Killing Marriage [ABO] - Chapter 20
Chapter 20; Leakage
Humanity is dangerous, easily becoming lost in gentleness and affection.
In the early morning, Ren Zhong lay flat on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
He felt an imperceptible danger quietly eroding his spirit.
That “danger” carried a wonderful, warm scent of chamomile.
Ren Zhong knew he really liked Zhang Qingyuan’s pheromones.
His biological instincts told him that the owner of this scent had a healthy body, abundant strength, hygienic habits, excellent genes, and outstanding abilities…
In short, everything about the pheromones told Ren Zhong that this person was compatible with him, even a “match made in heaven.”
“No wonder the pheromone match rate was so high,” Ren Zhong mumbled.
The forced-matching system’s quick approval of their marriage application was also due to their high genetic compatibility. If they were to have children as required, there was a high probability of them having healthy, high-IQ offspring.
The current situation was not good for Ren Zhong.
His military life had given him very light sleep; any slight disturbance would wake him instantly. Aside from his early childhood with his parents, this was the first time he had ever fallen asleep on someone else’s back and slept through until the next morning.
His instincts made him trust and feel close to Zhang Qingyuan, and the other man’s actions had unconsciously made him lower his guard.
Now, he was actually feeling a slight, almost imperceptible sense of loneliness because he couldn’t smell Zhang Qingyuan’s pheromones.
Loneliness…
LONELINESS?!
Ren Zhong instantly bolted upright from the bed, slapping his cheeks hard with both hands to snap himself out of it.
He had received professional training; he wouldn’t be easily swayed by pheromones.
Absolutely not!
After his morning workout and shower, the smell of food wafted to Ren Zhong’s nose.
He took the elevator down to the first-floor dining room and saw Zhang Qingyuan and Mi Li.
“Where are her parents?” Ren Zhong gestured toward Mi Li with his chin.
Zhang Qingyuan took off his warm-colored apron. “They went out for something last night and only came back this morning. They’re still asleep and probably won’t wake up until noon or later.”
The breakfast was very abundant. Half of it was made by Zhang Qingyuan himself, and the other half was local specialty breakfast he bought with Mi Li. This combination allowed everyone to try the local cuisine while also ensuring there was something to eat in case the new foods were a bad choice.
He was remarkably virtuous and unusually considerate.
Ren Zhong buried his head in his food, eating so fast it was like a pig gobbling down ginseng fruit, making one wonder if he even knew what he was tasting.
To be honest, he was afraid that if he actually tasted it, it would shake his resolve.
After sending Mi Li off to her video piano lesson, Ren Zhong stayed behind to help Zhang Qingyuan clear the table.
“The Captain can do this too?” Zhang Qingyuan raised an eyebrow, not hiding the playful tone in his voice.
Ren Zhong had been lazy while recovering, leaving all household chores to Zhang Qingyuan. Feeling guilty, he continued to clear the table, only saying, “Doing chores is a required course in the military. Why wouldn’t I know how to do it?”
“Chores? This is ‘housework,’ not ‘chores.’ There’s a big difference!” Zhang Qingyuan laughed at him. “Folding a blanket into a tofu block is chores. Spreading it out softly, covering it with a bed runner, and piling up throw pillows is housework. Yours is organized, disciplined, and just a ‘get-by,’ not ‘life’ at all.”
Ren Zhong, who never paid much attention to those superficial details, replied dismissively, “Right, right, you’re the one who knows how to live.”
With that, he closed the dishwasher and pushed his manual wheelchair, ready to make a quick escape from the kitchen.
“Wait! Don’t run off yet.” Zhang Qingyuan grabbed the wheelchair. “I have something to tell you.”
He leaned in close to Ren Zhong’s ear and lowered his voice. “Mi Tong is having some health issues and needs a few days of bed rest. They’ve already requested leave from the Marriage Monitoring Center. We originally planned to leave for the next city tomorrow, but it looks like we can’t go anymore.”
“Then let’s just stay by the sea. We can just extend the house rental for a few more days.” Ren Zhong didn’t really care about the honeymoon anyway. Staying in one place was the same as another; leaving or staying made no difference to him.
Zhang Qingyuan cleared his throat again. “After talking to Sister Liwei, I just remembered… ahem, we’ve been married for two months now.”
“So?” Ren Zhong didn’t understand what the other man was trying to hint at.
Facing his innocent-looking and righteous spouse, there were moments when Zhang Qingyuan was so speechless he questioned his life choices.
“It’s the second month. If we don’t ‘turn in our grain,’ the AI idiot will report us, and you won’t be able to go back to the military,” Zhang Qingyuan briefly looked away, revealing the whites of his eyes. “I’m not expecting you to be sentimental about anniversaries, but we still have to submit a video, don’t we?”
Ren Zhong suddenly realized. “Oh, that’s what you mean. I completely forgot about that.”
Then, he said bluntly, “Faking it for the AI is easy. We just need to practice a bit, and we can shoot something later.”
Seeing his attitude, Zhang Qingyuan decided to just be direct.
“The AI monitoring system had another upgrade recently. From now on, hickeys made by mini cupping glasses will be detected as fake because their shape is too regular. They won’t count. You’ll have to pinch yourself during the recording tonight.”
Ren Zhong said “Got it,” and casually took his phone from the table before leaving.
Suddenly, another phone on the table began to vibrate and ring.
“It’s me! It’s me! It’s your dearest little sister!”
Ren Zhong believed that the military songs he’d shouted during drills were the most off-key singing in the world.
That was until he heard Zhang Qingyuan’s special ringtone.
“It’s me! It’s me! It’s your dearest little sister!”
Zhang Qingyuan was also ashamed of his sister’s awful singing and quickly answered the phone.
“Zhang Junyi.” He turned his embarrassment into anger, calling her by her full name. “You know we’re on our honeymoon. Don’t bother us unless it’s very important!”
The voice on the other end immediately replied, “It’s very important, very important, extremely important!”
She spoke quickly. “Someone on the dark web is likely selling real videos of couples’ intimate lives. And the video data was leaked from the AI video scoring equipment distributed by the Marriage Monitoring Center!”
Ren Zhong’s wheelchair stopped at the door.
He quietly reversed back and perked up an ear.
Zhang Qingyuan didn’t try to hide it from Ren Zhong. Instead, he turned up the phone’s volume and moved closer.
“Are you sure they’re real intimate videos, and not the kind of fetish porn that was reported in the news before?” Zhang Qingyuan asked.
His sister, Zhang Junyi, was very certain. “This time it’s real. I went undercover as a buyer and got the source. I’ve watched it. It’s real. Brother, you’ll know when you see it.”
The video was sent over quickly.
Before clicking play, Zhang Qingyuan’s hand moved to the play button several times and then moved away. He was clearly hesitant.
“Lower the screen a bit,” Ren Zhong beckoned to him. “This is for work.”
Zhang Qingyuan quickly agreed. “Right, we’re doing this for work. We definitely won’t be looking at it with any bias!”
With a beating heart and trembling hands, he clicked on the video.
In a certain bedroom, a couple in swimsuits were dancing a hula, shaking silicone fake br3asts and a fake p3nis.
To the background music filled with the scent of coconut, sea breeze, and hot waves, the legally married couple performed a completely different style of dance.
The husband twirled the fake br3asts like a folk dance handkerchief, his head bobbing along with his feet.
The wife waved the fake p3nis like a conductor’s baton, even showing the camera its “bendy but not breakable” flexibility.
Ren Zhong: “…”
Zhang Qingyuan: “…”
The couple was clearly reading from a script. They were loudly speaking a string of censored keywords to the dynamic music.
Zhang Qingyuan was mentally prepared, but not for this specific situation.
He was dumbfounded. “How… how does this vocabulary sound so familiar?”
“That’s the exact same vocabulary we used last month,” Ren Zhong said, much calmer than Zhang Qingyuan, even having the leisure to complain. “So that manual for deceiving the AI was really a case of ‘everyone enjoying the fruits of everyone’s wisdom,’ huh?”
In short, the content of this video was so wholesome and clean that with a little censoring and a change of background music, it could pass the review of any website.
However, this bizarre video was likely a real recording submitted to the Marriage Monitoring Center.
Even couples with a good relationship might not be willing to engage in intimacy on camera like it’s a task. Since matched couples had no emotional foundation, many people used this method to get past the AI review.
Zhang Junyi, using an account that couldn’t be traced to her, purchased the highest-tier membership to unlock the entire website and shared the account with Zhang Qingyuan.
“Brother, let me put it this way—as long as something is connected to the internet, there’s no such thing as absolute security.”
Once any device is connected to the internet, there is a possibility of information leaks.
Everyone had no privacy in the face of big data. Names, phone numbers, ID information, jobs, relationships, and financial status were nothing. Now, even their private lives were exposed.
And this camera was something people installed themselves.
The illegal dark web page was filled with recommended videos of couples’ intimate lives. The homepage had clear sections, labeling and selling the privacy of ordinary people.
The recommended section for today was “Uniforms.”
Here, sacred professions like soldiers, police officers, and firefighters lost their original dignity and meaning. Their personal lives, combined with leaked personal information, became sexual symbols for people to fantasize about, entertain themselves with, and wantonly insult.
“Wait a minute!” Ren Zhong pointed to the cover of one video. “Check this out.”
Zhang Qingyuan clicked on the video.
In less than a second, a gut-wrenching scream made the phone’s speaker tremble.
The sound was like a laboratory rabbit being disemboweled alive, like a stray cat scalded with boiling water, like an elephant being stripped of its ivory and hide, or a rhino having its horn hacked off while still alive.
It was anything but human.
The two protagonists in the video no longer resembled human beings.
One had lost their humanity, and the other had lost their personhood.
Zhang Qingyuan’s face turned pale. He turned away, unwilling to watch this “legal” crime scene, and even less willing to face the disgusting comments section.
His hand was shaking, almost unable to hold the phone.
“That boy…”
Ren Zhong’s voice choked.
“That Omega boy used to be an administrative officer in the military. He was kicked out of the military not long after he got married… because he always stayed in the military and didn’t want to go home, delaying the submission of his videos too many times…”
An AI that could distinguish a hickey from a bruise and issue a warning was completely blind to a scene of bl00d and gore.
It was as if once the “family door” was closed, all violence and crime were implicitly condoned.