This summer, a violent storm swept over the Tiandong Base. Gale-force winds of over ten levels knocked out the city’s power and signal. For safety reasons, the base sealed off the schools and all institutions, telling everyone to wait until the storm passed before going out.
All the children were required to stay in their classrooms and wait for the storm to pass. Jiang Xiaoya wanted to contact her mom, but her watch had already lost its signal.
She worried that her mom was still out in the swamp and hadn’t managed to find shelter in time, that their house wasn’t sturdy enough and would be blown away. While her classmates excitedly discussed how many days off they might get, she lay against the window, staring longingly in the direction of home. Once the wind stopped, she would sprint back, desperate to make sure her mom was safe.
After walking only a few steps, she saw that familiar figure at the corner. Lingering fear and panic swept over the child’s heart. In that moment, Jiang Xiaoya wanted to pounce over just like when she was little—but she saw her classmates at the school gate, all of them only complaining to the adults, no one running off to act spoiled with their parents anymore.
No, no, no. Jiang Xiaoya was already in fourth grade—she wasn’t a little kid anymore!
When she followed behind the youth on the way home, Jiang Xiaoya really wanted her mom to hug her. She lifted her head and looked at the youth’s face, then in the end quietly trailed along behind it.
Jiang Xiaoya was really too mature and steady now, but it didn’t seem as happy as she had imagined.
───♡───
At the end of the term, the class rehearsed a stage play. Jiang Xiaoya and Xiao Chan had agreed to play the princess and the knight, memorizing three whole pages of lines.
A little boy in the class with a tiger spirit body also wanted to be a knight, and he even mocked Jiang Xiaoya’s spirit body for being a little dog. Jiang Xiaoya rushed over and beat the little tiger until it howled!
Unfortunately, in the end the Big Beagle Demon King still wasn’t chosen to be the prince, because she was a whole head shorter than Princess Xiao Chan. The teacher said the prince had to be taller than the princess.
On the way home, Jiang Xiaoya was extremely sad: the three whole pages of lines she’d memorized under Xiao Chan’s supervision were all for nothing!
But Little Bi was already in fourth grade now, she couldn’t go looking for mom and cry like when she was little anymore.
A puppy is a kind of warm little animal—it likes to pounce over and prpr, has pear-separation anxiety, and especially likes sticking close. But she hadn’t done that in a long time. After all, she had already grown sensible.
Jiang Xiaoya was about to become an adult who couldn’t act spoiled with her mom anymore. Thinking that way made her even sadder.
She walked home with her head down, as sad as watching ice cream melt in her hand.
The Big Beagle Demon King hid in the grass and cried werwer.
Being an adult was just too miserable!
As the sky gradually darkened, the swamp monster soon found the little dog that hadn’t gone home.
A huge shadow fell over her. “So useless, crying again.”
Jiang Xiaoya was embarrassed to say the real reason. She wiped her face messily and told it that she was crying just because she hadn’t been chosen as a knight in the play.
Just because of that?
The ferocious monster revealed a gentle, child-soothing side. It squatted down to think for a while, its dangerous vertical pupils slowly rounding as it leaned closer:
Alright, alright.
Baby, you’ll always be Mommy’s little dog knight.
Come, little knight, mount up.
The little dog broke into a smile through her tears. The emotions she’d been suppressing for so long finally couldn’t be held back anymore, and she buried her head straight into its arms.
Jiang Xiaoya didn’t want to be an adult anymore. She wanted to give Mommy goodnight kisses, good morning kisses—ten thousand kisses!
The little dog pounced over like a little cannon/bullet, enthusiastically going bo bo bo. The youth couldn’t hold her off, trying to tug her down while scolding her with a huff:
Alright, alright, Jiang Xiaoya, are you only three years old this year?
The little dog lay on its back and quietly told it that she wanted Mommy to carry her for a bit longer. Just like how she was coaxed when she was very little.
The giant creature’s steps paused for a moment.
“Jiang Xiaoya, actually, you can let Mommy carry you for a whole lifetime.”
Hehe.
The little dog felt so happy. She turned into a marshmallow melted by moonlight.
The precocious youth and the little grown-up both laughed.
Just like when she was very little, the little dog hid beneath its hair, forever being its tiny little monster.
So the youth slowly carried the child home on its back. The moon was big and round, lighting up the swamp and the lakes.
For the first time, they wished that this road home would never reach its end.
x year x month x day.
Growing up means eating bitterness, being strong and not crying, and not even kissing Mommy.
Jiang Xiaoya didn’t want to grow up anymore!
Jiang Xiaoya wanted to change her name to Jiang Xiaoxiao, and forever be Mommy’s little treasure.
───♡───
Children’s sense of aesthetics changes especially fast. This time last year, Jiang Xiaoya had still been obsessed with that pair of crystal sandals that could glow and sing, wearing them every day as she jiwa jiwa walked around the swamp, to the point that the swamp monster had really wanted to secretly throw those shoes away. Last year, Little Beagle also liked big red and purple dresses piled with layers of gauze. The swamp monster had never understood why Jiang Xiaoya was wearing a bunch of mosquito nets on her body.
This year, Jiang Xiaoya finally threw away her mosquito nets and glowing sandals, and developed a bit of her own aesthetic. She started learning from her best friend Xiao Chan, carefully grooming her fluffy head, and secretly pinning a little yellow flower onto her big ear.
Hehe, the little one is as pretty as jade.
Little Beagle looked left and right in the mirror, and suddenly noticed the youth squatting behind her, watching her.
She snapped her head around warily: Laughing at me?
The youth shifted its vertical pupils away: Ahem, looks good.
Hmph, anyway, Jiang Xiaoya is beautiful like a flower!
An awakening to beauty was quietly taking place. Just like this summer, when Jiang Xiaoya discovered that her mommy seemed to be especially good-looking.
Jiang Xiaoya had seen Mommy’s appearance ever since she was little. But only when she hid beneath its long hair could she glimpse a bit of a youthful jawline. And this year, after going through the winter’s transformation period, the swamp monster’s hair finally no longer looked like wildly growing aquatic weeds.
When Jiang Xiaoya bathed, she needed hot water, body wash, and shampoo. But the wild swamp creature only needed to sink silently into the center of the lake like a dawn redwood. Its long hair grew wildly like seaweed, matted into a lump so nothing could be seen clearly. But because its skin was different from a human’s, the swamp monster itself was very clean, and even carried a pleasant grassy scent. Like a large plant.
When Jiang Xiaoya was little, she worried a lot that Mommy would sink into the lake and drown. Every time, she would follow along. If it didn’t come out after more than an hour, Little Beagle would start screaming like a ghost, calling for Mommy to crawl out of the lake like a water spirit.
This summer, Jiang Xiaoya squatted on a rock doing her homework just like in previous years. She heard the sound of water, and for the first time clearly saw the youth’s face. Long hair was cut apart by the dappled light filtering through the trees, revealing a still-youthful jawline, wild brows and eyes, the side of his face like the spring god of the swamp emerging from his bath.
But very quickly, that spring god became extremely terrifying. The beautiful green eyes turned into vertical pupils, his neck twisted, and the youth walked over, grabbing her by the ear.
Aiya aiya—Jiang Xiaoya covered her ear and cried for help.
Little brats don’t really have any sense of aesthetics. But that didn’t stop Jiang Xiaoya from thinking her mom was especially good-looking.
As if realizing this, the little brat began secretly observing her mom.
When hunting, she would squat above. That sharp, cold jawline was very beautiful, his expression vividly fierce, carrying an innate wildness; when hunting water ghosts, smhe was like a cheetah preying on a gazelle—long legs, a cold and ruthless expression.
Yet the youth didn’t look like a purely masculine kind of rough ferocity. On the contrary, because of the long hair and delicate features, paired with those fierce brows and eyes, there was unexpectedly a hint of refinement.
But the youth lowered his head, raised his hand, and slapped the back of Jiang Xiaoya’s head. “Brat, don’t you watch where you’re going when you walk?”
Jiang Xiaoya snorted angrily to herself—this kind of handsomeness vanished completely once Mommy started nagging!
When they squatted together in the swamp watching the endless rain fall, Jiang Xiaoya saw a butterfly land on the youth’s eyelashes. Even the rainwater seemed fond of them; with a blink, they became sparkling and bright.
Little Beagle lay beside him, staring without blinking.
The youth opened his eyes and asked what she was looking at.
The little dog said, “Looking at the butterfly!”
When the classmates argued over whether Pleasant Goat or Prince Youle was the most handsome, Jiang Xiaoya thought:
Not handsome, not handsome—none of them are as handsome as my mommy!
Jiang Xiaoya used her pocket money to buy Mommy a little dog hair clip, because having such long hair was inconvenient when doing housework. Mommy’s long hair always drooped into the soup pot when cooking, swept up dust when mopping the floor, and even the mop at home became useless—it always had to be taken to the lake and squatted over to wash clean.
She excitedly gave it to the swamp monster! However, the top predator of the swamp showed utter disdain for the pink little dog hair clip. It sat up straight, feeling its dignity had been offended, and let out a vicious roar at her, making Jiang Xiaoya realize that it was extremely ferocious—this thing was completely unsuitable for it!
But after Jiang Xiaoya put the clip away, it mysteriously disappeared.
Until that stormy day, when she got home from school ten minutes early. Beneath the window, she saw the youth lowering her head to taste the soup, checking its saltiness. That pink little dog hair clip was crookedly pinned in its hair, completely mismatched with those wild, ferocious brows and eyes.
But kind of cute.
Hehe.
Jiang Xiaoya felt that Mommy was the most handsome when he took out money to buy her ice cream; if Mommy were willing to let Xiaoya eat one more pack of spicy strips, she would become a firm Mommy-ism believer!
A child’s aesthetic was thus set. It was a hazy kind of admiration, and a yearning for beauty. She wouldn’t think the class heartthrob was good-looking, because Mommy’s legs were longer than his height—he could grab the class heartthrob and use him as a broom; when her classmates discussed the stars on old cassette tapes, Jiang Xiaoya also felt they weren’t handsome enough, because Mommy could hold Jiang Xiaoya and jump down from the eighteenth floor, landing steadily.
The only handsome guy who could rival Mommy was Ultraman Zero!
───♡───
In midsummer, Jiang Xiaoya was going out to summer camp. This was her first time leaving home and living away for half a month on her own. In the apocalypse, children couldn’t be pampered, so they had to learn independence early. Jiang Xiaoya worried that Mommy wouldn’t let her go, but the swamp monster was surprisingly easygoing.
Of course the youth wasn’t at ease letting her live on her own, but there was no helping it—children always have to grow up. The little dog looked at it uneasily, and the swamp monster had no way to refuse that look in her eyes. Unease and worry were probably compulsory lessons for all parents.
The youth took her to the supermarket to buy lots of daily necessities. It nagged all the way, and Jiang Xiaoya nodded along with mm-hm, mm-hm. When they got home, she urged Mommy to sign the informed consent form.
She hadn’t gone to summer camp the year before last or the year before that—one time because Mommy couldn’t sign, another time because she was still too young, and it really wasn’t reassuring to let her go to camp alone. Getting the informed consent form made Jiang Xiaoya very happy.
But when she flipped it open, she discovered that in the guardian column it was written:
Jiang Daya.
Jiang Daya? Who was that?
The swamp monster lowered its head. “That’s me.”
Jiang Xiaoya: “……”
She looked at the youth’s refined yet wild face, then looked again at the name Jiang Daya.
The little dog’s world collapsed.
The little dog who had placed Mommy and Ultraman Zero side by side as her idols could not accept this.
Actually, the swamp monster did have a name. When it didn’t speak human language, its voice sounded like it came from underground, carrying its own echo, and it had a language of its own. From the moment it was born, it heard strange syllables echoing in its mind—that was probably its name. When spoken in the swamp monster’s strange voice, it was extremely Lovecraftian, sounding something like h-drag.
Jiang Xiaoya found it hard to pronounce that sound, but it did feel very impressive.
It could be called h-drag, or transliterated as Haideke. But if it was called Jiang Daya, then Jiang Xiaoya would never again be able to brag to her classmates that her older brother was the most handsome.
It was like Ultraman Zero stepping forward and shouting: I am Sai Jianguo!
No, no, no—that was way too awful!
The two of them couldn’t agree at all. The swamp monster just felt that Daya sounded good. She was Jiang Xiaoya, it was Jiang Daya—just hearing it, you could tell she was its baby.
Jiang Ai-ya would also work.
Little Beagle flipped open the dictionary and slowly lifted her head. “Mommy, do you really have to make me look at you with heartbroken eyes?”
They got no result the entire evening, and in the end had no choice but to write a provisional name on the signature line: Jiang Ze.
It didn’t like it very much, but aside from signing things for Jiang Xiaoya, it basically wouldn’t be used.
In the diary, it still called itself Jiang Daya.
───♡───
The youth helped her pack her luggage for summer camp.
Suddenly, a letter covered in heart-shaped stickers fell out of her backpack.
When it was opened, inside was a single line of crooked handwriting:
Xiaoya, your spirit body is so cute. I like you. I stole my mom’s money to raise you.
The massive creature slowly straightened up.
Who?
Who wanted to snatch Jiang Xiaoya’s guardianship away from it?!
