Xing’er lay snoring on the ground, while Ali, startled and clutching her bleeding neck, squatted nearby, sobbing uncontrollably. I retrieved a towel from my backpack, cleaned the blood from myself, rinsed the towel clean in the stream, and then walked over to Ali, gently tending to the skin around her wound.

She wept as she spoke, "If only Auntie were here. When she was around, Xing’er would be punished the moment he tried to feed."

Hearing Ali say this, Xiao Shu sensed an underlying meaning. He limped over to Ali, painstakingly squatting down beside her, and said, "Good girl, you are the bravest. Where is Xing’er's mother? How did she stop Xing’er from feeding before?"

Ali was still sobbing, forcing the words out one by one between her clenched teeth, saying, "Don’t… know… They… disappeared… when… you… came… If… Xing’er… dared… to feed… in front of her… she’d lock him to a rock, and not let any monkey near him, not even me."

From these words, it was not difficult to imagine the mother’s profound disgust for her son’s bloodthirsty nature. I suddenly recalled the first time I saw Xing’er—he was still in swaddling clothes, set adrift in a small boat, floating on the Sea of Lost Souls until he washed up near Wang Jue, Hou Dayong, and me. We were all puzzled; what kind of family would be so cruel as to abandon a newborn infant?

However, after he bit off my finger, we all understood: this was an unusual infant, and being close to him was dangerous; one could be harmed by him at any moment. Perhaps this cruel reality shattered the mother’s heart, leading her to place him in the small boat and let fate take its course.

Now, for some unknown reason, the mother had found him again. She sent the Monkey Clan to Miao Village to snatch him back from our hands—or more accurately, to rescue the two hosts from the clutches of the Ghost Infant. Since the monkeys probably couldn't distinguish which child was the one the mother wanted, they took both back, as they had never seen what a Ghost Infant looked like.

I had guessed the entire sequence of events with reasonable accuracy. I looked at Xiao Shu’s dim expression and knew that what he was thinking was likely something entirely different. Perhaps he was pondering why the mysterious mother had suddenly vanished, perhaps considering whether the vision that materialized on the cliff hinted that Xing’er was the flesh and blood of her own kin, or perhaps fantasizing about some connection between the mysterious mother and the person he longed for day and night.

"Cough, cough…" I carefully washed the towel again in the stream, wrung out the water, and offered it to Xiao Shu. But he was completely lost in thought, staring blankly ahead. With no other choice, I used the towel to nudge his chest. The instant he turned back toward me, I shoved the towel into his hand and said, "Hurry and clean yourself up while there is still light. The sun will be setting soon."

"En," Xiao Shu mumbled in response and began wiping the blood from his body—first his neck, then his arms and torso. When he reached his knees, he closed his eyes in pain, using the towel to dab gently at the skin surrounding the wound. His expression was so tormented it seemed to transcend mere physical pain. So, I left the weeping Ali and squatted beside Xiao Shu, forcibly moving his shielding hand away to reveal a festering wound the size of a palm.