Kill The Marriage Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Mother
Everything had to trace back to the day Ren Zhong was discharged from the hospital.
The gentle breeze howled softly as Ren Zhong, his feet wrapped in bandages, drove his electric wheelchair like he was flying.
Shang Liwei ran a round trip between home and the hospital, hitting her running target for the day.
When the other party began complaining about his “blind marriage,” Shang Liwei also began complaining about the higher-ups.
“The Compulsory Marriage Matching Act is just reversing the wheels of history. Those people at the top will truly do anything to make the data look good. Confining criminals to their homes to beat their wives and children is supposed to raise the birth rate and lower the crime rate? What a garbage line of thought.”
Ren Zhong also said, “If some people truly want to take revenge on society and become an unstable factor disrupting public order just because they can’t get married, shouldn’t those people be arrested? Sentenced to prison if they deserve it, or sent to labor reform?”
“Who’s saying otherwise?” Shang Liwei adjusted her sports headband to keep the sweat on her forehead from dripping into her eyes.
Ren Zhong turned his head to ask her, “Doesn’t your institute research gender science? Can’t you guys give the government policymakers some slightly more scientific advice?”
“Sigh, the reality is very complicated!” Shang Liwei was also very helpless. “Some people throw money at scientists not in pursuit of the truth, but to have the scientists publish papers proving that their policies are the truth.”
Shang Liwei lamented, “When we first started following projects and doing experiments, who didn’t harbor the noble ideal of contributing to the nation and the scientific advancement of humanity? But in the end, we all get beaten down by society into this grandparent-core state.”
Today wasn’t a workday. Shang Liwei wanted some peace and quiet to enjoy her alone time, sort through her emotions, and alleviate the stress accumulating in her heart.
Don’t let her daily frivolous, carefree, and optimistic demeanor fool you. Her former scientific dreams had blurred, twisted, and shattered into pieces amidst the filth and unbearable reality of the world… How could she not have knots of frustration in her heart?
She had clearly thought of a way to change the world and achieved academic breakthroughs and success. Yet the world hadn’t improved even a fraction because of her efforts. Her research was also facing funding issues and was impossible to sustain.
She was an Alpha; she wasn’t allowed to be fragile.
Yet she was also a woman, forever relegated to the “lowest class” of the upper echelon.
Her supervisor would rather promote an ignorant, incompetent male Alpha than entrust her with important responsibilities.
Forget it, she was done competing; she was lying flat.
Riding her bicycle through the tree-lined avenues, she arrived at a comprehensive shopping mall. Today, she wanted to catch a comedy film with decent online reviews before it left theaters.
The first half of the movie could be considered funny, but in the second half, the tone abruptly shifted to heavy melodrama, practically holding the audience’s heads down and demanding, “Cry for me.”
Honestly, she just wanted to watch a brainless comedy for fun, ideally to laugh out loud a few times to relieve life’s pressures. What did she do wrong to be treated like this?
Shang Liwei walked out of the theater feeling even more depressed.
At that moment, the sound of elegant classical music reached her ears.
It was elegant, sure, but the volume was a bit too loud and the audio quality was rather poor.
She followed the sound, leaning over the mall’s circular railing to look down at the floor below.
On a stage on the lower level, a group of little girls in fluffy white tutus was dancing ballet.
The theme of the mall’s basement level was a children’s activity center, and there was a small stage specifically provided for the educational institutions operating there to hold showcases.
Shang Liwei thought: Since I’ve got nothing to do, watching the ‘ugly ducklings’ of our motherland… doesn’t seem like a bad idea?
The performance currently taking place was a group routine featuring all the students. The children were dancing a very simple basic ballet combination, lacking high difficulty.
However, the two girls leading the dance in the very front row were quite decent. Their balance, insteps, and core strength were not bad, closely aligning with the ballet aesthetic of turned-out, stretched, and straight.
Especially the little lead dancer on the right; she was exceptionally pretty.
She was a living Disney princess stepped right into reality. Her limbs stretched out with slight definition, her slender neck paired perfectly with her small head, and her agile, elegant expressions and demeanor stood head and shoulders above the surrounding children.
She could no longer be classified as an ugly duckling; this child was already a little swan.
Leaning against the second-floor railing, Shang Liwei watched the entire showcase from start to finish, even staying for the “little swan’s” solo performance.
Truth be told, the “little swan’s” skill level was good, but definitely not the best among the group. Yet her stage appearances and screen time were the most frequent.
It couldn’t be helped; good looks were the ultimate hard currency that slaughtered all humanity.
After enjoying the adorable ballet performance, Shang Liwei walked over to the mall’s food court and picked a restaurant with good ambiance and tasty flavors.
When the food arrived, Shang Liwei was just about to dig in when out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the “little swan” and her family walking into the same restaurant.
No, wait, they couldn’t really be called “family.”
The little swan and the Omega woman holding her hand had similar facial features; one look and it was obvious they were biologically related—both were great beauties of the gentle and adorable variety.
But the man accompanying them completely belonged to a different “art style.”
Nuwa must have been staring at a Picasso portrait masterpiece when she molded this Beta man, otherwise he wouldn’t look so abstract.
The little swan wasn’t close to the man either; she stuck glued to her mother’s side, intentionally avoiding him.
The moment the Beta man opened his mouth, his raspy broken-gong voice carried a heavy accent. He spoke so loudly that every single sentence could be heard by everyone in the entire restaurant.
“Mi Tong, letting a kid learn this is such a waste of money! Just let her get it out of her system this time. Be good, don’t let her learn it anymore.”
Saying this, the man reached out a hand covered in arm hair, with dirt trapped under his fingernails, dabbed a bit of saliva from his mouth, and then flipped open the menu.
This action was so disgusting that Shang Liwei nearly vomited the mouthful of thick soup she had just swallowed. Her appetite vanished completely.
She could even vaguely smell a bizarre stench drifting over from that direction, seemingly emanating from the man’s dirty leather jacket.
“Mi Tong, you really ought to thank the matching system for letting you meet me, giving the rest of your life some stability. With excellent conditions like mine, taking in a second-hand good like you and spending money to raise someone else’s brat is an incredibly rare act of magnanimity and kindness.”
After saying this, the Beta man’s throat made a hawk-tua hacking sound. He turned his head and spat a mouthful of phlegm onto the floor.
That thick, sticky wad of old phlegm, blackened and yellowed by tobacco tar, landed on the ground with a splat.
Every diner in the restaurant who witnessed this scene felt a wave of revulsion.
“I’ll put my words right here. You, a second-marriage woman, are marrying up to someone like me on his first marriage. Don’t even dream about getting a single cent of bride price; there’s no such cheap deal in the world. As for the dowry, not a single cent can be missing, in fact, it has to be doubled…”
Shang Liwei was highly observant, piecing together the background of the little swan and her pitiful mother from just these fragmented sentences.
Although divorce had become extremely difficult nowadays amidst layers of red tape, if a male Alpha initiated the divorce, the review process wouldn’t be as strict, and the procedures would go relatively smoothly.
The Omega woman called “Mi Tong” had clearly been “abandoned” by her ex-husband, which was why she was struggling to raise her Beta daughter alone.
Since both Omega men/women and Beta women were “precious” reproductive resources, if they failed to proactively remarry within one year after their divorce, they would be subjected to compulsory matching once again to fulfill the next “one child every three years” quota.
This hooligan, freakish Beta man was likely her new matched partner.
During an ordinary Omega’s first matching, the system would at least consult their pre-marital questionnaire to filter candidates. This was not the case for a second matching after divorce. The candidates they encountered were almost exclusively garbage-tier individuals whose matching had been delayed because their conditions were too atrocious.
Otherwise, the respectable little swan and her mother wouldn’t have fallen so low as to deal with someone like this Beta man.
The man hollered loudly, “Waiter? Where is everyone! Waiter!”
Mi Tong looked incredibly embarrassed. She pressed the call button on the table and softly signaled the man to stop. “Mr. Huang, if you press here, a waiter will come over.”
This action undoubtedly exposed the Beta man’s ignorance, dealing a massive insult to his fragile ego.
He shrieked, “When I do things, do I need you to point fingers? You haven’t even married into my house yet, and you’re already trying to teach me what to do. When you actually marry me, you’ll probably try to ride right over my head!”
Mi Tong’s face went deathly pale.
Being verbally abused like this in such a public setting filled her with an almost despairing sense of shame, wishing the ground would swallow her whole.
Next, the Beta man shifted his fury onto the waiter.
“Why did you take so long? Are you city folks so high and mighty that you look down on us country folk? Didn’t they say the customer is God? Is this the attitude you show to God? Call your manager over!”
The waiter and the Beta man got into an argument, their voices growing louder and louder.
The little swan buried her head behind Mi Tong, shrinking her small body beside her mother, looking incredibly pitiful.
To smooth things over, the restaurant manager had no choice but to waive the man’s bill and do their best to pacify him.
The Beta man looked smug and triumphant, feeling incredibly majestic. He believed that freeloading a massive meal was an amazing, highly capable feat, a true display of his masculine prowess.
“I’m going to the restroom for a moment.” Mi Tong’s eyes were red, and she hurriedly left.
She was already thoroughly humiliated; she didn’t want to lose any more face.
Crying in front of her child, crying in public because of a man like this… her dignity wouldn’t allow it.
Shang Liwei had originally come out to relax, but running into a scene like this made her mood absolutely rotten.
She had completely lost her appetite, but couldn’t bear to waste the food, so she paid the bill and asked for takeout boxes.
However, just as she was packing up her leftovers, the corner of her eye caught the little swan’s princess dress being enveloped by that black, stinky leather jacket.
Shang Liwei’s heart plummeted.
First came a shock of horror, followed immediately by realization.
Right, the little swan and the Beta man had no blood relation. If that man wanted to do something vile, wouldn’t he be completely free of any psychological burden?
Using his body, the man trapped the little swan between the wall and the booth seat. His filthy hand first reached out to touch her fair, clean cheeks, and then, his demonic claws extended under the little swan’s princess dress.
Crack!
Shang Liwei’s nerves snapped tight, and she subconsciously crushed one of the takeout boxes in her hand.
Startled by the sudden noise, the Beta man froze for a moment, but this slight disturbance wasn’t enough to stop his malicious intent. His eyes darted around the surroundings a few times, then he twisted his body further to block everyone else’s line of sight, completely enveloping the little swan in his shadow.
Though Shang Liwei was furious, she didn’t know what to do.
She could save her for a moment, but she couldn’t save her for a lifetime. If she stepped in this time, what about the future? This mother and daughter still had to live with this man!
Just as Shang Liwei was hesitating…
Crash!
A loud bang shattered the quiet of the restaurant.
“Ah!!!”
Accompanied by a shrill scream that sounded entirely inhuman, the back of the Beta man’s head was smashed squarely by a tall glass pitcher.
“Let go of my daughter!”
It was Mi Tong returning.
That Omega, who appeared so gentle, weak, and even submissive, was currently wielding a tall glass pitcher meant for drinks, frantically beating the man who was a full head taller than her.
Yellow corn juice splashed out of the pitcher, spraying everywhere. It spilled onto her messy, curly hair, onto her mint-green dress, onto her snow-white skin.
Mi Tong glared with wide eyes, filled with bloodshot veins, ferocity, wrath, and berserk rage.
This was the most primal power erupting from a mother driven into a desperate corner.
At that moment, she was incomparably like an enraged lioness, a tigress, a she-wolf, baring her vicious fangs to tear to shreds any enemy who dared to lay a hand on her cub.
The Beta man was beaten senseless, collapsing unconscious onto the floor.
Mi Tong’s chest heaved violently. She snapped back to reality as if waking from a lifetime ago, completely unable to believe what she had just done.
But in the very next second, she instantly grabbed her daughter’s hand and pulled her in front of her.
Her whole body trembled like a leaf in the wind. All the strength and potential in her body had erupted just now, leaving her unable to even stand. She could only manage to kneel on the floor. Yet, as she gripped her daughter’s shoulders, her words were resolutely firm.
“Lili, no one is allowed to bully you. Whoever bullies you, you hit them back.”
The little swan glanced at the man on the floor, then lifted her foot.
She viciously kicked the Beta man right in the crotch.
By this time, the mall’s security personnel had rushed over.
The hand that reached out, attempting to subdue Mi Tong, was intercepted by a female Alpha.
“Excuse me, please don’t be impulsive, and don’t get your facts backward.”
Shang Liwei stood shielding Mi Tong and the little swan behind her.
She raised her phone. “I’ve already called the police. This man harassed my fiancée and her child; we were acting in self-defense.”
Translator’s Note:
- Artificial Idiot (人工智障): A pun on Artificial Intelligence (人工智能).
- Brick experts (磚家): A sarcastic internet slang term. “Zhuan jia” (專家) means expert, but replacing it with the homophone “Zhuan” (磚 – brick) implies they are fake, useless, or “brick-headed” experts who spout nonsense.
- Big Love, Big Degree, Earth Cat Genie (大愛、大度、地貓精靈): These are parody names for real-world Chinese AI voice assistants. They correspond to Xiao AI (Xiaomi), Baidu (search engine), and Tmall Genie (Alibaba).
- Like an old sow wearing a bra (老母豬戴胸罩): A colorful Chinese idiom. The second part is “one set after another” (一套又一套). It basically means ridiculous, absurd, or crazy things happening continuously, one after the other.
- Strawberry (草莓): Chinese slang for a hickey.
- Nuwa (女媧): The goddess in Chinese mythology who created humanity by molding them out of yellow clay.