At thirteen, Xiao Chan said that a life without puppy love was incomplete. Jiang Xiaoya scratched her head and decided to find someone to have a secret crush on.
She fell in love at first sight with a tall third-year middle school boy on the playground. He was good-looking, very fair-skinned, with eyelashes like butterflies. Jiang Xiaoya liked to squat by the window and secretly watch him, calling him Little Freckles.
They say a young girl’s feelings are always poetry. Jiang Xiaoya, who believed she had plenty of girlish sentiment, composed poems at home with great emotion and expression. If the Swamp Monster wanted to see them, she would immediately hide them and refuse to let it read them.
Hmph, Jiang Xiaoya was going to have puppy love! She was going to have a complete life.
However, one day, she realized why the other person looked so familiar.
Because Little Freckles’ side profile looked a bit like Mom.
Jiang Xiaoya was struck as if by lightning, instantly losing all motivation for her secret crush. She felt that having an incomplete life was fine too.
Probably because the people around her were starting to awaken to romantic feelings one after another, and the emotional world of middle school students was tangled and complex, Jiang Xiaoya suddenly became interested in all this love stuff. She suddenly remembered—Mom seemed to have never looked for a partner!
Clearly a youth himself, yet because he had to raise a child, he always made Jiang Xiaoya forget his real age. Only on very rare occasions would the Swamp Monster reveal a youthful side.
For example, last year during Qingming Festival, when Jiang Xiaoya was walking home alone at night through that stretch of forest after school, it roared terrifyingly from behind, scaring the little brat into wailing and screaming as she ran home;
When Jiang Xiaoya fell and cried loudly, the youth would deliberately take a detour, walking slowly behind her, waiting until she finished crying before pretending to run into her, so that he wouldn’t have to coax Jiang Xiaoya; when picky Jiang Xiaoya demanded to eat this and that and it got impatient, it would also bring back a whole pile of canned food and toss it to her to make do.
After entering puberty, the little brat would occasionally think: it’s not like he’s that much older than me!
Fairly speaking, although his temperament was a bit gloomy and irritable, Mom was very beautiful. With long eyelashes and features as if carved, Jiang Xiaoya had never seen anyone better-looking than Mom.
Jiang Xiaoya ran off to ask Mom about partners. The ferocious predator of the swamp froze for a moment.
The Swamp Monster had never thought about finding a mate. It seemed that seeking a mate had never appeared in its life plans. In theory, after the next molting period passed, the Swamp Monster would be at the age to look for a mate. But in the youth’s eyes there was only daily necessities and raising Jiang Xiaoya—where would there be time to think about such things?
As the apex of the swamp’s food chain, the Swamp Monster was very ferocious. On its life plan list there were only: hunting water ghosts, raising Jiang Xiaoya.
To deal with the yapping little puppy, the youth bluntly and simply told her:
It didn’t like humans. It simply hated them. It liked water ghosts even less! It didn’t like birds, didn’t like animals either. It didn’t like sunny days, didn’t like rainy days; now on cloudy days Jiang Xiaoya’s clothes were hard to dry, so it didn’t like those either. To be precise, the only thing it might like was destroying the world.
Mm. It liked Jiang Xiaoya a little.
Everything else—it hated all of it!
The colossal creature thought that it had already grown used to life in the swamp with its child; at most, there would be one more Ah Hua. Even if it entered the next molting period, it wouldn’t look for a mate.
The puppy sat on the ruins, propping up her chin, and said, “But Mommy, they say love is very beautiful!”
What is aiqin?
The Swamp Monster knew what a mate was. It even knew about estrus periods. It knew that was nature, the cycle of seasons in the swamp, the process of nurturing life—sunrise and moonset, nature thus reproducing endlessly. But what was love?
For a while, Jiang Xiaoya liked watching TV dramas and fantasized that she was an emperor, adding the word “ai” to everything she liked—for example, aiqing, aipin. She called Ah Hua Ai Hua, and called Mom Ai Ma.
So the Swamp Monster thought: aiqin probably meant Jiang Xiaoya wanted to eat celery.
This was somewhat difficult. Water ghosts moving south had cut off several key transportation routes, and that year the Tiandong Base’s vegetable supply was completely severed. The children at school were given nutrient solutions to replace vegetables. The days when one could freely eat vegetables seemed to be gone for good.
No love, and no aiqin either.
There were plenty of wild vegetables to eat in the swamp. But their taste was all bitter, like chewing on grass. Yet if you didn’t eat them, your gums would bleed when you brushed your teeth. In order to let Jiang Xiaoya eat fresh and tender vegetables, their family started raising ducks and growing vegetables. The little ducklings quacked as they floated on the lake, and in the withered mire, some small green vegetables and aiqin were planted in a messy jumble.
At first glance, it looked very pastoral, nothing like that gloomy prison at all. But the light in the swamp was too poor—could the vegetables even survive?
The colossal creature watered and fertilized the cabbages eagerly every day. Jiang Xiaoya couldn’t bear to discourage Mom, so she secretly ran over every day with her ultraviolet lamp to give the little cabbages some extra light, but the effect was very weak.
Sure enough, in the first quarter, only two pitifully small cabbages were harvested.
As for the aiqin, it had only sprouted a tiny, faint bud, barely visible.
The Swamp Monster cherished its two lone cabbages. It planned to braise one in red sauce for Jiang Xiaoya, and stir-fry the other.
However, the water ghosts’ southward march reached Tiandong Base once again. As the climate changed, their migrations became more and more frequent, going from once every three or four years to visiting every year. It gave all the major bases a terrible headache.
Jiang Xiaoya got up early and discovered that Mommy’s little cabbages had been trampled!
Sure enough, the Swamp Monster flew into a rage. It squatted beside the cabbages, its green eyes narrowing into a dangerous thin line, its body swelling even larger in its fury, as if even the surrounding air had frozen. It was the first time Jiang Xiaoya had seen Mommy this angry.
Jiang Xiaoya wasn’t a little kid anymore; it was fine not to eat vegetables, just like it didn’t matter not drinking milk. But the Swamp Monster was very insistent. Unless something didn’t exist in this world at all, as long as it did, it always wanted to give Jiang Xiaoya the best.
It took Jiang Xiaoya out. At first, Jiang Xiaoya thought Mommy wanted to clear out the water ghosts around Tiandong Base like last time. It wasn’t until Mom carried her past one road sign after another that Jiang Xiaoya realized the Swamp Monster was heading straight north. She discovered in shock that the enraged Mommy seemed to be planning to clear that freight train supply line!
Jiang Xiaoya was a mess in the wind. The youth who had lost her cabbages had fallen into an irritable state. It had very little patience—those two cabbages had been so hard to grow!
Along the way, Jiang Xiaoya put on a raincoat and held an umbrella, following behind the enraged colossal creature.
But it wasn’t to block the rain. It was because along the way, blood flowed like rivers, green water ghost blood splattering everywhere like rain. The Swamp Monster bought her a full set of rain gear on the road so she wouldn’t get soaked.
Jiang Xiaoya wore her raincoat and rain boots, obediently following behind Mommy.
The terrified train guard team thought they were seeing hell, the end of the world. Seeing the towering figure appear at the end of the tracks, and the swamp melting away on the ground, they stared in fear with widened eyes.
Jiang Xiaoya passed by.
After thinking about it, she stuffed the umbrella in her hand to the other party to block the splashing blood.
The Swamp Monster stopped and praised her for being a polite good child.
The big monster and the little monster walked away one after the other.
This trip brought back a lot of frozen fresh vegetables and frozen foods. It wasn’t until Jiang Xiaoya’s little cart could hold no more that they turned back along the same route and went home. The timing was perfect—it only took a seven-day holiday, and Jiang Xiaoya could still make it back in time for her school’s self-study classes.
Not long after, that cleared transport route was put back into use. In less than half a month, the supermarkets at Tiandong Base had vegetable supplies again, and fresh, dewy vegetables reappeared on the dining tables.
In her diary, Jiang Xiaoya wrote: Mom flew into a rage for the sake of little cabbages.
A stay-at-home husband is like this.
However, it was probably because it discovered that growing vegetables was not as good as looting. The Swamp Monster quickly lost interest in the vegetable patch. The swamp garden was neglected, more than half of it gnawed away by Ah Hua, and it was left to become desolate like that. Instead, that sparse stalk of celery stubbornly stayed alive.
Jiang Xiaoya heard on television that that transport route ran from the coniferous forests in the north all the way to the southernmost sea.
Jiang Xiaoya began to yearn for it: what was the sea like?
They lived in inland wetlands, with the sea very far away. The largest body of water she had ever seen was the lake in front of their home.
The Swamp Monster liked shallow lakes and did not like the unknown, distant sea. But Jiang Xiaoya said that on the other side of the sea there would be shallow tidal flats, wetlands like the swamp; the damp sea breeze would bring moisture from the Pacific Ocean. In Jiang Xiaoya’s imagination, she could pick up many shells at low tide, and she could draw a big monster on the wet sand.
And so, the Swamp Monster liked that place a little.
It was just that Jiang Xiaoya was still very young. When she got a bit older, it could take her everywhere, to the far south and the far north.
Probably because of the topic of the sea, the next time it brought things back for Jiang Xiaoya, it brought some seafood and simmered a pot of fragrant seafood porridge.
Maybe she could taste a bit of the sea’s saltiness.
However, in a happy life, there are always some accidents.
With the apocalypse descending, the water quality in some places was polluted by acid rain, so the seafood all underwent some mutations.
After Jiang Xiaoya took one sip of the seafood porridge, she began breathing rapidly, half her face swelling up, changing from a lop-eared rabbit into a honey puppy. Other than that one fever when she was little, at all other times Jiang Xiaoya had been as healthy as a little calf. Even small colds were never serious. This was the first time she had encountered such an urgent situation.
However, the base hospital did not have that kind of anti–special-allergy medicine. The entire Tiandong City did not have it. The hospital’s freezers were prioritized for life-saving drugs. In this apocalypse where the medical system had collapsed, such sudden situations often meant waiting for death.
The Swamp Monster was the apex of the food chain. Bullets and water ghosts could not take away its Xiaoya. But it never dared to be careless. Humans were so fragile—just one cold was enough to take a child’s life. Even when a bit older, one still could not be careless. Yet even with such caution, one small allergic reaction was enough to kill a child.
Jiang Xiaoya was very afraid, but the puppy was no longer as prone to crying as she was when she was little. She still calmly told Mom that it was okay, that after a while the allergy would get better, and now that she had taken medicine her breathing was normal, that things were not that bad.
But it did not take her home.
The youth said: Jiang Xiaoya, don’t be afraid.
The colossal creature tightened its grip on her hand and stuffed the little girl into its arms.
If Tiandong Base didn’t have it, then the neighboring Zhongxing Base. If there still wasn’t any, then the next base, the next, and the one after that. From here to the seaside, seaside cities always had suitable allergy medicine.
All along, that cool, monster’s hand never let go of Jiang Xiaoya.
But the puppy was still afraid. When they reached Zhongxing City and found there was no medicine, she began to truly consider death. She lay against Mom’s shoulder, thinking sadly whether she would just die like this. Die just like this? Yes, just like this. Under the apocalypse, even in relatively peaceful places like Tiandong Base, because of the collapse of the medical system, the mortality rate had always remained high.
The youth silently took her toward the next city.
Jiang Xiaoya said sadly, “Actually, after I die, I can also turn into a little water ghost and cling to Mommy.”
The Swamp Monster fell silent. After a while, it said:
“Jiang Xiaoya, you can die—but have you ever thought about me? About what Mom should do?”
It was the first time she had heard the youth’s voice carry a hoarse tremor. The tone was very fierce. For a very long time, it had not been that fierce with Jiang Xiaoya. Its gaze looked as if, if Jiang Xiaoya said one more word, it would throw her away.
Jiang Xiaoya stopped saying such dispiriting things. She lay against Mom’s chest, tightly clutching its hair. After entering puberty, she had always wanted to leave this embrace, unwilling to be protected by it like this anymore. But at this moment, the wind and the rain were all shut out by Mom’s long hair. She stayed within that small world, as if she had become Mom’s little baby again.
Probably because their luck was good, at the third base, they finally found suitable anti-allergy medicine at a children’s hospital. After the injection, the rapid breathing slowly calmed down. The quiet ward was empty, with only the dripping sound of the IV remaining.
Jiang Xiaoya quietly held Mom’s hand. She discovered that this terrifying, ferocious monster’s slightly cool, large hand was actually trembling faintly. The jade-like green eyes were filled with red bloodshot lines.
She was surprised to find that the fierce youth looked so exhausted for the first time.
The Swamp Monster was extremely ferocious and powerful, and as a brutal predator, it believed that showing weakness was shameful. So no matter when or where, it always put on a menacing appearance, aggressively frightening others. Only when coaxing her to sleep did it look a little gentler.
She wanted to say a few words to it, but there was no sound beside her anymore.
The monster of the swamp had fallen asleep. It knew its body was very large and would crush the bed, so it did not sleep on the small hospital bed. The colossal creature curled up and sat in the corner, leaning against her bedside as it slept.
The heavy rain outside the window was loud, drowning out the drip of the IV.
Death was terrifying, but Mom would pull the puppy back again and again.
Her heart turned sour.
There was an emotion in the puppy’s heart that was about to overflow. Why was it that when people felt loved and happy, their eyes turned into sour lemons? The puppy wanted to express that overflowing affection, and toward the sky went werwer, howling like a wolf.
But it still wasn’t enough. The puppy moved closer to the youth and planted wild kisses, smacking again and again, on its cheek.
Ever since starting middle school, she had never kissed it like this again.
The youth felt it—the wet, puppy’s kiss.
But it did not open its eyes. It let the kiss linger on its cheek like a butterfly.
When a child grows up, they can no longer be as close as they were when little. Occasionally, it would wish that Jiang Xiaoya were a little water ghost, so that from birth to a hundred years old, she could be held in Mom’s arms.
But now, the youth had to keep distance from its baby.
Only by pretending to be asleep could it receive a kiss.
It heard the little monster complain softly: Mommy, you’re so good—how am I supposed to fall in love with someone else in the future?
In the heavy rain, the big monster thought: then don’t love anyone else.
