Jiang Man's words were exactly what I was thinking.

Ever since I saw the feng shui formation of the upside-down needle, I've started to suspect that this place isn't a tomb.

The glowing forest beyond the second gate, in particular, further confirmed this to me.

Although there are bioluminescent plants in the outside world, apart from fungi and a few ferns, I have never heard of any plant that can grow into a forest without sunlight.

Aside from the fluorescent forest and the murals, all the electronic devices we brought malfunctioned in this mountain, seemingly due to the strong radiation.

Seeing me hurrying forward, Jiang Man continued to express her confusion: "I've heard that nuclear radiation can cause mutations in plants and animals, but the situation here, and the records in the murals, are quite different from what I've heard about nuclear radiation..."

"That meteorite came from outer space; it's not from Earth, so it can't be understood using modern technology. Natural metals were among the earliest metals used by ancient humans. The most familiar natural metals to us are native copper and native gold. Besides these two, meteoric iron was also one of the earliest natural metals used by ancient humans!"

Geologist Zhang Hongzhao recorded in his book "Shiya" that: "It is said that in ancient times, before the development of iron, the iron tools and weapons used were obtained from meteorites. Thus, meteorites were also a source of cultural resources."

The iron mentioned here refers to iron obtained by humans from mining and smelting. In other words, before the technology of smelting iron from iron ore was invented in ancient cultural history, people often used meteorites to forge objects.

Iron meteorites are mainly composed of iron-nickel metal, which is hard and difficult to process. Their appearance is also not as easy to identify as that of natural copper or gold. Therefore, humans used iron meteorites later than natural copper or gold.

If I remember correctly, the tallest meteorite iron artifact discovered in the world to date is a dagger found in Gaze in the Nile River Valley around 3500 BC. Legend has it that Gan Jiang, a famous swordsmith from the State of Wu during the Spring and Autumn Period, liked to use meteorite iron to forge weapons!

Most meteorites carry strong radiation, but the ancients did not understand this and regarded them only as divine artifacts. In his later years, Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Houcong, became obsessed with alchemy and neglected state affairs. He demanded that all officials respect Taoism. Those who respected Taoism were promoted and made rich, while those who dared to speak out and offer advice were either dismissed from their posts and imprisoned or beaten to death on the spot. To satisfy his Taoist practice and debauchery, Emperor Jiajing in his later years repeatedly selected hundreds of women from the common people to enter the palace and used the girls' first menstrual blood to make elixirs. He was almost strangled to death by the palace maids, leaving behind the absurd "Renyin Palace Incident". However, he still did not repent.

Legend has it that Zhu Houcong's death was caused by accepting a meteorite presented by a wandering Taoist priest, converting the palace into an alchemy studio in hopes of achieving immortality. However, after that alchemy session, his health deteriorated rapidly, with swelling all over his body and uncontrollable bleeding from his mouth and nose. Unofficial historical accounts claim the meteorite was a ghost bone capable of absorbing the life force of the living, but some modern analyses suggest he was killed by the meteorite's radiation.

After explaining my thoughts, I summarized: "The radiation from the meteorite may not be the kind we know, but in any case, the third door must not be opened. Otherwise, not only will the person who opens the door die, but it may also pose a fatal threat to us!"

Jiang Man asked, "Do you think we have the strength to stop them from opening the door?"

"Wei Shengnan and the others are now lagging behind. Ahead lies the battlefield between Ping'an Village and Duan Jinyan. Although we are not on the same side as Ping'an Village, we share one common goal: neither of us wants the third door of this underground palace to be opened!"

I led Jiang Man out of the Rainbow Tunnel and continued, "After Duan Jinyan and the others came down from the secret passage, they didn't come here, which means they don't know the situation inside the main tomb chamber and have already found the passage. We need to speed things up!"

Jiang Man quickly caught up: "There are at least hundreds of holes in the cave behind. Even if we check them one by one, it will take time. Do you think we can still stop them?"

"Hopefully we'll make it in time! If we don't, we can't continue taking risks. Once the third door opens, we must find a way out of the underground palace and set up an ambush on Duan Jinyan's likely route."

I took a deep breath: "Of course, this is on the premise that Duan Jinyan can still walk out alive after opening the third door."

After seeing the mural outside, I understood that there were no other tomb passages here, because this mountain was originally an unfinished tomb. The mural outside was meant to tell intruders what kind of place this was, so that they would hesitate to enter.

Based on the content of the murals, I have analyzed that what is suppressed in this ruined tomb, in addition to the berserkers who have mutated due to radiation, also includes that extraterrestrial meteorite with strong radiation.

I don't know much about radiation, except that many elements are radioactive and have a half-life.

Radioactivity is a probabilistic phenomenon. After each half-life, 50% of the initial atoms will disappear, meaning the danger of radiation will be reduced by half, but it can still continue for many half-lives.

In short, the longer the half-life has passed, the less harmful the radiation is. For example, the half-life of polonium is only 0.0018 seconds, but the half-life of uranium is 4.5 billion years.

I don't know how much radiation is in this mountain range, but the fact that this one stone can change the magnetic field of the entire mountain and even cause mutations in the underground plants and animals is truly alarming.

As we returned to the location of the giant statue, Jiang Man suddenly thought of something: "Duan Shenxing, do you remember that before we entered the secret passage, the people from Ping'an Village examined the corpses of those hairy monsters and said that they were not quite the same as those described in the records? This means that they knew that there were such monsters in this tomb. Do you think these things could be the berserkers that were suppressed in this mountain?"

"According to Miao Xiaoxian, only the clan chief of Ping'an Village knew about the existence of this place. However, they did not have the key and could not even enter through the first gate, so it was impossible for them to reach the location of the fluorescent forest. Their understanding of this place was limited to the earliest records. These things may have existed thousands of years ago, but they should not be the berserkers in the murals."

I recalled the hairy monster's face covered in eyes and felt a chill run down my spine: "The murals we just saw were painted very realistically, even showing the tumors on the corpses, but they didn't show that they had many eyes. So those hairy monsters are not the things in the murals."