Mei Li didn't know where he was taking her at first. He couldn't make any other sound except that terrible crying, and he couldn't explain to her.
She pinched the swamp monster's ears and observed that the surrounding scenery was gradually becoming familiar. She also vaguely saw the wooden roof of a house in the distance. Then she remembered that this was clearly a swamp near the bushes.
Aunt Maggie died in this swamp. It is said that her body is still sinking in the swamp and no one can fish it out.
Why did he bring her here
… No way
Could it be that he wanted her to help retrieve the body
This thought immediately popped into Mei Li's mind, and she felt an inexplicable sense of certainty.
The swamp monster carried her to the middle of the swamp and slowly loosened his hands as if he wanted to let her go.
Mei Li was startled, and she grabbed his neck, wrapped her legs around his waist, and leaned on him and whispered, "Wake up, I will sink if you put me down! Don't let me go!"
"You're so stupid. If I really sink, will you remember to pull me out?"
Sensing her rejection, the swamp monster stopped putting her down and looked at her with a confused expression, tears still flowing silently, looking as pitiful as if he had been scolded by someone.
Mei Li: “…”
never mind.
He certainly didn't want to kill her in the swamp, but he hoped that she could do something, as if her guess was right, and he wanted her to try to fish out the body.
Mei Li tentatively let go of her legs and probed downwards with her toes. The swamp on this side was softer and more rotten, and it would sink if there was a little weight on it. She held the swamp monster tightly, instructed him to bend over, and followed his tilted posture to get closer to the swamp.
Enduring the discomfort, he leaned most of his body into the swamp, stretched out one arm and paddled in the swamp.
After a while, she suddenly touched something in the swamp. She felt its shape carefully and found it had five forked fingers.
She felt a human hand.
At that moment, Mei Li's hair stood on end and he subconsciously retracted his hand like lightning.
He cursed under his breath and mentally prepared himself for a while.
Since she had already touched it, she couldn't give up halfway. She groped over again stiffly and grabbed the cold and slippery hand with difficulty.
The other hand that was hooked around the swamp monster's neck tightened its grip and urged, "Pull it up."
The swamp monster, who had been pulled close to the swamp by her, slowly straightened up and carried her and the corpse in his hand upwards.
"Hiss—No, no, my hand hurts!" Mei Li let go of her hand that was about to be torn off. The suction of the swamp was too strong. It was almost impossible for her to pull up a strong adult woman with just one hand.
She looked around and quickly figured out a solution. She pointed to the bushes at the edge of the swamp and said, "Go over there."
The swamp monster was still looking at the human hand that was pulled out and sticking out in the swamp. Mei Li moved his head away and urged, "Don't look at it yet, go over there."
The swamp monster carried her across most of the swamp, and Mei Li found what she was looking for in the bushes - a strong vine.
She broke the vine with a sharp stone, and then she rolled up the vine and leaned against the swamp monster to return to the center of the swamp. She tied the arm tightly with the vine and reached into the mud to go around the corpse's armpit to prevent herself from tearing the corpse's arm off later.
"Okay, let's go to the shore."
The vines tightened, and as they dragged, Aunt Maggie's body was pulled out of the swamp and dragged all the way to the edge of the swamp.
When the mud-wrapped corpse left the swamp, Mei Li discovered that the swamp monster's tears suddenly stopped.
She thought he cared about Aunt Maggie, but as soon as the body was dragged out of the swamp, he no longer cared about her. He didn't even look at the body, returned to his previous state, and hugged her and prepared to leave.
Mei Li didn't want to leave just like that. After working so hard to find the body, of course he wanted to look for any clues.
She believed that it was not the swamp monster that killed Aunt Maggie, and if possible, she also wanted to know who the real murderer was.
Having personally touched the corpse, Mei Li's psychological endurance has been raised to a new level. Mei Li squatted beside the corpse and looked at Aunt Maggie's body despite the stench.
Soon, she noticed something strange.
Aunt Maggie's face looked much older. Her hair turned gray and her face had many wrinkles. Compared with the middle-aged woman she met last year, she seemed to have aged by more than 20 years. This was very unusual.
There should have been no such changes before she disappeared.
There was a wound on her body, running from her chest to her stomach. Mud had poured in from there, causing her stomach to bulge slightly.
It was a very obvious man-made wound.
Mei Li scooped water from a small pond nearby to wash the body, and continued to observe more closely. This time, she found that the heart in the chest of the body was gone.
That long blade is for taking out the heart
Who could make Aunt Maggie age so much in an instant, throw her body into the center of the swamp, and let Aunt Maggie's husband and son see the scene
Was there a mysterious force involved that she didn't know about
"Let's leave the body here. It will be found tomorrow morning. Let's go." Mei Li quietly placed the body in an open space nearby and dragged the swamp monster away.
She was full of questions and was silent along the way, but the swamp monster seemed to be fine.
After all this running around, she was covered in mud and couldn't stand it halfway. Just as she passed a stream, Mei Li jumped off the swamp monster and walked to the stream to wash the mud off her body.
She lost one of her shoes, and the other shoe was almost lost after being trampled in the swamp and mud, becoming a shoe filled with mud.
The tiny wound on the sole of his foot was aching slightly under the impact of the water. Mei Li raised his foot and waved it towards the swamp monster beside him.
"Look, it's bleeding."
The swamp monster showed that melancholy look as if he had been scolded, and his huge body fell towards her.
Mei Li let out a series of groaning sounds and almost thought that he was going to collapse and crush her on the spot. In the end, she found that he was just drooping limply with most of his body resting loosely on her knees.
Mei Li wanted to touch his head, but couldn't, so she touched his waist instead.
It feels slippery, like touching a statue.
"You were crying so horribly just now, what happened? Because Aunt Maggie's body was in the swamp?"
"Yes, if a human corpse is left in the swamp, he will be in great pain, as if there is a wound rotting inside his body. That is the source of pollution."
Suddenly hearing the explanation from another voice behind him, Mei Li turned around in surprise.
I saw the grass behind me shaking and being pushed aside, revealing a gray-black little man about ten centimeters tall.
The little man was wearing clothes made of fallen leaves and had a serious expression on his small face. Behind him, little men who looked similar to him walked out of the grass one after another. At a glance, there were at least a hundred of them.
They are squeezed together like a pile of freshly molded clay figures.
"We are swamp goblins living in the swamp." The swamp goblin bowed to her, "We heard the swamp crying, so we came here from underground to help him clean up the human corpses. I didn't expect that you had already helped him clean up."
Except for the first person who spoke, the rest of the mud men looked at her in silence, which was really a bit like the way a swamp monster looked at people.
Swamp goblin? Mei Li looked at the swamp monster that had a long rope around his legs.
There is a swamp monster here, why are there also a group of swamp goblins
Mei Li: "Has this happened before? Did you help him fish out the bodies from the swamp?"
"Yes, because he can't clean up the corpses by himself, so he needs our help. He is the one who created the swamp, the swamp itself. To us, he is like our father, and helping him is what we should do." The swamp goblin said sternly.
Mei Li: "...Father?"
Swamp Goblin: "Yes, our beloved father!"
Wouldn't that mean I'm... suddenly a mother
The swamp goblins were unable to see what she was thinking from her subtle expression; they seemed to have simply come to visit their old father.
Their "old father" finally stood up from her. With a height of nearly three meters, he looked even taller than these ten-centimeter little men. However, judging from the expressions of both parties, the ten-centimeter little clay men seemed more kind.
A group of little clay men circled around the swamp monster's feet, talked for a while, and thought he was fine, so they were relieved and prepared to leave. They nodded to Mei Li, lined up in an orderly manner, and went into the bushes in an orderly manner, returning the same way.
At this time, most of the night had passed and dawn would soon be approaching.
Mei Li stood up from the stream with cold hands and feet. She was so sleepy from not sleeping all night that she staggered as she walked.
"If you want to take me back, please squat down a little."
Mei Li climbed onto the swamp monster's back without hesitation. There was a lot of mud on her clothes, so she didn't care about it. The scratches on the soles of her feet still hurt. She had walked for a whole day and her whole body was sore. She couldn't walk on her own.
The tall swamp monster carried her on his back and walked into the predawn mist.
The sky was a vast mixture of dark blue and green, and white smoke enveloped them and the woods.
The swamp creature carried her through the woods, the flowering treetops beside her, within her reach.
The leaves from the broken branches shook off a row of dew and sprinkled on them.
The early morning birds chirped in the bushes, and Mei Li almost fell asleep in the slight swaying.
Just before he fell asleep, the swamp monster stopped outside the garden, climbed over the garden fence, and half of his body was thrust into the garden, with Mei Li, who was lying on his back, directly carrying him into the garden.
"Creaky--" the door made a slight sound. Mei Li, still sleepy, walked into the house holding only one shoe left and prepared to go upstairs nimbly.
The room was dark, with only a little light coming in from the window. Mei Li looked up and saw a person standing quietly by the stairs. His emerald green eyes were like a cat's, emitting a faint light in the darkness.
Mei Li was startled and came to her senses instantly.
It was Mrs. Peg. She looked at her miserable appearance and said, "You smell too much of the dirt."
Mei Li: "... I accidentally fell into the mud and got covered in mud. Madam, don't you have time to rest?"
Mrs. Peg looked at her meaningfully for a moment and then went back to her room.
In the dim light, Mei Li suddenly discovered that her dry grass-like hair seemed to have regained some bright red color.