Terrified that he would kill his family, the village chief could only tell the truth. "This village has always been poor. Decades ago, we couldn't even get enough to eat. This place is remote, and hardly anyone bothered with it, so I grew up never knowing where my next meal would come from."
There seemed to be resentment in his eyes. "My parents had to work to support me, and with not enough to eat on top of that, they both died before forty. So I swore I would make sure the people here had enough to eat!"
"Later, I became village chief, but things in the village still didn't improve much. With no other choice, I could only go outside the village to see what I could find."
"And then... I met a ghost! He said that as long as I made sacrifices to him, he would give me money, and I could make the people in this village rich!"
Su Li raised an eyebrow. "So you agreed."
The village chief nodded. "Yes. Back then, even staying alive was a problem. Of course I agreed. So I found a few people, and at night, we tied up a family in the village who had humiliated me before and took them to the woods outside."
"Sure enough, that ghost killed the family, and he actually gave me some gold!"
"From then on, I kept making deals with that ghost. He needed two people a month, and through this, I got a lot of money. I paved roads and built houses for the village and made sure everyone had enough to eat."
"For some reason, more and more ghosts appeared in Huai Village, but you were fine as long as you didn't go outside at night. So I made a rule