged Atlantis site, and according to relevant scholars, there is indeed a highly developed prehistoric civilization here, which also adds a lot of mystery to the theory of descendants of Atlantis in the survival of Zài's Platonic mythology.

Of course, in addition to the above three theories, there is a fourth one, which we will call "the local resident theory" for the time being.

According to some sources, the South China Sea mermaids had a considerable amount of trade with coastal dwellers in the early days, and they usually exchanged silk and pearls for goods. When it is more, it is several times a year, and when it is rare, it is several times a year.

Therefore, some people pointed out that in fact, the so-called mermaids are not special sea creatures, but just alien people living in the ocean, because they are very different from the local residents in terms of clothing, skin color, and appearance, and are mistaken for sea creatures.

The rationale for this argument lies in the fact that:

First of all, people, as highly developed creatures with high intelligence, will not trade lightly with wild beasts, do you think about a lion who takes fox skins and exchanges lamb legs with you, do you dare to accept it? Since there can be trade, it proves that at least a certain amount of dù can achieve good exchanges between the two.

Secondly, pearl picking in ancient times was not as easy as it is now, and it was quite unreliable to swim in the deep sea without an oxygen tank, so in the face of a large number of pearls in their hands, most people would be puzzled, and it was not impossible to spread false rumors.

Thirdly, why the vast majority of such transactions occur in the South China Sea is also a big question to consider. Looking out of the map of China, it is easy to see that in China's coastal areas, the most faced are the Southeast Asian countries near Hainan Island and Nansha Islands, and there are not a few of these countries who are good at fishing textiles, so this statement is more feasible on the issue of commercial and trade exchanges.

In addition to this fourth point of view, there is also the dragon girl theory scattered in the anecdotes of the provinces south of the Yangtze River.

This category mainly records the stories of talented and beautiful people.

For example, if you save a fish, she turns into a girl and comes back to you as a daughter-in-law, and finally the dragon king sends someone to capture him, and you know that she is the daughter of the dragon king. Crying and struggling, you turned into a real body, and a big tail appeared in front of you. Either some merchant official sat on the bow of the boat at an inappropriate time, and saw a half-fish, half-human thing sitting on a stone and eyebrow-raising with him, he didn't know what it was, and asked around, and the final result was three words: "Dragon Maiden also." ”

However, after all, there are many possibilities for such statements to be made up out of thin air, and there are some obvious discrepancies between what they describe and what we call shark people, so such statements are beyond the scope of our discussion.

No matter how plausible these speculations are, at least, one thing is obvious, and that is that the commercial value of this so-called merman is very, very high.

Aside from the myth of immortality, there are a lot of valuables that are closely related to the merman, one is the silk fabric that the merman contributes to the water, the other is the mermaid "fish paste (fat)" that will not be extinguished for thousands of years, in addition, there are so many strange pearls made of tears, these three things, at that time it seemed that they were all treasures that were hard to find, and it was a huge wealth to get one.

Today, the corpse specimen of the merman alone may be more than tens of millions of yuan in market value.

I'm curious about how Ms. Zhao's grandfather caught it, and I'm even more curious about how those foreigners died.

First, why did an old man who became rich overnight suddenly see through Hongchen and became half a monk, and secondly, why did he still keep this matter secretive after so many years?

I think he owes something to it.

You must know that there is no fruitless cause or effect in this world, and some fanciful things seem to us to be mostly because we don't know enough about the clues in them to have such an illusion.

It's just that it seems a little inappropriate to put it on this occasion to get to the bottom of it.

There is a way that the dead are great, and a dead person is not willing to say things lightly, so why should we pursue it more.

Thinking of this, the three of them were silent for a while, each with their own guesses and ideas, but no one was willing to say it.