Albedo didn't want to continue. The topic was too taboo—if they kept digging, something unpleasant might happen.
Jiang Bai didn't want to continue either. It was giving him chills.
He glanced at Klee, who was playing nearby while the two horses grazed. Seeing she wasn't running off, they returned to their rough little camp. Albedo lifted the lid of the pot and tasted the stew with a spoon.
It was a bit bland, so he sprinkled in some salt and let it simmer.
"About your memories—how much have you recovered?" he asked.
"I feel like I've got it all back. But if there's still something missing… I wouldn't even know." Jiang Bai answered honestly.
He wasn't trying to hide anything from Albedo. Sometimes he needed someone well-read—and trustworthy—to think things through with him.
"Would you mind telling me how you remembered?" Albedo asked, curiosity clear in his voice.
In Teyvat, memory—like emotion and desire—was something special.
Visions were crystallized wishes, and the elements themselves carried emotion and desire.
If Albedo understood how Jiang Bai's memories returned, it might help his research.
"It's complicated. It has to do with a place I stumbled into recently."
Jiang Bai recounted what had happened in that space, along with Zhongli's warnings, piece by piece.
When he finished, Albedo fell into a long silence.
Only when a scorched smell wafted up from the pot did he snap back to reality.
"…Damn—!"
He yanked the pot off the fire, lifted the lid, and checked inside. Thankfully, it was only a little burnt.
"Let's eat first."
Jiang Bai could only sigh. He'd been thinking too, and he hadn't watched the heat either.
He still had a thousand questions about his memories returning so suddenly.
Why had his reflection appeared in that space? Was it something about the space itself—or something deliberately triggered by that voice?
Jiang Bai leaned toward the latter. If it were simply the space's nature, then Hu Tao wouldn't have felt nothing at all when she was there too.
But then… why could that voice help him recover his memory?
It was as if the memories he'd lost had been stored somewhere—waiting for the moment he reclaimed them.
Was that even possible?
What could record his memories—especially the far older ones about his homeland, about the sea of stars and the universe?
Or did that voice simply use some method to dig up what had been buried in his mind?
Questions piled on questions.
"Klee, lunch!" Albedo called.
"Coming~"
Klee, who'd been playing with the horses, patted them and muttered a few "instructions," then scampered over.
Lunch was a thick vegetable-and-meat stew—easy to make outdoors, with both meat and greens. One sip of the piping-hot broth and the fatigue from a morning's hard travel eased a little.
Even while eating, Albedo kept thinking. "What do you think that voice wanted, restoring your memory?"
No matter how it happened, the fact remained: the memory had returned.
"I don't know." Jiang Bai looked troubled. "I don't even know what that thing is. How am I supposed to guess what it wants?"
"I've even wondered if it really caused my memories to come back… or if I was always meant to recover them there, and it just showed up at the same time."
Albedo shook his head. "We have too little information to draw anything solid. And the space you described has far too many possible explanations."
Teyvat had countless dangerous, bizarre domains. Creating a space like the one Jiang Bai described wouldn't even be difficult. With only this much to go on, any investigation would be severely limited.
"If only we could go back one more time," Jiang Bai muttered.
"I agree," Albedo said. "If we go again, we might find something."
Jiang Bai didn't think returning to that palace would be hard. The tomb had collapsed, but the entrance should still exist.
"I'm very interested in the place you described," Albedo said. "Next time we have time, the two of us should go take a look."
"Deal." Jiang Bai agreed readily.
"But I doubt we'll run into that Abyss Herald again."
That space had been opened by the Abyss Herald. If they couldn't open it, going back might not accomplish much.
"What are you guys talking about?" Klee asked, tilting her head after finishing her bowl.
She'd listened for ages and hadn't understood a word.
"Research stuff," Jiang Bai said, handing her a cup of hot milk tea. "If you're full, take a bit to digest. We're not in a rush."
"Oh." The moment she heard it was research, Klee stopped paying attention.
Albedo's research was too deep. Not understanding it was normal.
She held the milk tea and took a big gulp. Sweetness spread through her mouth—pure happiness.
Albedo and Jiang Bai chatted idly, and somehow the conversation drifted to Aether.
"Last time, I asked Aether to help with some experiments," Albedo said. "Some of his traits are similar to yours. For example, he can manipulate elemental power without a Vision. And he can wield multiple elements."
"Oh?" Jiang Bai perked up. "Did you find anything?"
Albedo nodded. "Like you, he resembles the humans of this world. I originally assumed beings from beyond Teyvat would have other forms, but it seems… not much different."
Jiang Bai shook his head. Whether people across the sea of stars shared this form was one thing—but he and Aether were still different.
"I'm not the same as him. He can purify the corruption on Dvalin. I can't."
That alone cleanly separated him from Aether.
They were both outsiders, but that one difference shaped Aether's path—his "mission."
Jiang Bai didn't know what kind of foul power had tainted Dvalin, but Teyvat likely had many things like that, waiting to be purified and cleansed by Aether.
Maybe that was why Zhongli said Aether was destined to ascend the throne of divinity.
Maybe one day, even the throne itself would need cleansing.
Albedo nodded. Toward the end of the experiments, he'd taken Aether to Durin's heart as well, and Aether truly could purify that same tainted force.
But how? Albedo hadn't been able to figure it out. Once the corruption touched Aether, it faded away—slowly, almost like it was being absorbed. Yet when Albedo examined Aether, there was no trace of it inside him.
It had stumped him for a long while. In the end, he could only chalk it up to Aether's inherent uniqueness.
"Right—this is my weapon. Baiyuan." Jiang Bai tapped the bracer. "See if you can learn anything from it."
"Weapon?" Albedo's tone lifted with obvious confusion as his gaze fell on the bracer.
Jiang Bai removed Baiyuan from his arm and handed it over.
The moment it left Jiang Bai, Baiyuan seemed to haze over, growing dull and muted in an instant—like something brand-new suddenly soaked through with time, turning old.
Albedo watched the change closely, interest sparking in his eyes.