The Curse of Desire

“The system is loading… the settlement is completed.”

“This task was completed 100%, the overall rating of the task is A+, and the reward points are 1,000. Please continue to work hard.”

The voice of the system went through Bai Qiuyi’s mind, but she wasn’t listening.

In the two worlds before this and after, she watched her lover pass away. How she felt when they passed away, at least in the first world, she couldn’t remember, but in the latest world, she had just experienced it.

Bai Qiuyi thought that when her lover died in the first world, she probably felt as upset as she was now.

She took a deep breath, cheered herself up a little, and said to the system, “System, help me get rid of my emotions.”

“OK.”

As the system’s voice fell, Bai Qiuyi felt her heart lighten up. But in the same way it felt light, it also felt empty.

She glanced at the taskbar, there were notifications after the system was settled. Seeing the 1,000 points rewarded, and looking at the points she owed, Bai Qiuyi said to the system without hesitation, “Start the next task.”

“The system is loading…”

“Beep, beep, complete.”

After entering the original owner’s body, Bai Qiuyi heard noisy human voices before opening her eyes.

She opened her eyes, and at the same time, the memory of the original owner flashed through her mind.

Instantly, Bai Qiuyi wanted to hold her forehead: this time she actually transmigrated as a man!

This was too stimulating!

However, Bai Qiuyi was only surprised for a while, and she quickly accepted and adapted to his identity.

There was a long line up in front of him and a bunch of small other lines.

Today was the opening day of E University, and the original owner had come to report as a freshman.

He was in line now.

His mother also came with him.

The original owner was a child of a single-parent family. He didn’t have much memory of his father because his parents divorced when he was very young.

When his mother thought he was disobedient, she would say, “Do you think it’s so easy for me to raise you?”

“When I divorced your father, he didn’t even mention you and didn’t want you as a son at all. All these years he hasn’t paid child support once, it’s like he disappeared from the world. I raised you by myself, but what did I get in exchange for…”

And a long list of more.

As long as the original owner made her a little bit dissatisfied, she would say this.

The original owner had listened to this speech various times but instead of developing a rebellious personality, he became very sympathetic to his mother’s difficulties.

From elementary school to high school, she told him not to make friends, as making friends would only affect his studies.

He was very obedient and didn’t get along with anybody.

She told him to come home on time after school and not to stay outside.

Good.

He didn’t linger behind and obediently went back home.

She told him not to watch so much TV or play with the phone or computer. He should read more books when he had time.

Well, he listened to her.

His mother was a very controlling person.

Everything concerning her son must be firmly grasped in her own hands.

He knew that she cared and loved him very much.

Sometimes he felt suffocated and was a little out of breath under her control, but he gritted his teeth and endured it.

When he was in college, he finally lived on campus.

This was his first time living in school.

In the past, he went to school in the daytime and never stayed behind at the request of his mother.

The university he was admitted to at this time was a province away from where he lived.

His mother had a successful career, and it could not continue to be like before, wherever he studied, she moved to be with him.

This time she couldn’t give up the work she had worked so hard for many years. She was very worried about her son living on campus, or renting a piece by himself. Then she learned that her son’s school food and housing were top quality, so she gritted her teeth and decided to let him live on the campus.

Even when she decided on it, she told him to report to her daily about whatever he was doing at school.

From getting up in the morning to before going to bed at night, everything must be reported to her.

He was very good and did as he was told.

In the first semester of college, he found that he fell in love with a boy.

In the second semester of his freshman year, his liking for boys spread like wildfire on campus. Everyone knew about it.

His mother soon found out about it too.

She helped him take leave from school and got him to go to electroshock therapy.

She believed that his sexual orientation was abnormal and pathological.

He knew his nature was different from other people. In the past, he always worried she’d find out about it. He worried she’d be sad, but at this time, he no longer had worries.

After half a month, he was finally released.

Not because he was really “cured”.

He really couldn’t bear the pain of being electrocuted.

When she found out that she liked men and took him home to cure him, he insisted, saying that she couldn’t change it and he also couldn’t control it.

After being sent to electroshock therapy for half a month, he said he had changed and he didn’t like boys anymore.

In the end, she still won.

After he graduated from college, she arranged him a wife.

He had no feelings whatsoever for women and did not want to marry the other party. He tried to convince his mother to wait and not rush him into marriage.

His mother didn’t listen, thinking that he still liked men.

She secretly gave him an aphrodisiac and let the girl sleep with him.

When he woke up, he found that the girl who often came to his house, who his mother wanted him to marry, was in his arms.

And what about his mother?

Sitting on the sofa beside him, watching them.

What else does the original owner not understand?

He understood everything clearly.

He broke the pot 1 and said that he was not cured and that he had always liked men.

The girl who woke up may have already learned something from her mother. She huddled under the blanket and looked at him shyly and with admiration, “It’s okay, I will definitely try my best to make you like me.”

She worked hard for a long time.

More than a year later,  she finally filed for divorce.

He agreed to marry because of responsibility.

After marriage, he treated her very well due to his sense of responsibility.

But the two shared the same bed almost every night and no matter how she teased him, he didn’t react.

Her hope turned into disappointment.

After the divorce, his mother moved in with him.

The original owner returned to the suffocating atmosphere of being controlled.

In his twenty years and so of life, it can be said that the happiest time was actually the time after his marriage and before his divorce.

Maybe because he got married, her mother had less control over him.

But he divorced, and she came again.

The original owner might not suffered so much if there hadn’t been that little room for comparison.

In less than half a month, he couldn’t take it anymore. He struggled and wanted to run away, but his mother told him that she would kill herself if he left her.

The original owner was helpless and desperate.

He didn’t want to continue living this kind of life anymore.

On the second day of the arguing with his mother, he jumped from the roof of his company and ended his young life.

His wish was to completely get rid of his mother’s control and find someone to like and be liked.

The long cue line was shortened a lot, and it will soon be Bai Qiuyi’s turn.

He let out a breath, but he couldn’t get rid of the depression, despair, and suffocation in his heart.

Bai Qiuyi glanced at the person in front of his eyes wearily, feeling unable to understand what the original owner’s mother did.

When she became a mother, she was not strict with her children.

It may be because she had always been doted on by her lover, her character was sometimes even more childish than the child she gave birth to.

So before taking care of the children, sometimes Bai Qiuyi would even reflect on herself, should she be a little bit more mature?

After receiving all kinds of paperwork, Bai Qiuyi carefully avoided the crowd and left the long queue.

His mother was sitting in a row of chairs near the door, holding his luggage.

Before Bai Qiuyi came to her, the woman stood up, “Is it done?”

She was wearing a black long skirt, her hair was pulled high, her neck was slender, and she had put on light makeup.

She had the aura of an assertive woman and the unique charm of an adult woman.

Bai Qiuyi just took a look at her, nodded his head, lowered his eyelids, and silently pulled up the suitcase.

The woman was used to his silence, and she didn’t mind it.

She stretched out her hand, wanting to help him drag the suitcase, “I’ll get it, you look for the way, don’t let you be touched by anyone.” She always remembered that her son was a bit more sensitive than ordinary people.

Although it wouldn’t hurt too much to be touched lightly by someone, maybe there was someone who jumped around and accidentally bumped into her son.

“I’ll hold it,” Bai Qiuyi insisted, “The son enjoys it, but the mother suffers.2”

It’s not that the original owner didn’t like to talk, and it was not that he couldn’t speak, but he was just used to obeying her orders.

If Bai Qiuyi wanted to fulfil the first of his last wishes, he had to begin with small changes.

The translator has something to say: Bai Qiuyi’s pronouns changed from she/her to he/his. Is that alright with you? I think it makes sense. This is the Pilot, of course it’s free!

1.   破罐子破摔 pò guàn zi pò shuāi. “The jar is already broken, and it was broken again.” It is a metaphor that after having shortcomings, mistakes or setbacks, let them go without correction, or intentionally develop in a worse direction.
2. n CN: ”那有兒子享受，母親受累的.” In China, filial piety is the most important virtue. This phrase is a bit like remembering the devoted mother figure and how it’s so easy to forget that work and thrive off a mother’s hard work without being grateful. So MC’s being like “don’t worry, I’ll help you out, don’t let you tire yourself.”