Mmm, tying back to the previous update, this suggests further things about the kind of spirit Su Ling's mother is?
Why would children being abused and mistreated work as metaphorical sacrifices to her? Presumably the villagers aren't offering them up in hope she'll take them and leave them alone. Instead they're lashing out, punishing them, attacking the demon. And this works as a sacrifice, perhaps recalling the betrayal and destruction of the old fox goddess? She grows stronger from their persecution, from their disavowal of the relationship between fox and man, from betrayal of family...
At the same time, her children are also their children, so she is performing an ironic inversion of the persecution, making it so as they persecute her, they persecute themselves...
🤔