After school started, the Swamp Monster began repairing the house. After school every day, Jiang Xiaoya would trot over eagerly to serve tea and water to Mom, like a little lapdog. But because she was too short, she often tripped over Mom’s legs. Her mother could lift a cauldron with one arm and snap steel bars in half in one breath, ferociously strong; yet she was often knocked flat onto the ground by ox-like Jiang Xiaoya.
Because she’d been knocked over too many times, the Swamp Monster learned to watch in all directions and listen from all sides. As soon as she heard the sounds of Jiang Xiaoya coming home from school, it would react with lightning speed and grab the little dog who came charging over. Then it’ll hang her up in a tree to keep her from “helping” and causing trouble.
The little dog couldn’t climb trees, so she could only squat up there and let out werwer cries: Mommy, let me down, it’s so high, I’m scared.
The youth sneered coldly: Jiang Xiaoya, if I let you down, I’ll be scared.
But even up in the tree, the little dog wouldn’t settle down. One moment she wanted a loft installed at home, the next she wanted a balcony and stairs. Dead kid, just this annoying. The giant creature held up the copied blueprints: What’s a loft?
The swamp was too damp; a wooden loft would grow mold, so it really couldn’t satisfy her. But the little dog got a big balcony on the second floor. She could sun herself there and gaze into the distance. She could also jump straight down from the second-floor balcony and pounce toward Mom.
The Swamp Monster lectured her many times, but Jiang Xiaoya’s attitude was good—she reformed time and again, and then kept doing it anyway.
The old house was renovated and looked brand-new. Jiang Xiaoya got a new study and bedroom, both laid with dry carpets; but the Swamp Monster’s own “room” was still that one sunk into the swamp, damp and gloomy. It was very casual about it—after all, it could squat under a big tree and get through an entire winter; if not for Jiang Xiaoya, it probably wouldn’t even want a place to keep out the wind and rain.
But the little dog was extremely enthusiastic. She moved all her certificates of merit, potted mushrooms, and potted moss into Mom’s swamp. She even dragged her bed over. The Swamp Monster wanted to throw her and all that messy junk out: Go! Jiang Xiaoya, don’t you have your own room?
But it kept trying to throw her out for a long time—so long that lots of mushrooms grew in the swamp—and the dead kid still hadn’t been thrown out.
Summer arrived, and Jiang Xiaoya entered fourth grade. Kids at this age all start helping the adults with work. Because the apocalypse had come, these children were forced to mature early and begin sharing the family’s burdens ahead of time. Jiang Xiaoya’s good friend Xiao Chan had to help with housework every day! Compared to them, Jiang Xiaoya had never washed a single piece of clothing since she was little. Even though there was a washing machine at home, her shoes and socks were always washed by Mom.
Of course, the Swamp Monster didn’t know how to wash them at first. But there weren’t many pairs of shoes in the storeroom—if she wore a pair and threw it away, soon there wouldn’t be enough. So the youth had no choice but to carry Jiang Xiaoya’s little leather shoes to the river to wash them, scolding her as a dead kid the whole time.
Thinking of this, she immediately felt guilty. As soon as school ended, she dug out the shoes, squatted in the swamp, and scrubbed them seriously. The Swamp Monster passed by, rushed over and lifted the child up to take a look—her sleeves and pants were all dirty, mud stuck in her long hair. The little dog held up the shoes to claim credit, seeking praise: Hehe, Mom, are they clean?
The youth: “……”
Actually, Jiang Xiaoya should have been praised.
But clearly, it wasn’t that good-tempered a parent.
In the end, the youth twisted it’s neck, joints cracking, and snapped the reed beside it.
A shrill scream rang out in the swamp: “Mom—calm down!”
The Swamp Monster gave her a lesson, then carried her back and let her watch cartoons. Jiang Xiaoya argued confidently that she was helping the parents share the housework. The parent let out an angry huffing sound, telling her that as long as she didn’t cause trouble, she was a good child.
The two of them had a big fight.
The little beagle said: Other kids are already starting to help their parents with chores. Mommy being like this will spoil her.
It corrected her:
“You’re not a little kid.”
“You’re a debt collector.”
The debt collector hummed and grumbled. She had grown up, she definitely wouldn’t drag Mom down anymore.
On weekends, when she followed Mom far away to hunt water ghosts, she no longer let Mom carry her with effort. She carried her own backpack and followed behind the youth. She said the teacher told them to learn how to endure hardship. She was already a mature adult and wouldn’t cause trouble for Mom anymore.
But her legs were short and she was small. The giant had no choice but to slow his pace to accommodate the short little legs behind. It was actually even more troublesome! And the road conditions were complicated—the ruins were exhausting to traverse, and it also had to spare attention to watch whether the child would fall. What was originally a two-hour journey was dragged out to four hours.
The youth gradually grew irritable.
They walked farther and farther. It rained. The wind rose. The little brat’s steps grew slower and slower, heavier and heavier, head down, huffing and puffing.
In the end, the youth stopped.
The Swamp Monster could not understand a child’s urgent desire to grow up.
It had suffered a great deal—born without parents, having to break free of those chains, to survive amid the greedy tearing of a group of water ghosts. Unable to see, and back then not very smart either… growth, in its heart, had been very arduous.
The youth lifted the child and placed her on its shoulder:
“Jiang Xiaoya, I’m not dead yet. It’s okay to suffer a bit later.”
After Jiang Xiaoya entered fourth grade, she stopped kissing her mommy. In the past, she loved to tiptoe and give Mommy a loud goodnight kiss, or rub her fluffy head against Mom’s face like a little dog. But she asked Xiao Chan and asked the other kids, and was told that they actually stopped kissing their parents in first grade. Being this old and still acting spoiled—it was so embarrassing.
The enthusiastic little dog gradually also began to feel that kissing Mom and acting spoiled were things to be shy about.
The Swamp Monster squatted by her bed, as usual wanting a goodnight kiss from the child.
The little dog clamored that she had grown up, wasn’t a child anymore, muttering as she burrowed into the blankets.
The Swamp Monster felt hollow inside.
The youth looked at the small mountain bulging under the blanket. In the end, it only tucked the covers around her and turned off the bedside lamp.
When it closed the door and left, the youth stared at its own shadow in a daze. Suddenly it remembered that Jiang Xiaoya hadn’t kissed it for a long time—since when had it started?
Probably the day she said she was an adult.
Why did she have to grow up? Wasn’t how things were now good? In the Swamp Monster’s eyes, growing up was very hard; raising Jiang Xiaoya was very hard. Late-night emergency visits where it had to hide and watch Jiang Xiaoya be taken away by the doctor—like this, it was forced to mature quickly. To judge the situation, to go from a youth into an adult. To learn to wash her clothes and socks, mix formula, and cook.
He thought he must be the kind of very traditional parent talked about on human television. He cleaned the swamp, worked hard to become strong so he could protect Jiang Xiaoya. He had saved up many crystal cores—later, Jiang Xiaoya wouldn’t have to work hard; she could live safely and happily for a lifetime.
The giant felt very lost, because the child was leaving his wing. She seemed not to need her quite so much anymore.
The next day, when it took Jiang Xiaoya out hunting, the youth asked her, pretending not to care:
“Jiang Xiaoya, why won’t you let Mom carry you anymore?”
Was it because she felt Mom wasn’t that strong anymore, not worthy of her reliance? Or because she felt there was something Mom hadn’t done well enough? Apex predators were always very confident. When it dominated the swamp, it had never thought it would one day be this cautious. His back stiffened, ears pricked up.
The little dog thought for a moment. “I want to become mature and strong, so that when Mom needs it in the future, I can protect Mom.”
This was a child’s voice, yearning to grow up.
The giant lowered its head and looked at its baby. She no longer relied on her so much, and had begun to learn to do things on her own. Like a fledgling flying out of the nest, flapping as it learned to fly. As a parent, all one could do was watch her fall again and again, learning how to fly. The big, strange shadow no longer enveloped the little strange one.
She flew far away, like a happy little butterfly.
Then she flew back, carrying the nectar she had gathered.
Slowly, the child who used to only cause trouble seemed to have truly matured a bit. She was no longer so clumsy. Now she could go to the supermarket by herself and even do some simple housework. When she went out hunting with Mom, she no longer let go recklessly; she had even learned to use a satellite watch to locate water ghosts, which greatly saved time. The little troublemaker wasn’t so troublesome anymore. At the very least, Mom no longer had to worry that the moment it left home, Jiang Xiaoya would end up in the hospital with a fever from playing in the water.
She would even pretend to be an adult and remind Mom to come home on time, urge he to call and report that he was safe. This was a very novel experience. Because in the past, those lines were always said by Mom, and he would still be disliked by the little brat for being naggy. But being remembered by Jiang Xiaoya felt very good.
The youth squatted in front of her and flicked her on the forehead. “Little adult, got it.”
The little adult hummed and grumbled. While Mom wasn’t home, she hid behind the television and secretly wrote in a diary.
Recently, coded diaries had started becoming popular at school. It seemed adults always had many worries, and children began to imitate and follow the trend. Jiang Xiaoya was an adult too. She began putting on airs and writing some girlish thoughts inside:
x year x month, Mom secretly ate one of my popsicles, I hate him.
x year x month, Mommy made shrimp fried rice for me, I love my mom!
The Swamp Monster originally didn’t know what a diary was. But Jiang Xiaoya hid in corners every day, secretly scribbling and drawing, often casting either angry or adoring looks at her—eyes soft as water one moment, blazing with anger the next. Gradually, it developed an immense interest in Jiang Xiaoya’s little notebook.
In order to secretly read her diary, the Swamp Monster began making time to learn characters, progressing by leaps and bounds. It didn’t even sleep at night anymore, just squatted on the roof flipping through character cards.
Jiang Xiaoya said adults weren’t allowed to secretly read children’s diaries. The youth responded with vague mm-hmms while on the roof.
The Swamp Monster thought: it wasn’t human anyway, so it could secretly read it.
He opened the first page and discovered that Jiang Xiaoya had written the diary in pinyin!
The giant was extremely angry.
Was this right? Jiang Xiaoya, why did you have to guard against your own mom like this?
Where was the trust?
Jiang Xiaoya was very pleased with her anti-peeping invention. But very soon, she discovered that Mom seemed to have developed a diary-writing habit as well. Judging others by herself, she felt Mom would also complain about her in the diary, and immediately felt like a cat’s heart being scratched, urgently wanting to see it. While Mom was asleep, she secretly went to flip through her diary.
There was only one line belonging to the monster, written in clumsy handwriting:
Baby, before you become a little adult, can you give me one more goodnight kiss?
