“So it’s not a monkey you were in a past life — it’s a bird.” Du Lai said, joking.

Fu Miaoxue let out a wistful breath and gazed at the sky. “I wish I really were a bird~ Go wherever you want, fly wherever you like, completely free.”

“Is there any such thing as real freedom?” Du Lai said with a casual, dismissive smile. “We might look unconstrained right now, but in the end we’re just birds in a cage — this island is the cage.”

Fu Miaoxue paused and glanced at him, but said nothing.

Du Lai guessed she was thinking of things from before, so he left it alone and led the monkey off toward the bathing spot. He thought to himself: if the children at home — Little Bean, Little Sprout, and the others — were ever to meet Fu Miaoxue, they would almost certainly envy her, growing up with everything provided. They would never imagine that Fu Miaoxue herself envied their carefree drifting.

…If she had ever endured hunger, beatings, illness, and cruelty, she would certainly understand — sometimes, freedom was not such a good thing.

……

The stream water gurgled along the connected bamboo pipe, flowing downhill all the way to the low-lying area, then cascaded into the clay pot — clear and cool, eventually brimming over.

Du Lai moved aside the pot that was already full, and the monkey immediately pressed in for a shower, scrubbing her own fur up and down, savoring the rare relief in the blazing summer heat.

Du Lai rinsed off as well, then helped wash the monkey — pinching the small ears, running his hand along the long tail. He had never felt anything especially particular about small animals before, but now, with only Fu Miaoxue and this one monkey on the entire island, something in him had softened considerably. He looked after the monkey with genuine care.

Of course, he was no less attentive to Fu Miaoxue.

The monkey had plumped up recently, and the leather band around her neck had grown uncomfortably tight, making it awkward to wash around. Du Lai simply took it off and smoothed the fur on her neck.

Handling the monkey’s collar, he couldn’t help but think of his own neck — that gold collar had been on so long that somehow, without his noticing, he’d grown used to it.

He reached up and touched his neck, then smiled and said to the monkey, “You’ve got it easy — someone to take your collar off for you. Who’s going to take mine off?”

As he finished saying it, he glanced down at the leather band he’d just removed from the monkey. A thought stirred in his mind.

There was a thin wire coiled inside the leather. If he could take it apart, it might come in useful.

A few days ago he probably wouldn’t have given this any thought — when survival was the immediate crisis, this sort of thing was trivial compared to food, water, shelter, and warmth. Now, though, it was worth a try. It wasn’t as if he had anything else pressing at the moment.

Du Lai finished bathing with the monkey and headed back, where he found Fu Miaoxue already preparing dinner.

To be frank, Du Lai wasn’t all that enthusiastic about letting her cook, because Fu Miaoxue had an unfortunate love of “innovation” — she was forever coming up with strange combinations, such as wrapping clam meat in mashed wild banana and grilling them together. That flavor…

Du Lai preferred not to revisit that memory.

“You two are back~” Fu Miaoxue turned to look at him with a pleased smile. “Tonight we’re having coconut-braised bird!”

Du Lai raised an eyebrow. That combination actually sounded somewhat reasonable.

“You’re cooking the bird inside a coconut?” Du Lai asked casually.

“What would be the point of that?” Fu Miaoxue drew herself up proudly. “I poured the coconut juice inside the bird, then put the whole bird inside the coconut shell, wrapped the outside of the coconut in palm leaves, and put the whole thing in the stove to burn! Doesn’t that sound incredibly creative? Doesn’t it sound especially refined?”

Her eyes were bright with self-satisfaction.

Du Lai: “……”

Fu Miaoxue waited a moment. No praise came. She asked, displeased, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Du Lai asked, “Did you bleed it out?”

Fu Miaoxue’s brow creased. “Well… a little bit, I suppose.”

Du Lai: “Did you clean out the innards?”

Fu Miaoxue: “Um…”

Du Lai: “Did you rub salt on the meat?”

Fu Miaoxue: “……”

Du Lai: “You put the bird inside the coconut shell and wrapped it in leaves — are you sure it’ll cook all the way through?”

Fu Miaoxue: “……”

Du Lai pressed a hand to his forehead and said nothing more.

Fu Miaoxue planted her hands on her hips, furious. “What kind of attitude is that! I work so hard to make dinner, and not only do you not praise me — all you do is pick everything apart!”

Du Lai had nothing left to say. He released the monkey, crouched down, and began pulling the coconut out of the stove.