"Lady, are you truly telling the truth about all this? It is not just... another one of your lessons?"
Inside a small, lamplit room in the chieftain's lodge, the chieftain whose legs had been broken multiple times by Su Min asked anxiously, his voice a nervous whisper. He had learned the hard way that as long as he did not provoke her, they could coexist in an uneasy, distant peace. But this situation was different, far beyond their personal history. This time, it was not just a broken bone or his pride at stake; it could very well cost him his life, and the lives of everyone in the village.
"Why would I lie about something like this?" Su Min replied, her tone flat and utterly devoid of concern for his feelings. "It takes over a decade for a corpse festering with that much demonic energy to fully turn into a walking corpse, a true Jiangshi. Who knows where I will be, or what the world will be like by then? It is no concern of mine."
She rolled her eyes, a gesture of pure, unvarnished impatience. She had no reason to deceive him about this; it was too trivial. This was not information she had learned from some game tutorial pop-up, but something she could now directly perceive and understand thanks to her heightened spiritual senses at the late Body Refining stage. Some truths about spiritual corruption and its consequences were just obvious to her at a single, concentrated glance, as clear as reading a book.
"You," she said, pointing a definitive finger at the traumatized chieftain. "Send your people immediately to burn all of those corpses. All of them. Do not leave a single one."
If there was anyone in the village who obeyed Su Min without question, it was this man. The repeated, systematic, and psychologically devastating beatings had forged a kind of twisted, absolute loyalty born of pure, bone-deep terror. After witnessing the horrifyingly withered corpse today with his own eyes, he had no choice but to believe her. The alternative was unthinkable.
"Isn't this a bit... inappropriate, Master?" Hearing the order, the chieftain's deputy hesitated, his face a mask of doubt and deep unease. "Our traditions, our ancestors... they demand a cliff burial. To burn the dead is to disrespect their journey to the afterlife..."
"Did you see the corpses today?" Su Min cut him off, her voice dropping to a temperature cold enough to freeze the very air in the room. "Did you see what was left of them? Do you want your own children, your wife, to end up like that one day? A dried-out husk, their youth and vitality stolen in the night, leaving behind a shell that should belong to an old man?"
"N-no, lady! Of course not! Never!"
That single, stark, horrifying question silenced all his traditionalist objections completely. The image of the young man aged decades in a single night was burned into his mind. Without another word of protest, his face pale, he turned and hurried off to carry out the grim, sacrilegious order. The evidence was right before their eyes, and no one could afford to question her anymore. Survival trumped tradition.
"Now, you, listen carefully," Su Min said, turning her piercing gaze to the pale, trembling survivor from the herb gathering team, a man named Ah Yang who looked like he might faint at any moment. "Tonight, that chang gui, the ghost enslaved by the tiger demon, will definitely come for you. It knows you escaped, and it will not rest until it finishes the job. Dealing with the ghost itself is not difficult for me, but the real problem is the tiger demon controlling it from the shadows. If we cannot locate and kill the beast, you had better never set foot outside this village's palisade again for the rest of your life, because it has already marked your scent. From now on, it will be watching you, waiting for a moment of carelessness, and it is far more patient than you are."
"Please, lady, you have to save me! I don't want to die! I have a family!" the man wailed, already terrified out of his mind. He collapsed at Su Min's feet, sobbing and kowtowing so hard that the dull, repetitive thumping sound echoed ominously through the small, tense room.
"Good."
Seeing that her intimidation had the desired effect, that he was properly and utterly terrified, Su Min allowed herself a small, inward smirk of satisfaction, though her outward expression remained as calm and impassive as a mountain lake at dawn.
"If you want to be completely safe, to see your family again, you will have to follow my instructions exactly. No deviations. This is for your own good."
"Tell me what to do! I will do anything! I will cooperate fully, I swear it on my ancestors' graves!"
Just a little psychological pressure, and he was completely under her control, willing to do whatever she said without a second thought. Fear was a powerful motivator.
"That chang gui feeds on essence and blood, but its capacity is limited. It is a gluttonous spirit, but a small one. After all, it was just an ordinary person in life, its spirit can only hold and process so much power before it is sated. So when it tries to drain you, you just need to swallow this pill at the right moment."
As she spoke, Su Min subtly retrieved a small, dark, unmarked gourd from her spatial ring, making the movement seem like it came from the wide sleeve of her robe. When she uncorked it, a single, perfectly round, crimson pill the color of fresh blood rolled into her palm, emitting a faint, metallic, life-filled scent.
[Blood Essence Pill (Grade 2)] – Replenishes blood essence and vital energy.
This was a second grade pill, a step above the basic remedies she usually provided. Since Su Min needed to eventually refine the complex Qi Inducing Pills to break through to the next stage, she first had to reach the proficiency of a second grade alchemist. However, the materials available in this remote, southern region were limited, and this Blood Essence Pill was one of the few second grade pills she could produce in any significant quantity with the local ingredients.
As the name clearly suggested, the Blood Essence Pill restored lost blood essence. While that sounded useful in theory, there was surprisingly little demand for it. Most cultivators rarely expended their foundational blood essence in combat, relying on qi instead, and mortals had no use for such a potent, concentrated item; it would be like giving a racehorse to a farmer who only needs a plow.
"When the chang gui starts draining you, the moment you feel that cold, pulling sensation, you take this pill immediately, and you will be fine. The ghost will get its fill from the pill's released energy instead of your own life force." She fixed him with a stern, warning look. "But do not take it a moment beforehand. If you do, your mortal body will not be able to handle the sudden, violent surge of energy and will literally explode from the inside out. It will be a very messy death."
Medicine was always about dosage and timing. Even a deadly poison like arsenic could be a life-saving medicine in minute, controlled amounts. The same logic applied here. Once the chang gui began absorbing his blood essence, creating a vacuum, the pill would act as a potent, immediate substitute, flooding the connection with pure, consumable energy.
Since a person's innate blood essence was deeply embedded in their body and spirit, the hungry, simple-minded ghost would naturally prioritize the readily available, concentrated essence released by the pill, gorging itself on that instead of struggling to pull the more anchored energy from the living man.
"Once the chang gui has fed and leaves, sated and sluggish, I will follow its spiritual trail back to its master, the tiger demon. Then I will wipe them all out in one go. No more threats."
It was a simple and brutally direct plan, but Su Min knew from experience that the more intricate and clever a scheme was, the more moving parts there were to fail during the critical moment of execution. Simplicity was reliability.
"Good. We will do exactly as you say. What else do we need to prepare? Men? Weapons?"
Hearing Su Min's clear, step-by-step plan, the three chieftains answered in unison on behalf of the terrified man. They greatly preferred this kind of thorough, root-cutting solution to living in perpetual, helpless fear, jumping at every shadow.
"Make the same guard arrangements as last night, but tell them to stay inside their posts, not to patrol. Also, assign one of your most reliable, strong-minded men to stay in the room with him tonight." She glanced dismissively at the sobbing, shivering Ah Yang. "I am worried he will be too scared to act when the time comes, or try to flee. Your man can hold him down and force the pill down his throat if necessary. He must not leave that room until dawn."
Since the three most powerful men in the region had agreed, the poor villager had no right to refuse. In a place ruled by tradition and raw power, defying a chieftain's direct orders was unthinkable, a death sentence in itself, unless, of course, you were Su Min. Besides, Su Min was not actually planning to let him die; he was the bait, but she intended for the bait to survive. Under these circumstances, he had no choice but to comply, his fate entirely in her hands.
"I will not show myself tonight, and do not ask where I am hiding. Just wait calmly in your homes and do not do anything stupid, like trying to peek or light extra torches. Any unusual activity might scare it away."
With the plan firmly set and their own lives potentially on the line, no one dared to take any unnecessary risks. Who could say whether that cunning beast, if thwarted tonight, would target a chieftain next out of spite or strategy? In the eyes of a demon, even a chieftain was little more than prey, a slightly more morsel.
Once Su Min finished giving her orders, she simply vanished from the room, the door never seeming to open or close. She had already concealed herself nearby in the deep shadows between two storage huts, settling into a quiet state of meditation, her breathing slowing until it was undetectable. In a world with little entertainment, cultivation was her primary, and often only, pastime. It passed the hours and made her stronger.
Meanwhile, the three chieftains mobilized their most trusted guards, keeping the unlucky target confined to his designated room with a burly warrior stationed inside, both to protect him and to stop him from losing his nerve and running away, which would ruin the entire plan and seal his fate anyway.
Before long, the sun dipped below the jagged horizon, painting the sky in brief shades of purple and orange before surrendering to the night. Darkness fell, draping the village in an uneasy, watchful silence, broken only by the chirping of crickets and the occasional nervous cough from a guard post.
Su Min, who had been quietly circulating her spiritual energy, slowly opened her eyes. Her brow furrowed as she looked down at the sleeping village from her slightly elevated position. In her enhanced spiritual perception, a distinct, filthy, and corrupted spiritual presence was drawing near, moving with an unnatural, gliding motion that defied the physical world, slipping through the palisade wall as if it were mist.
"It is here, the chang gui."
Muttering to herself, Su Min stood up soundlessly, retracting her aura and spiritual senses until she was virtually undetectable, a ghost herself in the night. Unless a cultivator at the Qi Refining stage or higher was actively searching for her with their own spiritual probe, no one would be able to detect her presence now. The low-level, single-minded chang gui certainly was not capable of that level of perception.
As the sinister presence seeped into the village, a controlled chaos erupted from the target's hut. Muffled shouts, panicked cries, and a single, sharp scream of pure terror echoed under the bright, cold light of the moon, loud enough for Su Min to hear clearly even from her distant, shadowed perch. But soon, after a brief, intense commotion, everything went silent again, save for the sound of ragged, relieved sobbing. The plan had worked.
The chang gui seemed to have absorbed the offered blood essence and was now departing, sated and slow, its spiritual form glowing faintly with stolen power. Su Min, who had been waiting with the patience of a predator, immediately gave chase, her form a silent, fluid blur in the night, keeping a careful distance.
"If you are going to cut weeds, you must pull out the roots."
Since she had decided to act, she would eliminate the problem at its very source. Following the faint, foul, but now clearly visible trail of the retreating chang gui, Su Min leaped gracefully across several dark mountain ridges, pushing deep into the untamed, primordial wilderness that lay beyond the village's fragile domain. For an ordinary person, traversing this rugged, pathless terrain would take at least a day or two of hard, dangerous travel. But for her, it was just a matter of a few powerful, spiritual energy-enhanced jumps, covering vast distances with each bound.
True, unassisted flight—soaring through the air like a bird—required the power of a Golden Core stage cultivator, a realm far beyond her current abilities. But moving with supernatural speed and agility, leaping across chasms and scaling cliffs as easily as walking, her body as light as a feather on the wind? That, she could do easily enough.