Reborn As Super Heiress

Chapter 1000: Chapter 996: The Serenity of Christmas Eve

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the streets were filled with a festive atmosphere. Everywhere, there were glowing, warm Christmas trees. Even the heavens were cooperative, as the sky began to snow by noon, enveloping the entire Dongdu in the joyous spirit of Christmas Eve.

However, this festive day did not bring any joy to Huo Sining. On the contrary, she was immersed in a state of tension.

She declined the invitation from Hinata Chinatsu and Nara Nigawa to their Christmas Eve celebration banquet. Instead, she went to the Dongyang National Museum alone in the afternoon, bought a ticket, and followed the crowd into the museum.

The Dongdu Museum is the largest museum in Dongyang and is also one of the world’s most renowned museums, with more than 8.5 million visitors each year. Even on this approaching Christmas Eve afternoon, there were still many enthusiastic tourists braving the heavy snowfall to visit the exhibition.

Dongyang has over 1,000 large and small museums, collectively housing nearly two million artifacts from Huaxia’s history. The vast majority were looted by Dongyang invading forces during the Eight-Nation Alliance’s invasion of the Imperial Capital and the Dongyang War of Invasion.

Just the Tokyo National Museum alone holds more than 90,000 pieces of Huaxia antiques, with countless treasures and unique items, far exceeding the usual museums in China.

In the field of Huaxia archaeology, there is a poignant and painful saying: ”To study Huaxia history, please go to Dongyang.”

This saying exists because Dongyang preserves a vast number of Huaxia ancient books and countless Huaxia artifacts. Most of these artifacts did not enter Dongyang through purchase, donation, or other legitimate means. Instead, they were acquired through invasion and organized, premeditated plundering.

From the Opium Wars to World War II, and after the reform and opening up, Huaxia artifacts were massively plundered and divided by the great powers, leading to a significant outflow. Dongyang played the role of a robber in this period.

In modern times, with the growth of Huaxia’s economy and its stable international status, the Huaxia people have finally realized the importance of historical artifacts. The martial arts community, particularly the historical and archaeological fields, have always focused intensely on the return of Huaxia artifacts lost to Dongyang and have sent diplomats numerous times to negotiate with Dongyang.

Regarding the source of Huaxia artifacts that ended up in Dongyang, Dongyang has always maintained an ambiguous attitude. When the Dongdu National Museum responded to these issues, they gave vague explanations, saying it was difficult to generalize about when or how these Huaxia artifacts arrived in Dongyang.

Moreover, the Dongyang Museum deliberately avoided the critical question of whether the source of Huaxia artifacts was legal. They expressed that they do not deny the possibility that the artifact owners acquired the Huaxia artifacts illegally, but this is not a reason for them to return the artifacts.

Huo Sining has seen such news reports more than once in domestic newspapers and on the internet and generally gets angry every time she reads them.

These artifacts are cherished on the opposite side of the sea in Dongyang, while the unfortunate Huaxia archaeology researchers can only stare at them from afar behind glass cases in distant Dongyang museums when studying Huaxia history, even having to sneakily take a few photos.

In fact, before coming to Dongyang as an exchange student, Huo Sining only intended to use her Heavenly Eye Cheating Device to scour Dongyang for overlooked items. If it hadn’t been for Watanabe Yasu swapping the Secret Color Porcelain and the Watanabe Consortium exploiting the Jade Clothing, Huo Sining might never have thought of causing a ruckus in Dongyang’s major museums.

Originally, according to Huo Sining’s plan, she intended to start acting two days after Gu Xu arrived in Dongyang. According to her target, the artifacts she needed to exchange were all invaluable. However, the Dongyang people have deep knowledge of Huaxia artifacts and are aware of which artifacts are of national treasure level. These highly valuable artifacts are mostly dispersed across various large museums.

If she wanted to swap these items, she had to visit every museum, which would be mentally and physically exhausting, full of danger, and time-consuming. Therefore, Huo Sining decided to act earlier, using the remaining month to visit all major museums in Dongyang.

However, this plan was quickly scrapped because Yu Fei, after hacking into the Dongdu National Museum, found a very important document in an encrypted file on the server.

It turned out that in response to the Golden Jade Clothing incident, the Dongdu National Museum planned to hold a special exhibition themed ”Promoting Yamato Ethnicity Culture” a week before and after the New Year Festival on New Year’s Day. Additionally, the Dongdu National Museum coordinated with dozens of other museums, both public and private, to plan a joint exhibition by borrowing important artifacts from major museums.

The document Yu Fei discovered was a list of the artifacts provided by each museum for the display. Upon seeing those items, Yu Fei was shocked and quickly copied the document to his computer, then sent a copy to Gu Xu.

With such an invaluable document, Huo Sining naturally saw it too. The artifact numbers and names on the roster made her eyes shine and her heartbeat accelerate.

What does it mean when they say ”searching high and low only to find it effortlessly”? Huo Sining initially thought her plan would take a month to execute, but unexpectedly, just when she was at her wits’ end, fate handed her such a generous gift.

The document’s contents nearly encompassed all the artifacts Huo Sining wanted to swap, if not more. She didn’t expect the National Museum to be so competent.

Huo Sining found it amusing to herself. If she knew the director of this National Museum, she surely would have sent them a banner, for no other reason than that the director was incredibly understanding. Just as she was about to take a nap, they handed her a pillow.

Of course, with this document, the previous plan was overturned. Until the morning of the 24th, after Yu Fei hacked the National Museum and confirmed that all the artifacts in the document had entered the museum’s warehouse, Huo Sining was ready to proceed.

This was Christmas Eve, with countless people in Dongyang, just like those in Europe and America, immersed in the festive atmosphere. The National Museum had welcomed tens of thousands of visitors throughout the day, and the staff were a bit exhausted. After counting the people and items inside the museum, they tightly closed the museum’s doors.

Nobody noticed that a girl in a down jacket, snow boots, and a backpack, after purchasing a ticket to enter the National Museum, had not exited the museum until its closure in the evening.