Parental Qualification Certificate - Chapter 1

In a dark basement, a little girl hung from an iron ring on the ceiling with her hands tied together as cold sweats dripped on her face.

She had short ears, chapped lips, and messy hair. Yet she looked to only be six years old. 

The t-shirt and shorts on her body had been pulled out and tattered by the whip. Her tiny body under the tattered clothes had been crisscrossed with whip marks, which looked terrible.

The basement door, which was wrapped in the soundproof sponge, suddenly yet quietly opened.

Even the slightest noise of the opening door was enough to shock the weak little girl awake. Her head rose toward the direction of the door, and she started to tremble in fear lightly. 

A woman with messy hair and a disheveled dress on stood at the entrance of the basement. She entered the basement aggressively with a whip soaked in water at hand. She then firmly closed the soundproof door. 

The disheveled lady then unhinged and roared, “I don’t believe it! I can’t believe you!” She stared at the little girl with red eyes, enraged. 

The little girl stared in horror at the whip. She bit her lip stubbornly to surpass her urge to say anything. 

The distraught woman got even angrier upon the action and took charging steps towards the helpless girl. She readily raised her whip high as she neared. 

Snap!

The heavy and damp whip lashed out on her. The little girl’s swollen skin allowed blood to leak out instantly.

“Ah!,” the girl barely exclaimed. 

“Why don’t you agree?” The woman asked as she held the whip tighter.

The little girl’s emotions immediately flared. With a hoarse voice, she angrily yelled, “I don’t agree, …don’t agree! You killed dad. I will never forgive you! I will sue you and let you go to jail for life!”

The woman countered and shouted with disappointment, “I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“I just… just pressed him on the saw and hit it a few times, who knew I would touch the switch? Who knew he would…”

‘…would be cut alive.’

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to an end the sentence. Her expression turned from vile to pain and sorrow. 

“Bullshit! You deliberately pressed the switch of the chainsaw! I saw it with my own eyes!” The little girl gasped heavily with tears on her face. “You fought with dad every day, and you used to hit us. He couldn’t stand to be with you anymore and wanted a divorce. He was going to take me with him. You were so bewildered that you deliberately killed my dad so that none of us would leave!” 

Snap! Snap! Snap!

The woman’s eyes were blood-red as the whip in her hand flung wildly. Blood traces were drawn and evident on her daughter’s body. 

“I didn’t mean it! Did you hear that? It was just an accident! An accident!” The woman hollered, almost pleading to be believed. 

She cried while beating the little girl frantically. People might wonder if she was justifying herself or confessing to her crimes.

The little girl’s clothes gradually soaked with blood. The corners of her mouth started to drip with blood, and she was all shaky and sweaty. Her consciousness then began to blur.

She murmured half-consciously, “You kill me. I’ll be with my dad… we… we will never want you…”

Upon hearing her words, the woman stopped whipping. She strangely calmed down from her extreme anger. 

She dropped the whip and ascended the stairs. 

The sound of the basement opening echoed throughout the basement. The horrid woman then, almost magically, pushed in a small medical cabin that was floating in the air. 

The captive woman easily moved it into the basement with an anti-gravity device. The rectangular cabin was only two meters long and one meter wide and high. 

After placing the medical cabin inside, the woman carefully carried then placed her unconscious daughter down into it.

The lid closed, and the powerful healing program ran automatically.

The woman caressed the closed lid, accompanied by an angry look. However, there was a tinge of warmth and even care in her eyes. 

She softly muttered to herself, “I won’t let you die! Even if I have to keep you down here forever. I will always keep you by my side…”

    ——————

The same pale and thin girl with ragged clothes still hung in the basement. Only this time, her dirty and messy short hair had grown just a little past her shoulders.

The woman who was once shabby-looking actually appeared nice.

She had beautifully curled hair, had smoky makeup on, and wore leather pants.

The now gorgeous woman whipped her daughter and said indifferently, “Do you know why no police came to rescue you? Because I told everyone that your dad abandoned me and took you away from home.” A small smirk appeared on her face as she continued, “Now, I am the object of sympathy. Those ‘good-hearted people’ advise me to dress myself up and have fun, don’t live like that … So no one knows that your father is dead and no one knows you are locked up here. “

The little girl did not catch most of what her dreadful mother cockily mentioned as her mind was focused on the pain and tiredness of her body. Yet she murmured instinctively, “I want to go with my dad … I don’t want to be with this bad woman … I will die …”

The smoky woman whispered to her daughter while talking to herself. 

Tired of fighting, she stopped to catch her breath to suddenly cry hysterically and snort, “That man is a liar, didn’t you know?”

She fell sitting on the ground, reminiscing about a painful memory.

“When Su Linsheng proposed to me, vowing to be by my side forever! But after only a mere few years into the marriage, his mind made a 180 degree turn. He didn’t love me anymore! He didn’t love me anymore … he … he doesn’t love me anymore!”

The once calm and kept-together woman now looking destroyed finally bellowed, “That man is a liar! A liar! A liar!”

    ——————

The little girl’s hair had now grown close to her waist.

However, her long hair was no longer messy. It was tied into two neat braids, laying on top of her chest.

She now wore an adult-sized T-shirt that hung onto her like a baggy dress.

Although her eyes were like two empty pit-holes, no matter how long one looked into them, her soul can no longer be found. 

She sat quietly on a small bench, no longer bound to the ceiling. She held a palette in her left hand and a paintbrush in her right. She mechanically smeared paint on the drawing board in front of her.

The colors and lines on the canvas were incomprehensible. But if you look closely, you would feel a very peculiar sense of beauty. 

The soundproof door then pushed open. The woman now with a clean face dressed in plain home-clothes, descended the stairs in with a smile.

She held up a tray with various dishes in her hands.

“A Tan, see what Mom made for you?” The woman said with a proud smile. “There are sweet and sour pork tenderloin, shrimp porridge, and fruits and vegetables. All vegetables are your favorite. But children can’t eat only meat. You have to eat more vegetables, you know?”

She babbled on as an ordinary mother who was helpless in the face of a willful child.

Yet, her little daughter did not respond or acknowledge her words. She only continued to move her brush mindlessly, smudging the canvas.

Unsurprised, the woman did not expect her to answer. She kept the tray on the table next to her daughter, placed a bib around her, and readily took out the spoon. While the mother fed her and talked about her day, the poor girl didn’t look away from the drawing board, nor did the brush in her hand stop. When the spoon came close to her mouth, she would just open her mouth, chew, and swallow. She ate whatever the woman fed her.  

Once the many dishes were fed to the now socially and psychologically-dead child, the woman then combed and groomed the busy little girl’s twisted braid. 

The woman frowned as she looked at her soulless daughter as she continued to paint nonstop. The mother carefully asked, “A Tan, you have been painting for a long time. Can’t you paint it tomorrow?”

The little girl was still unresponsive.

The woman, exhausted, tried to take the brush away. All the emotions rushed back into the daughter’s bloodstream. Strong anger and hatred surged through her as if her prized possession was snatched away. 

“Ahhhhhhhh …” 

The little girl seemed unable to speak anymore. She could only grind her teeth together and yell. She jumped up, reaching to regain her paintbrush. The woman raised her hand, making the brush far from reach. The little girl crushingly hugged the thigh of the woman in the home service angrily and bit it down.

“Oh …” 

The woman took a breath of air and reinforced the paintbrush back.

The little girl snatched her paintbrush possessively, sat back on the chair, and continued painting as if nothing had happened.

The woman rubbed to soothe her bitten thigh, held the now empty tray, and retreated from the basement.

The room turned silent, with only the soft sound of the distorted painting being refined.

    ————————————

White-haired Dr. Song Ning was sitting behind the desk and frowned as she carefully read a holographic projection of a medical diagnosis report.

In 3002 AD, the average life expectancy was 116 years old. The doctor was over a hundred years old. 

After reading the report, Dr. Song, who was already accustomed to seeing the world’s harshness and evil, couldn’t help but sympathize deeply when she read that: “The six-year-old child saw her mother sawing her father’s head open, and was tortured for more than three years. Continuously torturing a severely ill patient… .”

“I have been a psychiatrist for so many years, and for the first time, I encountered such an extreme case!!,” the doctor couldn’t help but exclaim. A young man sat next to the doctor. Lu Xiaozhi, who is a student of Dr. Song, nodded. 

“This child has severe schizophrenia, personality disorder, walking dead syndrome, phobia … I am afraid that it will take about two to six or seven psychiatric operations In order to restore her normal consciousness. “

Dr. Song sighed at the long list. “The disease at a conscious level can be cured. The most troublesome is this-Level 6 Subconscious Trauma Syndrome!” The wise doctor continued to elaborate, “A whole millennium ago, the disease was broadly referred to as the Psychological Shadow. Unfortunately, even if we now have a more accurate definition and classification of it, we still cannot carry out an effective treatment. The existing methods of psychotherapy cannot stimulate deep subconsciousness.”

Her finger pointed to one of the diagnosis results, and she magnified it. It read: “She can only use ‘conscious restraint therapy’ to restrain her subconscious with her own consciousness. Then slowly let the condition heal as time passes. However, the effect was very limited, but side effects were difficult to overcome. Levels 1-3 of latent trauma are relatively light, and it is possible for them to heal completely by this method, but levels 4-6 are too severe to heal at all. If they did not start the medication soon, they would be affected for all their life.” 

Lu Xiaozhi was silent for a while until he remembered one more thing. He was feeling even heavier for the helpless girl’s situation as he stated, “The impact of the ‘Xu Zhenni case of killing a husband and abusing a child’ is too great! Because of this case, the public opinion approval rate of the ‘Parental Qualification Certificate’ system, which has been originally 37%, has soared to 62%. It is very hopeful that this system will be officially adopted by the government.” He continued, “I’ve seen the draft of the qualification assessment method. It includes the” Test of stress resistance. If this system is passed and these assessment methods are passed successfully, it will be impossible for the child to get a Qualification Certificate when she grows up. In other words, she may never have the chance to be a mother …”

Dr. Song nodded and reasoned out, “Because of the disease and its effects, she will also face a lot of tangible and intangible discrimination in employment, dating, marriage, etcetera. If no one helps her, her life will inevitably move towards self-destruction because of social pressure and disease ….”

The room felt as heavy as the chest of the doctor’s, and her apprentice as hope for the girl was fleeting.