Swamp Monster

(Fan art from Red Note)

The morning light was faint, the distant forest and the nearby grassland shrouded in a thin layer of pale white mist. The hazy, pale golden sunlight pierced through the fog and sprinkled over the treetops, steam-like mist dispersing and swirling within the light.

Walking along a small path filled with wildflowers, the scent of grass and dew was fresh and moist in the air. Meili carried a basket, the date-red long skirt she wore brushing against the grass leaves by the roadside, dampened by dew and leaving streaked traces behind.

At the edge of the forest in the morning fog stood a gray-white brick spire-topped building. Meili followed the small road to the house, opened the gate, passed through a courtyard planted with broom and azaleas, stepped over the emerald green ground moss, and walked to the side door of the house. The green climbing vines spread across the wall there were like a giant tapestry.

Meili walked into the side kitchen, raised her hand to remove the shawl dampened by dew. A black cat lazily walked in through the doorway and leapt up onto a nearby cabinet. She set down the basket and said with a smile, “Feicui, I’m back. Look, I bought you little fish.”

As she spoke, she took out two small fish with delicate greenish patterns on their bellies from the basket. There were not many kinds of food here, and this kind of green salmon was the most common type of fish. At the small market just now, only this one kind was being sold.

The black cat on the cabinet looked at the two little fish and yawned. It did not show the usual excitement cats had when seeing fish, appearing especially reserved.

Meili raised her hand to pet it, but it turned its head away, leaving her hand in the air. Meili was already used to it and put her hand down to do other things. It had been almost a week since she awakened in the body of this girl called Meili. When she first opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was this black cat. Its eyes were like green jade, so she named it Feicui, since she didn’t know what it had been called before. She had not received the original owner’s memories; everything she did had to be figured out on her own.

The cat at home was still relatively easy to deal with. It was just a pet and wouldn’t notice that its little mistress’s body housed a different soul. What truly troubled Meili was the mother of this body.

She quickly prepared breakfast and carried it upstairs on a tray. The wooden staircase let out creaking groans. Meili held the tray in one hand and lifted her too-long skirt with the other, walking steadily. Only when she reached the door of Mrs. Pegg’s bedroom did she slow down and knock twice.

Mrs. Pegg’s health was poor; she was bedridden. The curtains were tightly drawn in the room, making the space stifling and damp, with a strange smell diffusing from some unknown source.

Meili set the breakfast by the window and swiftly pulled open the curtains, letting the morning sunlight shine inside.

The woman sunken into the bed, her complexion sallow and her cheeks hollowed, coughed twice and said hoarsely, “Draw the curtains.”

“People are like plants, they need to have some sunlight,” Meili didn’t listen to her. She hooked the curtains properly and pulled over a chair to sit by the bed, cleaning her cheeks and combing her hair.

Mrs. Pegg had bright red hair and a pair of emerald green eyes. Even though she was now thin and deformed from illness, one could still vaguely see the beauty she once had. As her daughter, Meili probably resembled her father more; her appearance was merely delicate, with amber eyes and brown hair, completely not inheriting her mother’s features.

Mrs. Pegg’s expression was indifferent — just like how she treated her. Ever since Meili first saw Mrs. Pegg, she had always been like this.

Logically, since she and her daughter Meili lived here relying on each other, they should have been very close. But in the past few days, Meili discovered that Mrs. Pegg cared nothing for her own daughter. She didn’t even ask why she had changed in these days — a different person inside would certainly behave differently from the former Meili, yet Mrs. Pegg didn’t care, didn’t even ask.

She simply stayed in her room every day, leaving others unable to understand what she was thinking.

If it were another person, perhaps they would find it strange and troublesome. But Meili felt nothing. She was very familiar with this state — eight or nine times out of ten, it was depression. What a coincidence, in her previous life, the mother she relied on also suffered from depression and eventually passed away from illness. Her state was quite similar to Mrs. Pegg’s.

The food she brought up was eaten only a little. Meili brought the rest downstairs and made something else for herself.

Although she tried her best to match the original Meili’s habits and make food suited to the tastes here, there was no reference, so she could only cook casually. And compared to bread, milk, and all kinds of creamy stews, she preferred fried or stir-fried dishes with stronger flavors. In order not to mistreat her own stomach, she always made separate dishes that suited her own taste.

And she cooked for the household pet, the black cat, too. However, today the black cat still didn’t eat the food she gave it. It lazily ran out to take a walk.

Looking at the two untouched small fish, Meili felt puzzled. Feicui didn’t eat before, but why wouldn’t it eat even when she bought fish today? Had it always eaten outside instead of at home, supplementing its meals on its own? Not adding any burden to the household and supporting itself — what a sensible cat.

After eating, she tidied up the house, moved a chair outside to bask in the sun, and lazily washed some clothes in the meantime.

Life here, compared to her previously busy academic days, was far too leisurely. She was still in the shock of transmigration, and her understanding of this world was not much; for the moment, she didn’t know what she should be doing now.

How did she end up becoming someone else?

After Meili hung the clothes to dry, she looked at her unfamiliar hands, then leaned back into the lush green grass, covering her eyes with the back of her hand.

When she was four years old, her father had been killed at home. Her mother, traumatized by witnessing the murder scene, later learned that the husband she had loved dearly had secretly committed many crimes such as sexually assaulting underage girls. Unable to accept this, she became increasingly despondent, and suffered from severe depression.

In her impression, her mother was always lifeless, as if she was only barely living for her sake. Her mother found it difficult to feel joy, often hiding in a room without reason and crying hysterically. When her illness worsened in the later stages, she was hospitalized constantly. When Meili was twelve years old, her mother passed away. After that, she became an orphan. Relatives were unwilling to take her in. Fortunately, she was lucky enough to encounter a kind benefactor.

She didn’t know the benefactor’s full name, only that her surname was Qin. In their occasional exchange of letters, she always addressed her as Mrs. Qin. Mrs. Qin supported her schooling, sent her gifts during holidays and on her birthday, wrote her a letter every month, encouraging her or sharing bits of her life. To Meili, Mrs. Qin was a parent in another sense.

It was a pity that she hadn’t graduated from college yet, hadn’t earned money to repay Mrs. Qin, and hadn’t had the chance to meet her in person, before she came to this place.

In her original world, people were accustomed to quick and convenient communication, and few wrote letters anymore. But Meili had been corresponding with Mrs. Qin for several years, and by now, it had become a habit.

Arriving in this unfamiliar world, Meili’s heart felt unsettled. Writing letters helped her calm down. Using a quill dipped in ink to write Chinese characters was a rather awful experience. At night before bed, she sat by the window, writing by the light of the oil lamp.

Outside, the sky was deep blue. Thick clouds piled across the heavens. The outline of the forest was pitch-black, and the wild grasses of the distant fields rustled violently in the wind.

Meili painstakingly wrote with the quill on paper:

“Madam, today is my eighth day in this world. I went again to the small town from the day before and bought some things at the market. I’ve roughly figured out the currency system here. On the way back, I met a girl who knew Meili. She said I seemed a bit different from before. Fortunately, although I don’t have Meili’s memories, I can understand and speak the language here, and I used illness as an excuse to get through it. Otherwise, the situation would have been terrible. This afternoon, I conducted another round of exploration in this house, but didn’t find any useful information. It seems the former Meili was a girl of few words…”

The letter wasn’t long, but it took a long time to finish. The completed letter couldn’t be sent to another world, so she locked it away in a drawer along with the previous ones.

By doing this, she gradually adapted to her current identity and life.

After tidying up the paper and pen on the table, she carried the lamp to wash her hands, loosened her hair, and prepared to sleep. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a door opening in the room next door — it seemed Mrs. Pegg had left her room. The footsteps continued downstairs, and then the front door sounded.

Meili flipped over and sat up on the bed, walked to the window, and leaned against the table to look down. A slender figure walked through the garden, left the courtyard, and headed toward the wilderness.

Mrs. Pegg? Meili felt something was wrong. She relit the lamp, lifted it, and rushed out the door.

Passing by Mrs. Pegg’s room, she found the door wide open, and the bed empty. Meili stepped over several stairs in one stride, quickly going downstairs and charging out of the courtyard.

“Mrs. Pegg!” She stood on the hillside shouting loudly toward that white figure in the distance, but she didn’t know if the woman didn’t hear or simply ignored her — she didn’t stop at all. Meili had no other choice but to chase after her with the lamp.

The night wind was very cold. She hadn’t had time to grab her shawl. The chilly wind burrowed into her loose white nightdress. Her long brown hair was loose, wildly whipping in the wind. As she ran, the lamp in her hand shook continuously, producing creaking sounds. The swaying dim light was like a point of firefly glow, barely illuminating the ground before her.

The grass blades by the roadside constantly scraped against her nightdress and bare calves, slightly stinging. She ran while shouting, yet Mrs. Pegg ahead turned a deaf ear, growing farther and farther away from her.

Where was she trying to go?

The sky was pitch-black, and she couldn’t see the road clearly. Meili struggled while following behind, slowly veering away from the familiar path she knew. She didn’t know how long she had been running when she suddenly stepped into an unseen shallow puddle, her foot sinking into the mud.

She pulled out one leg, stepped back a few paces, and when she looked up again, that tiny white silhouette of Mrs. Pegg had disappeared, and the surroundings were completely unfamiliar.

She held the lamp and wrapped her arms around herself, standing still and looking around. Tall blades of grass swayed beside her. At this moment, the moon emerged from behind the clouds, and Meili suddenly realized she was standing in the wilderness. The path she came from was hidden within the grass, and she didn’t know how to get back.

Moving her mud-covered foot, she grabbed a handful of her messy hair and continued walking forward.

Could Mrs. Pegg be going to commit suicide? When her own mother’s depression had been at its worst, she had tried to kill herself several times. After Meili discovered her, she would hold her and cry bitterly.

Although she couldn’t regard this Mrs. Pegg as her mother, she also couldn’t just watch the mother of this body disappear into nothingness, dying somewhere out in the wilderness.

Meili trudged on with uneven steps. The lamp had gone out from shaking too much. Fortunately, with a bit of moonlight, she could barely see the path ahead. As she walked, she felt the soil under her feet becoming softer and softer. The grass grew sparse, and every step she took caused her feet to sink in, the mud already reaching up to her calves.

Should she continue forward? Would there be a swamp ahead?

Just as she hesitated, she suddenly saw a figure not far away. That figure was half-submerged in the mud, bent over, with even their head nearly plunged into the muck.

“Mrs. Pegg?!” Meili propped herself up with a branch she picked up along the way and struggled to move beside the figure. She grabbed the person’s arm, trying to pull them out of the mud.

But when she grasped the arm, she suddenly felt that something was wrong. The arm in her hand was icy cold and slick, with a thin layer of muscle beneath. This was not the slender female arm belonging to Mrs. Pegg.

Meili froze. Before she could let go, the head buried in the mud slowly lifted up.