Reborn As Super Heiress

Cinnabar Root?!

A thought flashed through Huo Sining’s mind, thinking of the water galaxy in the tomb, she was instantly shocked and looked towards the hillside.

Seeing the shocked expression on Huo Sining’s face, Professor Xie knew that she had already grasped the crucial point and couldn’t help but sigh:

”I merely mentioned the other name of this plant, and you immediately figured out the key point. You’re truly talented and smart, even I have to admire you.”

Huo Sining felt a bit guilty, she couldn’t have guessed what was inside so quickly if it weren’t for her perspective cheat, having seen the flowing water galaxy herself, so it wasn’t difficult to deduce this key point.

The accompanying students, listening to the conversation between Professor Xie and Huo Sining, felt as if they were listening to a mystery, all of them were confused and couldn’t make sense of it.

Even Captain Zhao standing beside them was puzzled and couldn’t help but ask, ”What kind of riddle are you all talking about? This plant is called Cinnabar Root, is there an issue with that?”

Seeing the confused faces of the accompanying students, Huo Sining smiled and began to analyze the problem bit by bit, explaining calmly:

”Since this plant is called Cinnabar Root, as the name suggests, it is inseparable from cinnabar. The Tieliang Umbrella can be used in medicine to reduce swelling and detoxify, activate blood and remove stasis because it contains a very high amount of cinnabar within it.”

”In ancient times, cinnabar was called Dan Sha, and it was a very important substance in alchemy and medicine. Its chemical name is mercury sulfide. This Tieliang Umbrella contains cinnabar, which means it has a lot of mercury sulfide inside, but where does this mercury sulfide come from? No need for me to say, it’s obvious that these mercury sulfides are absorbed by the plants from the soil.”

”There are so many Tieliang Umbrellas growing on this hillside, which proves that the mercury sulfide content in this mountain is very abundant, allowing the plants to thrive this way. Sulfur is understandable, but where does the mercury come from? You should know that mercury is a heavy metal element, which generally isn’t present in large amounts in common soil, so where does the mercury on this hillside come from?”

Huo Sining explained so clearly that the students suddenly realized, yet Captain Zhao still looked puzzled, leaving Huo Sining with a feeling of speaking to a wall.

”Captain Zhao, have you ever been to the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Xi’an?”

Seeing Captain Zhao nodding, Huo Sining continued, ”Historical records state that the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was built as an underground palace, with moats constructed to replicate rivers, filled entirely with mercury. Hence, the plants growing above the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor are high in mercury content, like the Cinnabar Vine.”

Upon hearing this, Captain Zhao suddenly realized, ”Are you saying that the ancient tomb beneath this mountain is also filled with mercury!?”

Finally realizing, Huo Sining nodded.

As soon as she finished, Shi Qingyun and Zhuang Xiangyang had already carried over the tool bag with the instruments, taking out the instruments for preliminary testing and analysis of those plants and the hillside soil.

Before long, the test results came out, indeed, the mercury content in these Tieliang Umbrellas and the hillside soil seriously exceeded the standard.

”Captain, the people inside just called! They said they are trapped in the annex of the burial chamber.”

At this moment, a policeman hurriedly ran over, holding a phone, with a somewhat strange expression as he glanced at the professors, continuing to say:

”They said there’s a mechanism controlled by sound on that side, controlling the entire burial chamber. Also, there’s a peculiar terracotta figure inside that seems to be controlled by something, making strange noises and able to spew poison; they attack people upon hearing sounds, making them very difficult to deal with.”

Professor Xie’s face suddenly changed: ”Tell them to stay in the annex and not to move rashly; if they damage those things, I won’t let them off!”

A sound-controlled mechanism? And moving terracotta figures, these are all over a thousand years old. How could Xie Daoyuan allow those tomb robbers to destroy such precious things?

Huo Sining was also stunned; she thought that based on what she saw yesterday, considering Mr. Python’s and Mr. Huang’s manner of acting, it was absolutely impossible for them to be foolish enough to get trapped in the tomb and wait for the police to arrest them.

Furthermore, Fujiwara Seiho, although Huo Sining couldn’t understand why he would come to Xianyang to rob a tomb, with his cunning, he would never let the police catch any incriminating evidence against him.

So Huo Sining speculated that these people might have already fled in the chaos of the tomb collapse, and those remaining were likely part of the group Fujiwara Seiho had previously hired, including the ’Oil Rat’ and the disguised ’Old Granny.’

After entering the tomb’s tunnel, they might have split up, so when the tomb collapsed, only Luo Fatso’s group of four managed to escape, while the rest of the Oil Rats got trapped inside, unable to advance or retreat and had to call the police.

However, upon hearing the policeman’s subsequent words, Huo Sining couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

No wonder in the morning at the hotel, after Luo Fatso’s group of four had escaped back, they all wore expressions of lingering fear, even claiming to have heard strange noises from the tomb, suspecting a thousand-year-old corpse inside, leaving Huo Sining startled.

She really thought there were thousand-year-old zombies in the burial chamber, who would have thought they were sound-controlled mechanisms; there are truly no ghosts in the world, just tricks to scare people, although this trick was indeed advanced. Sound-controlled switches, could ancient people over a thousand years ago really create them? And terracotta figures attacking people, whose idea was that?

While the old experts were gathering to discuss how to handle this, another message came from the tomb robbers trapped in the mausoleum: due to the narrow space of the burial chamber, after being trapped for such a long time, the air inside was noticeably insufficient, and someone already felt suffocated, likely to experience oxygen deprivation at any moment. The rescue operation could not be delayed!

Professor Xie didn’t dare to delay the rescue operation, he had to let the diggers cautiously enter the tomb’s tunnel to excavate the collapsed passage, while construction experts with tunnel engineering experience directed the reinforcement of the tomb’s tunnel from behind.

However, this method’s efficiency was very low, hardly achieving any effect.

With the aid of miners’ work lights, Huo Sining and Yang Xiaohan also took a walk through the tomb tunnel.

However, they had to stop after thirty meters because it was all collapsed rubble ahead.

The fragility of the burial chamber’s walls exceeded Huo Sining’s expectations. Such a burial chamber, after millennium of geological changes, had become extremely precarious, and coupled with the human excavation, those wooden structures had been damaged, revealing clearly visible cracks on the burial chamber’s walls. Just a slight touch on the tunnel wall would cause gravel to rain down.