Nineteen-year-old Jiang Xiaoya was at a wondrous stage. There was still some distance to go before she could fully settle into calmness, yet she had already shed the childishness of girlhood. At home, she was always cared for like a little baby; once she left home, she had to shoulder heavy responsibilities. In the early days of the rescue team, the puppy would end up filthy and battered, blisters forming on the soles of her feet from walking. At night the pain made her want to cry, and every time she wanted to call Jiang Ze. But when she thought that it might travel thousands of miles to come see her, she held back.
She had gone into the lair of water ghosts to retrieve teammates, crossed collapsed defensive lines to carry out stretchers. As time went on, the blisters on her feet no longer felt like much, and the terrible-tasting nutrient solution was only a small matter. She had once been angry, hurt, and had struggled because Jiang Ze treated her like a child. But later, when she was alone outside, every time she wanted to call it, she held back. She thought: if she always depended on it, what right would she have to make it acknowledge her independence and maturity?
She had truly grown from a girl toward a woman.
However, the dependable team leader outside would still be pressed down by Jiang Ze to put on a sweater when she got home. She didn’t want to wear the thick, heavy sweater, twisting herself into a pretzel in its arms.
It pressed her into its embrace and asked her: Aren’t you very reliable?
She seemed to feel it smiling, lifted her head in indignation, and discovered that it immediately pretended to look at the heavy snow outside the window.
She shared many of her experiences outside with it. Only, every time she wanted to complain, when she saw Jiang Ze’s gaze, she swallowed it back. In the past she liked to scream miserably over the smallest things, letting Jiang Ze dote on her. Now she had truly suffered, yet strangely she didn’t want to say it out loud and make it worry.
She nestled in its arms for a long time, like a small boat returning to harbor. The flames crackled as they burned, giving off a warm heat.
Actually, Jiang Ze should have let go after helping her put on the sweater, but the moment was too quiet, and it couldn’t bear to loosen its hold. No one spoke. Heavy snow quietly fell outside the window.
—This was the nineteenth year they had accompanied each other. They knew each other like two neighboring teeth.
It noticed calluses on her palms. Jiang Ze was capable, and the puppy had been far too troublesome when she was little, so it had simply taken on all the household chores and never needed her to do housework. But now, just going out once had given her calluses on her palms; she was picky with food, yet after going out once and coming back, she could eat anything. Although she didn’t complain, it already knew everything.
It began to regret not noticing these details because of the unrest in its heart. If only it could go back to the past. It wanted to say something, but when the puppy spoke of this experience, her eyes were shining.
It fell silent, because it realized that during the time it wasn’t by her side, she had truly changed a great deal.
Jiang Xiaoya very easily noticed something was off about it.
It couldn’t help staring at her for long stretches of time, yet whenever she turned her head, its gaze would nonchalantly shift away; when she went to look at it, it would immediately lower its head, pretending to focus intently on the yarn in its hands. She noticed that after she came back this time, it was always like this.
The puppy had exuberant vitality; if it didn’t look at her, she would run over and cup its cold cheeks with both hands, forcibly turning its head straight. Her forehead pressed against it, the tips of their noses colliding. Only when those green vertical pupils finally met her gaze would she be satisfied, retreating just a little, locking onto it with eyes that were smug and bright.
Every time, she treated this eye contact as a kind of conquest of charm—burning her own face into the other’s eyes meant she had won.
She didn’t know that this kind of forced staring, when overdone, would turn into adorable cross-eyes.
Yet, sadly, the swamp monster couldn’t resist even her cross-eyes, and could only hope she would get down quickly: “Alright, alright, Jiang Ze has seen it. Hmm? Baby, spare me.”
She also told it that after going out once, she had abs now. It knew she was very proud. At home she wore a very short top to show off her abdominal lines. Like when she was little and the puppy caught a snail and showed it off everywhere.
She even grabbed its large hand and made it touch them too.
—It simply didn’t know what to do.
Humans have a kind of ailment called migraine. Now, seeing Jiang Xiaoya, it also felt a headache coming on.
Its teeth hurt too, and its stomach hurt as well.
It could only pull its hand back from her palm, press it onto her shoulder, and push her down to sit on the sofa, telling her no, not allowed.
Then it grabbed her sweater and pulled it down over her head. She turned into a messy but very warm little puppy. Flailing and baring her claws as she was wrapped into dense warmth, only muffled protests drilled out from the collar.
She was humming and whining as she complained about something, probably saying that it didn’t know quality.
It wanted to say: Then what should I do? Do what she wishes, grab this section of waist and drag her into its arms, letting its fingertips roam downward? Then what would it become? This bad thing.
She sang it a team song she had learned in the rescue team. When she was little, the puppy liked to sing “Planting the Sun”; back then it only felt she was noisy, wishing it could stuff its ears with yarn and hide in the swamp. Now it tragically discovered that even her off-key singing sounded good to it.
After she finished singing and saw that the swamp monster said nothing, she subconsciously thought it was about to laugh at her. She eyed it like a tiger watching prey, ready to pounce at any moment.
However, the next second, it was as if it had just broken free from a dazed dream. It stared blankly at her for as long as it took a snowflake to fall to the ground, then came back to itself and nodded chaotically. “Sounds good, Xiaoya. Can you sing it for Jiang Ze once more?”
How strange.
She stood on tiptoe, wanting to pry open the eyelids of the gigantic creature to see whether there was still a little baby inside. As a result, she found a stunningly charming, vibrant, full-of-life beauty Xiaoya there.
After finishing her inspection, she left, thoroughly satisfied.
Leaving only the gigantic creature standing in place, alone and distraught in the blizzard.
───♡───
In the morning, she pushed open the window. The sea wind carrying snowflakes drifted in from the ocean, blowing in with a bright blue chill that swept away drowsiness. She narrowed her eyes in enjoyment—ah, lazing around really was comfortable. But now that she was home, there was something she had been thinking about for a long time that she wanted to do. Shivering, she ran into the kitchen and directly slapped her two ice-cold hands onto Jiang Ze’s cheeks and neck.
During the time apart, space and distance had stopped it from having intense reactions to her breathing.
But now she came close, like a cloud.
She softly pressed up against it. Its muscles tensed, its tall body facing an imminent enemy.
Instinctively, it wanted to pick her up and throw her out. But she wrapped her arms around its neck.
Jiang Ze could clearly feel the warmth belonging to her coming from beside its neck. When it lowered its head, it saw her lips—very soft, rose-pink, the color of a pink rose—and a familiar, hungry appetite came surging like a mountain collapse and sea overturning.
It quickly lowered its eyelids, stiffly and in a panic turning away.
The gigantic creature’s voice carried deliberate irritability: —You little brat, go warm your hands up.
It silently listened to the puppy’s footsteps moving farther away and let out a breath.
It tried to find a vague, dangerous new balance point between unspeakable love and desire. But it failed. The consequence was entering an even more ambiguous stage.
The snowy night by the sea was so bright, the sky an indigo blue.
The swamp monster did not dream most of the time; when it slept, there was only empty blackness. But on this night, it sank into the illusion of the morning kitchen—the same scene as before. It lowered its head and greedily, frantically kissed her. Its appetite was so strong that it wanted to eat her. To swallow her soul, to grind her skin with sharp teeth, like a starving wild dog tearing into a slab of fresh meat.
When it woke up, the sky outside the window was still deep blue and bright.
It seemed to jolt awake from a nightmare, panting—yes, it really was a nightmare. In the past, it would never carry such thoughts while watching her skirt flutter. It had always gazed at the hem of her skirt with the purest eyes, because that was a flower it had carefully protected. But now it felt like a beast that would even gnaw on the grass beside its own nest. It felt anger toward itself. It truly didn’t know what to do.
It lowered its eyes, beginning to feel that back then it should have evolved the ability to change sex first—directly turn into a woman—so it could, just like she had wished when she was little, press the Adam’s apple back in. Self-loathing nearly drowned it.
The gigantic creature curled up in a corner. Suddenly, it noticed something was wrong.
It heard shallow breathing, coming from the sofa in its room.
In that instant, its heart almost stopped. It nearly thought it was still inside that damned dream.
But she was squatting there on the sofa in the corner. Why was she here? It almost immediately wanted to lift her up and throw her back onto her bed. It took a deep breath, restraining its emotions and breathing.
The gigantic creature crouched over and patted her. “Xiaoya, why are you here?”
She woke up groggily, hugging her knees, and said a little dazedly, “Daya, I dreamed of dead people.”
A puppy that had grown up among water ghosts since childhood wasn’t afraid of water ghosts. But this was the first time she had seen a dead person up close. When she was in the rescue team, she saw half an arm that had been blown off, and half a body with flesh and blood mangled. After she went back, she began to have nightmares. It was just that the daily routine of the rescue team was too busy—she had no time to stop and tell anyone. Yet once she arrived in a comfortable, stable environment, the blown-apart corpses became nightmares day and night.
She wanted to sleep by Jiang Ze’s side, wanted to find her Abebe. When it heard this, the surging emotions all turned into a single sigh.
It felt that Xiaoya had suffered a lot, so it took the initiative to press its forehead to hers and circle her into its arms, patting and soothing her like rocking her cradle when she was little. Alright, alright, Jiang Ze is here. Sleep.
It thought about whether it should find a psychologist or something for the child.
However, the dead kid who had just said she was scared began to squirm about. Like a wriggling caterpillar. She asked it whether, tonight, it could give her a kiss.
It turned its head toward the window, but the taut line of its jaw and the slight rise and fall of its chest exposed its torment.
She kept wriggling. It lowered its head and gently pressed her down. She was instantly pinned by a force of immense weight, unable to move at all. Her bright eyes were locked by those green eyes. The gaze moved from the tip of her nose to her lips. She felt herself enveloped by its breath and held her breath. Even though its body temperature was clearly very low, she sensed something suspended and about to be released within that gaze. A fierce aggressiveness surged straight at her. She almost felt that it was about to kiss her.
She moved slightly, her bright eyes like captivating stars in the night sky.
In the end, it tugged at the corner of its mouth, smiled once, and rubbed her head.
All the violence and tenderness were hidden within the darkness of the deep night.
It pulled her into its arms.
Storm-like longing, ferocious desire, and suppressed aggressiveness finally turned into nothing more than a single soft sentence:
Sleep.
She was always able to see something heavy in its eyes—something she did not yet fully understand.
It had been the adult of the household since it was very young: it had to take care of Jiang Xiaoya, couldn’t go out to play, had to come home on time, couldn’t be willful, forming habits of caution and overthinking at a very young age. Just like when it was little and clearly wanted to go play in the swamp, but Jiang Xiaoya had only just learned to walk, so it could only patiently squat beside her, keeping watch from dawn until dusk.
That was the sense of responsibility and worry belonging to the elder.
Like a warm, thick, and heavy quilt. Wrapped within it, she fell into a deep sleep.
───♡───
Winter was about to pass, and spring was about to arrive. Jiang Xiaoya wanted to sign up for this year’s rescue team again—this time the destination was farther, the duration longer. This was something it had not anticipated, because she had only just been having nightmares because of last year’s rescue work. But she said that the best way to overcome nightmares was to face them head-on.
In the future plans of the swamp monster’s life, there was no place for her leaving year after year. Jiang Ze did not want her to go. It was an extremely doting parent. And it knew that she might be too eager to grow up, too eager to prove something to it.
But she had been home for less than two months. It missed her.
She had fallen asleep in the living room. It quietly watched her. That was the monster’s hazy, restrained love. It carefully braided her a beautiful, neat braid. At dawn she would leave home, leave it. It wanted to keep her, but Xiaoya said very seriously:
“Jiang Ze, if you still think of me as your child, then you should learn to let go.”
It could only slowly loosen its grip, its tall body stiff, watching her go pack her backpack.
It felt this blizzard being born in its heart, sweeping through its entire body.
It heard the sound of her putting on her shoes. She was about to leave.
During the time she was gone, it actually missed her very, very much. It wanted to tell her. Xiaoya, Jiang Ze really misses you.
Now she was leaving again, going to a place even farther away from Jiang Ze.
And so, under a clear sky, a sudden torrential rain fell. The rain was so heavy that she would be soaked in one minute if she went out, and she could only turn back. She complained about the downpour, guessing whether its weather system had malfunctioned again.
She came to its side.
She asked it, “Was it you who made it rain?”
Perhaps the rain was too heavy—the world fell into silence. It was as if only the two of them remained. One standing in front of the coffee table, one sunk into the shadows of the sofa.
They looked at each other, and the rain grew heavier and heavier.
She asked it with her eyes—
Did you want to use this rain to keep me?
It should have denied it, like the countless times before. But the rain had almost turned into a waterfall shrouding the seaside.
It sat there, feeling the blizzard gradually spiral out of control, some things destined to be swept away truly swept away. It sank into an inescapable fall.
