"You said this wasn't the only case?"
Frowning as she examined the man's body, Su Min found no injuries other than a few bruises, likely caused by falling in fright. There were no open wounds, no signs of a struggle—only clear evidence that he had encountered something unclean. She recalled hearing earlier that this wasn't an isolated incident. Since she rarely stayed in the village, she naturally hadn't heard of it before.
"Yes. Three or four so far."
"I see..."
Su Min narrowed her eyes upon hearing this. It was obvious that they were being targeted by some unclean creature.
"What do these people who died have in common?"
Silence.
Only a madwoman cackled from the crowd: "Hahaha! Retribution! It's Ah Cai coming for them!"
"Who's Ah Cai? The one who eloped with your daughter and got beaten to death?"
Others might have feared ghosts, but Su Min didn't. Her philosophy was simple: if ghosts came, then she would deal with them. Ignoring the woman's nonsense, she turned to the village chief with a faintly amused look. In her mind, she had already begun piecing together several possible melodramatic scenarios.
"That's not it, young lady," the chieftain quickly explained after hearing her words. "People like Ah Cai are our most valuable resource here. I would never kill them lightly."
"Ah Cai was part of the herbal gathering team. Much of the medicine you use comes from them. But as you know, there are tigers and black bears in these mountains. That's why I made a rule: anyone going into the mountains must carry a spear and go in groups of no fewer than five."
"Hmm."
An accident, then. This world wasn't like her past life, where South China tigers neared extinction. Here, the wilds remained deadly.
"A few days ago, a group went to gather herbs. On their way back, a giant tiger appeared. It didn't even need to stand on its hind legs to be nearly two meters tall. It pounced and knocked down a man in a single move. They'd never seen a tiger that huge. With just one bite, half the man's head was gone—no chance of survival. Even you wouldn't have been able to save him."
"I see..."
Su Min nodded again. There wasn't much she could do when someone was killed instantly.
"The others were so terrified they ran straight back to the village. That madwoman is Ah Cai's mother. Unable to cope with the grief, she blamed them for Ah Cai's death. As for the ghost seeking revenge... we..."
"That's no ghost," Su Min interrupted coldly. "This corpse has a thick aura of demon energy. You just can't sense it. True vengeful spirits don't have this."
"Huh?"
"I know what's going on. As the saying goes, 'acting as a ghost for the tiger.' There's a type of ghost called a Chang Ghost. If a tiger has certain talents, it can bind the soul of those it kills and use them as its servants."
"Then the people who died..."
"Exactly," Su Min replied. "That beast clearly has some intelligence. It deliberately killed a few people and made it look like ghostly revenge to confuse you. But it's only mildly clever. It doesn't realize how much demonic energy it left behind. As for the Chang Ghosts, since they no longer have physical bodies, ordinary weapons or fire can't harm them."
Ghosts had a strange nature. They instinctively targeted the living. In games, they'd be the type with low health and weak defense but extremely high resistance. Regular weapons and flames were useless against them. Only spirit-infused techniques or special tools like peach wood swords could work. For cultivators, they were just low-level monsters to farm for experience.
But for ordinary people, they were impossible to deal with.
"Master, please help us!"
At Su Min's explanation, the once-terrified crowd calmed down. Then, one after another, they all knelt before her, begging for her help.
If it had just been vengeful spirits, many would have simply waited for others to die first, treating it as a spectacle. But now, realizing the tiger demon's cunning, they understood how dangerous the situation was. Without Su Min's intervention, they might all be killed one by one. Plus, many of them had already seen the Chang Ghosts firsthand and knew they were powerless against them.
At that moment, Su Min became their only hope. Hundreds of people knelt together, creating a rather spectacular scene.
"Everyone, get up first," Su Min said. "This matter needs to be handled carefully. Bring the survivors from the herbal gathering team to a secluded place. The fewer who know about this, the better. We don't know what other tricks the tiger demon might have."
"Bring Ah Yang and come with me," the chief ordered without hesitation, pulling the only survivor away.
"Oh, and burn this body."
"Huh?"
"Corpses drained of vital energy like this one are saturated with demonic energy. Over time, this energy can combine with lingering resentment and eventually produce future disasters."
"Huh?"
The villagers looked confused. Their customs dictated that the dead be sealed in coffins and hung from cliff faces.
"The same goes for the other bodies from similar deaths. Handle them the same way. If you don't believe me, wait a month or two and open their coffins. You'll see their corpses unchanged, looking exactly as they did the day they were buried. And don't even think about sending them to me. I run a medicine house, not a mortuary."
With that, Su Min turned and left without looking back. She had said all she needed to. Whether they listened was their choice. From what she'd seen in every zombie movie, disasters always happened because people ignored warnings.
Still, it would take over a decade for a corpse like that to become a genuine threat. By then, she'd be long gone—and far stronger. She had already done her part. As the saying went, "Kind words can't persuade a damned ghost."
As for the tiger demon, she fully intended to hunt it down. According to her bestiary, a tiger that had cultivated spiritual energy was a treasure from head to tail. If it had stayed quiet, she might have spared it. But since it had caused trouble right under her nose, she had no reason to let it live.
Besides, in the current age, only a small fraction of humans had the talent to cultivate. For tigers, whose minds were even less developed, such cases were rarer still. Since the danger was manageable and the rewards immense, there was no reason to hesitate.