Nothing happened without reason. Most likely, something in this cave had raised these Hilichurls' intelligence.
Only when their minds reached a certain level—when they could think about the tribe's future—could such ideas take root.
After all, in the long run, an elder's experience and knowledge mattered far more than a young, fierce body.
The latter decided whether you lived today. The former could guide you for years.
Before long, Albedo found a spot where a strange energy fluctuation still lingered.
The pulse came from the very back of the cave, buried beneath a thick layer of ice along the wall. Beneath the ice, water could be heard flowing.
He didn't rush to investigate what, exactly, was sealed inside. Instead, he returned to where Jiang Bai was.
As the scent of food began to spread, quite a few Hilichurls gathered around.
They crowded around the pot, staring at Jiang Bai with wide, pleading eyes.
"Easy, easy—it's not done yet."
Jiang Bai tried to soothe their growling stomachs, whether they understood him or not.
The Hilichurls wiped their drool and pressed in closer.
Klee was mixed in among them. She hadn't been hungry at first, but with everyone else looking that hungry, she started craving it too.
She tried to open her little backpack to take out something to share. Unfortunately, aside from bombs, she hadn't packed anything—certainly not candy.
"Um… Klee didn't bring food. Klee doesn't have anything to share with her friends…"
She sounded a little dejected.
Hearing her, Jiang Bai glanced back and chuckled. "Albedo probably brought some. Go ask Albedo."
Klee's eyes lit up at once. She pattered off to find him.
Jiang Bai kept cooking. Before long, the fragrance fully filled the air.
He casually condensed a long stone table, then several stone bowls. Like a cafeteria server, he ladled food into each one—scoop after scoop.
"Don't rush, don't rush. Everyone gets some."
When he finished portioning out the pot, it was neither too much nor too little—just right for everyone.
Klee came back tugging Albedo along. Albedo was carrying a whole box of toast.
Toast was portable and filling, so Albedo had brought a lot of it.
"Klee wants to share food with everyone too!"
Albedo followed behind her with the cardboard box while Klee earnestly handed out a piece of toast to every Hilichurl.
"Odomu nini~"
Friend… like.
"Mosi mita!"
Happy.
The short phrases rose and fell in a chorus. Klee couldn't understand them, but she could feel how happy they were.
Which only made her happier.
Before this, she'd never made friends with Hilichurls. Acting Grand Master Jean always said monsters were dangerous and told her not to go near them.
But now, looking at these Hilichurls, Klee felt a sincere, swelling pride.
Jiang Bai patted her head, hoping this special experience would leave something behind for her as she grew.
She might not realize what made it special right now—but when she was older, having lived through something like this might help her look at a tribe, at something, more objectively.
"Here. Eat."
Jiang Bai handed her a bowl of vegetable stew.
"Mhm!"
Klee cradled her bowl and, alongside the Hilichurls, polished it off.
For Hilichurls, food was probably the most important thing in the world.
So whether it was Klee, or Jiang Bai—who had cooked delicious meals for them twice now—they felt an enormous warmth toward them.
Seeing them eat so happily, Jiang Bai lifted his own bowl and took a sip.
It was… so-so.
But even simple seasoning—something he considered average—was, to Hilichurls living with scarce food, an absolute feast.
Each Hilichurl drank from their bowl as if it were treasure, licking it spotless.
They tasted the toast Klee had given them with reverent care. Quite a few took a bite, then tucked the rest away, unwilling to eat any more.
Watching it, Jiang Bai felt a quiet ache. Whether human or Hilichurl, the most basic goal was the same: survival. The difference was that humans had already climbed past that lowest threshold and begun chasing more.
But these Hilichurls, living in the cold of Dragonspine, were still struggling on the edge of simply staying alive.
It hadn't been very long since Jiang Bai's last visit, yet the tribe's numbers had dropped by three.
Maybe they'd met with an accident while searching for food. Maybe they'd run into human adventurers, or more dangerous monsters.
Either way, they hadn't come back.
"No rush," Jiang Bai murmured. "There'll be more tonight."
Whether they understood him didn't matter.
He wasn't pressed for time this trip. He could stay longer.
He couldn't give them a better environment to live in—but he could at least provide a few more meals.
"Mosi mita!"
The Hilichurls didn't understand Jiang Bai's words, but they could feel emotion. Some of them began dancing around him again.
They sang as they circled him, and laughter—crossing the barrier of language—pulled Jiang Bai's lips upward before he realized it.
When they finally calmed down, Albedo led the now-freed Jiang Bai toward the deepest part of the cave.
"I found something," he said. "Come with me."
They stopped before the same ice wall Jiang Bai had seen before.
"I think there's something inside…"
Faced with the familiar wall, Jiang Bai went still for a moment.
It matched what he'd suspected last time. In the final fragment of memory he still had then, this was where he'd closed his eyes—self-sealing within this thick, heavy ice.
Back then, he'd been on the verge of death. The only way to survive had been to use the ice's low temperature to enter a state of minimal respiration, slowly repairing his body while keeping it viable—waiting for the day he could wake again.
After that, who knew how long had passed. For some reason, the ice had shattered. He and the chunk of ice encasing him had fallen into the water below, then been carried by an underground current into Liyue.
And Baiyuan had been found by an adventurer treasure-hunting on Dragonspine—picked up by the riverbank.
Like him, it had fallen from here into the underground stream.
But Jiang Bai truly couldn't remember leaving anything else behind in that ice.
"So that's how it was…" Albedo said after listening, thoughtful.
"If you're certain this is where you sealed yourself, then whatever I sensed inside the ice wall should be something that was frozen along with you." He paused. "I can't rule out that it isn't something on your person, though…"
"We'll know once we take it out."
Baiyuan flowed into a long blade in Jiang Bai's hand. The edge drove straight into the ice—ice that yielded like tofu before it, offering no resistance at all.
Jiang Bai cut the ice into large, square blocks and hauled them down. Only after he'd cut four to five meters into the wall did he finally see it—a broken necklace, frozen deep within the ice.