Only after Jiang Xiaoya carried her schoolbag and walked into the kindergarten did she remember something: wait, did Mama pay her tuition? Does she even have household registration?
Black-household Jiang Xiaoya fell into confusion under the big tree in the kindergarten.
Jiang Xiaoya’s mama was very formidable. It could kill water ghosts and tear monsters apart, but it did not understand the twists and turns of human society. It did not know that kindergarten required advance registration, did not know that tuition had to be paid, and even more did not know that human children needed legal identities. In Mama’s eyes, hospitals and kindergartens were probably no different—just put the child at the nurse’s station and that’s it.
Jiang Xiaoya hesitated for a moment and did not go back to look for the swamp monster.
Even little children have their own worries. If, in order to get her household registration, the human base discovered that Mama was a swamp monster and used her to threaten Mama, what then? If it were like in that dream, shot full of bullets and bleeding all over, Jiang Xiaoya would have no mama!
Compared to that, not being able to go to school was a trivial matter.
Moreover, in Jiang Xiaoya’s eyes, her family was very poor!
Although their family lacked nothing, they did not have much money. She had never seen a single cent in Mama’s hands.
Last year, Jiang Xiaoya had asked Mama whether the family had money.
The swamp monster asked her what money was.
—As for why the household had everything, maybe it was zero-yuan shopping.
But getting Mama not to go out and eat people everywhere was already extremely difficult. Jiang Xiaoya also knew that Mama wanted to swallow the Tiandong Base. Jiang Xiaoya often dreamed that the family was too poor, and the swamp monster went out to rob and destroy the world.
Too many terrifying images appeared in the child’s mind, and in the end she still did not go looking for Mama. The base’s kindergarten was very large; she squatted under the slide reading books until dismissal time, then blended into the crowd of children and flew out.
Jiang Xiaoya did not tell the swamp monster about not being able to attend school.
Every day she happily went to school with the swamp monster, then hid under the slide flipping through picture books and playing with toys. When the dismissal bell rang, she would blend in among the children and come out, catch up with the swamp monster, and tell Mama some things she had seen at kindergarten. Of course, they were all things she made up.
───♡───
The swamp monster smelled the scent of guilt on Jiang Xiaoya.
Every time she made eye contact with it for more than two seconds, the little beagle would look at the sky and look at the ground, doing anything but look at it.
Even stranger, Jiang Xiaoya started picking up trash.
In the past she only loved running wild in the ruins, like an unbridled wild horse. She also liked charging into piles of water ghosts and yelling werwer. But now, she followed behind it rummaging through the ruins, deliberately picking out shiny things—watches, necklaces, jewelry of unknown authenticity.
The enormous creature lifted a silver necklace from the schoolbag and wanted to throw it away.
Jiang Xiaoya sighed. “Ai ya, Mama, Xiaoya needs to save money.”
It asked her, save money for what?
Jiang Xiaoya needed to save money to go to kindergarten! She planned to save enough money herself and then go find the kindergarten teacher to see if they could make some accommodation about her attending school. She might need to save more. That what-ever-it-was, giving benefits and such, very complicated.
And also, when Mama got old and could no longer catch water ghosts, Jiang Xiaoya would still have to support it in its old age. It was just that she had discovered Mama ate too much, not knowing how many water ghosts it ate in a day. She felt the heavy burden of life pressing down on her small shoulders, and did not know whether she could get rich by picking up trash, so she lay on top of the swamp monster’s head and sighed.
It asked her, and she said: “Ma, you wouldn’t understand.”
Finally, one morning, Jiang Xiaoya dug out a palm-sized piece of gold from beneath the ruins!
Jiang Xiaoya had money to go to school. She excitedly had the swamp monster take her to the human base— the child hugged her schoolbag and ran to a place that looked very much like a bank, handing the schoolbag to the staff. As a result, she was told that gold was no longer in circulation.
Jiang Xiaoya looked like a little dog drenched by the rain, head drooping in dejection.
She walked out slowly. Seeing the swamp monster, she followed behind it.
The swamp monster, of course, saw everything.
It stopped its steps that were following Jiang Xiaoya, lowered its head and leaned close to her, its nose almost touching the tip of hers.
It asked her in a hoarse voice: was she hiding something from it?
Jiang Xiaoya immediately ran far away without even turning her head back.
Jiang Xiaoya planned that after some time, she would tell Mama that going to school wasn’t interesting at all, then find a reason to tell Mama that she had dropped out and wanted to continue staying at home.
As usual, she was sent to school by the swamp monster. As soon as she entered the kindergarten, she ran over to squat under the slide and play with a ball.
However, the child was too short and completely failed to notice that a massive black shadow had followed behind her.
The swamp monster should have been angry. As a predator, it detested deception; as a guardian, it felt that this tiny little one did not trust it. Perhaps it did not understand the twists and turns of human society, but Jiang Xiaoya could have told it, and it would have tried to learn. Because of the lack of trust, the enormous creature was angry and hurt. Yet it saw Jiang Xiaoya, so small, sitting under the slide like an abandoned little dog, lonely as she played with that small ball.
The anger vanished just like that, slowly turning into that complicated emotion called helplessness.
As soon as Jiang Xiaoya squatted under the slide, she met the enormous creature’s green vertical pupils.
It looked at Jiang Xiaoya, its expression becoming extremely fierce, and reached a hand toward her forehead.
The child thought Mama might be about to knock her on the head, so she immediately hugged her head, planning to start fake-crying in advance.
But her head was not knocked— that big hand roughly ruffled her hair.
Stupid!
Jiang Xiaoya was a stupid kid.
The swamp monster lifted her schoolbag.
Jiang Xiaoya followed behind it, saying sweetly and familiarly, “Hehe, Ma, since it’s already like this, let’s go scavenging for supplies tomorrow, okay? Don’t go to school anymore.”
But the swamp monster just walked ahead, saying nothing.
If it had been a few years ago, when it had just picked up Jiang Xiaoya, this swamp monster would have directly flooded that area with swamp water. Under the threat of death, Jiang Xiaoya would naturally have been able to go to school—an extremely savage and direct method, and the child’s situation would also have become very unsafe. But as time passed, it had become much smarter than before. It slowly realized that if it wanted to raise Jiang Xiaoya and provide her with a stable source of living, destroying that human base would be very troublesome.
The kindergarten in spring was an affiliated kindergarten under the base’s research institute, and the one responsible for the education sector was precisely one of the institute’s heads, Xu Qianjun. He always had the habit of being the last to leave, and tonight was no exception. On a night of torrential rain, Xu Qianjun was just about to lock the door when suddenly a chill ran down his spine.
—Something was watching him.
He turned his head sharply, his pupils shrinking abruptly.
At the end of the corridor was a pair of green vertical pupils that were not unfamiliar. In recent years, the base had been able to monitor changes in the magnetic field fluctuations in that swamp; those skyrocketing values represented the monster entrenched deep in the ruins, its power growing at an astonishing speed. No one knew whether this terrifying existence would make a move against the base, or how long this patch of pure land in the apocalypse could last. Within the black forbidden zone, its existence was like a Sword of Damocles hanging overhead.
But Xu Qianjun never imagined that it would come knocking of its own accord—and that it seemed to be here solely for him.
The long-haired, eerie creature slowly walked over, its enormous shadow appearing incomparably dangerous. The air grew thin, that near-death experience making Xu Qianjun’s scalp tingle. Yet after several minutes of confrontation, he was not killed. Instead, a high-tier water ghost was thrown in front of him.
The water ghost’s head had been split open, and inside was a deep-black crystal core.
He was terrified and astonished. Humans had only discovered in the past two years that water ghosts had crystal cores in their heads. They found that these crystal cores could nourish mental power and the mental body, but only a very small number of high-tier water ghost heads contained them. That black crystal core was extremely precious.
Those eerie green, terrifying eyes stared at him, emitting hoarse sounds no one could understand.
He did not understand what the other party wanted to do. Only that for three consecutive days, a water ghost’s corpse and a crystal core would appear at his door. After escaping death, Xu Qianjun wanted to report the matter, but whenever he tried to send a message, he would feel an overwhelming fear, as if some terrifying existence behind him were staring at him intently. In the end, on the evening of this day, Xu Qianjun still mustered the courage and stayed alone in the research institute.
On that stormy night, death-summoning knocks rang out.
Trembling, he opened the door and saw that terrifying swamp monster.
The door was thrown completely open.
The swamp monster fumbled behind itself.
And fished out the small child from behind.
Here.
It gave a push, shoving Jiang Xiaoya in front of Xu Qianjun.
Perhaps it was death, perhaps destruction—perhaps it was a little beagle!
In the end, Xu Qianjun chose to conceal the matter. He was very clear that once this child was harmed, the entire base would be destroyed by that terrifying monster; and the reason the swamp monster had come to him was because it could easily grasp his life in its hands, and because high-tier crystal cores were precious enough to the research institute—this was coercion and temptation, an equal exchange.
Thus, under a kind of tacit understanding, Xu Qianjun handled household registration and enrollment procedures for that child.
The kindergarten interview was a great success!
Jiang Xiaoya also received a handful of candy stuffed into her hands by Teacher Xu. The child realized that she did not need to pick up trash herself to go to school, did not need Mama to fight humans to the death to obtain legal household registration. All those sky-falling, catastrophic problems in her tiny head—Mama could solve them all.
This was different from what Jiang Xiaoya had thought before. In the past, she thought Mama was a monster in the swamp; maybe it was very powerful, but perhaps not that smart, a little dull, and unable to see—Jiang Xiaoya needed to grow up quickly and become Mama’s eyes.
But now, on the way home, Jiang Xiaoya discovered that Mama’s shoulders seemed a little broader than before.
It was no longer muddleheaded, squatting in the swamp every day in a daze like a big mop. At some unknown point, it had become steady and reliable.
Perhaps it was because that little dog’s light, drifting weight, when it fell upon the heart, became a heavy responsibility. It forced this overly young monster to grow up quickly.
On the way home, the swamp monster still warned Jiang Xiaoya that if she dared hide anything from it again, it would twist her head off and feed it to the water ghosts.
The child nodded obediently.
From childhood until now, Jiang Xiaoya’s head had fallen off a hundred times already!
Now Jiang Xiaoya had grown another one hundred and one heads and could lie on Mama’s shoulder.
Jiang Xiaoya had grown a little. She was no longer a three-year-old child.
But the young one’s shoulders had also grown broader. They could still steadily let her lean on them.
───♡───
And so, Jiang Xiaoya smoothly began her kindergarten life. Once the child left, the swamp also became much quieter.
Ever since raising Jiang Xiaoya, the swamp monster had worries every single day. Young children were very troublesome—if one was not careful, they would die; headaches and fevers were unavoidable. Especially since the little beagle was lively and active, she seemed even harder to raise.
This young swamp monster was actually irritable and lacking in patience. Compromising like this, tugging her along as she grew up, sending her out felt like letting out a breath of relief. Now, it had finally been freed from child-rearing and could do many things again.
But the clingy little beagle was no longer at home. The swamp became like it had been long ago again, with only the boundless sound of rain remaining. It would often subconsciously go look for Jiang Xiaoya, only to remember halfway that the child had gone to school.
It was like a little dog had moved all the furniture out of its heart, leaving it empty.
But fledgling birds always have to leave the nest and learn to fly. Just like how it had survived alone in a prison when it was very small; only after being tempered could it become the top of the food chain in this swamp.
It persuaded itself this way, moving through the rain like a lonely big tree. But when it occasionally bumped into trees, it no longer made hoarse sounds like before—it would only start missing its little Ya.
And gradually, it also became accustomed to the feeling of waiting for her to come home.
Like waiting for a single clear day during a long stretch of rain.
