Jiang Xiaoya was in her third year of senior high. Her studies were exceptionally busy, and there was also heavy mental power training. Whether mentally or physically, she was finding it hard to cope. The dormitory conditions at school were very poor, and the cafeteria food was also quite ordinary. As soon as the third year began, many people applied to move out and live near the school.
Jiang Xiaoya also called her mother. Hadn’t their family bought a place at the Tiandong Base during the last molting period? Jiang Xiaoya remembered it didn’t seem very far from the school. She wanted to move out and live on her own.
Although security in the residential complex was fairly good, parents were always uneasy about an underage child living alone outside.
So, when Jiang Xiaoya moved out of the dormitory, the one she saw was Jiang Ze.
That apartment was a three-bedroom, one-living-room unit, with a rooftop terrace.
The Swamp Monster did not like this place. Human houses were like boxes made of concrete. But it was very close to the wet market and the supermarket, and buying things was much more convenient than at the home in the swamp. During the day, it went out to hunt. After tidying up, it returned to the home in Tiandong City, cooked for Jiang Xiaoya, and squatted at the street corner to wait for her to come home.
This was actually much better than not seeing each other for ten days or half a month back in the swamp.
From far away, when it heard the ding-ling-ling of a bicycle bell at the alley entrance, that meant Jiang Xiaoya was home.
It liked watching their school from the balcony. Its eyesight was extremely good, and it could see Jiang Xiaoya during morning drills. She wore the school running uniform and ran at the very front. Like a newly born little dove.
Because they lived closer now, and because it didn’t want the child to let her thoughts wander about it, the clothes the youth wore at home became more and more plain—old-man undershirts, and some blue workwear from the last century, no one knew where it had bought them.
Jiang Xiaoya said its sense of aesthetics was strange.
It thought: whose sense of aesthetics is strange, exactly?
It was unromantic, old-man shirts, dressed unfashionably. In short, what was there worth her liking? She was so cute and pretty, the world so big—there was no need for her to like her own “mom,” right?
Occasionally it would be away from home on long trips, and to let the neighbors look after Jiang Xiaoya a bit, the fierce-looking, tall youth would often silently stuff eggs into the hands of the old grandpas and grandmas downstairs. Although he was big and looked hard to deal with, when the youth Jiang Ze saw elderly people, he would still politely nod his head. Perhaps eggs really were useful to old folks; they were especially kind to Jiang Xiaoya.
They would often greet her when they saw her: “Xiaoya, going to look for your brother?”
The first time she heard it, Jiang Xiaoya froze for a moment before realizing they were talking about Jiang Ze.
Suddenly, she discovered the wonderfulness of this form of address. No longer the chasm-like distance of “mom” and “baby,” but Big Tooth and Little Tooth. It was as if the distance instantly became very, very close. She rushed home and shouted, “Ge (Brother)!”
The tall youth’s hand paused.
In that instant, it actually also subtly sensed her little thoughts.
It knocked her on the forehead:
Little sly one.
But no matter how it corrected her, how fiercely it scolded her, she refused to change what she called him. As if she had found a martial arts secret manual, she turned into a little hen constantly calling “gege, gege.” Fine, this damned child was really annoying.
But now she knew the way herself, so it couldn’t just find a trash bin and throw her away anymore.
At school, Jiang Xiaoya heard the air-raid siren. After the torrential rain, because the city’s underground water pipes lacked maintenance, many water ghosts in Tiandong City crawled up from the sewers onto the streets. The nearby old residential area was the first to be hit. While following the teachers during the evacuation, she lifted her head and glanced at the distant sky. Hm?
She saw, far away, a familiar colossal figure within the curtain of rain, moving through the city’s high-rise buildings like a dark cloud.
Soon, the warning sound announcing the appearance of water ghosts disappeared.
Jiang Xiaoya was picked up and taken home by a parent. On the way, she asked Big Big Monster curiously why it had helped.
The Swamp Monster did not like meddling in other matters. Toward all existences in the world, it was uniformly indifferent.
But school-district housing was too hard to find. If this residential area were destroyed, how would Jiang Xiaoya go to school?
In this apocalyptic world, it was very difficult to live an ordinary life. In one’s life, there would originally be many setbacks, and the world would be destroyed again and again. But Big Big Monster gave Little Little Monster a safe protective cover, hoping she would live a plain and happy life. And so, life in the apocalypse flowed past like running water. Troubles were forever only very, very small.
One day after school, the chain on her bicycle loosened. She could only push it home, creaking all the way. When she was in such a hurry that she was sweating all over, Jiang Ze appeared. The youth was still wearing that old-man undershirt, and he lifted both her and the bicycle and carried them home together.
Another time, she did poorly on an exam and squatted under a utility pole outside the alley, crying with a runny nose.
Jiang Ze bought ice cream to coax her.
His tall body sat down on the steps beside her. She smelled the scent on the youth—fresh grass mixed with Safeguard. Because she bought Safeguard soap. Broad shoulders, arms solid and strong; his brows and eyes looked fierce, but his tone was the kind used to coax a child. A big hand clumsily rubbed her head:
Alright, alright. If you can’t get in, then just follow Mom and be a little water monster.
The little dog sniffled and lifted her head, crashing straight into a gaze gentler than moonlight.
After having her little dog head rubbed, she turned into a fluffy one.
In these fragmentary, everyday moments of life, they were no longer as inseparable as when she was little. Yet their hearts were still pressed very close together.
───♡───
The busy life of high school made it easy to overlook small details of daily living. In the mornings, she rushed out, only managing to bite onto a piece of toast; at night, she rushed home, showered, and had to go straight to sleep. One day, Jiang Xiaoya forgot to bring her homework notebook to class and ran back home through the heavy rain. She thought Jiang Ze had gone to the swamp. After grabbing her things and heading out, she noticed that Big Big Monster’s room door was open. She opened the door, and only then belatedly realized that the bed at home was very small—it couldn’t sleep something as big as Big Big Monster. It didn’t make a sound; sleeping while sitting was fine with it.
She quietly closed the door.
Only then did she realize that, for the Swamp Monster, the house was actually too small. It always had to shrink its body, which was very uncomfortable, so it liked staying on the terrace. If it rained, it would rather stay on the terrace getting soaked than return inside; but occasionally the sun would come out without warning, and it could only realize something was wrong after being roasted until it smoked, then hide back inside.
It was hard to say what she felt when she deliberately turned back and saw the Swamp Monster crouching in the heavy rain.
She wanted Mom to come home, but she knew it would not leave her to live outside alone.
Looking at its profile, in that instant, she probably truly realized that Jiang Ze was a youth not much older than she was.
A baby and a mother—that was one-sided dependence and care; their positions were unequal. Sometimes, she would also think: Jiang Xiaoya, did you get it wrong? You just love Big Tooth too much, and that’s why you mistook it for love.
But in that moment.
She felt a strange emotion.
Separated by the glass window, she was just like how Mom used to look at her when she was little. Yet aside from the heartache she felt for Mom, Little Little Monster also cherished Big Big Monster. It was the fiercest Swamp Monster in the world, but also Little Little Monster’s careless, self-neglecting, somewhat foolish Big Big Monster. When it was little and didn’t have her, it would crash into trees; when it grew up and didn’t have her, it lived in utter chaos.
She held an umbrella and squatted in front of the pale Big Big Monster, until it noticed her gaze and opened its eyes.
She shook the umbrella and dragged it back home, using a large towel to dry it off.
This was nothing in itself, but in the heavy rain, it noticed that the way Jiang Xiaoya looked at it was strange.
It seemed to sense that her gaze was no longer like before, where there was a very, very big Jiang Ze inside it.
Now, in her black eyes, there was a very, very small Jiang Ze.
The Swamp Monster found this unfamiliar. And inexplicable. It leaned over and made a heh-heh sound, ferociously scaring the damned child, trying to make the Big Big Monster inside grow big again. But it didn’t succeed.
She pressed down on its head. It wanted to resist, but the damned child wouldn’t let go. Left with no choice, it sat there and let her wipe its hair.
The Swamp Monster’s mood grew gloomy, like a moldy mushroom.
Just like how Jiang Ze had taken care of her every year in the past, Jiang Xiaoya went out and bought a big carpet; she installed a very large sun umbrella on the rooftop.
On rainy days, the Swamp Monster went to the rooftop as usual. After waiting for a long time without getting drenched, it saw a huge umbrella overhead.
Like a white birch tree flaunting itself in a storm.
It squatted beneath the big umbrella.
And stayed dazed for a long while.
───♡───
The third year of senior high was too busy. Where would Jiang Xiaoya find the time to cling to it? It felt that Jiang Xiaoya had probably already forgotten about that crush. So it finally felt at ease, thinking that it didn’t matter if she called it “gege” anymore. Still, the youth continued to wear old-man undershirts and kept his distance from Jiang Xiaoya. Even when sitting on the sofa, he would leave a perfectly measured gap.
Waiting on the balcony for Jiang Xiaoya to return from school always felt very long. It was a little sleepy—especially after rushing back over two days just to make dinner for her. The soup bubbled as it simmered, and so the Swamp Monster failed to notice the footsteps that had already reached the doorway.
It was too familiar with the child it had raised, so even when she came close, it didn’t open its eyes. It felt her breath draw near, drifting slowly from in front of it to beside its cheek, like a butterfly.
Its fingers curled slightly, wanting to stop her immediately. But soon, the little dog used a pen to draw a turtle on its face.
It let out a faint breath of relief. Its fingers relaxed, its back loosening as it leaned against the wall.
Just as it was about to open its eyes and tell the child to go drink the soup, her breath suddenly came closer, and a careful kiss fell on its slightly cool lips. If it had been a dragonfly-touching-water kiss, it could have treated it as accidental; but the kiss lingered for a full five seconds—or even longer—sealing it in place.
Not the cheek, not the forehead—those were intimacies that relatives could share. But lips were not. After raising Jiang Xiaoya, it had learned many things about humans. It knew that kissing on the lips was a human mating signal, something with a special possessiveness, a mark that meant this belonged to her.
Its body stiffened instantly, its back drawn taut.
But at that moment, opening its eyes was already inappropriate.
What could it say? Open its eyes and tell her that it knew she had a crush on it, that she had stolen a kiss?
Then argue with her, get angry, and throw her out?
It had raised her for nearly eighteen years.
Was it really going to fall out with its own child to this extent?
In the end, it did nothing. It only opened its eyes after her footsteps quietly faded away.
After that, the atmosphere became extremely strange.
It silently cooked the meal and simmered the soup, coldly watching Jiang Xiaoya across from it, scrutinizing her reaction. But she merely swung her legs in a very good mood. Its thoughts were in turmoil, so it went to take a shower. After coming out, it squatted on the terrace to calm itself down.
However, she followed over as well.
She slipped into the crook of its arm and sat on the ground as if nothing were wrong, playing on her phone. It smelled the scent of her body wash—exactly the same as its own. Because it had once been half-blind, it was extremely sensitive to smells. That faint, sweet fragrance tangled around it relentlessly.
It didn’t push her away immediately, but instead examined her with an entirely new gaze.
For the first time, it realized that Jiang Xiaoya was far bolder than it had imagined. Then again, when she had just learned to crawl, she could already chase it all over the prison—what was there she wouldn’t dare to do?
As if nothing were amiss, she said that her eighteenth birthday was coming soon.
It didn’t respond.
It glanced at the seven-story drop below.
It wanted to throw this damned child down there, to end her life at eighteen.
