After Being Deceived, I Married Someone Else and Had Children Chapter 15

His mother, who had abandoned him, wanted to come see him?

Zuo Shihuan let out a cold laugh, his gaze dark and heavy: “It’s because I finally became the Alpha son she always dreamed of, isn’t it.”

His mother was a stunningly beautiful woman—so beautiful she seemed like a ghost that sucked his blood, flesh, and marrow dry.

Sometimes, when numb, Zuo Shihuan would think—

If she hadn’t, in his twelfth year, stolen all their money and abandoned him in the most degenerate slums of the lower city districts, perhaps he wouldn’t have survived.

Either he would have sunk with her into the mire, or exhausted himself entangled with her until death.

His father, Zuo Zoujian, said guiltily: “That’s not exactly true. Your mother regrets it. All these years she’s kept the mecha model toy you wanted so badly back then. She always regretted abandoning you, but she couldn’t find you again.”

Zuo Shihuan’s gaze grew complicated, his heart full of bitter irony as he looked at his father.

Yet in his mind, as his father spoke for his mother, rose images of a chaotic home, wine bottles strewn everywhere, and a decadent, beautiful woman cursing and railing against the old man who had abandoned her.

If cursing a hundred times could drag someone to h*ll, Zuo Zoujian would already be trapped in the eighteenth level, never to rise again.

His father continued: “All these years, she’s been deeply regretful, desperate to make amends. She truly wants to see you.”

Zuo Shihuan’s pupils shrank suddenly, bitterness laced with mockery rising within him.

He had thought she would never want to see him again.

Because he had once been a Beta—not the Beta she wanted.

Before the age of five—

He hadn’t lived in the slums of the lower city district. He lived in a house with his mother, a carefree life.

Though he never knew what his father looked like, whenever his mother painted on exquisite makeup, put on long gowns she forbade him from touching, and an expensive car pulled up at the door to take her away— locked at home, he would press against the window, watching his mother go in that mysterious direction. He knew she was going to see the father he had never once met.

As a child, Zuo Shihuan was delicate and sensitive, always observing carefully.

The neighbors’ gossip, the way his mother sometimes flirted on the phone, the fact that no one in the family worked yet his mother’s extravagant spending on luxury goods never ceased, and the occasional vague descriptions from their old maid about “that man.”

Zuo Shihuan realized something was wrong with his family.

His mother was a kept mistress. His father, a wealthy married man. And he—a b*stard born of their twisted, sordid affair.

Had such a life continued, he too might have become a muddle-headed illegitimate son, just like the other b*stards his father kept outside.

No inheritance rights, raised outside the Zuo household unacknowledged.

A b*stard son occasionally thrown some money by the Zuo family, living aimlessly in idle comfort.

But his mother’s ambition was far from ordinary.

When he was five, she took him to a strange place, blindfolding him.

But his face was small; the blindfold couldn’t cover completely. He sneaked a peek—

And saw several deformed monsters locked in a cage.

They looked like the zerg villains from cartoons.

But they were dressed in human clothes.

At that young age, he wasn’t afraid. Instead, he was curious, as though watching those cartoon villains.

But soon he couldn’t see anymore.

He was injected with anesthesia, placed on a cold operating table.

Through the haze, he heard his mother’s voice, and a deep, elegant man’s voice say: “He will become an Alpha.”

“Then why, when I secretly had the hospital test him, did the genetic analysis say he would differentiate into a Beta? I heard of your reputation in the black market, all the surgeries you’ve done—Doctor, surely you can make my son one hundred percent into an Alpha!”

“Relax, madam. He will become an Alpha. Only, there is a defect in his genes. He cannot properly differentiate as an Alpha, but rather a half-finished Alpha disguised as a Beta.”

“That’s absolutely unacceptable! Such a defective Alpha, that old man will never acknowledge him! That old man is always surrounded by younger, prettier Omegas, visiting me less and less. If this continues, he’ll discard me sooner or later. I refuse to return to the days without money…”

The mother cried out in desperation, clutching the man’s hand: “That old man is filthy rich, he only lacks an Alpha heir! Doctor, please, make my son into an Alpha. No matter how much money it takes, I’ll pay you. If it’s not enough, I’ll keep paying you in the future.”

Her grip tore off the man’s glove, revealing a hideous scar running from his wrist to the base of his thumb—a detail that the not-fully-anesthetized young Zuo Shihuan caught sight of.

The man coldly shook her off, his voice chilling: “The operation can be done, but there are risks. Don’t blame me for not warning you.”

The mother hesitated. “Just how dangerous?”

The man replied perfunctorily: “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it on such a young child. A genetically defective Alpha will stall in the differentiation stage—without differentiating, he’d just remain an ordinary Beta, which might actually be much safer than forcing an Alpha differentiation. Forcing him into Alpha could be far more dangerous—even fatal.”

“If you insist on the surgery, the deposit will not be refunded.”

“…I’m certain.”

“Being a Beta is useless.”

“Then prepare for surgery. You can stay and watch, or wait outside.”

“…I’ll stay. I’ll watch him the whole time.”

The young Zuo Shihuan quietly closed his eyes.

Since this was what his mother wanted, he would try his best to satisfy her. As long as she would stay by his side, that was enough.

When he woke up—

He was back in their familiar home.

For the next few days, his mother treated him with unusual tenderness, even took him to an amusement park, and bought so many stuffed toys that he could barely carry them home.

But just as they were about to reach the door,

She suddenly asked if he remembered that day. Then, nervously, she lied, saying she had only taken him to a doctor’s appointment to check his health, and he mustn’t tell anyone.

The young Zuo Shihuan, with a naïve, innocent smile, said he remembered nothing.

His mother smiled in satisfaction.

The little boy held her hand, hugging so many plush toys that they almost covered his whole face. With his back to her, his once-innocent eyes became clear and mature in an instant.

In his heart he thought:

Just pretend nothing ever happened.

From the moment the anesthesia entered his body, everything afterward had ceased to exist.

Right after his fifth birthday—

His mother received a call, her brows and eyes lighting up with joy. She happily told little Zuo Shihuan he didn’t need to go to school that day.

Someone from his father’s side would come to take him for an examination.

Indeed, a stern, sharp-faced old butler came and brought him to a private hospital.

The Zuo family’s private hospital had little fame on the outside, appearing very low-profile, but every doctor inside was a top talent in the field, many poached from the Federation’s top three hospitals on the capital star.

By age five, children were usually developed enough for genetic testing, to determine their likelihood of differentiating into Alpha, Beta, or Omega.

Zuo Shihuan remembered how anxious his mother was then, yet her eyes brimmed with confidence, waiting expectantly for the results.

As if she believed firmly that he could only become an Alpha—no other possibility.

But the final result was: probability of differentiating into Beta—91.23%.

Which meant he had almost no chance of becoming an Alpha.

His mother could not believe it. She broke down crying on the spot, devastated.

The young Zuo Shihuan tried frantically to comfort her, but was shoved away coldly and violently. She rushed to the butler, begging desperately for another chance.

Let her see the father again, let her have another child—this time, she promised, it would be an Alpha!

Zuo Shihuan sat stunned on the ground, confused, watching his mother kneel and tug at the butler’s sleeve—only for the butler to wave his attendants to drag her off, then brush imaginary dust from his arm with disdain.

His condescending gaze looked down on them as if they were worthless trash.

The little boy clenched his fists.

He didn’t understand what was so great about being an Alpha.

He stubbornly tried to pull his mother up, only to be pushed away by her again.

The butler, lofty and cold, told her to behave herself—that the master was already tired of her. She should know her place and stop clinging. He left behind a bank card, saying it was enough for mother and son to live on for several years, and that the house would also be left to them, before leaving indifferently.

His mother, seeing the balance on that card—barely enough to cover a year’s worth of her luxury spending—was instantly consumed with rage. Her expression turned dark and mad as she gripped Zuo Shihuan’s arms hard, hissing: “Why aren’t you an Alpha? Why?!”

The boy endured the pain of her grip, but with worry and courage said: “Mother, what is an Alpha? If you want me to be one, I’ll work hard to become it.”

Her black hair hung in disarray, her gloomy cold gaze boring into her own son as she said: “Alpha are above all others. Only if you are Alpha can I return to high society. But you—you’re a lowly, worthless Beta!”

The words Alpha, Beta echoed again and again in his mind.

With tears in his eyes, the boy stubbornly met her icy gaze and said: “So what if I’m a Beta? I’ll still work hard to make sure you live a good life, Mother!”

She sneered: “What kind of good life can a Beta have? To the upper class, you’re nothing but short-lived ants. No matter how well you live, you’ll never escape some little backwater.”

She tilted her head back to the sky, her eyes full of bitterness and vague longing, as though reminiscing about the beauty of the high society she once knew.

Her name was Yu Cha. She had originally been born into a comfortable middle-class Beta family. But after her Alpha father died, her household instantly lost its financial support. Her greedy second uncle drove her and her siblings out of the house, her Omega younger sister sold off in a marriage transaction, and the useless Betas were tossed out like garbage to fend for themselves.

It was only thanks to her somewhat pretty looks and cunning that, through an intermediary, she managed to latch onto Zuo Shihuan’s father.

At that time, she didn’t even know who that old man really was.

She only knew that the old man was rich—ten thousand times richer than her previous small family—and it was said that his health had always been poor. Despite his vast clan, he had no Alpha heir to inherit his fortune.

This was her chance. She even went so far as to buy, on the black market, contraband drugs said to be able to alter gender.

Even if she was a Beta, there would still be a sliver of a chance she could give birth to an Alpha child. Then she could soar into the heavens in one step, never again forced to live the life of a low-class Beta.

But she failed.

She gave birth to a Beta. A useless Beta.

The Zuo family left her a sum of money, but for someone who had only just begun to live a life of luxury, the contrast was unbearable—it was far from enough to spend.

She could not accept returning to the exhausting, toilsome life she once knew, eventually marrying some mediocre man, bearing a pile of mediocre children, and sinking into the fate of a yellow-faced woman chained to endless housework.

So—

She sold the house, flitted from bar to banquet, scheming to hook another high-class Alpha.

The young Zuo Shihuan watched as his mother changed day by day. They moved out of the once warm and cozy home, dismissed the nanny, and ended up in a tiny apartment of less than fifty square meters. She shuttled endlessly between social gatherings, and eventually fell into alcoholism.

She neglected little Zuo Shihuan, leaving him alone at home, returning drunk late into the night.

This forced him to mature early—learning to do housework, to take care of himself and his mother.

Even when woken in the middle of the night, he would climb out of bed, prepare hot towels for her, boil egg soup to help her sober up, and tend to his utterly inebriated mother.

Life suddenly grew hard.

His drunken, raving mother would always point at him, cursing why he was nothing but a worthless Beta.

Yet young Zuo Shihuan still clung to his mother with deep attachment and dependence.

Every morning he made breakfast, and when he sat across the same table eating with her, he would steal glances at her hungover, haggard face. She, with her splitting headache, would press her forehead, quietly sipping porridge or noodles.

With each mouthful she took, he followed carefully, secretly delighted simply because they were together.

The orange glow of the lamp lit the dining table. Underneath, his little legs swung happily, the chair squeaking. His mother, gaunt and cold-faced, remained silent as the metallic spoon clinked in the bowl. And yet, in that quiet, the meal was wrapped in a strange warmth, almost like a normal family’s peace.

For the young Zuo Shihuan, this was enough to fill him with contentment.

But such days didn’t last.

His mother was swindled by a man claiming to be a noble Alpha—she was cheated out of everything. Worse, she fell into the addiction of forbidden drugs. She sold off all her jewelry, luxury goods, and fine clothes for cheap, and in the end, they were driven into the slums.

Even rent had to be paid with the money Zuo Shihuan saved up himself, just so they could have a place to stay.

Her mind clouded, she would rummage through the house whenever her addiction struck, stealing the money he had painstakingly earned to buy her contraband.

That money was earned at the cost of great hardship. Zuo Shihuan risked radiation poisoning by scavenging for usable mechanical scraps in junkyards, selling them to recycling shopkeepers.

But it was never enough to satisfy his mother’s needs.

So Zuo Shihuan began to teach himself mechanics. He disassembled discarded robots, appliances, and small weapons, learning to analyze their internal structures, to reassemble, dismantle, and repair.

In his eyes, even the most complicated machines became as transparent as a fish, its skeleton clear and plain. Later, he no longer limited himself to selling spare parts—he began repairing machines himself, earning far more than before.

He believed that even in the slums, he could give his mother a good life.

For this, he saved diligently, arranging their home to be warm and cozy.

He hoped she wouldn’t keep running outside, that she would someday quit her addiction, and return to the peaceful days when it was just the two of them, before his father ever appeared.

Zuo Shihuan resolved to hide the money carefully.

Deprived of cash, his mother turned the house upside down searching.

Every night, when he came home late and saw the chaos, saw his mother screaming and demanding money, he would silently tuck away his disheartened expression.

He would climb onto a stool in the kitchen, tiptoeing to cook for her.

But in her rage, enslaved by her addiction, she overturned the dining table. Dishes and soup spilled everywhere, her once-beautiful face now twisted and feral. She glared at him and demanded to know where he had hidden the money.

Frowning, little Zuo Shihuan said nothing, pressing his palm against his chest—beneath it, a hidden pocket bulged with the money he had kept safe.

Late that night—

The living room rang with his mother’s wretched, tormented sobs.

Curled in the corner of his bed, Zuo Shihuan hugged the money to his chest, too afraid to even remove his clothes, his little body trembling with despair.

He prayed silently: just a little more, if he could save just a little more, he could take his mother away from here.

Clinging to that fragile hope for the future, he drifted into sleep.

Until one night—

He woke from a nightmare, drenched in cold sweat. His eyes darted in panic, sensing something eerie in the silence of the house.

He hurried out of his room—

And saw a nightmare that would be etched in his memory for life.

Wine bottles shattered, glass littered the floor. Potted plants ripped out with soil still clinging to their roots. Streaks of red smeared the ground, as though it had rained blood inside the house. Her feet, skin-and-bone, were shredded open by glass.

Looking up—

His mother lay in a pool of blood, clutching a long, sharp shard of glass that pierced her palm. Her sickly pale face twisted, red lips twitching, emaciated body convulsing. And the look in her eyes, turned sideways toward him—brimming with hostility and hate.

As if they weren’t mother and son at all, but mortal enemies.

He rushed her to the hospital. Every last federation coin he had saved was spent.

But in his mind, what repeated again and again was only her look—that hateful gaze.

It left him pale, numb, trembling for reasons he could not explain, his small face frozen in shock.

Only after paying the bill, when the doctor told him she was out of danger, did the tears finally fall.

From then on, he followed the doctor’s advice and helped his mother quit her drug addiction.

He locked her in the house, giving her only the necessary water and food each day. Without access to illegal drugs, she became hysterical during withdrawal, like a madwoman cursing and hating Zuo Shihuan outside the door, and that old man father he had never met.

Every night, only after his mother fell asleep, would Zuo Shihuan sneak in to take away the dishes, quietly wiping his tears.

Even though his mother grew to hate him more and more, he had no choice.

He and his mother relied on each other for survival—she was his only family. He could never just let her waste away day by day. He hated most those wicked people who sold her drugs!

Clenching his teeth, Zuo Shihuan resolved that one day he would become a federal security officer and arrest every last one of those bad people who ruined his mother.

The withdrawal treatment lasted six months.

His mother was clean at last. Lying on the bed, she was much thinner than before, her eye sockets sunken, but her gaze clearer and sharper than ever.

Yet those six months when Zuo Shihuan had cruelly locked her inside, forcing her to endure torment without helping her—made her hate him to the bone.

Zuo Shihuan controlled money very strictly.

She could not buy drugs outside, and since she did not work, she just sat at home all day in a daze.

Even when Zuo Shihuan came back, she ignored him, nitpicking everything he did, lashing out with harsh words—her only purpose was to torment and push this “heartless son” of hers.

But Zuo Shihuan endured it all, only becoming more and more silent with each passing day.

This mutual torment went on for two whole years.

One time—

While cleaning yet another mess at home, Zuo Shihuan asked that woman in a voice tired and numb: “Mother, if one day I were gone, what would you do?”

Turning around, his light-brown eyes looked as though they would shatter at the slightest touch.

“How would you live?”

“Then I’ll just die! I’ll just… die right in front of you!”

His disheveled mother cackled manically, screaming in a sharp shrill voice while laughing strangely at her son, whose expression grew colder and colder.

In Zuo Shihuan’s eyes, she looked like a terrifying ghost, dragging him down into the endless eighteen layers of hell.

In the end, Zuo Shihuan half-knelt before his mother, lowering his eyes with a bitter yet willing smile on his lips, helping her fix the gaping strap of her slip dress and putting a conservative coat over her shoulders.

Zuo Shihuan accepted his fate.

“Are you hungry? Want me to cook you some noodles?”

“Noodles, and an egg—and more, more wine!”

“…”

Zuo Shihuan acted as though he hadn’t heard, cooked the noodles, and set them before her.

“I didn’t give you money yesterday. Where did you get the wine?”

“Some sucker gave it to me. I teased him a little, smiled at him, and he trailed right after me. I told him to buy whatever I wanted, and he did. How stupid, hahahahaha—”

Yu Cha laughed with garish charm, even her drug-ravaged, crazed eyes carrying a kind of breathtaking allure.

But Zuo Shihuan ignored it. A drunken mother was like a brat throwing a tantrum. Once she finished making trouble, only then would he clean up the house.

Over and over again.

Sometimes, Zuo Shihuan thought of leaving.

Without his mother dragging him down, he could live a much better life.

But then he thought: if he left, she really might die in some corner—of hunger, of drink—because no one would be there to care for her.

And so he could not bring himself to leave.

Even if it was hell, he would stay with her in it.

Until one day.

Zuo Shihuan, his gaze empty, told his mother:

They had saved enough money to move out of the slums. But, as expected, all he received was her curses and resentment.

Unable to endure the torment any longer, Zuo Shihuan slammed the door and left that suffocating home that caused him so much pain.

He spent one day running away from reality.

But when he came back from work, what awaited him was an empty home. His mother had taken every last bit of money and belongings and disappeared without a trace.

He had long known this day would come.

Yet when it did, instead of the relief he imagined, his chest felt as hollow as that empty house, so empty he could hear his own sobbing in his ears.

***

So much time had passed.

Zuo Shihuan thought he had almost forgotten, but it was all still vivid, like a thorn lodged deep inside that could never be pulled out.

Especially when his father, Zuo Zoujian, handed him a file folder.

Inside were records about Yu Cha over the years—how she had gone to a new place, changed her identity, started over with a new family. She married an ordinary Beta man, gave birth to an ordinary Beta child. In the photographs, the three of them smiled happily together, as if that once-madwoman had transformed into a normal, gentle wife and mother.

Yu Cha had written a letter to Zuo Shihuan, saying she deeply regretted and felt ashamed of how harshly she had treated him back then. She had cherished their only photo together. She had even bought him a model mecha toy she never opened, now lying in dust after so many years. She hoped to meet him once, to give it to him.

Compared with the bright new family photo—

That outdated mecha model toy, covered thick in dust, was unbearably glaring in Zuo Shihuan’s eyes. With reddened eyes and a cold voice, he said: 

“I will not see her.”