Ye Yang then nodded, "Continue."

The village chief said again, "Qingyan Village originally relied on some skills passed down from our ancestors to live a fairly prosperous life in the mountains. If it hadn't been for that old merchant named Bao Liang, Qingyan Village wouldn't have fallen to this point."

While the village chief was still gnashing his teeth, Ye Yang asked, "What was the background of that old merchant named Bao Liang?"

"I don't know!" The village chief shook his head. "That man had several red spots on his face and was nicknamed 'Golden Leopard.' Few people knew his real name. We don't even know if Bao Liang is his real name."

"It is said that he had been doing business in the mountains since his father's generation and had good relationships with all kinds of ganshan ren (mountain herders)."

"Many people said that his family didn't seem like businessmen. They didn't care about money but liked to make friends. People inside and outside the mountains would call him Leopard-ye (Master Leopard) when they saw him."

"Back then…"

The story the village chief told was similar to the information Lao Liu had given us. After the village chief finished the story, he sighed and said, "Back then, I let Golden Leopard live in the village because I was afraid of offending him."

"It's okay not to do business with Golden Leopard, but if Golden Leopard said someone was bad, no one would dare to do business with him."

"I never thought that in the end, Golden Leopard would force me with his life to go up the mountain to find the secret treasure of our ancestors."

Ye Yang said, "Are you sure that Golden Leopard asked you to find the secret treasure left by the Daomen Ba Xiong (Eight Heroes of Tomb Robbery), and not something else?"

The village chief was stunned. "He…"

"He asked me to go to the Tiger's Jaw Cliff and take out the things inside. What else could there be besides the secret treasure?"

"Besides, Golden Leopard and his family have been wandering in the mountains for decades. Wasn't it all for the secret treasure of our ancestors?"

Ye Yang and Feng Ruoxing exchanged glances, and the latter transmitted his voice, "Let him continue."

Ye Yang didn't interrupt him. "Continue!"

The village chief said, "On the day Golden Leopard turned into a corpse and blocked the village entrance, I gathered all the capable people in the village to discuss how to open the secret burial site at Tiger's Jaw Cliff."

"Our ancestors only passed down a few skills for moving around the mountains! None of us knew how to tomb raid."

"I vaguely heard my father say that our ancestors left us a way out. As long as we followed the path left by our ancestors, we could get the treasures from the secret burial site."

"However, before my grandfather could tell us that path, he passed away in one breath. No one knows how to find that way out and safely retrieve the items."

"At that time, we had no choice but to go to the secret burial site."

"As a result, half of the people who went up the mountain didn't come back! It was only with great difficulty that we saw this coffin."

"We dared not open the coffin anymore, so we dragged the coffin back."

"But I didn't expect it! We came back, but Golden Leopard didn't come out. No matter how we called him, Golden Leopard refused to show his face, but people in the village kept dying."

"Some people would run out of breath while talking to you, some people would fall to the ground and die for no reason… More than a dozen people died in just two or three days."

"I knew that the deaths in the village must be because of that coffin. But we didn't dare to throw it away, and we didn't dare to keep it."

"Before the coffin was brought back, I was afraid that Golden Leopard would come to our door. After the coffin came, I was hoping day and night that he would come and take away that deadly thing!"

"I was forced to the point where I had no choice, so I went out to find Golden Leopard myself."

"I searched all the places I could, and finally saw Golden Leopard at the bottom of the mountain. I don't know how he was crushed by a rock falling from the mountain. If it weren't for the clothes on his body, I wouldn't have recognized him!"

Ye Yang pondered, "What was Golden Leopard doing there?"

Ye Yang was talking to himself, but the village chief thought that the other party was talking to him, "Maybe he was blocking us there! That's our village's escape route. If we really encounter any war or chaos, we can go down the mountain from that place and have a way out."

"When I saw Golden Leopard's body, I knew it was all over. No one could take this coffin, and we couldn't send it back. Wasn't this waiting for death?"

"Just when we were at a loss, an old man came to the village. He said he could help us get rid of the coffin."

Feng Ruoxing keenly said, "What did that old man look like?"

The village chief said, "The old man's dress looked like someone who ran around the mountains all year round. He held a stick in his hand, but his eyes were frighteningly bright. He looked like a raccoon in the night."

Feng Ruoxing and Ye Yang looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

The village chief continued, "At that time, I was so scared that I had lost my mind. Anyone who came was a savior! I listened to whatever he said!"

"The old man said that he could suppress the coffin. However, we had to follow his method and build a Transformation Formation to dissolve the baleful aura on the coffin."

"Our entire village, old and young, followed his method and worked day and night for two months to build this place!"