"Are you alright? Your injury, is it serious?" I clapped my hands, brushing off the bread crumbs, and looked at Xiao Shu’s ankle with concern.

He rolled up his pant leg, pulled down his sock, and carefully inspected his ankle. "It's nothing. The clothes stopped it from breaking the skin. It only stung a little just now, and the teeth marks are already gone."

With that, he crouched down to continue gathering their belongings. I followed suit, retrieving my own backpack and checking its contents.

Once everything was packed, the two of us sat on the ground, propping our packs behind our lower backs, and meticulously studied the map alongside the copy of The Demon Realm.

We had initially assumed that matching the marked symbols to the images of the beasts would reveal the settlement territories of each demon clan. However, after actually looking at the map, we realized the problem was far trickier. The markings were bizarre and archaic, certainly not pictograms. Without any explanations, it was nearly impossible to associate them with specific demon clans. Yet, even under such difficult circumstances, Xiao Shu managed to pinpoint the Monkey Clan's marker on the map. This impressed me to no end, as I would never have found it; the symbol bore absolutely no resemblance to a monkey. It looked more like a skull hanging from a pirate ship, only missing the crossed bones beneath the cranium.

He wasn't certain it was the Monkey Clan's mark at first. He later flipped through The Demon Realm to the section on the Monkey Clan, found the illustration inside, and compared it side-by-side with the map symbol before confirming the match. This demonstrated a remarkable capacity for research and analysis. I imagined us out in the working world: Xiao Shu would undoubtedly be suited for roles as a scholar, professor, or researcher—positions demanding strong analytical skills. As for myself, I seemed better suited for sales, investment, or entrepreneurship, jobs that require a higher degree of adventurous spirit and resilience.

Unintentionally lost in thought, I snapped back to reality from my daydreams about our respective futures only when Xiao Shu nudged me with his elbow.

He pointed at the map and said, "Look, this is where we are now—the west embankment of the Sea of the Undead. We need to cross the Sea of the Undead and head east to reach the Monkey Clan's territory. There are two ways to get there: by water or by land. The water route is a straight line, but we’d need a small boat or a raft. The land route requires us to circumnavigate half the circumference of the Sea of the Undead, and given what we just encountered, the land route might lead to even more dangers."

At this point, Xiao Shu stopped speaking, as if waiting for me to decide on our course of action.

I pondered for a moment. The water route seemed safer and quicker, making it the preferable option. But we had no raft or boat. If we swam across, how could we defend ourselves if we encountered any Undead Fish? I had dealt with those creatures before; they always appeared in swarms, attacking anything they bumped into indiscriminately. If they gnawed us down to two piles of white bones, we wouldn't even have a chance at reincarnation.

The land route felt more practical, but if we ran into giant spiders or other monsters again, without any gear, I wasn't confident I could fight them off.

Thinking this through, I felt completely stuck. I had no choice but to seek outside help. I patted my stomach, rousing the Chuan Chang Gu worms that had been sluggishly resting after their large meal, and tasked them with relaying the problem to Granny Hunchback.

After a considerable wait, Granny Hunchback’s voice finally resonated back: "Stick as close to the embankment as possible. If you encounter danger, use the water from the Sea of the Undead to save yourselves."

Water travel is blocked, and land travel is perilous. It seemed we were forced to adopt this compromise.