If You Dare To Marry Me, Then I Do Too - Chapter 1

A blind cat meets a dead mouse

***

Meeting Mumu was, to say it in a good way, like fate. If you put it in a different way, it was like a blind cat meeting a dead mouse[1].

Of course, I’m the blind cat and Mumu is the dead mouse…

That day, there was another power outage and the house was so cold it made me shiver.

Damn it, it really made me want to carry a few *** and blow up the electrical power station to the sky. It was too depressing. A power outage in summer, then another in winter. The air conditioner ends up being a decoration placed at home. How could people live like that?

My anger came back again, but the electricity did not.

There was nothing else to do but to get into bed, wrap the quilt around my body and shamelessly lie on the bed all day long. Even if I became sore all over, it was better than sitting on a cold bench.

Unfortunately, my stomach was not up to the task. At 11 am, my stomach already felt like it was being scratched by countless cats. “Gudoong gudoong,” I tried chanting loudly to use the empty city stratagem[2].

But I was already so hungry!

I tried getting out of the quilt several times to find  something to eat but I was forced back by the cold air outside as soon as I popped my head out.

Oh come on, starving to death is a small matter but freezing to death is a big deal! This young woman is determined to stay here, hang in there!

In order to divert my attention from hunger, I took out my cell phone and looked for numbers to send short messages. The content of the messages was extremely boring and abnormal.

Hey, I’m suffering right now so I’ll make you feel the same. I’ll let you know that making me your friend was a bad mistake! Send send send!

“Damn this girl, are you busy doing nothing again? Miss Luo, please, I’m meeting a client! You don’t want me to be fired by my boss and live in your house now, do you?” The sweet ringtone of my mobile phone rang, then a series of violent bombardments of a bitch cursing hit my eardrums.

“I say, Sese, you go ahead and let your boss who sucks you dry every month fire you! It’s not worth it! It’s better to find a man with money and gain a lifelong meal ticket[3], you don’t even have to work hard!” I snickered.

“Go away, you’re too old to get married yet you have the nerve to make fun of me. Shame on you, ah? I have to go now, okay? The client’s coming, bye!” Sese said a few words, then hurriedly hung up the phone.

Who says I can’t get married? I’m smart, vivacious, adorable, and calm like a virgin! My beauty is universally appealing! This miss Luoluo here is the kind of female protagonist that every male waits upon from the north to south of Changsha, rather, they should be lined up from Changsha City to Xiangtan City!

But I’m just too lazy to get married. I’m already living my life to the fullest, I don’t need another mouth to feed. So why should I get married to suffer?

This damned Sese. Not only is she boring to talk to, she even dared to insult me! Hmph, I don’t like you at all!

I pressed the key of my phone and looked at the ceiling in a daze.

My handsome fated man, my true love, where the hell are you now anyway? When are you going to jump in my world and let me see you?

Though I said hooray to being single, I’d still feel sorry for my ancestors if I keep living the independent life you know? As the saying goes, ‘There are three ways to be unfilial, having no sons is the worst’.

So when will my prince charming come pick me up with a big, strong water buffalo[4]?!

Now I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about it.

I’ve been lying in bed for a while now. My stomach has been screaming ferociously non stop. I  feel really hungry. I tried to distract myself by texting, listening to music, playing mobile games and singing lullabies. I’ve tried everything, but it’s useless.

There seems to be an invisible hand  brutally squeezing  my stomach. If I don’t eat, I’ll be killed!

Huhuhu, I have no choice but to make up my mind. With a “hu!”, I threw off the quilt, gritted my teeth and got up.

I ran into the kitchen, turned on the gas stove, warmed up some fresh milk and bread, put on some leather gloves and washed a large potato under the cold faucet then heated it in a pot of boiling water.

This is my very own home-made breakfast, which is basically the same everyday with a few variations. The fresh milk and fruits are indispensable though.

Because of this, Mumu once joked that I am an elegant woman who knows how to enjoy life and that it is one of the biggest reasons why he decided to marry me. He said that he liked my indifference to the sense of honor and shame, and my way of living a simple and detached leisure life!

Nevertheless even after eating breakfast, I still felt cold. I really want to climb to the gas stove and feel the warmth from the fire but I’m afraid my mother will scold me for wasting the gas resources of our motherland.

With a thick blanket wrapped around me as a cloak, I lay down on the table and started to write a manuscript to pass time. But although I was wearing two pairs of gloves, my fingers became  so stiff that I couldn’t even hold a pen at all.

I don’t know why I don’t like the cold. Maybe it has something to do with my ultra low blood pressure. The young doctor who looks like a gorilla in the public hospital said that people with ultra low blood pressure wouldn’t like the cold.

At the time, I just thought he was threatening me but now it seems that what the gorilla said is right.

Ugh! This life is so hard! I have to find a way to find a dragon’s liver and phoenix’s gall to make a tonic out of it!

I walked around the living room draped in a blanket. Feeling bored, I decided to run downstairs to ask the doorman when we will get a message regarding the outage.  He said that it wouldn’t be available until after eight o’clock in the evening.

When I heard this, I almost collapsed. On such a cold day without heating, isn’t this just a way to kill me?

In the midst of this helplessness, I might as well jump on the bus to Hexi, or look around the city to see the hustle and bustle!

I haven’t been to Yingwanzhen for a long time. The road has been widened, there are more flowers planted, a big supermarket has been built, and the shop next to it has been renovated so much and looks so beautiful that I almost wonder if this is still the original Yingwanzhen.

The wind felt bitterly cold outside. I hunched down my neck and slipped into the mall.

The heating inside the mall was on. It was warm, the same as the feeling you get when a beautiful spring has just arrived.

I walked around leisurely as I heard the sound of soothing music. I was dazzled and could not help but drool at the wide variety of goods offered inside.

In order to kill time until night time, I turned to the stationery section and casually found a novel to read.

I don’t remember now the title of the book but it was probably about a dragon and phoenix romantic tragedy. It’s a young adult book for females, kind of okay for my taste.

It’s a pity that I’ve formed a habit of reading wuxia novels at the speed of light since I was a child, so I finished reading after a while. I looked for another novel but the book covers weren’t interesting, then I looked at the first lines but they were also boring.

I took out my phone and looked at the time. 2 o’clock. I needed to waste another 6 hours until I could go home. Gods and ghosts of the world, come save me!

It seems like that the supermarket I used to go to didn’t survive. I remember I often went to the Central South University two years ago where there was a northeastern style dumpling house. The food was not bad, it was cheap and affordable. I’d always want to eat there though I’m not sure if it’s still there.

I couldn’t help but swallow a mouthful of saliva at the thought of food, my throat making a ‘cooing’ sound.

With my head tucked into my coat and hat, I stood hunched down under the bus stop and waited for the bus. I waited for a long time but nothing came.

It’s really cold. I needed to put my palm on my mouth to breathe and feel some warmth or I’d feel too cold. I pulled my hat down hard, looked around and saw an internet cafe not far away.

Forget it. I don’t wanna eat dumplings anymore, I’d rather do online shopping.

I entered a few familiar forums and posted a few posts indiscriminately. I didn’t see any familiar IDs and couldn’t be interested in fighting with strangers.

I went to ‘The9′[5] to sell noodles, but only sold less than a hundred taels of silver after half a day. Such bad luck. Then I went to rescue some prisoners but got caught instead and now the system told me that I’ll be beheaded tomorrow.

Damn it, why am I so unlucky?! Did I run into an evil god today?!

I grimaced and wanted to cry without tears. There was a guy sitting next to me, leering at me and laughing silently with his mouth agape.

I rolled my eyes at him and glared, then stared foolishly at the monitor. I didn’t know what else to play. I was very depressed. I never thought that surfing the internet would be this boring!

As I felt bored, I looked at his profile and saw his avatar looking gray and empty. He must have made his account to look at flowers and buy some willows[6]. Well, he looked like a nymphomaniac. He might be searching for some beautiful MM[7] foolishly playing northwest wind[8] on the street.

I pursed my lips as I quietly snickered and imagined.

After being silly by myself for a while, I created a new *** account and used “Blind Cat” as a username. I used a picture of a woman wearing sunglasses as the profile picture.

I logged in to my new *** account and waited. Hehehe. Let’s see which mouse would bump into me.

With a smirk on my lips, I leaned comfortably against the back of my chair as I stared lazily at the monitor and waited patiently.

After waiting for 38 minutes and 25 seconds, a ‘mouse’ finally knocked on the door!

When I looked at this ‘mouse’, his username really was ‘dead mouse’! Hahaha!

However, I wasn’t aware that fate had already inexplicably entangled me with this dead mouse at that moment.

—

Footnotes:

[1] A metaphor for having great luck by chance; like when a blind cat comes across an already dead mouse, then that cat is considered one lucky cat

[2] To put up a bluff

[3] Basically means to have someone to provide for all your needs

[4] So there’s like this thing where a bride gets picked up by a water buffalo inspired by an ancient legend in China

[5] A Shanghai based online game operator

[6] Visit or look some prostitute

[7] A girl

[8] A style of music which emerged on the popular music scene in mainland China

*** – Author left it as blank