Kill the Galaxy

Being born ordinary isn't something to fear. Can a down-and-out police officer find a way forward in a society like this?

After Cao Zhenghe was born, Cao Qingzhong's older sister, Cao Qingfang, came to help look after him for two weeks. Li Jingrong hadn't even finished her postpartum confinement when Cao Qingfang had to leave. Her parents had died young, and she had married and moved to Qincheng. She had a husband and children of her own to care for, so being able to help for two weeks was already a lot.

After her sister-in-law left, Li Jingrong had no one to help her again. She had already fallen out with her family when she married Cao Qingzhong. Both of Li Jingrong's parents were intellectuals, stubborn and proud in their own way. They looked down on Cao Qingzhong, who had dropped out of high school, and thought it was humiliating to marry into a family as vulgar as his.

Li Jingrong was the youngest in her family, and the most headstrong. She stole the household registration booklet, climbed out of a second-floor window, and went to register her marriage to Cao Qingzhong despite spraining her ankle. When she placed the red marriage certificate in front of her parents, her father, who had never lost his temper before, flew into a rage. He slapped Li Jingrong across the face several times, left and right. Her face swelled on the spot. Cao Qingzhong drew her into his arms, heartbroken, and said, "Come on, let's go home, to our own home."

Li Jingrong's ears rang from the blows. She didn't hear her two sisters crying behind her, but she heard her mother's words perfectly clearly.

"Please leave, and don't come back again. We are strangers now."

Li Jingrong was a woman of principle. She never returned to her parents' home. Her two older sisters secretly visited her a few times. Each time, they urged her to come to her senses, go home, and apologize to their parents. As long as she was willing to leave Cao Qingzhong, everything could be worked out.

Li Jingrong listened to them with a smile, then told them she was pregnant and that they were going to be aunts. Her sisters never came again. Later, Li Jingrong heard that one had married a government official, while the other had married one of their father's graduate students.

When Cao Zhenghe was two, Li Jingrong and Cao Qingzhong started a wholesale seafood business. By the time Cao Zhenghe was four, the couple had moved their stall to a larger wholesale seafood market. Their business was especially good that summer. Their two sons played around the market with the children of the other stallholders.

The accident happened on August 5, 1998, at around two in the afternoon. Cao Zhengxing brought Cao Zhenghe over and asked Cao Qingzhong if they could go play in the Tobacco Bureau residential compound across the road. At the time, Cao Qingzhong had his mind entirely on the big basket of shrimp in front of him. A couple of days earlier, he'd finally gotten in touch with a restaurant owner. After much persuasion, the man had agreed to come try his goods. They'd agreed to meet at half past twelve, but the man still hadn't shown up.

He was fuming, his eyes never leaving the shrimp. He waved Cao Zhengxing away and said, "Go ask your mother."

Cao Zhengxing went over and tugged at Li Jingrong's sleeve. She was arguing with a middle-aged woman who was haggling over the price, and the two of them were spitting as they shouted. Cao Zhengxing asked several times, but Li Jingrong may have misheard him, or perhaps hadn't heard him at all. According to her memory, she'd said, "All right, just this once." She thought she'd said it to the customer haggling over the price, but Cao Zhengxing thought his mother was speaking to him. The eight-year-old took his younger brother and went to the Tobacco Bureau residential compound across the road.

Theme: An inspirational story.