What the fishermen said about sacrifices to these incarnations of the Sea Lord gave Qi Gu some inspiration. The place where they had previously discovered the Man-Faced Conches was not far from the Sea Lord Temple. Perhaps those "incarnations of the Sea Lord" had originally been sacrificed in the waters near the mutated Man-Faced Conches, their bodies sinking there and giving rise to a whole colony of them.
But there was still a problem with that. Even if the villagers of Sea Flower Village counted every minor incident as a disaster, they would not necessarily sacrifice more than a few living people over an entire year. How could that have produced so many Man-Faced Conches, with even variants growing along the coast of Min Di?
Another clue was the Sea Lord's desire for an Extreme Yin Constitution, represented by the young fisherman whom the waves at sea had drawn out. In that case, it was no surprise that Qi Gu and the others had encountered this shipwreck. After all, Qi Gu had an Extreme Yin Constitution, so it was hardly strange that he would attract the Sea Lord's covetous attention.
Their desire to reach the Sea Lord Temple had been so strong that the Sea Lord had mistaken it for a form of "faith," allowing him to sense Qi Gu's presence and bring down a disaster at sea.
What made someone of extreme yin precious was their soul, not their flesh. Yet the young fisherman's soul had not been captured by the Sea Lord, which clearly had something to do with the mark Papa Lin had left behind.
That mark probably also carried some sort of shielding ability, concealing the young fisherman's soul after his death and keeping the Sea Lord from sensing it.
Qi Gu had more or less