The basin of water turned bright red, as if a bowl of fresh blood had been poured into it. Yet only its color resembled blood; it was not viscous like blood and remained clear enough to see the bottom.
"Th-this... how is this possible? Could it really be like Brother Chu said before—that this jade cicada had once been soaked in fresh blood?" Wen Yuting exclaimed in astonishment. By the end, her face had turned pale with fright.
Chu Chen smiled. "How could that be? Actually, there's still no definite conclusion about blood stains. Think about it. The moment a person dies, their blood coagulates. How could it seep into jade? It's like in everyday life—even if we kill a chicken, its blood turns purple and then black not long after dripping onto the ground."
"Jade has to soften underground before a stain can form, and that takes at least several hundred years. By then, the blood would have long since transformed into who knows what kind of substance. How could it still seep into the jade—and produce such a vivid, brilliant red stain?"
At the end of the Qing dynasty, Liu Daitong wrote, "The method of forging ancient jade: rainbow-glow grass, resembling madder, grows in the deep mountains of Xining. Its sap can dye jade. Add a little sal ammoniac, then roast it with a bamboo stick, and a red glow will emerge. This method is called the old oil extraction method, and it is rarely seen today. The new oil extraction method uses ebony shavings for roasting, producing black color, or redwood shavings, producing red color. Jade workers today mostly use this method to forge jade."
"So now, some people believe that the blood stains on inherited jade may have something to do with 'rainbow-glow grass.' As for