Cave Island

[Updates whenever I can. It's short, and I should finish it around the end of the year.]

[I'd recommend reading the comments after finishing the story. Spoilers may significantly affect your reading experience.]

[The rating systems for free stories and paid stories are separate. Giving a free story a low rating doesn't earn you extra chances to give paid stories four or five stars. So if you've enjoyed the story, please give it a five-star rating once it's complete.]

To boost his resume, Public Safety Officer Li Yunzhou takes on an assignment to investigate a cult worshipping an evil god in Dongdao County, where the ocean is heavily polluted.

But as soon as he arrives in Dongdao, he is attacked, suffers a head injury, and loses his memories.

While recovering in the hospital, a local who seems mentally unstable comes to him to report a case.

Li Yunzhou doesn't want to get involved. He says he's been specially assigned to investigate the cult and nothing else, and that the person should report the case to the local officers.

But then he learns that the day before he was attacked, every local officer had met with an untimely death in an accident...

[Reader Advisory]

1. A short-to-medium-length mystery. It won't be put behind a paywall, and will likely be around 30,000 to 50,000 words.

2. The protagonist is the pursuer in the romance. Plot-focused, and the ending may not count as a happy ending.

3. An alternate modern setting, possibly with some Lovecraftian and cyberpunk elements.

4. Not suitable for readers with extreme preferences about character pairings.

5. Some inspiration was borrowed from a certain arc in No One Is Watching, a novel on a neighboring site. You don't need to have read it to enjoy this story. If you have read it and figured anything out, please don't spoil it.

6. I originally entered this in a writing contest, but because a family member is receiving medical care out of town, I may not be able to finish revising the manuscript before the contest deadline (September 1). I'll do my best to make it in time. If I can't, I'll still post the whole story on schedule. Thank you, dear readers, for the gifts of nourishing fluids you've sent here. "Bows."

Theme: Keep your heart turned toward the light