When that figure trapped in the mud lifted his head and looked at her in a slightly twisted posture, Meili finally realized that this person was absurdly tall, or rather, his body had grown in a frightening way. If one counted the half of his body buried in the mud, he was at least two meters and five tall! This completely exceeded her imagination.
Moreover, the slender figure’s hands were even more bizarre, extremely out of proportion with the body. Just those hands alone were at least one point seven, one point eight meters long.
She had just grabbed such a thing’s hand earlier. Meili’s body reacted instantly — goosebumps rose layer by layer on her skin, the chill spreading from her heels all the way to the back of her head.
Stiffly loosening her hand, she felt a little short of breath, staring as that thing seemed to be attracted by her, bending down and lowering its head toward her, the shadow instantly enveloping her.
In the unclear dark night, Meili looked up, unable to see his appearance clearly.
“Plop.” Something like wet muddy water seemed to drip from that thing’s hair and hit her face. Meili trembled, and at the same time, the stiffness caused by fear scattered. She forced down a scream, and without saying a word, she lifted the stick in her hand and struck fiercely at the thing that had leaned close.
After one hit, the stick broke with a snap. She didn’t care at all, grabbed her skirt, turned her head, and fled at full speed.
Run faster! Run even faster!
That thing was absolutely not human! It might be a ghost in this world, or something else, but it was definitely, absolutely impossible to be a person!
The moon had unknowingly hidden back behind the clouds, and the surroundings became pitch dark. Meili stepped in the mud, her reckless running splashing muddy droplets all over her.
It was quiet behind her, and that thing did not seem to be chasing.
Unable to resist, Meili looked back and found that the thing was standing where it was, hunching its back like a dead tree trunk standing in the water, gazing at her from afar.
Panting, Meili stopped, watching as the thing slowly, slowly buried its head back into the mud, returning to the posture from the beginning, its entire body bent into a U shape.
Meili: “……”
So… it won’t chase after me?
After watching for a few seconds, Meili turned and ran wildly again, getting farther and farther away from that swampy mud. The clouds above were heavy, and the wind on the ground grew increasingly violent. She walked through the vast sea of grass, swayed left and right by the force of the wind.
Very luckily, she stumbled her way back to the previous path. Covered in filth, she rushed toward that solitary house with no light in it. Meili thought for a moment about where Madam Pegg had gone, wondering how to find her, and then thought again about that inhuman monster she had encountered just now.
So there are such things in this world?
Uneasy, she walked into the house. As soon as she stepped inside, she saw a pair of eerie green eyes in the darkness, sending another shiver through her.
It was the black cat Feicui. It lay on top of a tall cabinet, looking down at her from above.
“Feicui, you’re here.”
Alright, at least the cat was still here. She wasn’t the only living creature in this house, and that made things feel a little safer. Meili frowned as she scooped water to wash her feet. While washing her hands, she noticed a thin layer of gray mud on the hand that had grabbed the monster earlier.
“Splash——” She plunged her hand into the icy cold water and scrubbed hard twice.
Carrying the dampness on her body, she went upstairs. Meili suddenly noticed that Madam Pegg’s bedroom door, which had originally been left wide open, was closed. Closed by the wind? She hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and twisted the handle. The room still held a heavy atmosphere, the blanket on the bed pulled up, revealing Madam Pegg’s red hair. The sound of the door startled the sleeping person, and her somewhat hoarse voice came from the bed.
“It’s so late, what are you doing?”
Meili stood at the doorway, her expression somewhat stunned. Madam Pegg had run toward the wilderness — had she failed to catch up to her? Why was she now lying here perfectly fine?
“Did you go out just now?” Meili realized something and asked somewhat uncertainly.
Madam Pegg woke abruptly from sleep, her tone cold: “What are you talking about?”
“I just saw you run out,” Meili was still trying to describe what had happened earlier.
Madam Pegg said icily, “Enough, you are already grown up. Don’t come disturb me anymore just because you had a nightmare.” After speaking, she coughed twice.
Meili said nothing more and closed the door.
Madam Pegg was gravely ill. In the few days she had been here, Meili had barely seen her get out of bed. So when she saw her run into the wilderness earlier, she had already felt it strange — that figure ran too quickly, not like a sick person at all. She hadn’t thought much at that moment, but now that she recalled it, it felt as if she had indeed had a nightmare.
Madam Pegg suddenly disappearing and then suddenly appearing again, the monster in the wilderness…
Returning to her own room, Meili took off the sleepwear stained with mud and water and got into the blankets. Her body, shivering from the cold, finally began to warm up slowly. There was a faint scent inside the blanket — a sachet made from dried rose petals, made by that former Meili.
Unconsciously, Meili rubbed her cheek, rubbing off a bit of hardened mud.
Holding that bit of mud between her fingers, Meili suddenly remembered — it was then! The long, stick-like monster from the swamp dripping onto her face. She had actually forgotten there was mud on her face too and hadn’t washed it off.
Rubbing twice, Meili smelled a scent of earth mixed with fresh grass from between her fingers — clean and refreshing, like tender sprouts growing in soil.
Unknowingly, she fell asleep. She had a shallow dream, and in the dream, she kept smelling that grassy, earthy fragrance.
The next day, she was awakened by booming thunder and a downpour. Outside the window, the sky was pitch black, thick clouds everywhere. Occasionally, lightning pierced the dark clouds, exploding at the treetops in the distance, bringing a brief flash of light.
She felt for the small pocket watch on the bedhead and took a look — it was already ten in the morning. She hurried to get up and make breakfast, and as always, if it weren’t for the sleep dress she had taken off and the shoes covered in grass bits and sludge, she would have suspected that last night had truly been only a dream.
This heavy rain lasted for a long time, only gradually stopping in the afternoon. It was the first time Meili had seen such a heavy rain since coming to this world. The downpour washed away the mud she had stepped into the yard yesterday. Smelling the fresh air after the rain, Meili put on leather boots, picked up a basket, and headed toward the small market town not far from here.
She walked down the hillside, crossing a low wall built of white stone. This low wall was built long ago, now abandoned; green grass and moss had grown thickly all over it.
Beyond the low wall was a small stone bridge. Standing on the bridge, one could see the market town opposite. Meili wondered why the mother and daughter, Meili and her mother, had chosen to live so far away from the crowd in such a remote place.
“Meili!”
As soon as she stepped onto the muddy path in front of the market town, a girl with brown curly hair, carrying a basket, waved to her from the roadside.
“Hesha.” Meili walked over to greet her, and heard her ask enthusiastically, “Meili, why have you come to town again today? You used to only come once every half month. Recently you’ve already come three times.”
“I agreed with hunter Jody yesterday, I’m here today to pick up the prepared game.” Meili very naturally shifted the topic. “What about you? Carrying a basket, what are you going to do?”
As expected, Hesha had forgotten her earlier suspicions. She said distressedly, “It rained heavily yesterday, so I think the short woods on the south side must have a lot of white mushrooms now. I want to pick some to make mushroom soup, but everyone is busy today. No one can go with me.”
As she spoke, she hesitated and looked at Meili, trying to ask, “Meili, will you go with me? It’s not very far. We’ll be back before evening, and white mushroom soup is especially delicious. I have a secret recipe for white mushroom soup, I can teach you!”
Meili agreed right away. She was still unfamiliar with this world and needed to communicate with the people here. Hesha was a good choice — careless, not scheming, young and easy to trick… uh, and cute.
Seeing her agree, Hesha showed a bright smile, intimately linking arms with her, cheerfully saying, “You’ve been much more lively since your illness. You don’t wear that big hat and scarf anymore, and you’re willing to talk, even willing to come pick white mushrooms with me — that’s great! Come, I’ll take you to get the game from hunter Jody, then we’ll go straight to the short woods in the south!”
Crossing the muddy, uneven town streets, after picking up a wild rabbit from the hunter, the two young girls walked hand in hand onto a small path. After walking a bit, a woman drying clothes outside a small house by the roadside saw them and called out, “Hesha, where are you going?”
“Aunt Maggie, we’re going to the short woods.”
“It just rained. Don’t go too far. Stay away from the swamp, or you’ll run into the swamp monster.”
“Got it~”
The two quickened their pace. Meili recalled the thing she had seen last night and turned to ask the young girl beside her, “Swamp… monster?”
Hesha stuck out her tongue. “That’s just adults scaring kids. Aunt Maggie still thinks I’m a child. Things like swamp monsters that swallow people into the swamp, moonlit-night fairies that make people lose their way in the forest, Heges that bring nightmares, and rotting deer that curse people just by being seen… there are a lot of stories like that. Didn’t you hear any as a child?”
Meili spoke nonsense with a straight face: “You know, I didn’t talk to others much before, and my mother at home wouldn’t tell me stories.”
Hesha immediately showed a sympathetic expression and took her hand to comfort her: “Don’t be sad. We’re friends from now on. You can ask me anything.” She looked a little embarrassed. “Actually, I’ve always been curious about you, but you ignored everyone before.”
Meili: “I can invite you to my home in the future.”
Hesha: “Ah! Really!? That’s great!”
She hopped around happily and took the initiative to tell her new friend the stories all the kids in town knew well. “The swamp monster is a monster that roams the swamp and the wilderness. Wherever it goes, the land will slowly turn into swamp. The swamp will swallow forests and animals, and also swallow humans. It likes heavy rain, so it appears on the night before a big storm. If someone encounters it, they will be dragged into the swamp…”
Meili thought of the slender figure she had seen last night, her hand gripping the basket tightening. “What does the swamp monster look like?”
“That, I don’t know. No one has seen it with their own eyes. But I think it must be covered in mud, ugly and scary like a mud monster.” Suddenly, she became excited, pulling Meili toward another small path.
Meili followed her footsteps, the hems of their skirts brushing past clusters of golden wildflowers by the roadside.
“Where are we going?”
Hesha grinned, pulling her along. After running for a bit, they arrived among a sparse woodland. She pointed at a moss-covered area ahead and said, “Look, this is the closest swamp to us. If there really is a swamp monster, it must appear here.”
Children were curious about strange things, so in her childhood, she had played and explored with her friends everywhere, searching for those legendary nonhuman creatures. Unfortunately, they never found anything.
After the rain stopped, the sun had returned. Bright sunlight shone on the tender grass leaves washed clean by the rain. Everything looked fresh and clear.
Standing at the edge of the wild grass, Meili listened to Hesha talking beside her, but her eyes were fixed, unable to move, on the swamp not far away.
There was a figure there! The same slender monster she had seen last night!
“Meili, what’s wrong?” Hesha noticed she hadn’t spoken for a long while and looked toward the direction she was staring, then turned back in confusion. “What are you looking at?”
Meili stared at the figure buried in the swamp and said in a strange tone, “You can’t see it? There’s a person there.”
Even though it was so close, Hesha didn’t react at all.
“There’s nothing there! You’re trying to scare me. I’m not scared!” Hesha still thought she was joking.
Meili took a deep breath, withdrew her gaze, grabbed Hesha and began to walk back, her steps urgent. “What a pity, I couldn’t fool you. Come on, let’s go pick white mushrooms and see who picks more.”
Hesha immediately rushed ahead, “It’ll definitely be me!”
After they left, the slender figure in the swamp slowly lifted its head, watching their backs like a strange gray statue, unmoving for a long time.
