After Transmigrating As The Mother Of The Pitiful Female Supporting Character in a Campus Novel - Chapter 23

“You talked so much earlier, I thought you were actually someone formidable. Is this all?” Qin Zhijin looked speechlessly at the man who was now cross-eyed with terror. The small steak knife twirled between her fingers, the back of the blade resting against her wrist while the handle pressed firmly into the man’s glabella.

“Do you have any other instructions for me? Why don’t you say them all at once so I can improve myself?” A smile played on Qin Zhijin’s lips. “After all, being a daughter-in-law to a wealthy family isn’t that easy. To satisfy my future husband, I can endure a little. Go on, tell me more—see if there’s anything else I need to correct.”

“…” The man was sweating profusely from being startled by the blade earlier. Even though the sharp edge had moved away from his eyes, the blunt handle pressing into his forehead served as a warning: the woman before him was nothing like the “obedient and easy-going” person described in the files.

She was even less like the person in the photograph—who appeared cold, aloof, and utterly indifferent to the world.

The man’s voice trembled as he tried to defend himself, yet his words remained stuck in his habitual mindset. “Miss Qin, I thought you were different from those women outside. For someone from a family like yours, don’t you know that women are meant for alliances and raising the next generation? Acting like this, what difference is there between you and those materialistic women out there?!”

Qin Zhijin took a deep breath and applied a bit more force. The blunt end of the knife handle pressed hard into the man’s forehead. A rare flash of suppressed madness flickered across her face.

It was a cold frenzy; her eyes were devoid of laughter or any readable emotion.

As she exerted pressure with her wrist, the handle dug in, leaving a faint indentation.

“Of course I’m materialistic.” Qin Zhijin picked up the red wine from the table and poured it over the man’s head. “Why shouldn’t I be? Am I not worthy of the good things in this world?”

“Villas worth hundreds of millions—why wouldn’t I like them? Jewelry worth tens of millions, custom-made clothing, luxury cars, fine dining… beauty, power, and money held in one’s hand—since when were these things reserved only for men to enjoy? Since when was your name branded on them?”

“Whether I’m materialistic is none of your damn business. Did your father die, so you’re looking for someone else’s father to manage you? What a shameless creature, wandering around everywhere. If you didn’t have a father to teach you, you should have strangled yourself the moment the sperm met the egg.”

“As long as you exist, your entire being is composed of ‘matter.’ Therefore, if I kill you, it could technically count as you not being dead.” Qin Zhijin watched the man’s shivering body and his eyes, which were full of anger yet paralyzed by fear. She found it amusing. She raised her wine glass high and smashed it against the nearby railing, instantly breaking it into a jagged, spiked stem.

“Well? Do you still need an honor student from a top university to educate a piece of trash like you—someone who couldn’t even score 200 on the College Entrance Exam, spent millions to go abroad just to party and pick up girls, and lowered the standards of international students—on what ‘materialism’ means?”

The corners of Qin Zhijin’s mouth curled up slightly. Her eyes narrowed as she smiled with tender consideration. If one ignored the deep imprint of the knife handle on the man’s forehead and the shard of glass drawing beads of blood from his neck, she looked exactly like the “virtuous wife and mother” of the man’s fantasies.

“Looking at me like this, do I seem fit to educate your family’s next generation? It’s fine. I don’t need a chastity arch, I don’t need to be in your genealogy, and I certainly don’t need the children to take my surname.”

“As long as your family members can survive the night of my wedding, I guarantee your family a hundred years of prosperity and wealth. What do you think?”

When Xia Shibai arrived carrying her “Withered Wood Spring,” she found the place packed, water-tight with people. She grabbed a passing waiter and gestured. “Excuse me, have you seen a woman in a beautiful V-neck dress? She looks highly educated, cold-faced, but tall and thin—very delicate, like a willow tree that would blow over in the wind.”

Xia Shibai described the Qin Zhijin of her memory, but the waiter’s expression turned slightly sour after listening.

The waiter looked Xia Shibai up and down, then at the wooden stump in her hand, and finally at her description of Qin Zhijin. He pointed hesitantly toward the center of the dense crowd.

“I think… the person you’re looking for might be over there?”

Xia Shibai looked in the direction he pointed and immediately marched over.

Her heart was full of worry and rage. Recalling the voice and the ridiculous opinions she heard over the phone, Xia Shibai’s eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head. she wished she could teleport to Qin Zhijin’s side and educate that man on how to be a human being again.

However, as Xia Shibai “pushed through,” she froze the moment she reached the center of the crowd.

Qin Zhijin was sitting elegantly in her seat, eating steak with a knife and fork. There was even a matcha cake placed by her hand. The man across the table was a mess: his expensive suit was stained by various dishes, there were streaks of blood on his neck, and his hair—previously slicked shiny with pomade—now hung sloppily over his brows.

Xia Shibai: “?”

Wait, did I walk into the wrong…

Why is this plot a little bit… off?

The onlookers didn’t dare get close. Furthermore, when Qin Zhijin was teaching the man a lesson, she appeared mentally unstable. Someone wanted to call the police, but Qin Zhijin glared them back into submission.

The Crowd: “…”

Everyone silently tucked their phones away. Wu wu wu, so scary. If we keep watching, will we get beaten up too?

“Finished writing? A ‘child’ should properly admit their mistakes. A good memory is no match for a worn-out pen. You need to repent for all the mistakes you just made in a self-criticism letter, and then read it out loud to everyone.”

Qin Zhijin swallowed the beef she was chewing and tilted her head with a light laugh, as if she really were educating a disobedient junior. “I’m sure everyone will forgive your insolence after hearing your letter.”

“If your words are still that foul in the future, I’ll take a pair of pliers and help you pull your teeth out.” Qin Zhijin let out a mock “ah” and said gently, “Although doing so might get my medical license revoked or your family might take me to court, it’s not a big deal. After all, we’ll be husband and wife. Even if I hang you from a tree in the garden, I won’t get a heavy sentence, right?”

“After all, you’re not dead, are you? ‘Materialism’?”

Qin Zhijin didn’t even bother to remember the man’s name. She just picked a catchy two-syllable word and named him.

She finally settled on “Materialistic Man.” Since he loved telling others not to be materialistic, he might as well change his name.

The man’s hands were shaking with rage; his face turned from red to green to white. His life had been smooth sailing for years; he had almost never faced a setback, having been pampered by his family since childhood.

Who knew he would run into a psycho today? Fuck, a man in his thirties, being educated in public and forced to write a self-criticism letter? Doing something as idiotic as a public confession!

He wanted to strangle Qin Zhijin right now!

Standing to the side, Xia Shibai caught the tail end of the scene. Her mood was inexplicably complex, but she quickly felt relieved. Fortunately, Qin Zhijin had a fierce personality and knew how to “go crazy.”

Otherwise, having a blind date with a man like this would result in nightmares in the middle of the night.

The man wrote the letter incredibly fast. It was clear he had been trained by the domestic education system in middle and high school; his attitude toward admitting fault was active and positive, while his heart remained utterly unrepentant.

But no one cared if he changed or not; they just wanted to see him make a fool of himself.

It was only when she was drinking water that Qin Zhijin noticed Xia Shibai standing nearby. Her eyes blinked slightly, her movements paused, and it was unclear what she was thinking.

The moment she was spotted, Xia Shibai stepped out from the crowd, tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and slammed the large tree stump onto the table with a loud “BANG.”

The man was so startled he scribbled a jagged line across half the page. He looked up tremblingly at the newcomer, Xia Shibai.

Unexpectedly, his eyes glazed over the moment he saw her.

He never imagined Qin Zhijin would have such a beautiful friend. For a moment, he forgot he hadn’t finished his letter, and forgot that he had just been pulled back from the brink of death.

The man’s greasy gaze made Xia Shibai feel like she was standing next to an open sewer…

Disgusting and physiologically revolting.

That naked gaze, looking at her like a “toy,” made Xia Shibai’s face darken. Her fingers tightened slightly; she lifted the withered wood and slammed it onto the table again. “If you don’t want those eyes, I’ll help you gouge them out and feed them to you.”

“Try looking one more time.”

The man’s greasy, scrutinizing gaze vanished instantly. He lowered his head sharply, wishing his eyes could fuse with the white paper so he could see nothing but words.

He was full of regret—regretting that he hadn’t checked the almanac before leaving today. Otherwise, how could he be so unlucky as to encounter two madwomen?

A madwoman might be beautiful, but if she couldn’t be a “toy” in a display window for him to manipulate, then she was just a lunatic—a damned lunatic.

Xia Shibai looked at the man’s cowardly state and gave a small “tsk.” She didn’t want to give him another glance, instead shifting her gaze back to Qin Zhijin.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you hurt?”

Qin Zhijin pushed aside her finished steak and pulled over a frozen cake dusted with matcha powder. Hearing the questions, she didn’t answer Xia Shibai immediately. Instead, she scooped a spoonful with a clean spoon and held it to Xia Shibai’s lips.

“The restaurant’s signature. Want a taste?”

Looking at the matcha cake brought to her mouth, Xia Shibai reflexively parted her lips and took a bite. By the time she reacted, the spoon had already been withdrawn.

“Is it good?”

“It’s okay.” Xia Shibai felt she wasn’t a child; if she were ten years younger, she might have been amazed, but now, lighter flavors suited her better.

“I think it’s okay too.” Qin Zhijin pointed the spoon at the man across from her, her free hand propping up her chin on the table. “Look at him. Do you think anything could happen to me?”

“If ears being wounded by foul language counts as an injury, I should be in the ICU.”

Qin Zhijin insulted the man with a straight face. “A pity I’m not on duty, or I could have claimed worker’s compensation.”

“It’s fine, I can pay for it later,” Xia Shibai said seriously. “Problems that can be solved with money aren’t problems.”

“Money, huh? Very materialistic,” Qin Zhijin said with a smile. “My future husband doesn’t like materialistic women. He wants me to stay home and raise the kids.”

Xia Shibai: “?”

Wait, why am I a little scared?

Xia Shibai followed Qin Zhijin’s teasing gaze and realized that with every sarcastic remark Qin Zhijin made, the man’s hand holding the pen trembled. She couldn’t help but find it funny.

A “crazy” Dr. Qin was still beautiful; how scary could she be?

It could only be said that this man had committed many misdeeds and had never been educated by anyone. Otherwise, with Qin Zhijin’s slender frame, could she really scare him this much just by being a bit assertive?

A clear conscience fears no knock at the door at midnight.

If the man sitting across from them writing his confession could hear what Xia Shibai was thinking, he would probably be in tears, wishing he could kneel and swear—”She really is a madwoman!”

Xia Shibai followed up on Qin Zhijin’s words. “Materialistic or not, isn’t it enough just to like the person?”

Qin Zhijin smiled, her eyes falling on the withered wood Xia Shibai was carrying. “You…? Why did you bring that thing over?”

“Oh, I thought you were being bullied, so I planned to come help you solve the problem. I didn’t expect you to solve it yourself.”

Xia Shibai shrugged indifferently. “But it’s just as well. This ‘Withered Wood Spring’ cost five figures; I’d actually be quite pained to use it to hit someone.”

“It’s fine, you can still hit him now.” Qin Zhijin pointed her arm toward the man with utter nonchalance. “Confession first, then the beating. The rules of our prestigious families are quite strict.”

“To raise a good child and not disgrace the family lintel, the child indeed needs to suffer a bit, and the parents need to pay more attention.”

“True. Put that way, he really should be beaten.” Xia Shibai lifted the withered wood and weighed it in her hand a few times. “A filial son is born under the rod, and withered wood springs to life next year. When you finish your letter, remember to stick your hand out.”

The man didn’t dare look up at Xia Shibai or Qin Zhijin, fearing these two ‘aunties’ would find something else wrong with him and try to gouge out his features with a fork.

Hearing Xia Shibai mention him, he didn’t dare raise his head; he could only speak while staring at his letter.

“N-n-no need, right? It’s… too much trouble for you…”

“No trouble at all. Educating Dr. Qin’s ‘next generation’ is my duty. A distant relative is not as good as a near neighbor, and Mencius’s mother moved three times just so the child would have a good cultural environment.”

The man: “…” Lunatics, a bunch of lunatics.

The man grit his teeth, his hand not daring to stop writing, fearing that if he paused, the five-centimeter-diameter tree stump would come down directly on his hand bones.

“I-I’ll educate myself. How could I trouble your hands? I’ll finish the letter very soon. As for the ‘rod education,’ I can do it myself.”

“This old stump—my dad’s favorite thing. It cost six figures at an auction.”

The man was fuming. He caught a glimpse of the large tree stump resting on the table out of the corner of his eye and suddenly looked up, wanting to bang the table and curse.

If someone paid more than 600 yuan for that broken stump, he’d think they were an idiot! And she dared to extort six figures from him? Was she crazy?!

He instinctively wanted to flip the table, send everything flying, and charge forward to grab Qin Zhijin and Xia Shibai by the hair to teach these two arrogant women a lesson!

They made him look like such a fool all night, and now they dared to extort him openly—truly insane!

Just as his hand touched the table, Xia Shibai’s eyes were quick and her hands were faster; she swung the old stump toward the man’s chest.

The next second, a fork grazed the man’s temple; the blunt end struck his ear hard before falling to the floor with a sharp metallic clang.

He crouched on the floor clutching his ear, howling in pain. The grievance he hadn’t suffered in thirty years made tears stream down his face.

Xia Shibai looked with utter disdain at the man sobbing uncontrollably and let out a light breath. “I’ll count to three. You’d better stop this behavior that’s giving me a headache. Otherwise, even if I have to go to the police station tonight, I will beat you up to vent my anger.”

Hearing this, the man stopped instantly. He used his expensive suit jacket to wipe the tears from his face, pulled up his stool, sat as straight as an elementary schooler, and continued writing his confession.

“The six-figure stump is ruined.” Qin Zhijin sat calmly in her seat eating cake, as if the fork hadn’t just been thrown from her hand.

“It’s fine, the ‘son’ will pay for it.”

Xia Shibai waved her hand dismissively. Since this five-figure stump had found a ‘big sucker’ to pay for it, she certainly wasn’t going to pay for it herself.

Qin Zhijin lost her appetite at Xia Shibai’s use of the word “son.”

She had only been joking earlier, but hearing Xia Shibai say it now felt very uncomfortable.

Shifting her train of thought slightly, Qin Zhijin knew what was wrong.

She was very clear that she was gay. Going on a blind date was just to placate her mother. Afterward, she would use all sorts of excuses to refuse a next meeting or find faults. She was also very clear that she wouldn’t have offspring.

Even adoption felt like a hassle to her.

But Xia Shibai was different; she looked like someone who actually would start a family.

That sense of discomfort made the cake before her taste less delicious than the ratings suggested. The spoon spun a few times in her fingers before hitting the porcelain plate with a clink.

“He’s not a ‘retarded’ son like that.” A trace of irritability touched Qin Zhijin’s brow. Looking at the man opposite, she felt even more annoyed. Why didn’t I teach him a harder lesson just now? How is a fool like this worthy of being my ‘son’?

“True. With our IQ levels, we shouldn’t be able to produce such an idiot.”

Xia Shibai nodded understandably. It would be someone like Gu Mingyi or Xia Yaozhou.

Inheriting the mother’s intelligence.

Qin Zhijin froze slightly. “That shouldn’t be the focus, right?”

Xia Shibai gave a soft “oh,” tapped her hand on the table, and asked seriously, “What was your College Entrance Exam score?”

“He only scored in the low 300s.” Although Qin Zhijin wanted to say that wasn’t the point either, since Xia Shibai asked, she kindly answered for the man.

“Then it’s indeed impossible. My score is something you couldn’t reach even if you multiplied yours by two.”

The man, insulted to the extreme, barked back a small, angry rebuttal: “320! It was 320!”

Xia Shibai gave a light “ah.” “320 times two is still not as high as mine. Did you fill in the wrong bubbles on your answer sheet?”

Qin Zhijin burst out laughing. The stifling gloom that had been in her chest all night vanished in an instant.

The surrounding onlookers also began to laugh.

Since Xia Shibai joined the “scene,” the tense atmosphere had suddenly become light. She became a buffer in the middle, making Qin Zhijin less impulsive and causing her faint anger to dissipate.

Everyone watching the drama was happy, except for the mocked man.

Little President Xia pursed her lips primly, completely failing to understand what was so funny. Thinking about the man scoring only 320, she couldn’t help but sound the alarm for her child’s education in her heart.

She calculated how many days Xia Yaozhou had left until the exam, wishing she could shake her daughter by the shoulders: “At your age! How can you sleep! It’s time to strive—you only have a few thousand days left until the exam!”

Qin Zhijin and Xia Shibai played off each other perfectly without any rehearsal. Like a cross-talk duo, they belittled the man from head to toe.

The restaurant management, who had originally come to break up the fight, saw Xia Shibai and silently whispered something into their walkie-talkies. The security guards, who had come to disperse the crowd, scattered to various corners behind the onlookers, ready to charge in at any moment to protect Little President Xia’s safety.

Little President Xia, who needed no protection at all, even committed “righteous extortion,” making the man add a note that it was “compensation” when he made the bank transfer.

The man’s hand gripped his phone tightly, but he didn’t dare show a hint of anger. He could only swallow his grievances. “Is that enough? A total of 65,000 was transferred.”

“Enough, enough. Thank you so much. When is your next blind date?” Xia Shibai looked at her bank balance as the beautiful ending digits were added to her string of zeros. she looked at the man with utter sincerity. “If you ever need blind date education services again, please contact us anytime. We’re on call!”

“Items like ‘Withered Wood Spring’—my house has at least eight or ten. I guarantee we’ll educate you well and not disgrace your family lintel.”

“If you feel a 50,000 withered stump isn’t worthy of you, I can bring a higher-valued item over for some ‘education of love.'”

“…” The man carried away a piece of rotten wood that cost him 60,000, nearly grinding his molars to dust. But no matter what, he could only stiffly refuse Xia Shibai’s “kindness.”

He had no choice—he had left his thumbprint and a signed self-criticism letter was folded in Qin Zhijin’s hand. Moreover, when he was doing his public confession, Qin Zhijin had recorded the whole process with her phone and even made him state his family background.

He never wanted to repeat such a humiliating event in his life!

As for calling them over! Only if he were truly a retard!

Xia Shibai watched the man, smelling of food, walk into the crowd. Everyone naturally made way for him. Seeing him run out carrying the soup-soaked withered wood in a rage, she felt he was quite pitiful.

Pitifully stupid.

Before Xia Shibai could turn around, a hand rested lightly on her shoulder. A faint floral scent wafted to her nose—like fresh gardenia, with a hint of green leaf bitterness upon closer scent.

Before she could even turn her head, Qin Zhijin leaned most of her weight onto Xia Shibai’s shoulder. Even through her athletic jacket, Xia Shibai felt Qin Zhijin was dressed too lightly.

The air conditioning in this restaurant is so cold. Dressing too lightly will lead to a cold!

While Qin Zhijin was thinking of how to rationalize her behavior, she felt the woman whose shoulder she was leaning on pull her hand away. Her fingers curled slightly, and before she could even feel aggrieved, she saw Xia Shibai start taking off her jacket to cover her.

“Better wear more; the restaurant is cold.”

“We already have two patients at home; it’s quite pathetic. You can’t expect Xiao Yi, a three-year-old, to take care of us, can you?”

The warm jacket draped over her body felt like warm sunlight on a snowy peak, gradually soaking through Qin Zhijin’s rationality.

Following Xia Shibai’s lead, she nodded. “Then let’s go home.”

“Let’s go home.” Xia Shibai made Qin Zhijin put the jacket on properly, then took her hand and walked out. As for the mess behind them, she couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Wait.”

Qin Zhijin caught Xia Shibai’s wrist, her slender fingers accidentally hooking onto the jade pendant on Xia Shibai’s red string. “I’m taking my shoes off; these are dirty.”

Anything that had seen that “trash” was something she didn’t want at all.

Oh, except for the jacket she was wearing.

Qin Zhijin took off her high heels and stepped barefoot onto the floor. Even though it was gradually entering late summer, this coastal city was still hit with high temperatures every day, making the floor scalding to the touch.

“Let’s go. We’re going home.”

Author’s Note:

The two cubs at home: Starving to death! Is anyone going to look after the cubs?!

Little President Xia: Not a loss today—a 50,000 stump, I made a 10,000 profit!

Qin Zhijin: I’m not at a loss either; anyway, I “applied” the patch first.

The Blind Date Man: …In this game, who is actually winning?