“Strange Tales × Medicine × Supernatural Suspense × Alternate History × BG × 1v1”
Liu Zhiyuan was originally from Qingzhou during the Northern Song dynasty. His family was wealthy, and he and his parents were generous and charitable. He passed the scholar examination during the Jingkang era, but was later tortured and killed by the Jin people beside a river in a county in Yizhou. His remains were never found, and his spirit drifted along the riverbank.
Moved by his story, people built a temple by the river in his memory, called the Temple of the Willow Immortal, where they offered incense and worship. He had originally been a wild spirit without a place in the registers. Taking pity on him, the Black and White Impermanence reported his story to the King of Hell. Remembering his many good deeds in life, the King of Hell approved his entry into the register of earthly immortals. Liu Zhiyuan became a willow tree, protecting the land around him.
From then on, Yishui went a hundred years without any major disasters. People believed the Willow Immortal had answered their prayers and worshipped him with ever greater devotion. The temple was rebuilt again and again, and his clay statue remade time after time.
But prosperity gave way to decline. During the famine years at the end of the Ming dynasty, members of the White Lotus sect destroyed the temple. The once-thriving Temple of the Willow Immortal became a dilapidated shelter for refugees...
