The bank of the Sea of the Dead was much like a river beach; there were no stone embankments, only a shallow expanse paved with pebbles. Drawing water here was considerably easier than it had been in Miao Village.

I walked along the shore to the edge of the lake, carrying the empty canteen, and leaned down to gently brush the surface of the water with my fingers. The lake water, which appeared impossibly scarlet, felt no different from ordinary water in my palm. Perhaps this was the enigma of the Sea of the Dead—it demonstrated a principle in its unique existence: what you see is not necessarily real, and what you cannot see may still exist.

After filling the canteen, I cautiously raised it to my lips and took a small sip of the water, which looked perfectly clear. I immediately spat it out. It carried that same nauseating, foul taste of blood, unchanged in the slightest. Yet, before I could finish gagging, the Chuan Chang Gu inside my stomach began to writhe, and a voice echoed in my ear once more: "Give them a little to drink. They haven't tasted the water from the Sea of the Dead in ages."

"That water tastes awful, sour and astringent, like pickle brine," I rejected the suggestion outright, thinking that if they craved what I found repulsive, I suppose if they ever wanted to eat excrement, I'd have to procure some for myself to sample.

"Sigh," the voice exhaled a long breath and fell silent, clearly disappointed. However, disappointment was preferable. If I yielded to every request, she would surely treat me as a mere puppet, to be ordered around at her whim.

After concluding my exchange with the hunchbacked old woman, I returned to Xiao Shu’s side, carrying the full canteen of water from the Sea of the Dead. He remained perfectly still in the posture he had maintained. When the cocoon shell was still present, the binding force of that casing lessened the effort required to stand bent over. Now that I had cut the shell away, his entire body was exposed to the air—no covering, no support—relying solely on his own endurance to hold that position. My admiration for him deepened by another third.

Bending over him with the water, I explained what I was about to do. "I'll wet you first with the water from the Sea of the Dead, and then you must strain with me to break free of the silk. That way, you won't get hurt."

"En, understood. Hurry up and spray the water," Xiao Shu declared decisively.

Seeing he agreed, I began to sprinkle. First, I dipped my fingers into the Sea of the Dead water and dabbed it onto the skin already mired in silk. The water wasn't enough, so I returned to the bank to fetch more, making perhaps three or four trips back and forth, yet some patches remained dry. I finally gave up on using my fingers and simply upended the entire bottle onto him. After dousing him, I ran back for more water, only to pour it on him again. I repeated this run five times until my legs felt weak and I was gasping for breath, having finally saturated every inch of his skin.

"Alright, try it now," I managed, bending over beside him, sucking in ragged breaths.

Xiao Shu shifted his foot slightly, then shook his head. "No good. I've been standing too long; my legs are numb. You have to help me."

My only shirt had already been removed and burned. Approaching him bare-chested in this state would be asking for trouble, risking transferring the silk stuck to him onto myself.

I paused to think, then ran back to the bank. I filled the canteen with water and poured it over myself until I was soaked to the bone, from head to toe. Only then did I return to Xiao Shu. Holding his arms, I slowly lifted his upper body, simultaneously pouring water over the silk clinging to his skin and helping him mobilize his joints to regain movement. The silk strands that had been thoroughly wetted with the Sea of the Dead water retained considerable stickiness, requiring genuine force to tear them away from his skin. However, Xiao Shu showed no sign of pain; with the water protecting him, no matter how hard I pulled the silk free, it left no wound behind.