Mama turned into big brother, and life didn’t seem to change much—at most, Jiang Xiaoya realized she couldn’t run over to sleep beside Mama anymore, couldn’t prpr Mama like before. But those were things she did when she was very little.
After the New Year, Jiang Xiaoya would become a primary school student.
Jiang Xiaoya measured herself and discovered that her height had actually reached one meter twenty!
She excitedly ran over to tell Mama. The Swamp Monster looked the child over: Jiang Xiaoya was finally taller than the broom at home.
Now when Jiang Xiaoya walked along the road, she could finally stick her little head out of the reeds, instead of making it constantly worry it had lost her.
Children grow too fast, and preparing new clothes for her was extremely troublesome. Especially when winter came and it was cold, there were no suitable sweaters for a child in the storeroom; sweaters that didn’t fit would easily let the wind through. The Swamp Monster had no choice but to pick up again the yarn it detested, spending the entire winter knitting sweaters for Jiang Xiaoya.
Those powerful hands of a ferocious predator, at some point without knowing when, had become capable and virtuous.
After finishing a snowball fight, Jiang Xiaoya came back panting and saw Mama knitting her a sweater under the lamplight. She couldn’t see clearly; the posture of the huge creature looked a bit clumsy. Jiang Xiaoya immediately forgot that it was actually big brother, turning into a little dog with sparkling eyes, werwer-ing as she ran over and circled Mama.
The kindergarten friends all thought big brothers were very annoying. Xiaochan had a brother who only knew how to yank her braids. But Jiang Xiaoya had just-right warm sweaters and toasty gloves.
She giggled and said: Jiang Xiaoya has the best brother and mama in the whole world!
Hearing her words, the Swamp Monster stopped. After starting kindergarten, the person Jiang Xiaoya admired most became Teacher Fangfang. When it wanted to show her its powerful force, Jiang Xiaoya would say Teacher Fangfang was the gentlest in the world; when it wanted to show its cleverness and wit, Jiang Xiaoya would say Teacher Fangfang knew systems of linear equations with two variables.
What kind of thing was a system of equations? Anyway, during this period of long-distance rivalry while she was in kindergarten, the Swamp Monster was completely crushed by Teacher Fangfang. Jiang Xiaoya hadn’t admired it like this in a long time.
It had to be said, the youth was a little jealous.
The youth lowered his head, glanced at her, then hehe’d as he leaned over and asked:
Stinky little kid, can your Teacher Fangfang knit sweaters for you?
But after the New Year, Jiang Xiaoya entered first grade of primary school, and would never see her Teacher Fangfang again.
───♡───
Jiang Xiaoya learned a very touching lesson text. The general idea was that Mama left all the tasty mango pits for the child and gnawed on the mango pits herself.
Jiang Xiaoya thought of her own mama and was so moved that tears welled up. When she got home, she found the Swamp Monster wasn’t there. Smoke was rising from the nearby swamp; Jiang Xiaoya ran over and discovered the Swamp Monster was leisurely roasting a plump silver fish by the lake.
Since she was little, Mama had told her that food in the swamp was scarce, that being able to eat chicken or pork was already good enough, and she shouldn’t hope for fish—their family didn’t have those conditions.
Jiang Xiaoya immediately felt she had been tricked and ran over to question Mama.
The green vertical pupils beneath the long hair glanced at her—
Of course it was because she was young and eating fish meant someone had to pick out the bones for her, which was quite troublesome.
So every time, the Swamp Monster hid away to eat fish without telling Jiang Xiaoya.
But now the little troublemaker had seen it; there was no way to hide.
The Swamp Monster looked at its fish, then unwillingly handed one over to her.
Jiang Xiaoya thought: How stingy. That’s not how the book explained it at all!
Summer was approaching, and Jiang Xiaoya saved up her pocket money and stockpiled a lot of ice cream.
Their family’s refrigerator was something Jiang Xiaoya had seen on TV and made Mama go look for; it was found rummaging through the base warehouse, and it was very new. The freezing compartment was very large, used to store Jiang Xiaoya’s snacks and some fresh food, so that the Swamp Monster wouldn’t have to look for new food every day. All the ice cream Jiang Xiaoya saved up over an entire summer was put into the freezing compartment.
The Swamp Monster picked one up to look at it, took a bite—delicious, delicious.
So it ate all the ice cream in the refrigerator.
Jiang Xiaoya learned another lesson text. In the story, a father was stabbed through the heart with a fruit knife, yet forcibly held on for three days, only collapsing after safely delivering the child into the mother’s hands. The lesson was called The Miracle of Life. Jiang Xiaoya was moved again; she felt that her own mama would also create a miracle of life for her.
Primary school student Jiang Xiaoya seriously wrote a vivid, emotion-filled composition praising maternal love: On a Stormy Day My Mom Carried Me With a Fever to the Hospital.
Filled with filial affection, Jiang Xiaoya returned home, opened the refrigerator, and took a look—
Where were the popsicles?!
Jiang Xiaoya burst into loud sobs.
The miracle of life did not happen; the miracle of the refrigerator happened.
Jiang Xiaoya was burning with anger and ran over demanding compensation. The little beagle flew over, scratching and biting wildly at the top of the Swamp Monster’s head, messing its hair into complete chaos. In the end, it had no choice but to carry the bristling Jiang Xiaoya out in the middle of the night to buy ice cream.
It walked lazily in front, a very large figure. Jiang Xiaoya asked Mama whether stealing her snacks didn’t make it feel ashamed. But the youth lowered his head, a bit roguish, pinched Jiang Xiaoya’s cheek, and hehe’d as he said: Not eating her along with the snacks was already very nice of it!
The little brat got angry. The mature little primary schooler Jiang Xiaoya no longer liked sticking close to Mama like she did when she was little, but they would still kiss each other on the forehead. But the angry little brat now wouldn’t even give a goodnight kiss—
Because goodnight kisses were for Mama, and now it was an annoying big brother.
The Swamp Monster couldn’t understand what Jiang Xiaoya was muttering about anyway; in short, she said she would never want goodnight kisses again. Beneath the long hair, the youth thought for a moment, then suddenly opened his bloody maw and took one big chomp on her head.
It hehe’d and said: This is a goodnight chomp, not a goodnight kiss.
Jiang Xiaoya was so angry she pounced over and chomped on its head!
───♡───
The tall, gentle mama image from her childhood kept collapsing nonstop in Jiang Xiaoya’s heart.
The child despairingly discovered that the more she grew up, the more she ran forward, the more fragmented Mama’s image became in her heart.
Last year’s gentle mama who knitted sweaters for her had turned bad this year. Jiang Xiaoya wanted to clear Mama’s name in her heart, but it was like a little otter washing an ice cube—the more she washed, the less there was, until in the end her hands were empty.
The first-grade child felt very gloomy inside. Just then, autumn arrived, and Chun Tian Primary School was going to organize an autumn outing. Jiang Xiaoya couldn’t wait to leave home, leave the mama who had turned bad.
The destination of the autumn outing was an abandoned old city district. The elementary students of Tiandong Base were all children with spirit forms; from a young age they had to train their spirit forms and stress resistance. They couldn’t burst into tears the moment they saw a water ghost, so this autumn outing was also meant to take them to see water ghosts.
Along the way, the children on the bus were both excited and nervous. The teacher led everyone into a cleared abandoned shopping mall and explained how to identify traces of water ghosts, such as checking air humidity, claw marks on the ground, and so on. The children followed behind the teacher, excitedly chattering.
Jiang Xiaoya followed Mama charging straight into piles of water ghosts every day and wasn’t curious at all. She lagged behind the group, teasing cats and dogs, touching this and that.
This shopping mall had long since been cleared. There were ability users accompanying the elementary students for protection, so it was very safe. But perhaps because the underground pipelines of the old city district were interconnected, several low-tier water ghosts crawled out of the mall’s drainage pipes—instantly, the children’s spirit forms bristled, a few timid ones were directly scared into crying, and the teacher immediately hurriedly organized a retreat.
Jiang Xiaoya remembered that Xiaochan had gone to the restroom and still hadn’t come back.
They had been good friends since kindergarten. Xiaochan also had a spirit form, a snake. But unfortunately, it was the kind of very timid corn snake. In the chaos, no one would think of Xiaochan at all. The little beagle immediately bolted, running to look for her good friend.
Sure enough, Xiaochan was blocked in a corner, and when she saw Jiang Xiaoya, she sniffled, revealing her gappy front teeth.
Opposite them was a pale low-tier water ghost.
Jiang Xiaoya told Xiaochan to go call the teacher, while she herself charged forward with a howl.
Jiang Xiaoya wasn’t afraid of low-tier water ghosts at all. Mama always said she was as sturdy as a cow!
Her spirit form rushed forward screaming, ramming its head wildly into the water ghost’s forehead. There was a frightening scent about her, and the way she charged looked like a little lion. Very quickly, she scared them into retreating deep into the pipes.
However, without realizing it, Jiang Xiaoya had already been lured by the water ghosts into a broken elevator. When she carried her schoolbag and tried to run back to the main group, with a loud “bang,” the damaged elevator suddenly began to plummet rapidly.
In an instant, the little beagle was terrified. She curled herself up into a tiny ball, barely avoiding being knocked unconscious, but felt the elevator drop all at once to a very, very deep place.
Soon, she heard faint movements coming from above, but the elevator shaft was too deep; the sounds from above couldn’t be heard clearly, and cries for help from below couldn’t be heard up there either.
Before long, there was only darkness and silence left. The child couldn’t help bursting into loud sobs. After crying for a while, she remembered that if she cried away all her moisture, she would die of thirst! Her tears immediately shut off like a faucet.
Jiang Xiaoya opened her schoolbag and saw it stuffed full of snacks and water—it must have been prepared by Mama.
Just yesterday, she had been angry at Mama and hadn’t spoken to it the entire night.
Jiang Xiaoya missed Mama.
Her tears were about to gush out like a faucet again.
The autumn outing site was so far away, a long road away from the swamp. By the time the school notified Mama that she was missing, who knew how long it would take. Jiang Xiaoya knew Mama was very powerful; it could kill many water ghosts. But the abandoned elevator shaft was too deep—only an excavator could dig it out, and by then Jiang Xiaoya would already have been reincarnated!
It was very cold in the elevator shaft. Jiang Xiaoya hugged her little schoolbag tightly.
She felt that at the very fastest, Mama would only be able to find her by nighttime—and maybe wouldn’t find her at all. But the moment that thought popped up, the child pressed it down. She cheered herself on, hugged her schoolbag, found a corner to curl up in, and planned to sleep for a while.
If she woke up and Mama still hadn’t come to find her, she planned to write a will:
She would leave the thirty ice creams in her refrigerator to Mama as her inheritance.
Jiang Xiaoya had grown this big and had never seen such a dark place before.
However, not long after, the child curled into a ball in the darkness heard strange sounds coming from above. First there was rustling, then the sounds became clearer and louder.
The elevator doors were forcibly pried open by a pair of pale, powerful hands.
Those hands were terrifying, powerful, and had familiar webbing.
Jiang Xiaoya saw that terrifying Swamp Monster lift her up from the corner and place her on its shoulder.
For a moment, Jiang Xiaoya even thought she was dreaming.
Her small hands clutched Mama’s hair tightly, and it wasn’t until it carried her out of the elevator shaft that she finally reacted and burst into loud sobs.
Even the especially brave Big Bad Beagle would, at that moment, think—what if she could never get out, what if she could never see Mama again?
The gigantic creature that had originally been a little angry and wanted to go back and beat the child quieted.
It hesitated for a moment, then softened.
The enormous creature slowly held the child and walked home. Heavy rain fell just like it had on countless days before, and it hehe’d as it said:
Jiang Xiaoya, don’t be afraid, Mama is here.
No matter whether you fly up into the sky or sink into the deep sea, Mama will find you.
