The colossal thing squatted beside the little notebook and took a look, thinking Jiang Xiaoya was about to pull off its oxygen mask again. But it saw something about cakes and moons, and so it remembered that child from long ago, sitting in the corner of the classroom, lonely, back held straight among the parents.
It tugged at its own long hair, long enough to reach its ankles. Actually, if it shrank a bit and cut its hair, it would look like a human, wouldn’t it. Although it didn’t like humans, if it could fulfill the little dog’s wish, reluctantly pretending for a while was acceptable. Especially since the very obvious webbing on its hands had already disappeared.
The swamp monster’s hair had stayed in this state for a very long time.
When the swamp monster had just been born, it was very small. Humans once came into this prison and discovered it. It bared its teeth at the humans who occasionally came into the swamp, and they would even laugh. But after discovering how ferocious it was, they couldn’t laugh anymore. Those water ghosts weren’t afraid of it either, so it had to spend even more time maintaining its position of intimidation.
Back then, the small little monster of the swamp bared its teeth at the lake, snarling like a wolf, ferociously baring its fangs. But its face was small, its teeth sharp, and no matter how one looked at it, there was no deterrent at all. It was extremely depressed. It wandered back and forth in the lake with a heh-heh sound.
Later, it grew very, very long hair, so that it covered that face, making it look burly and fierce. Sure enough, it was never laughed at again. As long as it slowly raised its head from the swamp, it was ferocious and terrifying enough.
Mm, satisfied, satisfied.
This hairstyle was kept just like that.
But now it was already ferocious enough. It didn’t need to protect itself in this way anymore. If its little monster wanted her mother to accompany her to a parent-teacher meeting, then cut the hair short.
It just felt a bit uncomfortable to expose that face. Just like what Jiang Xiaoya said—wearing underwear on the outside!
The next day, Jiang Xiaoya got up in the morning. She carried her schoolbag, planning to go to school alone to attend the parent-teacher meeting! She had already thought through what she was going to say to the teacher later. And she planned to beat up anyone who gossiped about her. Full of heroic spirit, she was about to push open the door and leave the swamp, when she discovered a colossal thing squatting at the doorway.
It said, “Jiang Xiaoya, cut my hair. I’ll go attend your parent-teacher meeting.”
So Jiang Xiaoya knew that her diary had been secretly read. She was very angry; her hair stood straight up. But thinking of how she had written in her diary about pulling off Mom’s oxygen mask, the little dog felt a wave of guilt, and the hair that had stood up obediently drooped back down.
She quietly glanced at her mother’s expression, her heart beginning to speculate whether it had seen her rebellious remarks.
Of course she was happy that at an important moment in life, her mother would be present. As for cutting hair, Jiang Xiaoya had always thought since childhood that her mother’s hair was very important. She thought her mother’s hair was like Medusa’s, a part of the main body. When she was little, she had even suspected that her mother might be a mop spirit! After all, after looking at that colossal thing for a long time, when it went heh-heh walking around, it looked like a huge moving mop with green eyes.
However, it told Jiang Xiaoya that it simply didn’t want to cut it.
But then, why didn’t it want to cut it before, and this year it wanted to?
Of course it was because of the little dog. She turned into a little bear that had secretly eaten honey, her heart sweet and sticky.
But keeping the hair also had another reason that couldn’t be told to Jiang Xiaoya—if Jiang Xiaoya discovered that it wasn’t much bigger than her, how could it establish parental authority in front of her. Don’t be fooled by how the swamp monster used to look heh-heh and not very smart. After the molting period, it had grown just as many tricks as holes in a sieve.
To this day, Jiang Xiaoya had never once won against her mother in the matter of secretly reading diaries.
Jiang Xiaoya first cut half of her mother’s hair at home, and it finally no longer looked like something crawling out of the water to claim lives. A lot of long hair fell onto the ground, like seaweed. It was just that Jiang Xiaoya’s skills were too poor; the swamp monster took a look and said it looked like it had been chewed by a little dog!
They could only find another barbershop to fix it up a bit more.
Mom went to get his hair cut. Jiang Xiaoya excitedly ran to the mall to pick an outer coat suitable for attending a parent-teacher meeting.
The swamp monster didn’t like wearing clothes. After all, its hair was long enough, covering everything tightly—nothing could be seen except the eyes. But that dead child, when she was little, kept shouting that it would cause styes! She even said that if Mom didn’t wear clothes, she would roll around in the swamp.
What could the swamp monster do? It could only casually find a loose piece of clothing and pull it on. When she wanted to buy it clothes, the swamp monster refused. Because that way, not only would it have to wash Jiang Xiaoya’s clothes, it would also have to wash its own clothes!
But wearing this to a parent-teacher meeting felt a bit too informal. This was Mom’s first time attending her parent-teacher meeting, and Jiang Xiaoya felt it was a very big, very solemn event. She browsed and browsed in the mall, using all of her allowance to choose a white shirt in the largest size, along with a gemstone-green cuff pin.
When she came back, she saw a short-haired youth squatting at the doorway. Quite good-looking. His temperament carried a kind of non-human coldness and ferocity. But squatting near a school, he felt like the kind of school tyrant who would use cigarette butts to burn people’s butts.
Jiang Xiaoya walked past him.
Where’s Mom? Where’s my mom?
The little dog stood on tiptoe and looked into the distance, only to be grabbed by the back of her collar by the youth and lifted in front of him.
“Jiang Xiaoya.”
Only then did she foolishly turn around, the little dog’s eyes widening into circles.
Long hair always softened some of the sharpness in one’s temperament. When those damp strands hung down, they would always blur the youthful line of the jaw, softening the innate wildness between the brows. But short hair felt completely different. Arrogant and aloof, a non-human temperament, eyes like a dangerous great snake in the forest.
Like a bolt of lightning. Instantly splitting the image of Mom in Jiang Xiaoya’s heart into two halves.
Mom was a spring breeze, spring rain.
The youth was lightning, violent wind.
Before, the mom in her heart had been a blurry-faced but oddly lovable colossal thing, always very far from humans, so she could naturally treat it as her mom; but now it seemed a bit different. The wind poured into the youth’s coat, making it rustle loudly, and the loose strands of hair on his forehead swayed with it.
The little dog saw the youth’s clear, well-defined jawline. Set off by the clean white shirt, it seemed to be plated with a layer of light. The youth stared at her, leaning closer, as if wanting to see what she was thinking. She was being looked at until she felt dizzy!
She was led along for a stretch of road, feeling as if she were dreaming. Only the familiar cold temperature in her palm let her regain a bit of familiarity.
Mom.
Mom, hit me twice.
The youth patted the back of her head and asked whether she’d washed her hair in the morning and gotten water in her brain. He’d told her so many times already—washing hair in the morning easily causes headaches.
This smell—that’s right!
Jiang Xiaoya came back to herself. She trotted after him, looking at the back of the youth’s head. So Mom’s legs were that long—Jiang Xiaoya only reached a bit above his waist; were his shoulders really that wide? How could he seat Jiang Xiaoya? When she was little, did she lie on top of the youth’s head? But no matter how one looked at it, it didn’t seem like it could fit a Jiang Xiaoya.
She felt a bit unfamiliar.
Like being used to a kind of wrapped fruit candy, and then suddenly it changed to new packaging—even the taste became unfamiliar.
Among a room full of middle-aged people, the youth appeared especially conspicuous. Probably because his frame was a bit large. As a result, Jiang Xiaoya’s small desk looked a bit too small. The youth had to curl up slightly to sit in it. His gaze was extremely fierce—at times he stared unblinkingly at the homeroom teacher, his vertical pupils narrowing into a line; at other times he swept his eyes around. Whenever he caught someone secretly sizing him up, he glared back coldly. That snake-like look made the atmosphere of the entire parent-teacher meeting turn gloomy and terrifying.
He really wanted to slap dead those humans who were secretly looking at him. He disliked that kind of gaze very much. But he couldn’t let Jiang Xiaoya be unable to attend school, so he could only endure it.
Before long, however, the swamp monster’s attention was drawn to the bow on Jiang Xiaoya’s water bottle.
He straightened up, the dangerous vertical pupils enlarging and rounding.
He began to focus intently on picking at her bow.
Unlike the parents who were sitting on pins and needles, the little brats outside cared about something else entirely.
“Xiaoya, is that your older brother? He’s so handsome!”
“Yeah, yeah, way too handsome—do you have his contact info?”
Jiang Xiaoya wanted to explain that that was her mom. But no matter how one looked at it, that was a handsome youth, so the little dog didn’t refute it.
Mm. An older brother.
After the parent-teacher meeting ended, the first time she was openly holding Mom’s hand and walking along the road after school, the little dog was somewhat distracted. From time to time, she would secretly glance at Mom.
At night. Just like usual, they ate while watching TV together. The big head and the small head overlapped. The weather forecast for the swamp was very important.
Sunny weather was bad weather in their eyes. Because the swamp monster couldn’t go out and could only stay at home; and Jiang Xiaoya had to immediately climb up to the top of the prison building to sun-dry clothes and blankets. Going up and down the stairs was very tiring, and books had to be taken out and aired too. So on sunny days, they would say to each other, “Good bad morning!”
Heavy rain was good weather, because they could go out to play wearing raincoats! Overcast days were also nice—there were mushrooms to pick in the forest, and Ah Hua could be taken out to graze. At times like these, they could say, “Good morning.”
They were watching TV with rapt attention. Suddenly, Jiang Xiaoya was poked by the short hair. With an “ow,” the little head turned, she tilted her head up, and for the first time she realized that Mom’s green eyes were like enchanting lakes.
Probably because she had been staring for too long, it asked Jiang Xiaoya what she was looking at.
The little dog said, “Watching TV.”
In Mom’s eyes, there was the reflection of the television, saying that the weather would turn from clear to heavy rain.
The little dog’s mood also strangely began to turn from clear to heavy rain.
Oh dear, so unfamiliar.
Before, although Mom had been fierce, she mysteriously possessed a kind of feminine quality—probably because she had been born in the swamp, inclusive like the earth. But now, beneath the short hair, the face was sharply defined, the wildness between the brows no longer able to be hidden. Its looks were sharp, something that would never be mistaken for a girl; its frame was large enough to envelop her entirely, and there was even room for her to turn around inside.
Jiang Xiaoya could lay out bedding on the floor in Mom’s arms!
It was as if Mom had turned into another person. In that wide, broad embrace, circled by that large, pale hand, breathing in the familiar scent of grass, she should have felt very at ease. But her toes couldn’t help curling together. Her heartbeat thudded like a drum.
So unfamiliar, so strange!
The little dog really couldn’t sit still anymore—she dashed back to the bedroom in a flash.
The air humidity was normal, the air pressure stable, no different from yesterday or today.
So what exactly was she not used to?
The little dog thought: maybe it was because Mom’s hair had been her lovey when she was little. Without the hair, she had lost her beloved lovey.
Was that really the case?
Mm, mm—liars are little dogs!
But that short-haired limited-edition Mom soon disappeared. Because the swamp monster wasn’t used to that kind of short hair. It felt just like not wearing clothes at all. Simply indecent.
So the swamp monster’s hair began to grow, like kelp puffed up in water, rapidly lengthening from short to long, returning to that sloppy state. But perhaps it realized that hair that was too long could be a bit inconvenient. At any rate, it no longer covered the entire body. In short, when Jiang Xiaoya woke up, she saw that familiar Mom again.
She let out a breath of relief for no apparent reason.
She really wasn’t used to Mom being like that!
However, it probably discovered that short hair also had its advantages. Occasionally, the swamp monster would turn its hair into a spiky hedgehog head and rub it against her face. When Jiang Xiaoya was reading, it would lean over and use its hair to rub the little dog until she yelped. When she complained, it would happily squat in front of her, revealing a mischievous grin. Like a big cat whose prank had succeeded.
The little dog was furious. She used little dog lotion every day, cherishing her little face, and now her face had been poked by Mom into a frosted little face!
One morning, Jiang Xiaoya suddenly discovered that the sun was out. She immediately grabbed an umbrella and rushed downstairs to hold it over Mom—
From far away, she saw the top of the colossal thing’s head, with sunlight evaporating water vapor from it.
The colossal thing that was smoking from being dried turned its head.
And so, the steam rising from the top of its head slowly refracted a rainbow in the sunlight.
The little dog laughed.
Holding up the umbrella, she charged forward in the sunlight.
It was truly wonderful that nothing had changed. Good bad morning! The weather was still just as bad, but right after the sun, a heavy rain was about to fall!
