At the very beginning of possessing memory, it was within the dark embrace of a swamp. It could hear some tiny sounds from outside; it could sense butterflies landing nearby, the faint vibrations of their fluttering wings, only to be quickly drowned out by the heavy rain. Aside from darkness there was only darkness; within the swamp’s embrace, it slowly developed in a black, sweet slumber. Until one day, it heard footsteps.
Its hazy consciousness did not yet know what had happened; in its memory there remained only a burst of severe pain in its body, in its palms. Immediately after came the sensation of being bound by chains that pierced through it. When it moved even a little, it could hear the clinking and clanking sounds by its feet.
It hated pain, hated iron chains, and hated even more those strange speaking voices. And the purple searchlights. Every day, a syringe came to draw away some green blood; it hurt terribly, it let out hissing roars, and within its blurred consciousness, the very first feeling that arose was: hatred!
It wanted to break free from that dark chaos, and then destroy everything hateful outside.
Before long, it heard the pattering sound of rain; that rainwater gave it strength. When someone approached it to draw blood, it killed them. It went very far, killing everyone who had harmed it within all the range the chains could reach.
Soon, the surroundings fell into silence. It weakly fell asleep.
Until that rain that lasted an entire year—the green rain—pierced through the dome and dripped down, drop by drop, onto its body. Its parched skin and sharp pain were gradually soothed. In a dark corner, the little boy lifted his head, and his vertical pupils slowly became a bit rounder. It was still very small, so its eyes still had not shed the blue film.
Those hateful human voices were gone; the world was quiet. But the pain had not disappeared—there were still the iron chains running through its palms. When it moved even a little it hurt terribly, so it let out hissing cries to express its anger. But the prison did not remain calm for long; soon, some hateful water ghosts crawled in.
The water ghosts were much larger than it. Though it was very young, it was extremely fierce—pouncing forward, it began to tear and bite. Gradually, it discovered that as long as it was fierce enough to eat those water ghosts, it would no longer feel fear, and that the more it ate, the stronger the power within its body became. It began to hunt all water ghosts and food that stepped into the prison.
Its eyes were still covered with the blue film, and it could not see anything clearly. It could only press its forehead against the middle of the prison bars and look toward the outside world, its eyes becoming a bit rounder as they sensed the presence of light, appearing full of curiosity.
Because it could not see anything, it began to like quietly curling up in the swamp, spacing out, carefully listening to the sounds of birds flying in the sky. But the water ghosts always came to ruin the peaceful daytime, biting its legs, greedily craving its blood. It was bitten many times; it hated them!
The chains forged of steel still pulled tightly at it, restricting its movement, allowing it to move only within a very small range. It hated those humans as well!
When it rained, the sounds of birds could not be heard—hateful; when the sun came out, the chains prevented it from hiding in places without sunlight. No matter how hard it curled up its body, its feet were still scorched until smoke rose. Hateful, hateful.
The little swamp monster wanted to break free of its restraints and then destroy everything. After the first molting period, it succeeded. Those water ghosts that had bitten it suffered brutal revenge!
Heh heh heh heh!
The enormous creature let out ferocious hissing roars. It had grown larger—many, many times larger than when it was one year old. First would be humans; next to be avenged would be the human base opposite. Then the sun, the dark clouds—anyway, it would make everything it hated disappear.
Those vertical pupils calculated so viciously.
It picked up Jiang Xiaoya.
In order to feed her, it had to temporarily give up its plan to destroy the Tiandong Base. Even so, it still often glared hatefully at the Tiandong Base opposite. In the forest, it simulated actions of destroying the city—first destroying their high-rise buildings, then heh heh, trampling everything flat!
But Jiang Xiaoya needed to drink milk, and aside from the Tiandong Base, it could not find her food; she also had not yet grown teeth enough to eat meat. Wait a little longer.
Jiang Xiaoya grew teeth, but she still could not walk, and needed to eat soft mush. Personally grinding food into mush for her to eat was too troublesome—wait a little longer.
Jiang Xiaoya could wobble and run now, but she fell ill. It discovered that it could not treat human illnesses; in order to raise Jiang Xiaoya, that plan could only be delayed indefinitely.
But its attitude toward humans was very bad. It still hated humans very much.
The child said, “But Mommy, I’m human too.”
It said, “How can that be the same? She is a little person, not a human!”
Little Tooth was very lonely. Some children came to the edge of the swamp, and she ran off to play with them, only to be discovered by the swamp monster. It growled at her, heh-heh roaring toward her—because it thought she had betrayed it, joining the same humans who had once harmed it. After that, for a very long time, Little Tooth did not dare run out to play anymore. She wanted more human toys. But she knew Mommy hated humans. The child, bored at home and poking snails, saw balloons from the human base floating over in the sky. She grabbed a balloon and happily played with it for a while, then in the end still let it go with reluctance.
It still hated humans very much. But when it saw the longing yet unwilling expression on the child’s face as she let the balloon go—how strange. It twisted its neck a little, feeling somewhat uncomfortable inside. It discovered that compared to hating humans, it hated even more making the child show a disappointed look.
It heh-heh crawled away. It went to the human plaza and snatched all the balloons there.
When she woke up from a nap, she was buried in balloons. The child pounced over in delight, calling Mommy, her eyes full of admiration and attachment. It lifted its chin, feeling that she was making too much of a fuss.
Just like that, it brought back many toys. At least when Jiang Xiaoya played with that chug-chug screeching little train, she would not play with its hair anymore. Humans were very good at coaxing children. It thought those screeching toys were not fun at all. However, the hide-and-seek Jiang Xiaoya liked to play interested it very much. She hid, and it caught her—especially each time it went ka-ka-ka biting her little head, scaring her into wailing cries, it gained even more satisfaction than hunting water ghosts.
It began to accept human toys, human appliances—for example, washing machines and refrigerators. It had to admit that those hateful humans were still very smart; at least the dirty clothes after the little dog rolled in the swamp did not need to be scrubbed by hand anymore. Heaven knew, when it picked up the filthy Jiang Xiaoya back then, how much it wanted to throw her—person and clothes together—into the trash can.
Time passed too quickly. It gained many human emotions, experiencing concern, heartache, and care. They turned it from a huge monster into a person on the ground. Later, it experienced those mixed, bittersweet emotions of loving yet not being able to have. It began to resent itself for having learned these things—how wonderful it would have been if it were still that monster who stomped around the swamp heh-heh, natural and ferocious?
But now, after experiencing so much, it began to be grateful for those complex emotions. If life were a journey, having only muddled hatred would be too tragic.
It felt sour. For example, when it saw the information about it that she had rescued from the fire scene. It wanted to tell her that it did not care at all where it came from or how it was born; it only wanted her to be safe and sound. When it saw her covered in soot and dust, the huge monster’s eyes seemed to have lemon juice squeezed into them.
But it did not speak those complicated emotions aloud; it carefully treasured the things she had brought back at the risk of her life. Long afterward, this monster could still recall the sourness of that time. Sourness perhaps was not only jealousy or envy. It might also be that complex feeling in the heart—of being cherished by someone else.
Before being together, it was a powerful, sky-supporting Mommy; after being together, it often showed moments of vulnerability in front of her.
It loved to show her the scar on its hand where the chains had pierced through when it was young. In fact, it had already completely forgotten the pain from back then—and it was very tolerant of pain. But every time it showed her, the little dog would enthusiastically come over and kiss it. The television said this was called selling misery. But in order to get lots of kisses, it began to sell misery often.
In the past, when it was injured, it would always hide and not let Little Tooth see. Because it felt that as a mom, that would be embarrassing. But now, it was very keen on getting itself injured on purpose, deliberately watching the little dog worry, watching her bustle around it in circles.
When Jiang Xiaoya was twenty-one, it was frostbitten in the snow mountains, with only some barely noticeable discomfort. But it had now truly become too strong; it was really very hard to get injured, and before finding Jiang Xiaoya, it had already healed. So it deliberately and carefully protected that frostbitten left hand, avoiding letting the wound heal before seeing her, and even deliberately ran out to freeze for a while.
It slowly extended a frostbitten hand, as it wished, seeing in the little dog’s eyes a tiny version of itself, pitied and cherished.
Suddenly, it remembered that when Jiang Xiaoya was little, she had liked to run into the swamp and stomp around messily just to make it bathe her and wash her hair. Back then, the swamp monster had felt very angry, very much wanting to throw that naughty child away. But now it suddenly realized that this had been a little dog longing for affection, using her way of seeking attention.
