The System's Proxy Beatdown Diary - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

In the fifth year I spent with 738, a richly dressed couple came to the orphanage with a paternity test. They held me in their arms and said I was their daughter.

Faced with those two eager, affectionate faces, I felt nothing but strangeness and unease.

738: [Slowly hug them back.]

I obediently did as it said.

[Cry.]

Tears welled up in my eyes.

This face of mine, which looked especially like Madam Shen’s, seemed so pitiful that Madam Shen immediately burst into loud sobs.

She looked me over from head to toe, over and over again, as if she could stare a flower out of me.

“Why do I have to cry?”

738 paused for a moment. [So you can live better.]

I only half understood.

[So we can live better.]

I understood at once. I held my breath, and my tears came pouring down like a little waterfall.

Madam Shen pulled me into her arms and could not bear to let go.

The Shen Family villa was huge, bright, and a full three stories tall.

I stood at the entrance, hesitating and afraid to step inside.

Madam Shen said gently, “Xingyi, are you feeling unwell?”

I shook my head.

I sensed two gazes that were not exactly friendly, and they made me very uncomfortable.

[Don’t be afraid. Your parents simply adopted another obedient, well-behaved daughter after you disappeared.]

738 said this without emotion, but I could faintly hear a trace of a sneer in its voice.

I curled my fingers inward, unable to tell what I was feeling.

At the doorway stood two children about my age, holding hands.

The boy was expressionless. The plump, pampered-looking girl beside him called out sweetly for Dad and Mom.

Madam Shen set me down.

“This is your older brother, and this is Siyi.”

She looked at me expectantly.

[No need to cater to them. Tell her what you need. I know you’re hungry.]

“Do I need to call her Mom?”

738 froze for a second. Its voice softened. [Don’t be afraid. Call her that if you want to.]

I scrunched up my little face and said timidly, “Mom, I’m hungry…”

Madam Shen finally realized that I had not eaten a single bite all day. She had forgotten. She turned around and hurriedly gave instructions to the chef.

Everyone tacitly avoided mentioning the other girl’s identity. Only 738 told me.

In the room they had prepared for me, I curled up under the covers.

“738.”

[I’m here.]

“Are they really my dad and mom?”

[Yes.]

“Then why did they adopt another girl?”

Today, Father Shen and Mother Shen had told me that when I was three, the nanny had disappeared with me without a trace. For the past nine years, they had missed me every waking moment.

But that other girl had been adopted a mere half year after I went missing. She was the same age as me.

They named her Shen Siyi.

Siyi-missing Xingyi.

It was contradictory and strange.

During dinner, Shen Siyi kept telling Father Shen and Mother Shen interesting things that had happened at school, how the teacher had praised her, and how well she got along with her classmates.

They talked and laughed together, a harmonious family.

Of the ten dishes on the table, eight were made according to Shen Siyi’s preferences.

They discussed how to send me to school, which school to send me to, and what grade I should enter.

I sat quietly to the side, waiting for arrangements to be made.

I had never been to school.

In my short twelve years of life, ever since I could remember, when I was with my adoptive parents, I was beaten every few days with slaps and wooden sticks. When I returned to the orphanage, I was isolated and rejected under the names “murderer” and “jinx.”

That night, I huddled beneath the covers.

“738, I don’t like it here.”

738: [I know. But I’m here with you.]

“Will you always stay by my side?”

[Yes.]

“Then can you tell me a story?”

738 was silent for a while before agreeing.

[Okay. Wait a moment. I’ll search for a story.]

I curled up under the blanket and waited.

[A little pig, a little sheep, and a little cow went to a convenience store together. The little pig and the little cow both got beaten up, but only the little sheep didn’t.]

I couldn’t help asking, “Why?”

738 was silent for a second. […Because convenience stores are open twenty-four hours and never da yang-never close. And da yang sounds like “hit the sheep.”]

That was not a bedtime story at all.

Hugging my pillow, I drifted into deep sleep amid 738’s rather unpracticed dark humor.