Unknowingly, I found myself back at Gao's Manor.

The vegetation is lush, the sky is high, and the water is clear.

My tense nerves finally relaxed. I don't know when it happened, but I consider this place as home.

Something lightly hit my back, and when I looked down, it was a shuttlecock.

"Big brother... I'm sorry." A little girl with pigtails looked at me timidly.

"It's okay, Miss Gao."

I picked up the shuttlecock and handed it to her.

"Do you know me?" She looked me up and down. "But I've never seen you before. Are you from outside?"

"Yes, I came from a very faraway place."

"Then you must know a lot of things?!" Her big eyes suddenly lit up.

"Yes, I know a lot." I said to myself:

I know that you bite chopsticks when you eat, I know that you have two tiger teeth when you smile, and I know that it takes fifty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-two steps to go from Gao's Manor to the mountain village while carrying you on my back.

I also know that humans and monsters have different paths.

"Can you tell me about the outside world? What is it like?" She pulled me to sit in the shade of a tree. "My father doesn't let me go out, he says there are monsters everywhere outside."

"Yes, Mr. Gao is right, it is indeed dangerous outside."

I started with the Monkey King causing trouble in the Heavenly Palace and spoke about the journey of the master and disciples facing eighty-one challenges to obtain the true scriptures...

Originally, I planned to continue according to the script given to me by the Jade Emperor, but looking at Miss Gao's bright eyes, I couldn't bear to deceive her any longer, so I told her the whole truth about this play.

"You mean they have already obtained the true scriptures nine times?" Her eyes widened. "But because they didn't listen, they were killed every time?"

"Yes."

"Will there be a tenth time?"

"There will be."

"So, my future husband is really... a pig monster?"

"...Yes," I trembled as I spoke, "but he's not a bad monster. He's willing to become a cow or a horse for the Jade Emperor to ensure your immortality..."

She suddenly clapped her hands and laughed, "You must be worried that I would be scared, so you're telling me all this to comfort me, right? But I'm not afraid. My mother said that it doesn't matter if a man is ugly as long as he treats me well. My father is not good-looking either."

I thought of Mr. Gao with his bald head and crooked teeth and couldn't help but laugh.

"And he sounds quite cute, doesn't he?" She hugged her knees and looked up at the sky.

The sky was completely dark by now, with countless stars scattered across the night sky.

"I think he will be very good to me, right?"

He will, because he truly loves you.

I answered in my heart.