Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Gu Pan. There is a line in the classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber that describes someone with “bright eyes and graceful brows, a gaze full of spirit.”

Back when I was in school, my classmates heard my name and assumed my parents were quite cultured.

In reality, the hidden meaning behind the name they gave me was their hope for what would come next: they were “longing” for a younger brother, hoping my mother’s next pregnancy would result in a boy.

My father was a loser with no real job. He spent every day out with his band of lowlife friends, drinking, picking fights, and acting like a hoodlum.

He probably felt that my mother’s inability to bear a son made him lose face in front of his friends.

My mother was quite beautiful when she was young; I honestly don’t know what she ever saw in him.

When I was a child, I used to tell my parents about the strange things I saw, but that only seemed to make my father hate me more.

He even went around telling everyone that there was something wrong with my head, that I was mentally ill.

My mother was terrified of him and didn’t dare to correct him.

As time went on, everyone-including myself-came to believe that I was born with mental issues.

In short, it seemed like everyone gradually stopped liking me.

My childhood was devoid of friends, Barbie dolls, or happy family vacations.

My greatest pleasure was sneaking a few moments of television while they were out of the house.

The most delicious thing I ever ate was a one-yuan stick of cotton candy.

The lady who sold the cotton candy was perhaps the only person in this world who actually cared about me.

Once-I forget exactly what happened-my father locked me out of the house.

I sat by the entrance of the residential compound crying all by myself. When the lady saw me, she took the initiative to give me some cotton candy and sat with me for a long time.

She told me that if I was ever bullied at home again, I should come find her at the intersection where she set up her stall.

But she warned me not to tell anyone, especially my father.

I nodded.

After my grandfather passed away, my father became even more reckless and unscrupulous. Many people in our area were afraid of him.

During my second year of high school, my mother finally got pregnant again.

At first, both of my parents were thrilled. I was happy too, because I thought that if I had a little brother, maybe my father would treat me a bit better.

But not long after, his attitude took a sudden, drastic turn.

He had likely been egged on by one of his lowlife friends. They suggested that since my mother hadn’t conceived for over a decade, why had she suddenly gotten pregnant now? The child in her womb surely wasn’t his.

So, he started smashing things and throwing fits. He would bring his friends home to feast and drink, forcing my heavily pregnant mother to wait on them hand and foot.

When he got drunk, he would loudly hurl abuse at both me and my mother.

As my mother’s belly grew larger, she realized she couldn’t go on like this. She planned to stay at my uncle’s house until the baby was born.

My father, convinced she was hiding from him out of guilt, blocked her from leaving.

In a drunken stupor, he pinned her against the table and began beating her.

I rushed forward to stop him, but he grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the floor.

My mother ran over to help me up, but my father kicked her down. Then, he began repeatedly kicking her stomach, shouting that he would kick the “bastard” out of her so he could get a paternity test.

I ran out crying and hammered on our neighbor Aunt Chen’s door, begging them to save my mother.

But they refused to open the door.

I wailed in the middle of the housing complex, which eventually drew out some of my grandfather’s old colleagues.

When they arrived at our home, my father finally stopped, and my mother was taken to the hospital.

But she miscarried anyway. It was a boy.

My father followed her to the hospital. While my mother lay on the hospital bed, her life hanging by a thread, he held the stillborn infant and continued to make a scene in the corridors, screaming for the doctors to give him a paternity test.
My second uncle arrived later. By then, he was already a man of some standing. He reassured the hospital doctors and nurses, urging them to help my father get the paternity test done quickly.

The doctors explained that their hospital lacked the facilities for such a test. However, out of respect for my uncle’s status, they agreed to extract DNA from the stillborn infant and send it to the provincial capital’s paternity testing center.

When the results eventually came back, they confirmed that the child who never had a chance to be born was indeed my father’s.

After my mother was discharged, she was taken back to my maternal uncle’s house.

My father seemed deeply shaken by the ordeal and quieted down significantly.

For a while, the house enjoyed a long-forgotten peace.

My seventeenth birthday arrived shortly after. My mother didn’t come back.

I hadn’t planned on celebrating at all, but to my surprise, my father remembered. He even bought me a birthday cake.

That evening, he set the cake down in front of me, the candles already lit.

The lights went out. Just as I blew out the candles, I realized my father had circled behind me. He tried to rape me.

That beast said, “Your mother probably can’t give birth anymore.”

“You’re my daughter. You should take her place and help us look after the family and carry on the bloodline.”

I struggled with everything I had, my hand brushing against the fruit knife used for the cake in the darkness.

I flipped the light on and held the knife to my own throat, screaming at him to get out.

That animal didn’t even flinch. I shouted, “I’m still a minor! If you rape me, you’ll be sentenced to death!”

He froze for a moment, then suddenly smirked. “Fine. Then I’ll just wait until you’re eighteen to take you.”

With that, he turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the middle of the trashed living room, sobbing uncontrollably.

That night, I ran to my uncle’s house to find my mother.

It wasn’t long before my father followed me there, causing another scene outside the house.

My uncle and aunt were both laid-off workers who made a living running a stall in the pedestrian mall area. Worried that we would become a burden to them, my mother felt she had no choice but to follow my father back home that night.

Even with my mother in the house, that beast continued to grope me and make advances.

My mother realized what my father intended, but she seemed to have become utterly terrified of him. Instead of stopping him, she began-intentionally or not-to persuade me to accept that animal once I turned eighteen.

This drove me to complete despair regarding my family.

I thought about dying, but in the end, I decided I wanted to live. I couldn’t just accept this fate.

The world was still vast.

I had to get into a good university, somewhere far away, to escape this psychotic family.

In the blink of an eye, I reached my senior year of high school.

That year, a boy transferred into our class from Shanghai.

His name was Chen Nian.

Many years ago, this boy had been my desk mate in elementary school.

Back then, he called me Little Stone.

Chen Nian was just as cheerful as I remembered. As we grew closer, I gradually began to feel like he was someone I could truly rely on in my life.

So, one day, I quietly told him about the people who were always appearing and disappearing before my eyes.

Chen Nian didn’t laugh at me. He didn’t even think I was sick. Instead, he asked me:

“Have you ever thought that what you’re seeing might be a parallel world?”