Watching Ali’s large eyes, brimming with tearful starlight, Xiaoyu should have been moved. Instead, an inexplicable rage surged from somewhere, and he lashed out with a swift kick, sending the little girl flying far into the distance. The girl tumbled and scrambled before crashing a considerable distance away. Sitting up, she immediately burst into loud sobs.

Xiao Shu followed close behind Xiaoyu, carrying the water flask. She had anticipated a moving reunion for the two who had endured hardship together, but Xiaoyu’s sudden, unexpected action startled her. She hurried forward in three quick strides, reaching Ali before anyone else. She scooped up the wailing girl, twisted open the flask cap without a word, and poured a mouthful of water from the Everspring into her mouth. After just two or three swallows, Ali realized the spot where she had been thrown no longer ached so severely, and the burns on her arm were gradually closing. She stopped crying, turning her loud wails into soft sniffles. While weeping, she kept stealing glances at Ming Xiaoyu, her expression utterly aggrieved.

After crying herself out, Ali obediently got up and joined Xiao Shu and Xiaoyu on the journey home. However, the thought, "Xiaoyu has changed," quietly took root in the minds of the two observers. Although Xiao Shu and Ali said nothing aloud, they both instinctively viewed Xiaoyu as an adversary, constantly bracing themselves for a sudden slap or a surprise kick. In Ali’s young mind, the Xiaoyu before her was completely different from the Ming Xiaoyu who had lifted her onto the stalactite and protected her at every turn. As for Xiao Shu, the question of whether this person was truly the brother with whom she had shared adversity, and if so, how he had been reborn, remained a baffling enigma.

On the way in, the two of them had laughed and chatted, even finding a strange sort of joy amidst the danger. But the atmosphere on the return journey was suffocatingly heavy; there was no trace of ease or openness, only a peculiar tension of deceit hovering around them. Ali refused to speak another word unless she needed to be carried, and she would only let Xiao Shu hold her, never troubling Xiaoyu. Xiao Shu considered asking about the rebirth several times, but recalling Xiaoyu’s dismissive words by the pool made her feel a great distance had opened between them, and she lost the will to speak.

They walked for two full days and one night like this, finally reaching the tree where Xiaoyu had first burned the spider as dusk approached. A few scraps of partially burned cloth lay scattered on the ground; the charred remains of the spider were nowhere to be seen. Xiao Shu stood in deep thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Xiaoyu, do you still remember exactly where we emerged from?"

Hearing Xiao Shu address him, Xiaoyu frowned, a look of visible difficulty crossing his face. He vaguely pointed in two or three directions and mumbled, "Maybe there, or there, perhaps over there too!"

"Sigh," seeing his lack of certainty, Xiao Shu sighed. "I intended to leave a marker before we left, but the disturbance from the spider and the Límāo ruined it. Finding the spot again is much harder now than it was then."

"Heh, you’re troubled by that little detail?" Seeing Xiao Shu’s worried brow, Xiaoyu gave an easy smile. He began walking confidently toward the plains, saying with absolute assurance, "That’s no problem at all. I’ll just capture that Límāo, interrogate it severely, and I’m sure it will show us the way."

The moment these words left his mouth, Xiao Shu was utterly dumbfounded, feeling she no longer recognized the Xiaoyu before her. She remembered that when they first arrived at the Sea of the Departed Souls, he was the first to share their meager rations with the Límāo. It was almost impossible to reconcile such compassion with the callous tone he now used; it sounded nothing like a joke. Ali shrieked and hid behind Xiao Shu’s thigh, looking at Xiaoyu with sheer terror, as if she had encountered a monster.