Cinnabar ware

Lacquer or shellac was sometimes layered to produce a material that could be carved or molded. Popular examples of this process are the red Asian cinnabar ware and union cases used for early photographs. Most cinnabar-ware actually contains no cinnabar, although this toxic sulfide of mercury was originally used as a coloring agent. Some of this lacquer-ware is composed entirely of many layers of lacquer, but most has a base of wood or metal. 

The name of this elixir can also be rendered as Cinnabar Flower, where flower denotes the sublimate and cinnabar is its color as said below, the elixir sometimes will be of a vivid scarlet color like cinnabar. The Taiqing jinye shendan jing, i.iyb-ihb, describes a similar method where cinnabar is refined with realgar and orpiment as the Mysterious and Yellow does in the methods of the Nine Elixirs, these two minerals incorporate Yin and Yang in the crucible. For another translation of this section of the Nine Elixirs see Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of a.d. 320, 78-79. 

The possible exception is the first of three methods for the solution of cinnabar given in Jiudan jingjue, 8.4a-b compare Baopu zi, 16.289 (ttans. Ware, 272). It is unclear whether this is a direct quotation. Passages quoted from the Baopu zi also appear in chapters 7, 8, 10, ii, 13, 15, and 20 of the Jiudan jingjue. 

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