Zhang Hua was only half right!

The imperial court, apart from the coroner and prison guards, and a few inheritances, never supported sorcerers. If a member of the arts caused trouble, there were orthodox cultivators from the Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist families to suppress them. There was nothing for sorcerers to do here.

However, some families with ties to ghosts and gods in their ancestry had no choice but to send outstanding descendants into the arts, to become sorcerers. Before these people left, they had to sever ties with their families.

This was also to prevent the family from being implicated, except they feared ghosts and gods, not imperial power.

I deliberately looked at Zhang Hua and said, "Your statement doesn't seem very credible. Does that family still have descendants?"

Zhang Hua said, "That family has no descendants anymore, but I have heard a rumor: Xue Li Hong is related to that family."

I said in a deep voice, "Tell me about it."

Zhang Hua said, "I heard that the family had a treasured saber that was always hidden on the roof beam of their house, and no one was allowed to touch it. It is said that the saber wasn't untouched, and those who touched it all met tragic ends."

"When the Japanese devils came, someone informed them that the family had an ancestral saber. When the Japanese devils arrived, they insisted on taking the saber."

"The family wanted to fight them, but the old master at the time only said, 'Let him take it. If he takes it, he will have to return it on his knees.'"

"The Japanese devil was furious when he heard this, and more than a dozen bayonets were pointed at the old master."

"The old master didn't even frown. The leading Japanese devil took a bayonet from his Arisaka rifle and stuck it on the door frame: 'You are very brave. Seven days, if I don't return this saber, the imperial army's bayonet will send you on your way.'"

"The Japanese devils left, but the collaborators surrounded the family, and the family couldn't escape."

"The women in the family were afraid and cried, begging the collaborators to spare the family, but how could the collaborators agree to this? Even if the women cried their hearts out, they didn't even look at them."

"The old master was as if nothing had happened, eating and drinking as usual, waiting for the devils to come."

"As a result, the Japanese devils came in less than three days, truly entering the village on their knees. However, the people who came were not the devil who had stuck the bayonet, but a group of Japanese monks."

"Some people said: After the saber left the family for three days, seven people in the Japanese devil's headquarters died. Each of them died in a place where they shouldn't have."

"The person who carried the ladder to the roof beam was passing the entrance of the headquarters, when the ladder leaning against the wall fell and crushed him underneath. By the time someone moved the ladder away, he had already stopped breathing."

"The person who went up to the beam to take the saber was sitting on a stool when he somehow fell off, hitting his head on the ground and never getting up again."

"The one who died the most miserably was the one who carried the saber back. He died in the pigsty for two days without anyone knowing. By the time his body was found, both of his hands had been gnawed off by the pigs."

"The pigs in the pigsty were fed every day, twice a day. There was nothing else in the pigsty. Standing at the entrance, everything inside could be seen clearly, but no one saw the man lying inside."

"The Japanese devils thought about it carefully and realized that the seven people had all touched the saber and had all met tragic deaths. They had no choice but to ask the monks accompanying the army to return the saber. The Japanese devils came, returned the saber to the roof beam, and knelt at the door, kowtowing and chanting sutras, not daring to get up even with their foreheads broken."

"In the end, it was the leading monk who pulled the bayonet from the door and stabbed it into his own stomach. Only then did those people carry the corpses away."

"After the Japanese devils left, the old master took his whole family into the mountains to become bandits."

"Although the family had declined, the family traditions of the Eight Banners had never been lost. The family's bandits fought with the Japanese devils for more than ten years, turning a large family of hundreds of people into a single line of inheritance without ever bowing their heads. It was not until the liberation that the family disbanded the bandits."

"When the family came down from the mountain, they did not bring the saber."

"However, people who had seen Xue Li Hong kill people said that the saber that Xue Li Hong carried was exactly the same as the family's saber."

"Therefore, I suspect that Xue Li Hong is that family. Otherwise, how could he open the Nine Graves Gully passage?"

Zhang Hua stopped talking here, "Of course, these things are all things I've heard, and there is no certainty as to what is true and false."

"Hmm!" I nodded and said, "What you said, the most critical thing is the whereabouts of those nine women, or rather, the nine corpses. If I want to enter Erlin Town, I have to find the nine corpses. Do you have any clues about the corpses?"

"No!" Zhang Hua shook his head and said, "If I had any clues, I would have taken action myself long ago."

"You go back first! Leave the information behind, I need to think." I suddenly said when Zhang Hua was about to leave, "By the way, don't leave. Just stay here, there's plenty of room anyway."

Zhang Hua didn't object and simply stayed in his office.

I took the information back to the guest room and directly transmitted my voice to Lin Zhao and Ye Yang: "From now on, don't speak directly, transmit your voices for everything you want to say."

The three of us sat together, and Lin Zhao transmitted his voice, "Do you believe Zhang Hua?"