Deserted Island, Broken Temple, Buried Immortal

[Incense Offerings + Lovecraftian Horror + Eerie Cultivation + Immortal-Burier + Conspiracy + System]

When Lin Du woke up, he had become a clay statue.

A deserted island, a ruined temple, no face.

When night fell, things from the sea came ashore. They crawled up the mountain, circling the ruined temple again and again, scraping at the walls with their waterlogged fingers.

With every scrape, Lin Du's temple crumbled a little more.

[Golden Body Integrity: 6%]

The fishing village below had worshipped the Sea Goddess for hundreds of years.

Ever since the night of the shipwreck a year ago, the goddess had become especially responsive. No matter what they asked, the answer was always an approving divination block.

The villagers still offered incense to her every day, replaced the fruit offerings, and wiped down the statue. No one noticed that the goddess's robes were always wet, or that a pool of seawater kept collecting beneath the altar.

The first time Lin Du saw the villagers' incense threads, he followed them and found the Sea Goddess.

She still sat upright in her shrine, receiving the incense offerings of the whole village.

But she had been dead for a year, eyes bulging and body swollen and pale.

All this time, something had been impersonating her, tossing out one approving divination block after another.

Tonight, it called a girl's name and ordered her sent into the sea.

The girl fled up the mountain and knelt before Lin Du's ruined temple. She asked him, "Will you save me?"

Lin Du had only one wisp of incense left.

He had to use it to protect a living person, then hold a funeral for a dead Sea Goddess.

(Note: Divination blocks consist of two half-moon-shaped pieces of wood or bamboo, each with one flat side and one convex side. When asking a deity a question, you toss them and observe how they land: one flat side and one convex side facing up is an "approving block," meaning yes; both flat sides facing up is a "laughing block," meaning the answer is uncertain or the question is unclear; both convex sides facing up is a "negative block," meaning no.)