### Chapter 9: The Temple (12)
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When someone unexpectedly encounters a towering, magnificent statue that strikingly resembles them, their first reaction is likely, “No way! What are the odds of this happening?”
Could that statue actually be… her? Come on, don’t joke around! The likelihood of stumbling upon something like this is probably slimmer than hitting the jackpot on a lottery ticket.
But lo and behold, it all happened.
Lin Nan found herself hovering in front of the immense face of the statue, scrutinizing it like a kid with a shiny new toy.
I must say, the craftsman’s skills were impressive! He managed to capture her stunning beauty and icy demeanor almost perfectly.
So when she saw the statue, it felt like looking in a mirror; she couldn’t shake the feeling that this person was indeed her.
Not bragging, folks—just stating facts!
Confused as she was, Lin Nan never imagined she would discover her own statue within this so-called Sighs Temple. According to Firefly’s narration, the guild leaders had actually worshipped at her statue to complete the divine baptism.
This is just too ridiculous!
Since when did she become a divine spokesperson?
And where the heck did this shabby Sighs Temple even come from?
Puzzlement swirled in her mind, making her desperate to uncover the puppet master behind all this and demand answers.
But alas, the underground palace was as deserted as a ghost town.
Even after Lin Nan rummaged through every room, she found no living soul aside from herself.
Naturally, her investigation hit a brick wall.
Having lost her sense of time while entering the palace, she now worried that the guild battle in Sky Sword City might have already erupted.
Out of sheer disdain for the Fallen Species, she even hoped they’d all meet a fiery end.
But then again, aside from the Fallen Species, there were plenty of human survivors in the city.
If she could save their lives—even if they didn’t know it—this was something she desperately wanted to do.
Given that there were no other clues in the temple besides this strange statue to help her understand the truth, Lin Nan reluctantly decided to leave for now.
Maybe a meeting with the Man in Black Robe would finally shed some light.
To her surprise, she could not find the path she had taken.
And the little wooden carving in her pocket seemed to be completely unresponsive.
d*mn it, was she trapped in this shabby Sighs Temple?
The longer she stalled, the messier the guild battle in Sky Sword City would become.
Sure, she didn’t care if the Fallen Species dropped like flies, but human survivors would also perish in droves, becoming fodder for the Fallen. That was absolutely unacceptable.
Taking a deep breath, Lin Nan resolved to return to the main hall and search for clues—perhaps the answer to the riddle lay in the very things she had overlooked.
Once more, she stood before the ten-meter-high white marble sculpture.
Even she, gazing up at the life-like statue, felt a mix of awe and shock—let alone those poor players encountering the underground palace for the first time.
Under the Man in Black Robe’s control, they didn’t even have the chance to look up; all they could do was kneel and see the base of the statue.
Yet, the natural intimidation emanating from the imposing figure would certainly make them quiver in their boots, too afraid to show any disrespect or irreverence.
Staring at her stone doppelgänger for nearly five minutes, Lin Nan suddenly felt her consciousness detach from her body, swaying gently as it flowed into the statue.
“Boom!” A thunderous sound resonated in her ears.
When she woke up, it felt as if she had just awakened from a dream, finding countless figures at her feet, prostrated before her.
They were incredibly devout, kneeling on the floor tiles, but the entire main hall remained eerily silent, as if they were just a still painting.
Yet Lin Nan knew they were real.
The quivering arcs of their backs suggested that they were indeed alive.
Though clueless about the current situation, and being a statue herself, she couldn’t speak—just stood coldly watching as worshippers shuffled in and out like a revolving door.
And then it dawned on her.
This seemed to be the statue’s point of view, reflecting everything she witnessed from her lonely stance in that spot.
Time passed, with wave after wave of worshippers coming and going.
They were always seeking refuge from the statue, praying to the divine for noble or perhaps nefarious reasons.
The statue’s icy facade might just exist to comfort them—perhaps it didn’t play any real role, but as long as worshippers believed in her existence, the temple could continuously draw power from their prayers.
One day, she suddenly spotted a figure clad in black robes, arriving slowly at her feet with a group of people.
She even recognized two familiar faces in the crowd: Li Hanbo and Firefly.
They were kneeling, trembling.
Then, who knows what the Man in Black Robe muttered, but a surge of power rushed from her feet, weaving through the stone patterns and enveloping them.
Once the dark figure finished reciting his incantation, those poor, quivering souls gradually returned to normal.
Lin Nan was left agape at the spectacle.
So it turns out, the so-called divine power blessin’ them came directly from her statue.
What on earth was unfolding here?
The moment Li Hanbo and the others vanished from the statue’s sight, Lin Nan, drenched in sweat, opened her eyes wide.
Her consciousness returned to her body.
She had been inside the statue, witnessing the entire process of worship and offerings—right up to the recent baptism scene.
This meant her consciousness shared a deep bond with the towering statue, further proving that the deity being worshiped in this temple was none other than herself.
She recalled the little wooden statue nestled in her pocket.
As Firefly’s personal talisman, it had absorbed a bit of spirit through prolonged intimate contact.
Thus, while Firefly was undergoing the baptism, the little carving gained a tiny fragment of divine power.
This explained why, at the Fountain Square, when she couldn’t find an entrance, the wooden statue felt the temple calling and magically unleashed its power to communicate with the underground palace.
But now, having lost its power, it had reverted back to a plain old wooden carving.
Perhaps the way out resided in it.
Lin Nan placed it flat before the gigantic statue and envisioned herself entering the stone figure again, whispering a hint of weak power into the wooden carving.
To her relief, it worked.
The little carving was immediately enveloped in a warm glow, finally returning to its original state after a while.
If she was right, the little statue was like her key to entering and exiting the underground palace, gaining the ability to respond multiple times.
In the end, Lin Nan triumphantly held the little carving and exited the underground palace without a hitch.
She looked up at the snowflake-filled night sky, letting out a sigh of relief.
Her visit to the temple had unraveled part of the mystery, yet simultaneously, it had inadvertently thrust her into an even greater enigma.
