330. The Allure of Journalism
Tao Wanbi's voice trembled violently: "She hugged me and cried, but she didn't say a word to help me. She only said that she couldn't do anything about it. My father had already accepted the betrothal gifts and couldn't return them."
“That man’s family is well-off. If I marry him, I won’t have to suffer. It’s better than studying.”
"She was only trying to do what was best for me, to make me listen and not cause trouble. If things got out of hand, people would laugh at our family."
"I was stunned. I asked her, 'Mom, do you want me to marry him too? Don't you feel bad seeing me marry a man in his forties?'"
She didn't say anything, she just hugged me and cried, but she tacitly approved of my father's behavior.
“She didn’t argue with my dad, didn’t ask the other party to return the betrothal gifts, and even helped my dad keep an eye on me and told me not to run around.”
Tao Wanbi couldn't hold back her sobs any longer: "System, do you think she loves me or not?"
“When I was little, she would protect me and give me the money she saved as living expenses.”
"But why didn't she protect me at this point?"
"How could she just stand by and watch me jump into a fire pit, and then say it's for my own good?"
Although the system was a system, it vaguely realized the root of her pain and confusion.
Tao Wanbi probably always believed that she and her mother were allies who could help and support each other.
But she suddenly realized that it wasn't like that.
Her mother's allies were surprisingly her father and brother.
She was all alone from beginning to end.
She was once her mother.
But now, her mother is her younger brother's mother.
They are a family, but she is not.
The system remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking—
She has feelings for you; she once loved you.
When she slips you change or protects you from your father's beatings, she truly loves you.
But this love was too shallow, too shallow to overcome her fear of your father, her concern for her younger brother, or even her longing for "stability."
She's afraid of your father, afraid he'll beat her because you won't get married.
She cared about her younger brother and feared he would suffer if the 180,000 yuan dowry was no longer available.
She longed for stability, fearing that if trouble arose, she would lose face in the village and her family would fall apart.
Therefore, she can only sacrifice you and persuade you to obey.
It's not that she doesn't love you, it's that her love for you is too little. She values her own security, her younger brother's future, and even the man who hit her—all more than she loves you.
Although she once truly loved you, that love diminished little by little as she gradually sank into the mire.
By the time you mentioned, her feelings for you will be insignificant compared to her feelings for your brother.
"So that's how it is..." Tao Wanbi murmured, as if she had finally let go of something, or as if she felt even emptier.
"To be honest, I was desperate at that time, completely desperate."
"I ran away from home while my mother wasn't looking. I didn't take any clothes or books with me. I ran all the way to the town, and then from the town to the county seat. I didn't dare to look back."
"I have nowhere to go, no school to attend, and no food to eat, so I can only make a living in the county town."
"Later I met a group of kids who were about my age. Some of them were neglected by their families, and some had run away from home after arguing with their families."
"We call each other sisters, rent the cheapest little house together, do odd jobs together, eat five-dollar bowls of noodles at the night market together, and sing and play on the street together."
"People call us 'spiritual girls' or 'hooligans,' look down on us, and think we're good for nothing."
“We have nowhere to go, no school to attend, no decent jobs to find, and we can’t get enough to eat or wear.”
"That sounds terrible, doesn't it?"
"But those were the happiest times of my life."
Tao Wanbi's eyes finally lit up, as if she had recalled those days, and she showed a genuine smile: "No one hit me, no one forced me to get married, no one said I was an outsider, I could go wherever I wanted, and play until as late as I wanted."
"We will take care of each other and rely on each other. We will curse the world together, and then laugh and joke around."
"For the first time, I felt that I wasn't unwanted, and I wasn't someone who could only suffer injustice."
The light quickly dimmed again: "What a pity, happiness is too short-lived."
"Less than six months later, my dad still found me."
"He somehow found out where I lived, and that night, he kicked open the door to our rented apartment and started verbally abusing me. He said he wanted to take me back and marry me."
“I don’t want to go with him, and my friends are also trying to stop me.”
"But my dad didn't care at all. He came up and pushed my friend. A girl was pushed so hard that she hit her head against the wall and bled profusely."
"He even pointed at us and cursed, calling me a 'shameless little bitch, an ungrateful wretch,' and my friends 'a bunch of bastards and whores.' His words were so filthy they sounded like they'd been pulled out of the mud; he used every nasty thing he could think of."
"At first I was scared, my legs were shaking, but when I saw the blood on my friend's forehead, when I saw them rushing to protect me even though they were clearly scared, and when I heard my dad cursing..."
"My fear instantly turned into rage."
"I grabbed his arm and bit him. My friends reacted quickly, pulling his legs and tugging at his arms..."
“A group of us kids were fighting him, an adult.”
"He got angry and raised his hand to hit me, but my friend pulled me away. I grabbed a wooden stick from the side and hit him on the leg."
"With a 'crack,' I heard my bones pop."
"He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his leg and cursing even more fiercely, saying he would call the police to arrest us and put us in jail."
"And I went crazy, hitting him with a stick after a stick, hitting his legs, until he was completely paralyzed on the ground and could no longer curse."
“We were scared too. My friend grabbed me and shouted ‘Run!’ We ran together toward the door, not daring to look back. We ran through alleys and night markets until we reached a deserted place before we dared to stop.”
Tao Wanbi lay back in her chair, looking at the beams of the roof. Her eyes held sadness, confusion, and even more joy: "We ran and laughed, laughing until tears streamed down our faces."
"At that time, I felt like I was... truly free."
【congratulations. 】
The system genuinely acknowledged this.
That was the first time you truly and successfully rebelled against him, the first time you truly and successfully fought for your freedom. You did a great job.
Tao Wanbi stopped laughing; the curve of her lips gradually faded, and her tone became sarcastic: "Congratulations? But do you know what happened next? This matter made the news. Guess how those headlines were written? How were they reported?"
After some thought, the system provided the most objective answer—
The headline will likely be: "Man abuses wife and daughter for years, attempts to arrange marriage; daughter fights back, resulting in disability."
The content will state that your father's behavior was wrong, and that your actions of resisting and hurting him were inappropriate, objectively explaining the cause and effect, right?
"No, that's all wrong."
Tao Wanbi sneered: "Not a single headline mentioned 'abuse,' all of them were directed at me."
"They're all 'The young woman with a mental illness cruelly breaks her father's leg and escapes with thugs,' 'The unfilial daughter brutally attacks her biological father in order to escape from home,' and 'The young woman with a mental illness is persuaded to return home by her father, but she becomes enraged and cripples him before escaping with thugs.'"
"The title repeatedly emphasizes my gender, my lack of filial piety, and my cruelty, clearly stating my crimes as if afraid that others wouldn't know I'm a bad girl."
"The content is even more ridiculous."
"When I wrote about my father, it was all about 'the father raising his daughter with great hardship, only to be betrayed by her' and 'the father, though flawed, was doing it all for his daughter's good, wanting her to have a place to belong'."
"He glossed over the fact that he abused me and my mother, forced me to drop out of school, and forced me to marry a man in his forties."
"They didn't even mention the man's specifics, only saying that 'they found a good family for their daughter.'"
"What is clearly long-term abuse and intentional injury is summarized as trivial 'domestic violence'."
"Finally, they added, 'It is hoped that the girl will wake up soon, go home to admit her mistakes, and support her father.'"
"It's as if I'm the heinous villain, and he's the pitiful victim."
【Why? 】
Why write it this way?
This doesn't align with the core principles of journalism.
The system does not understand.
The three essential elements of journalism are timeliness, authenticity, and communicability. It emphasizes objectivity and truthfulness, aiming to present the full picture of events. How can one so readily take things out of context and distort the truth?
"Just a fleeting moment of fascination for journalism."
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