The big-eared little beagle yelps oddly: “Mommy, tell the story again about how you picked me up.”
Swamp Monster: “……”
How to tell the child that, before she grew up, he had always wanted to swat her dead.
*
Jiang Xiaoya transmigrates into a strange-tales world. She must struggle to survive, hack her way through thorns, and stay alive!
Good news: she’s been picked up and protected by a kindhearted person.
Bad news: she’s turned into a baby!
Even worse bad news: the kindhearted person who picked her up is the big boss of the strange-tales world!
At the end of the lakes and swamps lives a terrifying Swamp Monster. Whenever it rains, a dreadful bog appears around him, devouring everything nearby; he is ferocious and bloodthirsty, muddled and dim.
The place where he lives is called by humans the “Black Forbidden Zone.”
Until one day… he picked up a little baby.
The Swamp Monster, crawling in the shadows, lets out a terrifying low growl toward the infant.
The little baby hugs the water ghost’s thigh and makes werwer odd cries.
Later, the terrifying monster learns how to mix milk powder, point at pictures, and tell bedtime stories.
All in all, although she makes werwer strange cries at first, with big eyes and a tiny body she is still a very cute baby. But as time goes on…
And later still—
Swamp Monster: At my most desperate, I once thought of jumping off a building holding her.
*
Four-year-old Jiang Xiaoya says she wants to drink nutritious milk powder, that one with three deer.
They say if you drink it your head will get bigger, and you’ll become very smart.
The Swamp Monster finds it annoying, but Jiang Xiaoya really is too thin and small, and very stupid; she does indeed need that whatever-it-is to nourish her brain.
He goes to human territory, but after searching for a long time he only finds milk powder with one deer on it. There is no Three Deer.
He thinks about it.
Reaches out his hand, and takes three cans.
It isn’t until Jiang Xiaoya recognizes more and more characters that one day she discovers that the One Deer milk powder she has been drinking since childhood actually says: Instant Coffee.
……
In the whole world, only Jiang Xiaoya understands the Swamp Monster’s language.
When he says hulu-hulu, it means it’s time to eat; when he lets out terrifying hissing roars, it’s to scare Jiang Xiaoya into behaving. If he says bulu-bulu—
That is him saying: Xiaoya, I love you.
【Mini Theater】
Jiang Xiaoya has always thought the Swamp Monster was her mama, because his hair is especially long. Until one day, from far away, she sees Mama standing silently in the rain, beneath the hair gathering a slender stream of water. S
he runs over, raises her umbrella, and stands on tiptoe.
The Swamp Monster lowers his head; dense eyelashes cover a layer of pooled rainwater, finally revealing his original appearance—it turns out to be a handsome, delicate-featured youth.
—So it wasn’t Swamp Monster Mama, but Swamp Monster Big Brother!
Xiaoya wants to pull him into the house, but the Swamp Monster lowers his head and firmly presses Xiaoya in place.
He learned it from a little deer by the roadside: when it rains, as long as you don’t move after your fur gets wet, the water won’t seep into the inside of the coat.
Xiaoya thinks in puzzlement: But they don’t have fur!
So Xiaoya lets Big Brother hold the umbrella.
One big and one small squat by the river, waiting an entire afternoon for the rain to stop.
【Reading Guide】
1. Non-human pseudo-kin. The age gap isn’t large—three years old raising one year old. It’s just that the male lead isn’t human, so he’s much larger than ordinary people and has extremely strong survival abilities. Being called “mom” is due to a misunderstanding in the early stage, because the male lead’s hair is long and his face can’t be seen clearly.
2. In the early stage the male lead is a pure monster, who only goes heh-heh-heh chasing and killing all living beings. Later, as the female lead grows up, he will gradually become human. During the 【childhood period】 there is no romance. Emotional changes occur after the female lead reaches 【adulthood】.
3. There are superpower and mental-form settings. The female lead’s mental form is a little beagle.
【HIGHLIGHT!!!!】
It does not involve anything like a child bride, please please don’t misunderstand. This is a very childish, fairy-tale-style story of two little ones growing up together.
