The village chief slowly stepped forward, "You have the ability and the strength. But your vision is too short, you can only see what's in front of you. More importantly, you don't understand the ways of the world."

Jiu Ci was a proud girl. Being criticized by her grandfather in front of two outsiders made her lose face. "I don't accept that. You say I don't understand the ways of the world, but does Li Po? Didn't he still become the master of a hall and dominate Liaodong?"

I glanced at Jiu Ci helplessly. Why did this squabble between grandfather and granddaughter have to drag me into it?

The village chief said in a deep voice, "You think Li Po doesn't understand the ways of the world? It's not that he doesn't understand, but that he understands too well."

"The ways of the world aren't about groveling and being all smiles. It's about knowing when to be angry and when to be tolerant."

"Li Po is in the council hall, and the only person who can speak for him is Cai Wei. He doesn't want to implicate Cai Wei, so he can only target the entire paper doll village, even denying Cai Wei a chance to speak. Only in this way can Cai Wei clear herself of any connection with him after he escapes."

The village chief continued before Jiu Ci could speak, "You think Li Po's hard stance against the many sorcerers in the council hall was just him not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth? That's because you didn't realize he was already prepared to escape."

"If Li Po had made a scene in the council hall, we would have had to pay at least fifty lives to capture him. We can't afford that price."

Jiu Ci bit her lip and said nothing, but I frowned secretly. The old man wasn't saying these words to Jiu Ci!

And certainly not to me!

In that instant, I clearly felt that within the brightly lit paper doll village, a pair of eyes seemed to be staring at the backs of us as we moved forward.

After the village chief brought us into his house, he skipped the pleasantries and directly opened the secret door behind the cabinet, leading us underground.

I followed behind him through five secret doors before entering a secret room containing three corpses.

The three corpses were all sitting cross-legged on a bluestone altar, their bodies covered with a layer of white cloth. At first glance, they looked like three statues yet to be unveiled.

The village chief stood about a meter away from the altar, "These are the Mo family sorcerers who returned from the outside world back then."

When I secretly glanced at Mo Caiwei, I found that her eyes were only filled with curiosity, not sadness.

This shouldn't be the reaction of someone seeing the remains of their relatives for the first time!

Sure enough, Mo Caiwei asked, "Are these Mo family members?"

The village chief shook his head, "I can't tell whether they are or not."

The village chief turned to look at me, "Young friend, you should know about the Coffin Gate, right?"

My eyes couldn't help but shrink suddenly: The Coffin Gate again.

The Coffin Gate's lingering presence by my side, is it an arrangement of fate, or is someone deliberately orchestrating it?

The village chief obviously didn't know about the grudges between me and the Coffin Gate, and continued, "Our village is considered a vassal of the Coffin Gate!"

"You might not understand it that way. Let me put it this way! Our ancestors accepted the inheritance of the Coffin Gate, but weren't allowed to join it. Back then, the person who taught us the secret methods said: When you can create a living human puppet, then you can leave the village and join the Coffin Gate."

The village chief put his hands behind his back and said, "The so-called living human puppet is to create a living person out of thin air from a dead person."

"Human blood, human bones, human flesh, human skin! Hehe, our four families disassemble the dead, and then have to recombine these things to create a living person, how difficult is that?"

The village chief turned around and said, "Tell me, isn't creating living people out of thin air like this a blasphemy against the gods?"

I looked at the village chief, "Have you ever succeeded?"

"Never succeeded!" The village chief shook his head, "Even if someone cultivates the secret art to the extreme, we still haven't succeeded. A person's life and death is the cycle of the heavenly way."

"Would the heavenly way allow such a thing to happen? But the people of the Coffin Gate have always believed that a living human puppet can be successful. Because they once created a pair of living human puppets."

"One of the puppets even stayed by the side of a great master of the Coffin Gate for many years without being seen through. In the end, that great master even washed the martial world in blood for the sake of the living human puppet, killing countless people."

"Based on this alone, it is enough to prove that living human puppets can not only be successful, but are also no different from living people."

"The Coffin Gate gathered us together and passed down the secret methods in order to reproduce the secret art of the living human puppet."

The village chief couldn't help but sigh as he said this, "But after thousands of experiments, and the sacrifice of countless clansmen, we still haven't been able to activate the living human puppet."

"After constant deliberation, we finally discovered that the secret art of creating living humans is not complete. Or rather, each secret art has a fatal flaw. That's why we can't activate the puppet."

"So, we started tracing back to the source to find the complete secret art. As a result, we ran into ghosts and gods."

The village chief said in a deep voice, "You know that the Greedy Wolf God General has eight ghost servants under his command, right?"

I said lightly, "As far as I know, the Greedy Wolf only has four great generals under his command. Where did the other four come from?"