"I've passed through countless villages on my travels.
"Although Lin Family Village hasn't caught any fish in so long, the atmosphere here is still quite good.
"There's worry on the villagers' faces, but no panic. For keeping everyone so united through hardship, you deserve the greatest credit as village chief, Uncle Lin."
As they climbed the slope, the Fishbone Dragon King Temple came into increasingly clear view.
Cui Jiuyang's attention had been drawn to the temple. Listening to Uncle Lin, he took their exchange as nothing more than the mutual flattery of a first meeting and did not really take it to heart.
Yet those few casual words of praise struck right at Uncle Lin's heart.
Old Lin was now in his fifties and had spent more than twenty of those years as the village chief.
Looking back over all those years, he could honestly say that he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to the village's affairs and had never sought personal gain.
Among all the fishing villages nearby, Lin Family Village could indeed be called the most prosperous.
Its natural sheltered harbor was certainly its greatest advantage, but its present achievements were also inseparable from his many years of hard work.
That was why these three months without a catch had left him more anxious than anyone else in the village.
Those who lived by the mountains lived off the mountains; those who lived by the sea lived off the sea. Generation after generation, they had spent their lives living off the sea, only to end up unable to catch a single fish.
Coupled with the various strange incidents that had recently occurred in the Dragon King Temple, Uncle Lin could not help beginning to wonder whether the Dragon King had truly abandoned them.
The hill was not high, and