Despite the many studies on Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元's records of excursions in Yongzhou 永州, there is still much lacuna to fill. This is mainly because their interpretations for some of Liu's work, like Shide Xishan yanyouji 始得西山宴遊記, are not plausible and do not give satisfying account for his dissolution of melancholy from demotion therein. Besides, many scholars persist that "Yongzhou baji" 永州八記 is a group of writings with closely related contents and thus cannot discuss them on separate basis even though they have different writing themes. This article focuses on the dissolution of Liu's confinement complex and re-evaluates his records of excursions in Yongzhou with no regard to the conventional "baji" framework. Accordingly, the five records written in the fourth and fifth year of Yuanhe 元和can be viewed as his dissolution attempts by Zhuangzi 莊子's thoughts. It is then suggested that, in contrast to them, the another five records written in the seventh and eighth year of Yuanhe have completely different meanings, and thus can be considered as Liu’s another attempt through reversion to Confucianism.