"Lady, are you truly telling the truth about all this? Isn't it just another one of your lessons?"
Inside a small, lamplit room in the chieftain's lodge, Chieftain Luo asked the question in a nervous whisper. The orange glow of the flickering oil lamp cast long, dancing shadows across his face, highlighting the beads of sweat on his upper lip. He had learned the hard way that as long as he didn't provoke her, they could coexist in an uneasy, distant peace. But this situation was different. This was far beyond their personal history. This time, it wasn't 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 was flat and utterly devoid of concern for his feelings. "It's no concern of mine."
She rolled her eyes, her impatience surfacing without restraint. She hadn't reason to deceive him. This was too trivial. This wasn't 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. It was 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. Don't leave a single one."
"Isn't this a bit inappropriate, Master?" Hearing the order, the chieftain's deputy hesitated. His face was a mask of doubt and deep unease. "Our traditions and our ancestors 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 dropped 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 or 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 question silenced all his traditionalist objections. 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. She turned 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, won't rest until it finishes the job. Dealing with the ghost itself isn't difficult for me, but the real problem is the tiger demon controlling it from the shadows. If we can't locate and kill the beast, you better never set foot outside this village's palisade again for the rest of your life. It's already marked your scent. From now on, it will be watching you and waiting for a moment of carelessness. It's 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. He began 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, Su Min allowed herself a small, inward smirk of satisfaction. Her outward expression remained as calm and impassive as a mountain lake at dawn.
"If you want to be completely safe and see your family again, you will have to follow my instructions exactly. No deviations. This's 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. He was 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's 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's sated."
As she spoke, Su Min subtly retrieved a small, dark, unmarked gourd from her spatial ring. She made 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. It emitted a faint, metallic, life-filled scent that seemed to hum with vitality.
[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. 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 suggested, the Blood Essence Pill restored lost blood essence. In practice, however, demand for it was surprisingly low. Cultivators almost never burned their foundational blood essence in battle, preferring to rely on qi. Mortals had even less use for it; handing them such a pill was no different from giving a racehorse to someone who only wanted 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 don't take it a moment beforehand. If you do, your mortal body won't 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 could be a life-saving medicine in minute, controlled amounts. The same logic applied here. Once the chang gui began absorbing his blood essence and creating a vacuum, the pill would act as a potent, immediate substitute. It would flood 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. It would gorge 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. Su Min knew from experience that the more intricate 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 and jumping at every shadow.
"Make the same guard arrangements as last night, but tell them to stay inside their posts and 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'm 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 mustn't 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. Besides, Su Min wasn't 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 was entirely in her hands.
"I won't show myself tonight, and don't ask where I am hiding. Just wait calmly in your homes and don't 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 wasn't little more than prey.
Once Su Min finished giving her orders, she simply vanished from the room. The door never seemed to open or close. She had already concealed herself nearby in the deep shadows between two storage huts. She settled into a quiet state of meditation, her breathing slowing until it was undetectable. In a world with little entertainment, cultivation was her primary pastime. It passed the hours and made her stronger.
Meanwhile, the three chieftains mobilized their most trusted guards. They kept the unlucky target confined to his designated room with a burly warrior stationed inside. This was 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. It painted the sky in brief shades of purple and orange before surrendering to the night. Darkness fell, draping the village in an uneasy, watchful silence. The stillness was 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. It moved with an unnatural, gliding motion that defied the physical world, slipping through the palisade wall as if it were mist.
"It's here, the chang gui."
Muttering to herself, Su Min stood up soundlessly. She retracted her aura and spiritual senses until she was virtually undetectable. She was 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 wasn't 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 and panicked cries rose into the air. A single, sharp scream of pure terror echoed under the bright, cold light of the moon. It was loud enough for Su Min to hear clearly even from her distant, shadowed perch. But soon, after a brief and 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. It was 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 was a silent, fluid blur in the night as she kept 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. She pushed 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. She covered vast distances with each bound.
True, unassisted flight, soaring through the air like a bird, required the power of a Golden Core stage cultivator. That was 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.