A puppy’s love is very hard to keep low-key. The Beagle Demon King’s secret crush was like a train that came roaring straight through. After starting up quietly at first, it went clank-clank straight toward the swamp monster, with great momentum and grand fanfare.
Because she had been raised well since childhood—if she wanted the stars, someone would bring a ladder—the puppy’s secret crush was straightforward and frank.
If she wanted to be with Jiang Ze, she would stick close to him; if she liked the scent of rain-washed grass on him, she would lean in and sniff around like a little dog. Even if she got picked up and scolded, those lop-eared-rabbit ears of hers would let it go in one ear and out the other.
If she wanted a good-night kiss, she would run over and ask Jiang Ze for a good-night kiss. But Jiang Ze said she was already seventeen—did an adult still need Mommy to coax her to sleep? She was unwilling to admit that she was still a baby, and so she lost her reason to ask for a kiss.
Still, liking someone—just staying by their side, quietly not saying a word and not adding to their trouble—was already very happy.
Wherever Jiang Ze went, she would trot along after him. Jiang Ze peeled garlic and chopped vegetables in the kitchen; she circled around his legs, doing her utmost to get in the way in the cramped kitchen.
The enormous being lowered its head and swept her out the door.
After a while, it felt the slippers become extremely heavy. Every step felt like a thousand jin. It lowered its head to look.
A heavy, warm little beagle spirit body was sitting on its slipper like a lop-eared rabbit.
Hehe, Mommy.
The enormous being: “……”
Jiang Xiaoya was already very skilled at using her spirit body at school. Using a spirit body felt like the soul flying out of the body. But since it was currently vacation, her soul did not need to fight, and a little beagle ghost followed it around, lingering everywhere. The swamp monster gave her spirit body a very vivid name: Puppy Ghost.
The swamp monster was going out to hunt water ghosts, and Puppy Ghost quietly followed along. The slender, agile youth was just about to bend his legs and leap between the buildings when he suddenly felt his head become very heavy.
The little beagle waited for a long time, then lowered her head and leaned over, looking at him upside down: Mom, why aren’t you flying?
She was cunning; the little beagle’s belly was full of bad ideas. After discovering that calling him Mommy made it easier than calling him Jiang Ze to make him dote on her, she picked up that form of address. Anyway, Mommy was just wife!
Jiang Ze went to take a shower. The puppy wanted to follow along like before and got scolded. But if her body couldn’t follow, Puppy Ghost could still dash over, thrashing her big ears wildly in the water and pounce on the youth.
When he wanted to secretly eat a fish, Puppy Ghost could also suddenly pop out of the bushes with a “tsng.”
Puppy Ghost: Jiang Ze, how can you be so cold and heartless? Eating something good behind my back?
Occasionally, the swamp monster would go to the abandoned city to release its nature. After all, it was a terrifying, ferocious monster, with especially strong ferocity and aggressiveness. If it didn’t release it once in a while, it would easily develop destructive urges. It was unwilling for this side to be seen by Jiang Xiaoya, and only when Jiang Xiaoya was not at home would it turn into a three-meter-tall, awe-inspiring figure in the rain, destroying abandoned high-rises and buildings. But this night, just as it had gone out, Puppy Ghost followed along.
It was just about to grow to three meters tall and reveal a ferocious expression. The next second, Puppy Ghost said, “Hi, Mommy, you’re also here to look at the moon?”
It lowered its head as if it had seen a ghost.
Puppy Ghost said, “The moon is very round tonight.”
It could only put away its roaring, savage face and shrink down its violent three-meter height. It cautiously asked her whether she had seen anything.
Puppy Ghost confidently glanced at the cheat sheet written on her palm and found the fifth line: “I saw my lover’s eyes.”
The enormous being lowered its head.
It felt that Puppy Ghost’s brain might have gotten water in it.
───♡───
The puppy wrote a love letter. Things like Zhu Yingtai and Liang Shanbo, you jump I jump.
She folded it into paper airplanes and flew them at its head. The swamp monster rested in the swamp like a great tree. It could turn the ground into a swamp, and it also liked to sink down into it. Probably because it was a monster born of the swamp, it didn’t need to breathe in the swamp, and the swamp wouldn’t dirty its skin. It really liked staying in the swamp like this, spacing out.
However, just as it poked its head out of the swamp, its head was already stuck full of the puppy’s paper airplanes.
The enormous being once suspected that it might have misunderstood. Was this a secret crush? This was an assassination.
The little beagle’s head was full of the straw of love. She squatted in the flower field tearing off petals, littering the ground with trash. The swamp monster saw her. It grabbed a broom. The straw in Jiang Xiaoya’s head immediately vanished, and she bolted away in a puff of smoke: Murder! Help!
She bought two sets of lop-eared rabbit pajamas and brought them home; they looked like a matching pair. Jiang Ze wanted to refuse. Because wearing couple outfits wasn’t very appropriate. It carefully worded its refusal.
But Jiang Xiaoya said they were parent-child outfits. It hesitated for a moment, then still changed into that extra-large rabbit pajama set. The lop-eared rabbit ears on the hood drooped down. The fierce youth turned his head and saw the puppy laughing so hard she was bent double.
It bared its teeth and let out a threatening heh-heh sound from its chest.
But she wasn’t afraid of it at all.
The enormous being discovered something: its authority as a parent was slipping away.
When did it start? Probably from the moment it saw her notebook.
It wanted to press that rabbit pajama set to the bottom of the trunk, put it deep in the wardrobe. It felt the puppy had a belly full of bad ideas and might be tricking it. After all, there was no such size of parent-child outfit.
But when it went back, it saw Puppy Ghost wearing the same rabbit pajamas. A tiny little thing floated over, hopping around beside it.
It squatted down and looked at Puppy Ghost.
Oh. The baby is really cute.
In the end, it still couldn’t bear to take off that heavy pajama set.
Although all kinds of changes had happened, like a sudden violent storm that caught the monster off guard, in its eyes, colds would get better, rain would stop.
Jiang Xiaoya would forever be its little burden.
It guessed that the puppy’s grand, high-profile secret crush would end before winter arrived.
It had many plans for its future life. It had looked forward for many years to Jiang Xiaoya growing up, and did not hope for any major changes to happen.
It thought that once the child had grown up, it could free up a bit of time to go to the sea to look at sharks, whales, and the like. It heard that on another continent to the south there was an even more humid and vast swamp. Once Jiang Xiaoya no longer needed it to worry about her, it could spend a few months, or even less time, conquering that swamp.
Bring back a bit of local specialty for her. Like Amazonian giant leeches. Didn’t she love playing with those when she was little?
And coconuts and such. She was picky yet greedy; faraway places might have some little snacks that could coax her.
It hoped everything would develop according to its expectations.
It also would not fall in love with her.
Because that way, in the next life, and the life after that, it would all be wasted on this dead kid.
It would have endless housework to do, endless worries to shoulder. What difference was there from always carrying a deadweight along?
The tall youth watched Jiang Xiaoya run back and forth, thinking this as he skillfully knitted a sweater.
───♡───
The rain was falling hard. The youth Jiang Ze carried a freshly hunted wild rabbit and stepped through the door, planning to make a spicy rabbit head for the child. She was always clamoring that she was sick of eating fish; it really wanted to ask that dead kid—did she think it enjoyed picking out fish bones for her?
As usual, it casually took off its soaked shirt so the dripping water wouldn’t wet the carpet at home.
Jiang Ze’s build was tall, with a large frame, the kind of very hormonal male. The youth had that solid, hard kind of lean muscle, extremely explosive, with a few scars on it that only added a bit of fierce tension. She rushed down and, as usual, ran straight into his arms.
However, when she lifted her head, Jiang Xiaoya realized something was wrong.
The damp long hair had been casually raked back with the youth’s fingers, revealing beautiful, fierce brows and eyes. She felt a strong presence rush toward her—an aggressiveness that gentle Mommy would never have, a flamboyant, unrestrained sense of pressure that belonged to the youth Jiang Ze.
She smelled the familiar grassy scent. In the misty atmosphere, the seemingly harmless fragrance became bared-fanged, overwhelming, wrapping her up completely. As if nailed in place, she couldn’t move, and could only stare blankly at the line of the youth’s jaw.
It was wiping its hair, and only when it lowered its head did it meet her gaze.
The air froze for a moment.
Silence lingered for a while.
It silently pulled the clothes back on.
Dead kid, what are you looking at.
It wanted to hit her, but couldn’t say it outright. In the end, it could only silently swallow this breath of anger.
It had to start reflecting on itself. It was a monster of the swamp; before, its hair had been so long that it didn’t need to wear clothes. It hadn’t thought there was anything wrong with that. It was only after raising Jiang Xiaoya that it realized it needed to wear clothes—otherwise it would be a bad influence on the child. But its hair was so long; originally, at home, it only needed to wear a pair of pants! Yet now it very clearly realized that this was improper.
It irritably thought that Jiang Xiaoya was really troublesome.
But the puppy’s gaze was like thorns at its back, and it could only resign itself to wearing a top at home.
The youth Jiang Ze had terrible taste. The clothes it bought itself were very ugly. What it liked best were those sleeveless tank tops, because there was less restriction.
Jiang Xiaoya said it was wearing an old-man undershirt.
Then why do you still like it?
───♡───
It had to keep a proper distance from her. This thing called boundaries—children didn’t understand it, but did a parent not understand? When dressing, it had to cover up tightly; it couldn’t be disheveled in front of her anymore. It could no longer let the puppy sit in its lap, but instead had to cautiously sit a foot’s distance behind her. If she wanted a hug, then it would loosely hold her from behind.
If she jumped up wanting to kiss it, then it would seriously pull her down, squat in front of her, look at her at eye level, and tell her: Xiaoya, Mommy is male. You are already seventeen.
You know this is inappropriate, right?
It saw the sadness in her eyes.
But it hardened its heart just the same, turned its gaze away, and pretended not to see the look in her eyes.
It no longer went into Jiang Xiaoya’s room. Because a grown girl needed her own private space; naturally, it also couldn’t let Jiang Xiaoya enter its room anymore.
It was as if a Chu–Han boundary river had been strictly drawn.
It solemnly told her that she could not cross the line.
The puppy tried many times—scaling walls, sneaking around, crawling forward—but still couldn’t get in. But in truth, the swamp monster’s hearing was keen and its perception astonishing; if it didn’t want her to break through that boundary, there was no way she could ever cross that great mountain.
The sense of loss came surging in like a tide. In stormy weather, there was only their single household in the swamp; all around was pitch-black without a trace of light, only the frenzied forest and the deep, dark swamp, the home turning into a lone boat adrift in the vast sea. In previous years at this time, she would always sit in the swamp monster’s arms, clutching its long hair, and then all the wind sounds would disappear, the world shrinking into a small, warm corner.
But this year, the door was closed to her.
An indescribable sense of loss and confusion. She couldn’t fall asleep, and secretly released her spirit body.
Puppy Ghost went to knock on the door.
Jiang Ze, if my body has grown and I can’t be as close to you as before. Then what about my soul?
Puppy Ghost squatted on a slipper, looking at it pitifully.
My soul—can it still be close to you?
There was no way to describe how moving her gaze was at that moment. Perhaps even a rain-soaked rose was no match for the pitifulness of that single look.
In the end, it compromised, left the tightly shut door, and went to the living room to keep her company.
She leaned against its side, became happy, and so her breathing gradually steadied and lengthened, sinking into sleep amid the torrential rain.
Outside the window, the wind howled past. In the dim light, the enormous being looked at her.
It loved Jiang Xiaoya.
It was her mother, her guardian.
The person in this world least likely to lightly “love” her.
Outside, the wind and rain were dark and heavy. The enormous being quietly responded to her:
Of course, my little puppy.
My soul, for decades on end, has always been pressed tightly against you.
