Now, Jiang Ze had become Jiang Xiaoya’s enemy. She wanted revenge on it and would no longer pay any attention to her enemy. But that still wasn’t enough. From time to time, she would suddenly pop out from a corner without a sound and, without warning, ram her head into it.
It didn’t care. It was just worried that the child’s head was already not very smart to begin with—if she kept hitting ing it every day, would it become even less smart? It didn’t matter if it wasn’t smart, but the child still had to go to college. It started thoughtfully cracking walnuts for her and stewing fish soup to nourish her brain.
She couldn’t understand this kindness at all. She only felt that this summer was stifling and awful—she hated this summer the most. She poured her anger into her diary, filling it with Jiang Ze’s bad deeds, and deliberately didn’t write in Chinese—just so Jiang Ze could read it at a glance. But she didn’t know that ever since flipping to that love letter, Jiang Ze had never touched her diary again.
All her punches landed on cotton. And Jiang Ze was impervious to blades and spears; she hammered with her head, kicked with her feet, and it would only calmly straighten its clothes, praising her for being really strong, really powerful.
The only good thing was that because of the embarrassment of the confession, Jiang Ze hadn’t tugged her ears or scolded her as a “dead child” lately. Instead, feeling it owed her, it had become very accommodating. She suspected that if she ran off to roll around in a swamp now, it would still stand by, expression unchanged, praising her for rolling really well.
She took the opportunity to sneak-eat a lot of ice cream. It was clearly about to scold her, but in the end swallowed the words back down.
Jiang Xiaoya hadn’t expected that confessing could have such benefits. Sigh—when she was little and wanted ice cream the most, when Jiang Ze beat her every day, how had she not thought of this move?
Still, with Jiang Ze no longer managing this or that, she was much freer, yet still unhappy. Like a long-lasting allergy. She brooded over it, unwilling to just give up like this. She went from a baby tooth into a stubborn wisdom tooth.
She knew that pulling it out would mean no more toothache. But that unwilling wildfire burned in her chest cavity.
A girl raised by the swamp from childhood carried the wildness and unruliness of a little wolf. She was passionate and straightforward. If she wanted something, she went after it. If it didn’t love her, she would hate it and bite it to death. Seeing the youth’s calm back, as if nothing had happened, she would always feel an impulse to perish together with it.
She hated its calmness, its indifference. A week later, the hatred in her eyes finally turned into concrete action.
She drank a bit of the apple vinegar at home—mm, she thought this should count as a kind of wine that hadn’t fermented successfully. Enough to bolster her courage. She put on a blazing-red dress, a short ballet style, revealing her fleshy thighs and a bit of the flat lower abdomen with faint vest lines—the traces trained at school. She felt she was the reincarnation of a sexy Aphrodite.
Jiang Ze came back. Like a vengeful ghost, she silently approached from behind. She jumped straight over, hugged its lean waist, pressed her cheek to that back carrying the scent of green grass, her whole body wrapping around it like an octopus.
In a honey-sweet tone, she called it Jiang Ze.
Its body stiffened instantly. It probably realized what she wanted to do.
It didn’t push her away. She could even feel it deliberately slowing its breathing, its muscles all tensed. But a few seconds later, it gently pried open the fingers she had wrapped around it, the movement tender yet unquestionable: “Xiaoya, get down. Mom needs to go cook.”
It set her down, ignoring her amber-like eyes and rose-like lips the whole time, disregarding her charm and beauty, lowering its gaze and about to leave. The accumulated grievance and unwillingness washed away reason. She rose on tiptoe and lunged to hook her arms around its neck. But her lips only brushed its chin. It then pinned her into its arms; its strength was too great, its arms like iron clamps, and she immediately couldn’t move. She struggled, like a little calf flailing about.
In its usual coaxing tone, it said, “Alright, alright.”
Angrily, she started kicking, kicking off her shoes and socks. Sexy Venus turned into a tantrum-throwing dead child. Jiang Ze picked up all her shoes and socks. It was very calm: “Stop making trouble. Put your dress on properly.”
This precise, unequivocal rejection made her feel shame and despair. She struggled down from it, clutching her dress and shoes, and was about to leave. Halfway there, she still couldn’t bear it.
She rushed back, like a bull, and rammed her forehead hard into Jiang Ze’s. She wanted to hurt it, to ram it to death.
She rammed until her forehead turned red, her eyes turned red too. Then she pressed her forehead against its forehead and looked at it miserably.
It finally had no way not to look at her. Look at the rose-like hem of her skirt, her amber-colored eyes, her disheveled hair. It didn’t step back, only pressed its forehead against hers. It looked at her seriously, tenderly.
It did indeed say: “Our Xiaoya is really pretty.”
But there was no desire in its eyes, only a tolerance like that of the swamp and the earth. She drowned in that gaze, and in that same gaze felt a trace of despair. Her messy hair was carefully tidied by the youth; her disordered clothes were covered with a blanket. Just like every time it had picked her up and brought her back when she was little.
With her forehead pressed to its, she became even sadder. She said, “You praise me for being pretty—you shouldn’t praise me for being pretty.”
She looked at it, disheartened and desolate. Perhaps she truly shouldn’t have liked Jiang Ze.
She struggled to sit up from the sofa, draped the blanket over herself, and left in a daze.
Just like when roses leave, they always leave behind a strong trace of their existence—that fine, dense thorns.
It felt that the places where its fingers had touched her were like being pricked until they bled by roses, carrying a burning, stinging pain. And the places she had kicked and scratched also held a kind of scorching sting from her body heat.
But that was only an illusion belonging to summer.
Once summer comes, the monsters in the swamp are evaporated, scorched.
Jiang Ze lowered its eyes and turned toward the kitchen. The rabbit still hadn’t been handled, the fish soup was almost done stewing. This was what it should be doing. When she got hungry and calmed down, she would still come downstairs to eat.
And it only needed to return to the orbit of life, to be the mother she could always rely on and trust.
As for the traces left by the wild roses in the depths of its heart, that midsummer night’s heartbeat, they were merely insignificant things that didn’t need to be taken to heart—like a cold that would get better, like a heavy rain that would stop.
It believed so. And it had to believe so.
───♡───
Jiang Xiaoya tried to cast her gaze toward a world beyond Jiang Ze. There were indeed too many interesting things in the world. Endless games to play, endless novels to read; she also went to soak in the library with Xiao Chan, went shopping and wandering around. She thought she would forget. And she was about to go to college, she would meet more and better people.
But every boy in the world, she would take and compare with Jiang Ze. She sorrowfully discovered that no one would be better than it. Love was sweet. But eighteen-year-old Jiang Xiaoya felt that she would have no way to taste it in this lifetime. She felt a kind of despair.
Still, love wasn’t a necessity after all. In the future, Jiang Xiaoya could conquer the world, become the most formidable little dog heroine. Mere romantic entanglements could not possibly become a stumbling block for her.
She heard that Jiang Ze’s next molting period was coming soon. Mm, maybe next time it would turn into a wrinkled, shriveled old man. Once it became an ugly old man, Jiang Xiaoya would immediately transfer her affections.
She maliciously imagined what Jiang Ze would look like as an old man, using a photo app’s aging filter to add ten levels of wrinkles and white hair to Jiang Ze. Then she despairingly discovered that time never defeats beauty—Jiang Ze would still be a handsome old man even when it got old!
She was extremely depressed. On the day she filled out her college preferences, she applied to a university in Haisha City. She thought that perhaps putting some distance between them would let everything return to the proper track; she could also take revenge on Jiang Ze, tell it that her wings had hardened and that she could fly far away at any time.
But after submitting her choices, she immediately regretted it.
Aside from liking it, Jiang Ze was still her mother. In the beginning, she had wanted to become a military doctor precisely because she wanted to protect her mother, protect their small family. In the end, after throwing a tantrum, she was even abandoning her mother, even leaving Ah Hua behind. The little dog drooped its head and went back to find Ah Hua.
Now Jiang Ze was her enemy, and Ah Hua was her dearest cow.
Ah Hua was old, but its eyes were still moist and gentle just like before. She pressed her forehead to Ah Hua’s head, and the guilt in her heart surged like a tide. She squatted beside Ah Hua until the moon rose to its zenith, not even going home for dinner.
She sensed a massive shadow appearing behind her.
In a muffled voice, she told it about applying for her university choices. She said, “Mom, I regret it. I’ll change my preferences back tomorrow.”
When she was fragile, she still wanted to call it Mom.
But Jiang Ze said, “Xiaoya, if you want to go take a look at Haisha City, then go.”
It didn’t think this was such a difficult matter. There were many solutions. They could move to Haisha City; Jiang Ze had too many crystal cores, enough to buy a house that could accommodate Ah Hua. From childhood to now, Jiang Ze had always supported her unconditionally. It thought that since she liked the sea, going to college by the seaside was also very good.
After the next molting period, perhaps it would no longer need to fear the sun.
It patted her head and took her to eat dinner.
And so, this heavy worry was lifted from the little dog’s heart. Just like before, Mom would solve all the difficulties in the world.
With the decision to go to Haisha City for university settled, everything seemed to return to how it used to be. Next, Jiang Xiaoya would report to school, and they would move. Life in Haisha City would be as plain and happy as before. When Jiang Xiaoya graduated, they would return to their home in the swamp.
Life was arranged onward in this orderly way. It was as if she had returned to a carefree childhood.
She felt that she was probably a very bad little dog. When she was little, she loved most to mess up the bed sheets Mom had neatly laid out, drag the yarn it had wound up all over the place—Jiang Ze’s fully automatic troublemaking machine. In this regained calm and order, a destructive urge was always stirring. She wanted to rush over and tear this illusion apart. She wanted to rip off the youth’s good-mother mask and see Jiang Ze’s soul with her own eyes.
Was there even a single carat of liking inside?
As she listened to Jiang Ze planning things for next year and the year after, she seemed to turn back into the little baby trailing behind Mom’s backside. That unwillingness, long lying dormant in her heart, once again poked its head out.
Suddenly, very inappropriately, she asked it: “Jiang Ze, what if I fall in love with someone else in the future?”
—Then we’ll talk about it when that day comes.
“But I’ll grow up. I’ll form a new family.”
“At that time, will you still be able to be my good mom?”
“……”
Its self-control developed a tiny, almost imperceptible crack before the future scene she described.
It had never linked Jiang Xiaoya with words like partner; in its eyes, Jiang Xiaoya was still a child.
But it had clearly forgotten that she was already a youthful, beautiful girl. Her life had only just begun; there were many things she could experience. Love, friendship—every flavor in the world, she could taste them all. She would have many people pursuing her; having a partner was a very normal thing.
She continued to describe, in that sweet voice of hers, what that scene would be like:
She would bring that person home and tell Jiang Ze that the other party was coming to join their family; maybe she would leave with that person to another city to get married. They would kiss, do the most intimate things. They might even give birth to a whole bunch of little brats.
She said: “Jiang Ze, you only want to help me take care of the kids, right?”
Its fingers curled up. Between them, webbing almost seemed ready to grow, sharply piercing through the skin. Its tall body tensed. It forced itself to steady its breathing, like taking a gasp in air starved of oxygen.
In fact, she was talking nonsense—she only wanted to retaliate against its indifference, its deliberate blindness. She wanted to take fierce revenge for her dead girlhood first love. But she actually knew that if Jiang Ze didn’t love her, she was only futilely tormenting herself.
But it went quiet. Beneath the calm, it seemed to be suppressing something surging and violent.
It said: “Xiaoya, stop talking.”
She kept going: every New Year she would bring it many grandchildren, each one crowding around it and calling “Grandma, Grandma”……
Before she could finish, it cut her off almost rudely:
“Alright, baby, you should shut up now.”
She lifted her head defiantly, only to be nailed in place in an instant by its gaze. Jiang Ze was taller than humans; its size alone carried a strong sense of oppression. Usually, though, the feeling of “Mom” was too strong—its tall body only made people feel safe. But now, its pupils had turned into dangerous vertical slits. It sat there quietly, and just by leaning down to look at her, it could completely envelop her. That aggressiveness and possessiveness were utterly unfamiliar.
Something she had never once seen on Mom.
She almost saw a fierce tiger hidden in its eyes. That tiger had originally been gentle, obediently locked in a cage, but at this moment it was bursting forth, nearly ready to bite someone apart and swallow them whole. For no clear reason, she felt a sudden panic, like a little wolf being stared down by the wolf king, instinctively letting out a small yowl and backing away.
“Maternal love” was the first—and only—kind of love it had learned. It was simple, pure love. But a mother wouldn’t get angry because her child had someone they liked, nor would she feel possessive. And jealousy and possessiveness were the source of all evil.
It scrutinized her for a long time, so long that she began to grow nervous, to sweat, glancing around like a little dog with its tail tucked, ready to flee at any moment.
It lowered its eyes. Looked away.
“Did I scare you, baby? Maybe the molting period is coming soon. My temper’s a bit bad.”
