I lit a cigarette and said, "According to you, Nine Graves Gully is haunted?"

"Yes!" Zhang Hua nodded. "The second haunting of Nine Graves Gully happened at Xue Li Hong's place."

"The bandit Xue Li Hong got his nickname because he used to bury the dead in the snow. In fact, his most common place for burying people was Nine Graves Gully."

I raised my eyebrows and said, "You mean, the wild Daoist went to great lengths to dig the nine coffins out of the graves, and Xue Li Hong buried them back?"

"Yes!" Zhang Hua nodded again. "Over the years, I've visited many old people. Some of them have heard of Xue Li Hong, some have seen Xue Li Hong, and some have even seen Xue Li Hong burying people."

"Xue Li Hong's burial of people wasn't just a simple matter of burying them. Every corpse he arranged had a specific position. The red dots that appeared in the snow looked like a painting."

Zhang Hua took out his phone and flipped through it a few times. "Look, this is what I've drawn based on some people's memories."

I looked at it a few times. If you connect the circles that Zhang Hua drew, the shape is roughly similar to the Nine-Leaf Jadeite.

If Zhang Hua's speculation is correct, then the Nine-Leaf Jadeite is the key to opening the Ghost God Forbidden Land.

I handed the phone back to Zhang Hua without showing any emotion. "Continue."

Zhang Hua said, "Based on these legends, I've made several inferences and come up with a guess."

"Xue Li Hong buried people everywhere back then, in fact, he wanted to use some kind of secret method to force out the coffins sent away by the wild Daoist, and then bring the coffins back and bury them in Nine Graves Gully."

"Xue Li Hong finally succeeded. This is the real reason why Xue Li Hong disappeared with his gang."

I said in a deep voice, "How far are Maozi Mountain and Nine Graves Gully from the logging yard?"

Zhang Hua replied, "Not far, from the logging yard, go down and cross two mountains to Maozi Mountain, and behind Maozi Mountain is Nine Graves Gully."

I stared at Zhang Hua and asked, "Don't you think there's a loophole in your investigation?"

Zhang Hua said, "You mean, Nine Graves Gully shouldn't be in a populated area, right?"

From Zhang Hua's story, I could clearly feel that Maozi Mountain should not be far from the county town or township.

Zhang Hua said, "I've also considered this question. Jie Sanbao obviously didn't know the legends of Maozi Mountain and Nine Graves Gully all along. Otherwise, he wouldn't have kept sending people from the logging yard into the deep mountains."

Zhang Hua took out his phone again. "Look, this is the map that Jie Sanbao's expedition team must have every time. Maozi Mountain is not mentioned here at all."

After I flipped through the map several times, I said, "The map is getting more and more detailed each time. Does it mean that the expedition team has found clues?"

Zhang Hua smiled, "Li Dangjia should know this better than me."

I smiled faintly, "Continue!"

Jie Sanbao didn't have a clear route. The expedition team was just looking for a way forward according to their own methods. The final results were also different, which can only show that they hadn't even found the edge of the Ghost God Forbidden Land, and had already become wronged ghosts in the mountains.

Zhang Hua said, "According to my speculation, Xue Li Hong should have opened the forbidden land portal hidden in Nine Graves Gully back then, and then led people into the forbidden land from the second portal."

"In other words, Nine Graves Gully is just the first level. The second level should be to start from the logging yard and then enter the forbidden land at a certain node."

"I think Jie Sanbao should have directly crossed the first level and walked into Erlin Town. Otherwise, his ten expedition teams would not have been able to find any clues."

"It's just that Jie Sanbao himself didn't know this!"

After listening, I couldn't help but remain silent for a moment.

I was wondering how credible Zhang Hua's words were.

There were no sorcerers in the expedition team organized by Jie Sanbao, but they were definitely not all useless. All ten expedition teams went and never returned, and the clues left behind were also messy, and they didn't even touch the edge of the forbidden land before being buried in the deep mountains. From the opposite direction, it can indeed prove Zhang Hua's speculation.

I asked casually, "The expedition team didn't come back, where did your map come from?"

"Picked it up!" Zhang Hua said, "If the expedition team doesn't come back, I will definitely organize people to search the mountain. Every time, I can find the bodies of the expedition team near the logging yard. The most recent one was less than one kilometer away from the logging yard."

"In other words, those people all died on the way back?"

"I have a feeling that the ghosts in the forbidden land think that the expedition team is not worthy of dying in their territory, so they sent them all back."

Zhang Hua's explanation is reasonable, but I always have a feeling: someone in the forbidden land wants Jie Sanbao to go back!

I said without showing any emotion, "Your explanation is reasonable."

"However, this explanation has a premise, that is, the portal of Nine Graves Gully existed for a long time after Xue Li Hong disappeared, and then it was closed again."

"In other words, the nine coffins in Nine Graves Gully were either re-opened or moved."

"The person who moved the coffins must not be Jie Sanbao, otherwise he would have gone in long ago."

"Do you know how to restart Nine Graves Gully?"