Chapter 210: The opportunity to get rich is right before us!

Dawn mist shrouded the river, light smoke like a curtain.

The mountains on both banks gradually closed in, squeezing the river into a narrow water lane that only a small boat could pass through.

The old boatman at the stern lazily pulled the oars; the wooden oars entered the water almost silently, raising only tight ripples that spread toward both banks.

Du Shanü sat at the bow, her back straight, eyes scanning the terrain on both banks; she occasionally glanced down at the topographic map Afang had drawn for her, lost in thought.

Chinu knelt beside her, constantly struggling to press down the hem of his Wife Master's skirt blown up by the wind.

One still, one moving, they were perfectly harmonious.

After rounding a few bends, the cliffs on both banks grew steeper, as if a heavenly being had cleaved an entire mountain in two with a sword.

The waterway grew narrower, so narrow that the boatman had to pole off the rocks on both banks just to keep the boat moving forward.

Du Shanü rolled up the map and leaned forward to look ahead——

Not far ahead, at the base of the mountain where it met the water, a pitch‑black gape yawned open.

The opening was not large—about the height of a person—its edges ragged, like a natural fissure.

The rock around the mouth was a dull gray‑black, starkly different from the bluish‑gray stone of the banks, and in the morning light it gave off a faint metallic sheen.

Several soot‑faced miners squatted at the mouth, some striking the ore in the wall with iron hammers, others hauling chunks out in bamboo baskets; the clinking rang back and forth in the narrow waterway, sounding especially clear.

The boatman poled the craft to the mouth and jammed his pole into the mud on the bank to hold it steady.

Du Shanü snatched her skirt back from her servant's hands, rose swiftly, and stepped onto the slippery rocks ashore.

A slightly older clerk recognized her, dropped his supervisory duties, hurried forward, clasped his hands, and said in a hoarse but respectful voice:

"Your Highness has arrived! This is the place—brothers have been digging day and night, and the deeper they go, the more of this black stone they find."

He turned sideways and pointed to the pile of ore stacked at the mouth.

Du Shanü crouched and picked up a fist‑sized lump of raw ore.

The ore felt heavy in her hand, considerably heavier than she had expected.

Its surface was gray‑black, rough and hard, and in sunlight one could see tiny metallic‑glinting grains embedded in the stone.

She turned the piece over in her fingers, examined it repeatedly, then picked up another and felt the grain of its fracture; her brow furrowed tighter and tighter.

This ore differed from the cassiterite she had seen before.

Cassiterite is panned from streams, smoothed by water's scouring, and relatively pure in composition.

But these raw ores before us were clearly hewn straight from deep within the mountain, full of impurities and with a far more complex assemblage.

She did not rush to speak; instead she rose and walked to the makeshift shelter the miners had erected at the mouth.

The shelter was crude: a few posts propped a thatch roof, beneath which sat a rough wooden table holding a few simple items——

a ceramic bowl, an iron hammer, a bronze crucible, and a palm‑sized furnace molded from clay.

This is the gear tin‑miners carry for on‑site assay of ore grade.

Though the furnace is small and cannot reach the high temperature Du Shanü had sketched for her equipment, it can still heat enough to melt tin, so a preliminary test is easy.

"I'll borrow it for a moment."

Du Shanü spoke over her shoulder, not waiting for a reply, she set the crucible on the little furnace, then picked a few better‑quality chunks from the mouth, smashed them with the hammer, and tossed the glittering fragments into the crucible.

Chinu squatted, took the bellows from her hand, and began to pump it slowly.

The bellows blew air into the furnace; the charcoal fire shifted from red to white, licking the crucible's base and emitting a low hiss.

Du Shanü's gaze remained fixed on the crucible.

Moments later, the ore fragments in the crucible began to melt. A layer of silvery‑white liquid first separated from the slag, bright and shimmering, gently swaying at the bottom——

Tin.

Indeed, molten tin.

Du Shanü gave a slight nod, about to speak, when she noticed a small patch along the edge of the silvery liquid that was something other than tin.

It was dark gray, far more viscous than tin, reluctant to flow—like a clump of mud that had solidified but not completely, slowly writhing in the heat.

Du Shanü's eyes narrowed.

She prodded the dark gray mass with an iron needle, leaned in to examine its color and form, and a certain thought gradually crystallized in her mind.

In her previous life she had seen plenty; on a lab bench she had definitely seen this substance among a pile of ore specimens collected from some mine in the southern ridges.

Back then she was merely an obscure research assistant, and her advisor pointed at that dull black stone and said to her:

"Xiao Du, remember this—it's called black tungsten ore. It looks unimpressive, yet it's harder to find than gold. If I could locate this stuff outside the lab, who'd still be calling me teacher......"

Who would have thought that a casual remark from her mentor years ago would come in handy in this obscure dynasty?

She stirred the slag in the crucible again and, amid the gray‑white waste, discovered several more granules of different colors and shapes.

A few were light green, hexagonal prismatic crystals, slightly translucent in the firelight.....

Clearly, they were beryl.

In her former life she had seen polished emerald and aquamarine, but this was the first time she beheld their raw ore.

There were also several darker, nearly black specimens, extremely dense, sunk to the very bottom of the slag, immovable even when prodded with a needle.

Du Shanü studied them closely for a moment, thinking the dark ones might be titaniferous iron, while the tiny pale‑yellow specks she could not identify but suspected might be zircon.

She set the needle down and rose to her feet.

The firelight fell on her face, making her eyes and brows shine especially bright.

"This ore is far more complicated than we anticipated."

She walked over to Chinu, squatted beside him, pointed to the still‑hot slag and metal in the crucible, and spoke in an unhurried tone, as if stating something utterly ordinary.

Yet in her depths lay an unmistakable gleam that could not be erased:

"I had thought this place held only tin ore, but now I see that the raw ore of the Chicken Nest Tin Deposit still contains plenty of good stuff."

Chinu leaned ever closer, almost cheek‑to‑cheek with her.

Du Shanü's heart burned hot; she paid no heed, instead pointing to the light‑green crystals:

「This is green pillar stone; it's not particularly useful, can only be used for gem inlays, just for looks, not usable in battle。」

She moved her finger, pointing to the dark granules sunk at the bottom:

「These should be titanium iron and zircon stone. The stuff is good stuff, but under current conditions, without those later‑day devices, we can't extract them; we can only watch them get mixed into the slag and thrown away。」

She paused, her gaze returning to that lump of deep‑gray black tungsten ore; her voice lowered a bit, yet it carried a firm resolve.

「Only this, black tungsten. Its value might be higher than tin。」

Chinu's attempts to get close had constantly been rebuffed; he was already extremely dissatisfied, but upon hearing his wife master speak, he also obediently replied:

「What is black tungsten? 」

Du Shanü turned her head to look at him.

The firelight danced on her face, drawing the smile in her eyes into a bright, radiant glow:

「Silly slave-slave, mix a little of this stuff into the iron ore and charcoal and smelt them together, you can get something...... guess what it's called? 」

When you like someone, you call them good slave-slave!

When you say he's being nasty, you call him bad slave-slave!

Now, even though you know he doesn't know, you still come to tease him, and he's become silly slave-slave!

Chinu refused to guess, and let out another hum.

That hesitant, awkward look instantly made Du Shanü's smile deepen a bit.

She no longer sold the secret, but instead said it word by word:

「Mysterious iron refined steel。」

?? Let's walk through the main plot~ Actually the heroine's position is not bad, there are also many associated copper‑silver veins, but this time we didn't set up anything for the heroine...... for fear of making the golden finger too overpowered!