After the brilliant sunshine of the month of Gorse had passed, the rain began to fall more frequently again.
On a rare sunny day, Meili brought her blankets outside to dry.
Many flowers in the courtyard had already withered, but they were still beautiful.
She used to spend most of her time living in the school dormitory, busy with her studies every day. She didn’t even know what she was trying to prove. Life passed in a rush, and aside from Madam Qin’s letters, she hardly had any leisure to examine her own life.
So many years passed in a monotonous and dull way.
Now, she was still living alone, but she no longer had people around who knew her family’s past, and without the pressure of busy study and work, she had unknowingly changed a lot.
In her original world, she ate casually and hastily. But here, every meal she ate was made by her own hands, many of the ingredients even planted and gathered by herself.
Without the abundance of takeout and food choices, without all sorts of seasonings, the food she made was nowhere near as delicious as in her previous life, yet it had a unique flavor of its own.
Far from crowds, with simple social interactions, working every day — life was unexpectedly peaceful and fulfilling.
When she felt tired, she could rest freely. The work at hand would not urge her, she could finish it slowly and at ease.
When the weather was good, she would sometimes nap under the shade of the garden trees, or go picnicking in the nearby forest, or trim flowers to place in vases and decorate the room — something she would never have done in her original world.
Madam Qin used to send flowers with her letters, writing: “Attached is a bouquet newly bloomed in the courtyard, wishing the little one good mood.”
Only after leaving that world did she realize she could slightly understand Madam Qin’s feelings.
“Madam, I am becoming more and more accustomed to life in this world. The things that once terrified me no longer do. And, I have a friend who gives me flowers. It’s just that this friend is a bit strange. Compared to humans, he makes me feel safer and more interesting. Isn’t that a little strange?”
The air was stuffy. Her palms were damp with sweat as she wrote the letter, her elbow sticking to the paper and hard to move.
She finished the short letter, yet still had no sleepiness.
She pushed open the window. The cool breeze outside blew against her face, sweeping away the heat, much cooler than inside the house.
She had bathed in the afternoon, yet before bed she was already covered in sweat again, the back of her nightdress soaked.
Leaning on the windowsill, Meili suddenly saw a familiar figure not far away. That slender and abnormal silhouette, so different from a normal person, could only be the swamp monster.
The wild field below the hillside in front of the house had been soaked by heavy rain two days ago, the grass and mud soft. The swamp monster often wandered aimlessly everywhere, and tonight he happened to walk here.
Meili’s heart stirred. She picked up a lamp and went out the door.
She remembered the night she first saw the swamp monster — it was like this, but her mood was completely different now.
She walked down the hill with the lamp, and called out across a patch of wild grass.
“Hey, you’re out for a walk again?”
The slowly walking swamp monster heard her voice, stopped moving, and walked toward her.
Perhaps it was a conditioned reflex now. Sometimes before, he wouldn’t respond, and Meili had to purposely throw him a flower to draw his attention.
And now, he would come over on his own.
Just thinking of this, Meili felt both apologetic and amused. The older she lived, the smaller she seemed to grow, becoming like an elementary schooler.
“Creak creak—” Meili shook the lantern in her hand a little, the light illuminating half of her body. The little glowing insects in the grass, drawn to the light, fluttered around her feet.
The swamp monster’s dull gray eyes just stared straight at her, really frightening.
Meili was already used to it. She stood where she was and idly stood with him for a while, then suddenly had an idea.
“I want to go swim in the little lake over there, but I’m a bit scared to go alone. Can you accompany me?”
It was unclear whether the swamp monster understood. He couldn’t make any sound.
Meili plucked a wildflower and tossed it into his hand. “For you.”
Taking advantage of the moment when the swamp monster picked up the wildflower and raised it toward her, Meili swiftly grabbed that cold and damp hand.
Meili: “I’ll just take it as you agreeing.”
Dragged along by her, the swamp monster obediently followed. Although he was a tall and terrifying monster, he seemed incapable of resisting, like a well-behaved child.
Meili held the lantern in one hand and the swamp monster with the other, walking forward along the watery mud pits.
The swamp monster could walk where there were no mud pits, but he preferred all sorts of damp swamps and puddles.
After walking for a while, they reached a place without puddles. Before Meili could even think about what to do, the swamp monster walked up out of the water pit on his own and stepped onto the grassy path.
After a while, they reached the lakeside.
Under the moonlight, the surface of the lake glimmered brightly. Meili didn’t think twice before taking off her sweat-soaked nightdress. It was only when she had pulled it down to her elbows that she remembered the swamp monster behind her.
Meili: “…” It shouldn’t be a problem, right? After all, he didn’t really count as a human. And with that slow and ignorant look of his—what could he possibly understand? Compared to her, maybe he was the more in danger anyway, considering she was the one tempted by his “body.”
Quietly cracking a cold joke in her heart, Meili slipped into the lake.
Under the moonlight, the girl’s skin was moist and fair, unlike the swamp monster’s grayish-white color by the water’s edge. When her body sank into the water, ripples spread one after another, briefly breaking the shimmering surface.
Soaking in the water, she felt a wave of coolness wash over her, all the heat gone. She turned her head to look at the swamp monster on the shore. Wherever she had pulled him to just now, he stood there, not moving at all.
“I’ll only soak for ten minutes. I definitely won’t keep you waiting long. So, stand right there and don’t move.” Meili was a little worried he would turn and leave. She didn’t dare swim to the other side of the lake, only kicked around near the shore.
Seeing the muddy water flowing down the swamp monster’s body and the leaves stuck to his feet, she suddenly wondered if she could clean him up.
She raised her hand and splashed a little water at him. The swamp monster shifted, turning his head, lifting his foot as if to leave. Meili immediately tugged him back.
“No no no! Just wait a little longer!”
The swamp monster didn’t know what he wanted to express, and once again reached his hand toward her.
Meili instinctively grabbed his hand, trying to make him squat by the shore so she could wash off the mud on him.
But with her tugging and pulling, she ended up dragging the swamp monster entirely into the lake.
With a splash, Meili wiped her face and looked at the swamp monster half lying in the shallow water by the shore.
“I’m not trying to take advantage of you. I just feel uncomfortable every time I see you covered in mud. I want to clean you up.”
“Wow… look at this, it’s even grown moss. I’ll clean it off for you, okay?”
She didn’t quite have the nerve to start wiping his chest, so she kept about a meter of distance, trying to clean the swamp monster’s arms. She scrubbed hard twice — that slippery feeling was gone, but the touch was still cold and icy.
It really looked much more pleasant once cleaned.
Meili looked at the arm before her, feeling the same comfort as when all the dirty laundry had finally been washed clean.
The swamp monster didn’t move at all, like a fake human sculpture letting her scrub however she liked. Meili scrubbed and scrubbed, almost forgetting he was a living creature.
After a while, she grabbed the swamp monster’s arm and pulled upward. “Sit up a bit, it’s hard for me to wash like this.”
The swamp monster’s gray eyes stayed open as he went soft and sank into the water.
Meili finally sensed something was wrong.
“Wait a second… are you… melting…?”
Meili scooped downward and brought up a handful of grayish-white mud.
Meili: “…”
“You really are a mud person?! Wait, no!”
“Aaahhh don’t!”
“Get up quickly!”
“Aaaaahhhhhh—!”
Her expression changed drastically as she flusteredly dragged the swamp monster out of the water, but the more she touched him, the faster he melted. He was on the verge of losing even his humanoid shape.
Meili was nearly scared to death. She thought he had truly died on the spot after being washed, so she scooped up the grayish-white mud from the water and piled it on the shore.
After several scoops, she scooped up a piece of cloth.
The one the swamp monster had wrapped around his waist.
Meili: “…” She silently set it aside and continued scooping mud.
A pile of grayish-white mud formed on the shore. Meili was at a loss. What now? Was she supposed to sculpt a swamp monster out of this pile of mud?
But she had never learned sculpture, nor played with clay. If shereally tried, she wouldn’t even manage something human-shaped, let alone recreate how he originally looked.
No, calm down. The swamp monster shouldn’t die that easily. Otherwise, since he often wandered around in the rain, he would’ve been washed away long ago.
Then what now? This pile of mud wasn’t reacting… was it still missing something?
She scooped up more mud from the water, and noticed some mud splashed earlier on her shoulders and chest. She wiped it off, and all of it mixed into the pile.
After a long moment, the pile of mud finally reacted. Right before her eyes, it turned back into the familiar swamp monster.
Meili stared without blinking at the horrifying scene of something being reborn from mud, then patted her chest.
Alright, he was fine.
Then she caught sight of his now-bare waist.
Meili: “…!”
Her hand reacted faster than her brain — she grabbed the cloth piece from the ground and wrapped it around him again, her fingers swiftly tying the knot, a dead knot, to prevent it from falling off.
“Huu—” Meili pressed her hands against her head, only just realizing that although she had been frightened, her original goal should have been achieved.
The swamp monster now looked very clean. Although he was still cold and damp, there was no dripping muddy water, no moss or little weeds on him. He looked like a freshly sculpted statue, seemingly even a shade whiter.
“I was really scared to death by you.” Meili climbed out of the water, sat on the shore putting on her clothes, and spoke with her back to the swamp monster.
After speaking, she turned her head to look at him. His gray eyes were still blank, and water dripped down from his hair.
On the way back, when she remembered the scene of being scared, Meili suddenly couldn’t stop laughing, feeling she had been quite foolish at that time.
“Alright, you go take your walk. I’m going to sleep. Good night.” With her damp hair loose, she waved goodbye to the silly plaster-like figure. Meili lifted the lantern and climbed up the hillside, soon disappearing into the garden.
The swamp monster did not return to continue his earlier wandering. He stayed where he was, looking in the direction where Meili disappeared, watching for a very, very long time.
───♡───
When Meili went to the little lake again, she unexpectedly found a patch of grass by the shore growing especially luxuriantly, much taller than the surrounding grass, and the wildflowers there were blooming particularly well.
Looking closer at that spot — wasn’t it exactly where the swamp monster’s mud pile had been placed before?
So, the mud from his body could help plants grow?
This… was such rich fertilizer!
An image involuntarily appeared in her mind: the swamp monster standing in her vegetable garden, she poured water over him, and the muddy water flowed into the garden, with all her vegetables growing strong and vigorous.
