“Ding—welcome to the system’s world of strange tales. The world you have been selected for is Swamp Strange Tales.”

“Please confirm the identity you choose.”

Jiang Xiaoya was a very outstanding lifeguard. During a mission, she met with an accident and croaked, and was then picked up by the system. The system said she looked very capable, gave her a chance to live again, and tossed her—dusty and bedraggled—into the world of strange tales.

Facing the several identity options displayed before her eyes, Jiang Xiaoya fell into deep thought.

If this were a novel about a powerful female lead, she would decisively choose mercenary, to start a thrilling life of blood-soaked battles, a biohazard-like existence. At the very least, turning into an ordinary person would also work—she could find a powerful base and grab onto a sturdy thigh.

But contrary to the system’s expectations, Jiang Xiaoya was actually a strip of dried kelp swaying in the wind.

Although she croaked because she was saving someone, a large part of the reason was that she didn’t have much desire, and was overly go-with-the-flow. Her personality was very warm and cheerful, so go-with-the-flow that it reached a certain realm, to the point where she felt that living was fine, and dying was also okay.

Jiang Xiaoya was often talked to by her team, telling her to cherish life. Jiang Xiaoya felt that she did cherish life—this was specifically manifested in the fact that she took vitamins every day.

Besides that, she believed that life lay in stillness.

So, no blood-soaked battles, please. No struggling to survive, please.

Jiang Xiaoya glanced left and right, hesitating for a long time in front of the 【Mercenary】 option on the panel, her gaze beginning to drift.

Her finger quietly tapped the last option.

How about being an infant instead.

The system politely reminded her: “Has the host thought it through? If you choose infant, your intelligence may decline due to the limitations of the body.”

Jiang Xiaoya nodded.

She happily began to look forward to the salted-fish life she was about to unfold, swaying with the wind like kelp!

───♡───

After a year-long acid rain, many swamps appeared on the land, ferns began to grow wildly, but unlike many apocalyptic film and television works, the monsters that appeared here were not zombies, but a kind of eerie creature called “water ghosts.”

Water ghosts only appeared on rainy days. They wandered through the swamps like wandering souls, dull in their response to the outside world, yet extremely ferocious and terrifying. They would drag passing living people alive into the lakes to drown them, eat them, and then turn the living into their own kind.

Because these peculiar traits were extremely similar to those in certain horror stories, people called them “water ghosts.” However, even high-tier water ghosts could only appear in damp places. Thus, people erected towering electric fences at the ends of the swamps, and established survival bases of various sizes in relatively dry regions.

However, at this moment, in the dangerous swamp zone where no living person should have been present, a bonfire was lit inside abandoned buildings.

They were a small team planning to cross the continuous swamps and seek refuge at the nearest Tiandong Base. But unfortunately, on the way they encountered a massive number of low-tier water ghosts, and by accident walked into this “Black Forbidden Zone” that all major bases had explicitly forbidden entry to.

It was said that this Black Forbidden Zone had once been Tiandong City’s largest prison, holding over a thousand people. But after the heavenly disaster descended, it was submerged by swamps. Here lurked large numbers of high-tier water ghosts rarely seen outside, and—within it existed unknown eerie magnetic field fluctuations, marked in deep black on satellite maps. To this day, no one had been able to walk out of here alive.

Therefore, this place was called the “Black Forbidden Zone.”

Logically speaking, once stepping into this place, this team should not have survived even one night.

But along the way, they had not encountered a single high-tier water ghost, and could not find even the commonly seen low-tier ones. In the tranquil swamp, there was only the reflection of daylight, and the old prison site even possessed a kind of serene beauty.

Yet sitting by the bonfire, everyone’s expressions were grave.

The satellite watches emitted an unceasing beeping sound. Generally speaking, the magnetic field fluctuation of a high-tier water ghost appeared as a bean-sized dot, but now, on their dials, there appeared an entire screen of blood-red that defied common sense, covering a range of several thousand meters around them.

A sense of ominous foreboding spread through everyone’s hearts.

“Captain, how about we stop going to Tiandong Base and turn back right here?”

However, just as the words fell, Deng Feng who had been sent out to scout—pushed the door open, panting heavily:

“Run! I don’t know what happened, but I saw many high-tier water ghosts heading this way!”

Just as everyone scrambled in panic to pack up their equipment, bean-sized raindrops began to smack against the ruins. And as everyone knew, creatures like water ghosts were especially active on rainy days, their speed also increasing dramatically.

Once it started raining, the chance of escape became slim.

The captain frowned. “There’s no time. We have to leave one person behind as bait, otherwise we’ll all die.”

Water ghosts were dangerous, but their intelligence was low. As long as they caught hold of a single prey, they would fall into a frenzy of scrambling over it and sink back into the swamp. In other words, sacrificing one person would buy the others time to escape.

After a moment of silence, a room full of adults all, without prior agreement, looked toward the corner—where there was a small swaddled bundle.

Deng Feng panicked.

“That’s the child Captain Jiang entrusted to me to take to Tiandong Base before she died. The captain only died to save us—”

“Then what do we do? If she cries on the road and attracts the water ghosts, what then?”

“You—!”

Everyone avoided Deng Feng’s gaze. Clearly, they had already made the same decision. The team packed their things and silently stepped into the curtain of rain.

Deng Feng wanted to argue further, but the captain pressed a hand to his shoulder: even if Deng Feng wanted to stay behind as bait, they could not possibly continue on the road with a tiny infant.

Deng Feng was so angry his face turned ashen. He stopped chasing after the team and hurried back toward the ruins, against their direction.

However, before he had gone far, he heard something strange.

Had that group of high-tier water ghosts caught up so quickly?

No. It was a completely different kind of sound—a low-frequency vibration, like the breathing of some gigantic creature within a vast cavern. The “he… he…” sounds pierced through the rain curtain, echoing among the abandoned buildings.

A layer of gooseflesh instantly crawled up Deng Feng’s spine. He stiffly turned his head.

Not far away, a colossal figure cast an enormous shadow.

The ruins had long since been abandoned, the world shrouded in a blur of mist and water vapor. The monster appeared amid the dense fog and steam, moving between the high-rise buildings. It had long hair, far exceeding human height.

That dark shadow passed through the empty ruins, its long, thin limbs walking within the rain curtain.

Beneath the shadow lay rivers dragged out by the slaughter of those high-tier water ghosts—their green blood smeared across the ground.

“He… he…”

After the heavenly disaster, far too many things incomprehensible to humans had appeared in this world. Yet with years of exploration, humanity believed it had gained sufficient control over the post-catastrophe world. Who could have imagined that within this deep swamp lurked an eerie existence beyond human imagination—beyond even the scope of their understanding.

Soon, screams from the team rang out through the rain curtain:

“…What on earth is that?”

“Hurry, open fire! Stop it!”

Deng Feng’s eyes widened.

Amid the hail of bullets, green blood dripped down drop by drop, then began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Hard cement instantly softened and collapsed, turning into swamp. Wherever the colossal creature passed, the black mire swallowed everything around it like tentacles. The concrete ground began to cave in, and buildings vanished into the swamp like bubbles.

It was an utterly unreasonable, extremely horrifying scene.

By the time the team wanted to run, it was already too late.

“Help! He—glug glug!”

Deng Feng stood frozen in place. Cold sweat mixed with rainwater soaked through his back. His brain screamed madly for him to run, yet his legs were so weak they could barely hold him up.

Click—

He unconsciously stepped on a small pebble.

The colossal creature slowly twisted its neck. Its gaze pierced through the curtain of rain and locked straight onto Deng Feng’s direction.

It saw Deng Feng!

Just as Deng Feng’s entire body began to tremble, from within the rain curtain there suddenly came the sound of a baby’s “giggle.”

It was like a stone being thrown into a boundless lake.

The massive black shadow tilted its head slightly.

Water was still dripping steadily from its hair. On its pale face were splashes of leftover blood, revealing a kind of fragile, sensuous, chaotic beauty. However, it was only a fleeting glimpse. Very soon, that face was hidden again by damp, long hair.

It maintained this twisted posture, quietly listening for a moment.

Its pale chin turned toward the direction the sound had come from.

The colossal creature bypassed Deng Feng.

The swamp monster passed through the towering ruins, its long, thin limbs walking through the darkness, emitting terrifying heh-heh sounds and dragging noises. Its enormous shadow was like a lonely great tree.

───♡───

Baby Jiang Xiaoya opened her eyes and discovered that her limbs had shrunk like a wool sweater that had been run through a washing machine!

She vaguely remembered her earlier conversation with the system, but because her brain development was incomplete, and the cerebellum not developed at all, her memories were like Ma Dongmei¹Ma Dongmei (马冬梅) is a pop-culture reference, not a real person. She’s a fictional character from the Chinese comedy film Hello, Mr. Billionaire.—open it and it became Ma-something-Mei, close it and it became something Dong-Mei—quickly turning into a muddled mess.

She also didn’t remember what she had wanted to do before transmigrating. In any case, Jiang Xiaoya, kelp kelp!

A baby’s eyes were not yet fully developed. Even with her eyes wide open, she couldn’t see anything clearly, but she felt some chilly rain drifting in from outside, pattering onto her face and making the child shiver.

Before transmigrating, Jiang Xiaoya had held onto a fluke mindset, thinking that if she became a baby there would definitely be a guardian, and at worst an orphanage. Swaying in the wind like kelp for ten-plus years would absolutely be no problem. But at this moment, baby Jiang Xiaoya discovered that this was a broken house that leaked wind everywhere and even let in rain, half-buried beneath the swamp, as if it had been abandoned for a long time. Not far away was an extinguished bonfire. All around was dead silence.

Clearly, people who cling to fluke mindsets will meet with terrible luck!

The baby belatedly realized the problem: damn it, who threw the child away?

She desperately tried to command her short little limbs to sit up and save herself, but perhaps because she had only been born not long ago, after struggling for a long time she only managed to wave one arm. Still, she was much smarter than an ordinary infant. She looked around and made the loudest sound she could, hoping someone would notice her:

Is there any kindhearted person?

There’s a child here, save the child!

She originally wanted to wail loudly, but after a quick turn of her little brain, she changed it into an adorable, hen-like giggling laugh, trying to attract the attention of some good-hearted person. However, all the way until the drizzling rain finally stopped, the surroundings remained steeped in an eerie, deathly silence.

Jiang Xiaoya felt that she might die an early death in infancy.

However, every salted fish shows its nature in childhood. Just like at this moment—after struggling for a while, baby Jiang Xiaoya immediately felt a little tired. After wrestling for a long time and discovering that turning over was far too difficult, she slowly shrank back into the swaddling like a little turtle.

Just as her eyelids were growing heavier, the half-asleep baby suddenly heard heavy footsteps coming from not far away.

They were slow, dragging sounds, as if something heavy were being hauled along.

Very quickly, she felt a huge shadow shroud her vision. A baby who had only been born not long ago had extremely poor eyesight; she could only vaguely sense that the other party was rather large—no, simply enormous.

But that might also be because she herself had shrunk.

The baby immediately broke into a toothless smile, giggling as she stretched out her hands, trying to act cute to survive.

In the drizzling rain, the massive black shadow appeared above the baby’s head. In the darkness, a pair of green vertical pupils lit up.

The monster sniffed, then extended two fingers to lift the small swaddled bundle and examine it before its eyes—

Completely different from those water ghosts. The swamp monster’s eyesight was very poor; it relied almost entirely on its sense of smell. Even so, that did not prevent it from locking onto all enemies within range through scent alone, dragging them all into the swamp to kill.

As soon as it lifted the swaddling, the baby immediately let out a giggling laugh.

The child’s laughter was like light bubbles, filling the vast, empty, silent swamp.

The vertical pupils in the darkness carried a terrifying inhuman quality, shrinking into thin slits.

The shadow slowly pressed closer to the child’s cheek, twisting its neck as it examined the giggling baby, as if puzzled by how that giggling sound was being produced. It slowly extended a pale finger toward her cheek.

The innocent hatchling had no idea that the pale finger slowly reaching over had crushed adult skulls before, and could just as easily crush her head. She happily waved her arms, babbling, asking to be held.

It leaned even closer, almost pressing against the baby’s cheek, wanting to hear that giggling sound more clearly.

However, the moment it drew near, the baby immediately enthusiastically rubbed her head over, giggling as she tried to nuzzle its cold face.

It abruptly retreated.

Jiang Xiaoya felt the shadow above her head disappear. She grew anxious and craned her neck, looking around in confusion:

Kindhearted person, aren’t you picking the child up anymore?

The “kindhearted person” of course hadn’t left. The swamp monster slowly backed away, hiding on a nearby wall. Its ghostly green eyes lurked dimly in the darkness, crawling along the wall like a terrifying shadow that kept circling above the baby’s head, its posture especially twisted and horrifying. The green vertical pupils stared fixedly at the baby below.

Just like its eyesight, the swamp monster did not possess very clear self-awareness.

In contrast to its massive body and slow movements, it was extremely ferocious, with a violently irritable temperament. Not long ago, it had killed most of the high-tier and low-tier water ghosts here—simply because their howling at dusk had disturbed its sleep.

Originally, it had planned to kill the one below who had ambushed it—

A human.

A little human.

Indeed, it was also supposed to kill her. But after the swamp monster had killed all the water ghosts that howled at dusk, this swamp became far too quiet. Even the water birds had disappeared. For a swamp monster with extremely poor eyesight that could only rely on hearing, the silence was maddening.

It wandered restlessly through the rainy day and encountered screaming living people. It did not like screams or gunshots, but they were still better than no sound at all. Yet it once again killed the passing living people.

Well then—now even the last bit of sound had vanished from this swamp.

There was only the endless sound of rain.

It prowled about restlessly, intending to kill the little human below. Its pale fingers unconsciously scraped deep grooves into the wall.

Yet all the way until nightfall drew near, Jiang Xiaoya was still very much alive.

Because from time to time, she would let out that kind of giggling, little-hen-like cute laughter, which, in that muddled world where only sound existed, was like light, fluttering bubbles.

Each time she giggled, the pair of vertical pupils in the darkness would abruptly contract into a thin line.

After a long and horrifying scrutiny, the monster on the ceiling looked around.

After confirming that no humans would be returning nearby.

That terrifying monster leaned over and—whoosh—stole away the giggling child.

Footnotes

• 1
  Ma Dongmei (马冬梅) is a pop-culture reference, not a real person. She’s a fictional character from the Chinese comedy film Hello, Mr. Billionaire.