The swamp monster brought that parenting pamphlet home. In order to raise Jiang Xiaoya well and not raise her to death, this colossal creature reined in its claws and fangs, becoming extremely gentle and patient.
In the past, whenever Jiang Xiaoya crawled around at random, it would snap at her irritably and pick her up. But now it would heh-heh and reason with Jiang Xiaoya, because in the pictures there was a big red X drawn over the scene of hitting a child.
It knew that human parents tell children bedtime stories. So it wracked its brains to make up stories for Jiang Xiaoya, which sounded like rises and falls of heh-heh noises.
Jiang Xiaoya felt that Mama had changed ever since she came back from being sick. She looked at Mama and felt a little afraid.
The swamp monster worked hard to imitate how humans raise Jiang Xiaoya. The pamphlet said to give children a goodnight kiss to express affection. The swamp monster leaned over, stared at Jiang Xiaoya, and its mind went through such a complicated psychological struggle for the first time.
Jiang Xiaoya really liked prprpr-ing it, but asking it to do this was too difficult.
It looked at Jiang Xiaoya. Opened its big mouth and took a bite of Jiang Xiaoya’s little head.
Chomp chomp chomp.
Jiang Xiaoya was extremely frightened! She felt that Mama might be going to eat her again.
The swamp monster flipped to the last few pages: things like starting to listen to music at eight months to cultivate artistic cells, starting Olympiad math from infancy, followed by a pile of small advertisements… couldn’t understand them. What a mess! Threw it away!
It kept it up for a period of time, probably only about three days. Very soon it revealed its ferocious true nature.
It no longer lowered its voice to tell bedtime stories, but instead threatened Jiang Xiaoya that if she didn’t sleep it would chomp off her head! If she ran around again it would heh-heh and eat her. If Jiang Xiaoya went out to play in the water it would throw her into the river to feed the water ghosts.
Jiang Xiaoya immediately found a sense of security!
In autumn, the swamp monster took Jiang Xiaoya to get her vaccinations.
It put the child at the very end of the line. Everything went smoothly; it didn’t need to destroy the city or go on a killing spree to get it done. Jiang Xiaoya came back and even got a big handful of candy as a reward from the doctor. Jiang Xiaoya gave it all to Mama to eat!
The swamp monster ka-ka-ka chewed it up.
Jiang Xiaoya asked Mama eagerly what it tasted like.
The swamp monster, swallowing them whole, of course couldn’t taste any sweetness; it was like eating a few small pebbles.
It lied to Jiang Xiaoya that it was very tasty, and the child immediately smiled until her eyes curved into a little crescent moon!
How do you raise a child well? On a stormy night, the swamp monster saw a fluffy little dog toy in a shop window. The colossal creature carefully hugged the doll to its chest, and slowly headed home.
Jiang Xiaoya heard the footsteps and happily rushed over.
The door opened. The swamp monster’s hair was dripping wet. It slowly squatted down in front of the child, bared its gaping maw:
The little dog toy in its hands was clean and dry, not wet at all!
In the dark, black prison there were now thick children’s quilts, a big pile of toys, and crawling mats and plush toys. The swamp monster was like building a nest, slowly piling good things into its lair, all for Jiang Xiaoya.
───♡───
Jiang Xiaoya really liked her mommy. She loved it more and more, and every day wanted to cling to Mama like a ghost.
However, memories of her previous life were becoming more and more blurred. Jiang Xiaoya racked her brains to find some words to describe her feelings, and finally found a very cultured sentence. She rushed over to confess to Mama:
Mama, Xiaoya will go up to the blue heavens and down to the Yellow Springs, and even in death will never let you go!
Jiang Xiaoya is human, and needs to drink boiled water and eat cooked food. So the swamp monster got some fire-starting equipment back from campers. But it only knew that there would be fire here; it secretly went out to learn for half a month before it figured out how to use it.
In autumn, the swamp monster also let Jiang Xiaoya take hot baths! But washing Jiang Xiaoya’s hair every time was very troublesome.
Every time after washing her hair, Jiang Xiaoya would spin wildly like a whirlwind, shaking water everywhere.
The little beagle was very hard to keep sitting obediently in one place; often, the moment a small butterfly flew past, her attention would be drawn away. Trying to hold her down to wipe her hair was like holding down a small calf.
However, Jiang Xiaoya liked to diligently wash Mama’s hair. When she ran over to wipe the swamp monster’s hair, she wasn’t nearly as noisy. The swamp monster’s hair had grown all the way to its ankles, and sometimes Jiang Xiaoya felt Mama looked like a big mop that had lost its way.
She really liked scrubbing the big mop at home, then earnestly drying it.
Of course, Jiang Xiaoya did all this with ghostly little schemes in mind. She wanted to secretly take a look at what Mama actually looked like, but every time she tried to lean closer, the juvenile would immediately bare its teeth and heh-heh at her menacingly.
Because it knew that compared to its tall, imposing body and ferocious, terrifying gaze, its face seemed not fierce or mature enough.
It didn’t want Jiang Xiaoya to think it was very small.
It was very tall, and very, very old!
After paying attention to keeping warm, Jiang Xiaoya never got sick again. She often frolicked in the grass like a little dog, getting grass clippings all over her head. She even caught some rabbits when she went out with the swamp monster!
Jiang Xiaoya agonized for a long time. On one hand, the rabbits were very cute; on the other hand, she really wanted to eat spicy rabbit heads. She counted on her fingers in indecision, thinking she’d eat them in a few days!
But one autumn rain brought a chill, and overnight all of Jiang Xiaoya’s rabbits died. Losing both the rabbits and the spicy rabbit heads, Jiang Xiaoya endured double the sorrow; she werwer-ed and wailed with the swamp monster for three whole days.
The swamp monster found it unbearable.
But now it couldn’t bear to throw Jiang Xiaoya away anymore.
It brought back spicy rabbit heads from the human base, and Jiang Xiaoya finally stopped wailing.
She started raising snails.
Every day, when the swamp monster went hunting, it would take Jiang Xiaoya along for a walk; Jiang Xiaoya, full of excitement, went to walk the snails.
Time passed quickly. At the end of autumn, a small group of humans appeared near the swamp.
Probably like Deng Feng’s group back then, they had also wandered into this black forbidden zone by mistake. The swamp monster quickly discovered their tracks. This monster was cruel, devoid of humanity and morality. In the past, it would have killed them without hesitation.
But this time, the most terrifying predator at the end of the swamp did not unleash a massacre—those green vertical pupils saw that at the back of the group, there was a small child tightly holding onto their mother’s hand, looking at it with fearful, frightened eyes.
The swamp monster didn’t have much capacity for empathy, nor could it be soft-hearted, but that child’s gaze reminded it of Jiang Xiaoya.
Although—it still hated humans. But this time, it seemed to have a little more patience than before. It confirmed that they were just passing through and posed no threat, and did not kill them.
However, the swamp monster still used the swamp to drive them away.
The colossal creature stood in the swamp, coldly staring at them, letting out a heavy roar to warn them:
Get out of here.
If there was a second time, it would kill them!
That group of people escaped by the skin of their teeth, scrambling and fleeing. In the fine rain, it seemed as though children’s laughter could be heard coming from the swamp. But when they turned back, all they could see through the curtain of rain was that terrifying, eerie black shadow.
They didn’t notice that beneath that huge black shadow, there was a small shadow holding its hand.
Jiang Xiaoya told Mama that she couldn’t casually eat humans.
The swamp monster was very angry. It thought humans were very bad and very cunning.
Jiang Xiaoya couldn’t really explain why either, but she racked her brains for three days and three nights. Finally, one morning, she had a sudden inspiration. Very cleverly, she ran up to the swamp monster and said:
“Mama, if you eat people, it affects me taking the civil service exam!”
The little brat said that doing this might affect her future.
What is a future? Can’t understand it—eat it all!
But later on, it no longer killed people casually.
───♡───
Winter quietly arrived. Jiang Xiaoya was wrapped up layer upon layer.
She complained that she couldn’t walk and couldn’t see her toes anymore!
The swamp monster looked at that complaining little round ball. It poked her, and she went rolling over to the other side. Jiang Xiaoya flew into a rage and rushed over, wanting to smash into it with her head, but she just turned back into a ball and rolled away again. She angrily said that Mama was a bad egg.
The ferocious predator squatted in front of her. Beneath its long hair was the face of a youth, and it revealed a smile. Not that kind of vicious, bloody smile. But a very small, very faint one, like a snowflake that vanished in an instant.
Once the temperature dropped below zero, the swamp would freeze as well. The cold freezing rain no longer brought moist water, but instead turned into shards of ice, drifting and swaying, making the swamp dry and cracked with frost.
In the past years, the swamp monster would let itself freeze stiff, until the first rain of spring awakened it.
Most of the animals and water ghosts in the swamp spent winter this way, and the swamp monster was the same. It had never thought about changing. After all, last year it was still muddleheaded, knowing nothing except heh-heh. Every winter it spent in the prison swamp; its fingers would freeze blue, crack open, and bleed. But the swamp monster never thought frostbite was a big deal.
But this year, it had to raise Jiang Xiaoya. It had no choice but to try to make the prison a little warmer.
Before the temperature dropped further, the swamp monster needed to repair the damaged prison. Half of this prison was submerged in the swamp, and it had to use big stones to patch up places where the wind leaked in. It had thought about taking Jiang Xiaoya to human territory to spend the winter, but the weather was too cold, and it didn’t want to take a child out to be blown by the wind.
After raising a child, life suddenly became trivial and busy. This was something the ferocious predator had never experienced before.
But Jiang Xiaoya always had to cause trouble right by its side!
Jiang Xiaoya could now run and jump, raised by the swamp monster to be very healthy and strong. It had no choice but to shut Jiang Xiaoya inside the house. But trying to confine a little beagle was very difficult. It looked around, and its gaze fell on a big wooden box. Jiang Xiaoya was so small; if it covered her with a big box, she wouldn’t be able to run around.
Sure enough, Jiang Xiaoya behaved herself. But after a while, that big wooden box began to move sneakily. Very quickly, it charged forward like a bull, pushing the box and crashing toward Mama.
The swamp monster thought of the little toy car Jiang Xiaoya liked—once you put in those round things called batteries, it would ji-wa ji-wa dash around wildly.
It picked Jiang Xiaoya up.
It wanted to take out Jiang Xiaoya’s battery.
───♡───
At last, deep winter arrived.
When Jiang Xiaoya woke up, she felt that the temperature had dropped a lot. This was the first winter of her life. She wore the thick sweater Mama had brought back for her, like a walking red mop.
She pushed open the window and saw that it was snowing outside. She immediately went deng-deng-deng running to look for Mama. But in the warm prison room with the fire burning, Mama’s figure could not be found.
The swamp monster didn’t like fire. Fire made it feel that the moisture in its body was being evaporated, becoming dry and cracked, thirsty, with smoke rising all over. So it would squat in a place without snow; as long as there was a little residual warmth coming from inside the walls, it wouldn’t freeze stiff.
Jiang Xiaoya squatted nearby and watched for a while. She knew that Mama would smoke when warming itself by the fire. She thought for a bit, gave her big scarf to Mama, then deng-deng ran back home.
She warmed herself until she was nice and toasty, then rushed over and pounced into the swamp monster’s arms, using her own body heat to warm Mama’s face and big hands. She pressed her warm little cheeks into Mama’s palm. Just like this, bit by bit, she warmed up the cold monster’s big hands.
It snarled at Jiang Xiaoya a little angrily—if you catch a cold, you’ll die!
But Jiang Xiaoya kept flying over again and again, warm and toasty, like a little dog heated by the sun.
Gradually, the colossal creature squatting in the swamp no longer resisted. It wrapped Jiang Xiaoya into its arms and hid her there, blocking the wind and snow.
