Qiu Yingying is reborn and bound to a learning system.

Two days later, the video of him being publicly humiliated by Qiu Yingying in the mall was edited and posted online by a passerby, accompanied by the caption "A programmer from a major company publicly humiliates a girl; his outdated views are criticized by passersby." It quickly went viral on short video platforms and local forums.

Ying Qin was never good at socializing and never paid attention to online opinions. He was immersed in the world of code every day. But this time, the storm of the internet hit him without warning, and there was no way to avoid it.

The video garnered over a million views overnight, and the comment section erupted in heated debate. A small minority felt he was simply sticking to his own views on choosing a partner and shouldn't be morally blackmailed, but the vast majority of netizens sided with Qiu Yingying, criticizing him for being rigid, feudal, chauvinistic, and hypocritical.

His surname, workplace, and internet company were all exposed by netizens, and the company's social media accounts were all flooded with comments demanding that the company deal with this "morally questionable" employee.

"He looks so honest, I never imagined his thinking was so corrupt!"

"It's so rude to embarrass a girl in public!"

"On the surface, he's refined and reserved; inside, he's narrow-minded and selfish—a typical two-faced person!"

"Stay away from people like that, they're disgusting!"

A deluge of insults and accusations overwhelmed Ying Qin like a tidal wave. Looking at the vicious comments on his phone, he felt a chill run through him, his hands and feet were ice-cold, yet he didn't even have the courage to refute them.

This online storm quickly spread to his company, plunging him into complete social death.

That morning, Ying Qin dragged his still aching body into the company's office area. As soon as he entered, he sensed the eerie atmosphere.

The once noisy office area instantly quieted down, and all his colleagues' eyes fell on him, some with disdain, some with aloofness, and some with curiosity, but none with their usual peace.

His front-end colleagues, who usually greeted him, would immediately lower their heads and pretend to code when they saw him; his team members, who usually bought coffee together, would deliberately huddle together and chat, completely ignoring his presence; even the project manager, with whom he had a fairly good relationship, would just nod perfunctorily when passing by his workstation, with obvious avoidance in his eyes.

Ying Qin's heart sank little by little.

He knew that everyone in the company knew about the video.

During his lunch break, he went to the cafeteria to eat. Carrying his tray, he looked for a seat, but as soon as he sat down, the people at his table would make an excuse to leave in a hurry. In the huge cafeteria, he could only sit alone in the corner, with the constant whispers of his colleagues in his ears.

"Is that him? The programmer who got criticized online?"

"He seemed quite honest, but I didn't expect him to be so eccentric."

"Stay away from him in the future, don't get dragged into this by netizens."

These words pierced Ying Qin's heart like needles, making him feel like he was sitting on pins and needles. From childhood to adulthood, he had always been a well-behaved child who studied hard, got into a prestigious university, and worked in a large factory. He was his parents' pride and a role model in the eyes of his relatives. He had never experienced such a moment of being isolated, despised, and pointed at by everyone.

He wanted to explain, to tell everyone the truth, to show that he hadn't maliciously humiliated Qiu Yingying, but when he opened his mouth, he found himself speechless. Public opinion online had already formed, and his colleagues at the company were already prejudiced; no one was willing to listen to his explanation. Everyone was only willing to believe the "truth" presented in the video, the "truth" they had imagined.

In the eyes of his colleagues, he became a hypocrite who appeared gentle and reserved on the surface, but was actually old-fashioned and disrespectful to women. His meticulousness and conscientiousness at work were misinterpreted as stubbornness and coldness.

His usual taciturnity was mistaken for narrow-mindedness and pretentious arrogance. The image of the once highly skilled, reliable programmer collapsed overnight, replaced by a "negative figure" that everyone avoided.

He was completely marginalized.

In project team meetings, he was no longer allowed to speak, and core projects were gradually pulled away; when colleagues discussed technical issues, everyone would immediately fall silent if he approached; he was never invited to company team building activities or department gatherings, and he became a transparent presence in the team, a superfluous person.

Going to work every day has become an ordeal for Ying Qin. He doesn't dare to look up, doesn't dare to make eye contact with people, and doesn't dare to speak up. He has become increasingly withdrawn and silent.

He began to suffer from insomnia, unable to sleep night after night. When he closed his eyes, all he could see were the insults online, the disdainful looks from his colleagues, the mockery in the shopping mall, and the terrifying beating he received in the alley. He lost his appetite, his weight plummeted, and his eyes became bloodshot. Even his best skill, coding, became a source of frequent errors, and his condition deteriorated drastically.

His supervisor spoke with him, subtly implying that his recent performance was severely impacting the team and asking him to go home and rest, not to come to work for the time being. This was tantamount to delivering the final blow to him within the company.

He was completely abandoned.

There was no beating or scolding, no punishment, yet he lost all dignity, trust, and sense of belonging in his familiar environment. This is the cruelest form of social death.

He had a respectable job and a good income in the bustling city of Shanghai, but at this moment, all of that became meaningless. He was like an isolated island, cut off from the whole world.

He didn't dare tell his mother back home, afraid she would worry, but the truth eventually came out. Relatives back home saw the video and told Ying's mother all at once. The old lady was so anxious that she called him that night. Listening to her son's broken-down sobs on the phone, she was heartbroken and burst into tears.

In Ying's mother's eyes, her son was honest, upright, and had sound values; he was definitely not the kind of bad person described online. She was convinced that all of this was because Ying Qin was alone in Shanghai, with no one to guide him, and had an improper relationship, which led him into so much trouble.

After hanging up the phone, the old lady immediately asked all her relatives in her hometown to find Ying Qin a decent girl with a clean background, who was law-abiding and upright. Only such a girl could meet the bottom line that the Ying family valued most, and only she could keep Ying Qin in check and live a stable life.

Ying's mother was decisive and efficient, and within a few days she had taken a liking to Xiao Wei, a girl from her hometown. Xiao Wei was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, about the same age as Ying Qin. They came from the same small town, and their parents were from ordinary families who valued family reputation and practical benefits. Xiao Wei had a clean background and perfectly met the Ying family's most stringent requirements. She was the kind of "good girl from a respectable family" that Ying's mother was truly satisfied with.

She has a pretty and pleasing appearance, not stunning but very pleasing to the eye. She dresses simply and casually, without any of the sophistication of a city girl. Her temperament carries the straightforwardness of a small-town girl, without beating around the bush, but there is a hint of calculation hidden deep in her eyes.

Xiaowei has no formal, stable job, no special skills, and no ambition. She is exactly the ideal daughter-in-law in Ying's mother's eyes: "She doesn't need to show her face in public and can stay at home with peace of mind."

Ying's mother sent Ying Qin Xiaowei's photo and information, repeatedly urging him: "Xiaowei is a girl from a respectable family, with good family values ​​and a decent personality. She is a hundred times more reliable than those scheming girls outside. You should get along well with her and settle down as soon as possible."

At this point, Ying Qin was exhausted from cyberbullying, workplace bullying, and beatings in the alley. He had no strength to fight back, no interest in love, and only wanted to grasp at a straw to escape everything. Numbly, he added Xiao Wei on WeChat and chatted with her sporadically.

Xiao Wei never inquired about his online controversies, nor did she care about his inner pain. She appeared docile and obedient, speaking sweetly, but in reality, she was calculating every step of the way, probing his house, income, and savings in Shanghai with every sentence.

She accepted all of her mother's arrangements without ever objecting. This seemingly effortless obedience gave Ying Qin's exhausted heart a slight respite.

After chatting for less than half a month, Ying's mother made a direct decision: "Let Xiaowei go to Shanghai to find you. You two can live together and take care of each other. Once things are stable, you can go back to your hometown to get married."

Without any hesitation, Xiaowei immediately packed her bags and went to Shanghai alone. Her purpose for this trip was clear: not for a relationship, but for Ying Qin's property and stable income in Shanghai, seeking a tangible sense of security and dignity.

When Ying Qin went to pick her up at the train station, looking at Xiao Wei, who was dressed simply and had gentle features, he felt no love, only a numb sense of having settled down. He took Xiao Wei back to his apartment, a small two-bedroom apartment.

After moving in together, Xiao Wei quickly dropped her docile facade. She had no intention of finding a job and stayed at home all day, taking Ying Qin's support for granted. She neither cooked nor did housework, expecting everything to be done for her, with all expenses covered by Ying Qin, and she was unwilling to contribute a single penny.

She is shrewd, realistic, and extremely materialistic. As soon as things settled down, she started making demands: the Shanghai wedding house must be registered in her name, the dowry must be the highest standard in her hometown, and the honeymoon in Europe after the wedding must be arranged. She talks about money and material things all the time, and treats Ying Qin's house and car as if they were hers for the taking.

She has a very strong sense of local clan and has no sense of boundaries in her actions. Every few days, she would bring her relatives from her hometown to live in Shanghai. They would squeeze into a small rented room and make a lot of noise. She would also insist that Ying Qin use his connections to help her relatives find jobs, completely disregarding Ying Qin's financial pressure and lifestyle. This caused Ying Qin a lot of trouble and made him extremely anxious.

She was emotionally detached and driven by self-interest. Her relationship with Ying Qin was merely a transaction of mutual benefit, based on the two families' social standing and clean backgrounds. She was completely indifferent to Ying Qin's feelings and pain. Whenever a conflict arose between them, she would never resolve it independently. Instead, she would immediately seek help from her parents and Ying Qin's mother, even going so far as to gather her family to make a scene and exert pressure. She was domineering and spoiled.

When people in the company learned that Ying Qin had brought his blind date Xiao Wei from his hometown to live with him, their gazes toward him were less disdainful and more filled with mocking schadenfreude.

During his lunch break that day, he was making coffee in the break room when two male colleagues who didn't get along well leaned against the door and deliberately raised their voices to chat, their words clearly aimed at him.

"Hey, have you heard? Ying Qin brought that girl from his hometown to live with us. They're living together now."

"I've heard about it. It was recommended by someone from my hometown. They say the family has good morals and the people are honest and upright."

The other person chuckled, the voice neither too loud nor too soft, just loud enough for Ying Qin to hear clearly:

"Behave yourself? I remember it clearly. When he was with his previous girlfriend, he was obsessed with virginity. He talked a good game about how chastity was more important than life, and that girls must remain chaste and uncompromising."

The man paused, crossed his arms, and stared at Ying Qin's back with eyes like knives:

"Now look what's happened! They've only known each other for half a month, and as soon as the girl arrived in Shanghai, he took her home to live with him. I ask you, programmer, where are your deeply ingrained principles? Where are your bottom lines that are more important than your life? How come you don't have to uphold chastity when it comes to yourself? Are you really that good at playing the double standard?"

A colleague nearby chimed in, his tone full of mockery:

"Exactly! They set saintly standards for others, but use thuggish logic for themselves. They demand others be spotless, while they themselves have no taboos. So, that so-called bottom line is only used to control others, never to control yourself, right?"

"Wow, this is truly an eye-opener."

"I used to think he was honest, but now I see he's selfish to the core."

A few light words, like knives chilled to the bone, precisely pierced Ying Qin's most painful and most unspeakable places.

His hand holding the coffee cup trembled suddenly, and the scalding coffee splashed out, burning the back of his hand, but he was completely unaware.

His face flushed from deathly pale to bright red in an instant, then turned ashen, his chest heaving violently, yet he couldn't utter a single word in rebuttal.

He wanted to yell, to defend himself, to say that he and Xiaowei were aiming for marriage, to say that Xiaowei had a clean background and upright family, unlike the situation before.

But when he tried to say it, he found it pale and laughable.

He used the harshest and coldest standards to judge his ex-girlfriend's sincerity, trampled on her dignity, and devalued her feelings to nothing.

He kept saying that girls who don't respect themselves and aren't reserved don't deserve to be cherished.

But now, he has only known Xiaowei for half a month, and they are not even engaged, yet he has taken her back to his rented apartment to live together without any qualms.

He himself broke the bottom line that he demanded others uphold.

He criticizes others for their indiscretions, yet he himself acts with complete self-righteousness.

Be strict with others, but lenient with yourself.

These eight words were exposed in public by a colleague, laid bare before everyone.

A few colleagues gradually gathered around to watch the spectacle. Their eyes held mockery, disdain, and contempt, but not a trace of sympathy.

Ying Qin stood in the middle of the crowd, feeling ice-cold all over, as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

He finally realized that he had not found a lifeline, but had instead nailed himself to the pillar of "double standards, selfishness, and hypocrisy," becoming the object of everyone's observation, ridicule, and contempt.

He clutched his coffee cup awkwardly, head down, and practically fled the break room.

The whispers and jeers behind his back pierced his ears like needles, refusing to leave.

It turns out that he wasn't adhering to any principles from beginning to end.

He is just bullying the weak and judging the weak.

When he finally enjoys the benefits, he completely abandons the principles he used to manipulate others.

At that moment, the last shred of dignity that Ying Qin had left shattered completely.

It shattered so badly that not even a trace remained.

The online uproar gradually subsided, and new hot topics overshadowed his old stories. No one remembered Ying Qin, the programmer who was scolded, but the humiliation, fear, and suffocation caused by Xiao Wei's relentless pressure etched in his heart could never be dispelled.

He accepted his mother's arrangement, accepted this cohabitation life devoid of love, filled only with calculation and demands, accepted being judged online and socially dead, and accepted that in the city of Shanghai, he had completely lost his light, leaving only a life of being bound and consumed.

He would never know that the person who made him lose face in the business world, caused him endless suffering in the alley, and rewrote his entire life was none other than Qiu Yingying, whom he had discarded like trash in his previous life.

Qiu Yingying was already shining brightly in her own world, striding forward, never looking back at him again.