"Knock, knock, knock..."
"Excuse me, is Dr. Kureha here?"
Following the clues the villagers had provided, Xie Wen came to the forest near the lakeside town. Using Observation Haki, he soon found a large tree fitted with a door and windows among the trees, then went up and knocked on the door.
Early the next morning, after taking Hua Mei Meow to Drum Castle to manage the two Research Cats' daily routines, Xie Wen took Klee Meow and Shalmeow out to continue exploring Drum Island.
Robin, who wanted to keep investigating Drum Island's history, went with them, as did Shirahoshi, who had finally overcome the cold weather, and her Big Sis, Jinx Meow.
As for how Shirahoshi had overcome the cold...
With both Research Cats engrossed in studying Drum Island's medicine, Kaido Meow had knitted her a warm fishtail sweater overnight.
Honestly, Xie Wen had only just learned that Kaido Meow even had that skill.
In any case, once the problem of her tail's vulnerability to the cold was solved, Shirahoshi, who had been working to spread Fish-Man Island's desire for peaceful coexistence with humans to the world, immediately asked Xie Wen to let her go ashore with him.
Naturally, Xie Wen wasn't going to dampen the "little" mermaid's enthusiasm, so he brought her and Jinx Meow along too.
It was just that, when they went to Drum Castle, Shirahoshi was too big to experience the local specialty cable car.
Still, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, with the terrible way Wapol governed his kingdom, if the current Shirahoshi saw him, the "little" mermaid would surely be just like Robin and lose control, smacking him with the Fish-Man Karate she had been practicing so diligently lately...
Of course, precisely because they couldn't take Shirahoshi on the cable cars,