Reborn As Super Heiress

The Oil Rat glanced over at Xie Daoyuan and couldn’t help but chuckle, saying:

”Your professional archaeology team sure has all the tools. You’ve even got an air detector. Back in the day when I went tomb-robbing with my father, we didn’t have anything like that; just went in with a bamboo basket, a rooster, and a horse-tail lamp.”

Ding Liang had never heard of how tomb robbers operate, and curiosity got the better of him, so he couldn’t help but ask: ”I can understand bringing a rooster; you use it to test the air quality, right? But what’s the purpose of the horse-tail lamp? And what is a horse-tail lamp anyway; I’ve never heard of it?”

The Oil Rat laughed and shook his head, explaining, ”It’s normal you haven’t seen a horse-tail lamp; your generation of archaeology is not the same as it was in our time.”

”Twenty years ago, conditions were rough. Our village was poor and clangy; there was no such thing as an air detector, not even electricity. So each household had a horse-tail lamp.”

”A horse-tail lamp is actually a kerosene lamp. It has a glass cover on the outside, with an iron oil holder at the base inside, filled with kerosene. Once the lamp is lit, you cover it with a glass dome, so even if the wind blows, it won’t extinguish.”

”This kind of lamp isn’t common now. In areas with electricity, you can’t find these anymore. Even if there’s an occasional power cut, people have flashlights or emergency lamps, and candles if nothing else.”

Huo Sining had seen the horse-tail lamp when she was a child in Baiyun Village, but hearing the Oil Rat talk about it made her pause, casually surveying the serpentine stone column in front while listening to him.

”Tomb robbers fear nothing except zombies. Of course, you archaeologists don’t believe in these things, always thinking science is the true path. Still, zombies aren’t some mysterious thing. Didn’t they dig up a thousand-year-old corpse at Mawangdui in Changsha? It’s just a zombie, nothing extraordinary. But in our tomb-robbing trade, it’s something we respect.”

”When we went tomb-robbing with the elders, we would have a rooster and a horse-tail lamp.”

”The rooster wasn’t just for detecting air quality; the horse-tail lamp was for that.”

”When we arrived, we’d lower the horse-tail lamp. Its wick needs air to burn. If the air below has sufficient oxygen, the lamp won’t go out. If there’s no air or low oxygen, it’ll extinguish quickly.”

”As for the rooster, besides testing oxygen, it was used to check for traps.”

”My grandfather told me as a child that ancient tombs might have a Dragon Gate Formation. Those old burial pits were often guarded by spirit creatures, practicing inside. The rooster was lowered to see if there were monsters; if there were, the rooster would be eaten.”

”So in our tomb-robbing sect, this method is called ’sending the rooster.’ Rooster symbolizes reverence for the divine and warding off evil.”

”Now there’s a scientific explanation. Sending a rooster is actually to test the tomb’s mechanisms.”

”Once placed in the tomb, although tied to a rope, once it touches the ground, it’ll run around frantically.”

”If the tomb has traps, the rooster’s movements will trigger them, activating the mechanisms early, so it’s safe for us to enter.”

Ding Liang listened intently from the side, while Huo Sining couldn’t help but laugh. The Oil Rat truly has taken the knife off his head, fearing nothing, even daring to openly discuss his tomb-robbing methods. Luckily, the three of them are open-minded and don’t mind his talk, or he wouldn’t know how he’d die for being so loose-lipped.

Huo Sining couldn’t help but shake her head, sighing secretly.

Over there, Xie Daoyuan had collected all necessary samples and had Ding Liang take photos of the stone doors with a camera. Confident that everything was done, he called to the three, ”Let’s go and discuss outside.”

Ding Liang and Huo Sining nodded in agreement, while the Oil Rat led the way again. They turned to leave.

Their headlamps illuminated the corridor, and the tomb chamber darkened instantly. Huo Sining walked at the rear, but for some reason, she suddenly turned back to glance inside the chamber, and that glance left her stunned.

On those previously nondescript, smooth serpentine stone pillars, eerie blue light was flickering. As her lamp shone, the blue light seemed to grow brighter. Only then did Huo Sining notice that the light came from some special symbols on the pillars.

Identical to the characters found in the Classic of Mountains and Seas!

The bizarre, dense text seemed to absorb the light from their lamps above, growing increasingly bright, resembling the luminous glow of a firefly’s tail.

Huo Sining instinctively gasped.

Her gaze scanned the stone chamber once again, focusing on the stone bed in the center.

Imagine if Ge Hong sat meditating on that stone bed, he could view all the text on the pillars clearly.

A thought arose in Huo Sining’s mind. Though unaware of its reason, for some reason, she believed her guess could likely be correct.

Could the text on these pillars be a cultivation technique? If so, could the Classic of Mountains and Seas in her possession be Taoist cultivation manuals?

This possibility left Huo Sining almost disordered.

She kept wanting to deny her guess, thinking there’s no such thing as immortals in the world, and it’s completely unscientific. If there were immortals, wouldn’t the world be in chaos?

But on the other hand, she recalled her rebirth, the dream of her past life with Gu Xu at Buzhou Mountain, the conversation with Xuan Xu Zi at a Taoist temple, the Little Jiaoren Wei Yang, her current identity, the existence of Jiaoren like Yue Shuwen, Qibao, Niuniu, and Zhong Xiaoyao, all provided ample evidence, suggesting the world might not be as simple as she knows.

With Jiaoren and Taoist monks with a thousand years of cultivation, the existence of immortals may not be entirely impossible.