A tour around beyond the limits of the silenced area provides hints of sounds and others in the forest; he knows Lan Zhan's out there, Wen Qing, Eleven, a handful of others, but in this moment there are no shouts, no screams, no animal cries. If that means things lay peaceful or that all have already passed through dire straits, he cannot say. Will not say, doing what he can to believe in the better, while planning for the worst.

He's learned the worst can come to pass.

He smiles, holding his hands out to Lily when he returns. Taking his time when even he, half a wreck of a cultivator, has far more brute strength to use in this situation, to unbury the earth, simply to bury one beneath it. The rocks he'd collected, handfuls of pebbles, are held out in two gloves stuffed full of them, an exchange of one duty between them for another.

"Not sure if they'll all work, and there's leaves and dirt in there too." Then he sets to digging, doing fairly decent work to go down, setting to it like a man who's been in this situation before.

(Either grave digging, or simply physical toil that once upon a time, he wouldn't have readily imagined.)