Your assumption is completely accurate. The scab broke away revealing healed skin underneath, however it was just a small portion. I'll explain exactly what happened in detail.

As you know our process loves to repeat itself. Raw, thicken, peel. Fun stuff right?
Well my lips were going through their thickening process only this time they got real thick because of the cold weather.(i work outside.) I believe we have to alow these calusses to really thicken up in order to heal. Someone above just mentioned that keeping em dry works, i didn't see if they had cured themselves or not though. Anyway, this time around rather then wiping my lips every 20 minutes to get those embarassing crusts off i left em on. And they stayed on longer then im usual.
Now we can't keep these crusts completely tight, parts will peel back, so when a piece peels off my lips i snip it off with small sissors. The reason is that these pieces that come loose can get caught in food while were chewing and can start to peel itself back eventually peeling of the entire crust. Try to get rid of thiese little pieces that stick out, they are already off the skin so why leave them on.

I managed to keep the crusts on for two weeks and then they really started to losin up. But i was noticeing something a littled different.(im going to just talk about the bottom lip to keep it simple) The longer the crusts stayed on the thinner the bottom of the crusts got. It seemed that below(as in lower on the lip, not underneath the crusts themselves) the THICK crust was a layer of THIN white skin. It seemed transparent. This is the last layer off healing. These pieces are every thin and seem to become normal skin themselves. These pieces will also get sludgy when wet so the most important thing you can do is NEVER wipe your lips... ever. After the thicker layers of crust got too loose to keep on i snipped them off.(don't pull, peel or wipe...only snip) and it seemed that my lips had started to heal from the bottom up.

I couldn't stop touching them i was in awe. I couldn't remeber the last time such a large protion of my lips felt this soft while at the same time not raw ans sticky. (the funny thing is the portion isn't really large, just LARGER) They are not completely healed, or even close, i still have a long way to go, but they seemd to heal from the bottom up. Another important note is that even though this healed portion appears completely normal when dry, it stills sludges a little bit when wet, not really sludgy like the other crusts, it just looks like a real thin layer of white and seems to get better as the days go by. And it doesn't come off as easy as the other crusts either. I think the best thing to do is to let those crusts do whatever it is there trying to do. Avoid touching your lips at all. Don't look at your lips in the mirrow unless you can feel a piece coming lose and need to snip it. When ever i get the urge to touch them with my fingers or look at them in the mirrow i repeat "they don't exist" in my mind. I have no idea how i started this but it seems to work for me, eventually you'll just forget about them and maintain them without thinking twice. Leave em be, and only snip the pieces that are sticking out off the lips. And before you get all getty i have something to say. This healing ocurred a little more then a week ago. And since then my lips reapeated their cycle and they peeled last night, and for some reason those transparent layers werent there. There was no healing this week, just raw underneath. Its seems to all be one big game of how best you can keep them covered with crusts until they are ready to peel. Theres no gurentees. Just never ever wipe. I cant stress that enough, oh and i dont use any balms or anything like that. I haven't for quite a while and believe thats makes it worse because it will make your crusts soft. You want em hard. And hears an example of how i think these crusts work.

I worked construction before. When i started i shoveled and my hands would blister. Eventually after enough damage was done they started to caluss to protect themselves. Then i stopped doing manual labor. But being as that i am how i am and love to bite my nails and cudicles (which i managed to stop as of present time) i liked to pick my calusses on my hands. I'd pick them, they come back, id pick them, they come back and son on. Then one day i stopped picking them and after about two weeks the caluses transformed themselves into normal soft skin. Lips are alot more fragile, so we can expect alot more time. Thats my opinion, disagreaments are understandable and welcome. With all the dermatologists that love do do absolutely nothing about this condition, theyd rather cure ackne, a much more NORMAL, acceptable and less grotesque condtion, all we have are opinions.