Chapter 3

Afterward, my teacher asked to speak with Mom again.

Mom assumed the school intended to pressure her by exploiting her status as a fellow educator. She grumbled all the way out the door.

“We’re transferring you anyway. Why should I be afraid of them? A school like that needs to be set straight!”

“Exactly!” I said. “Struggling students are people too!”

“That’s right. Struggling students are…”

Halfway through the sentence, she lost her voice.

By the time we reached school, Mom had worked herself into fighting form. She entered the office ready for battle.

“Mrs. Zhang,” my homeroom teacher said.

“Mm-hmm?” Mom answered grandly.

“You have a doctorate?”

Mom fell silent.

Who could understand the shame? Her education had somehow become the one stain on her record she could not bear to mention.

The teacher sighed. “I know being a single mother is difficult and that work keeps you busy, but you still need to pay more attention to your child’s studies.”

Mom instantly deflated.

Still, the conversation helped her see things differently. My homeroom teacher might have been too gentle to control the class, but Mom realized that the teacher was a decent person.

Miraculously, the teacher could even find academic strengths in me.

“Her physical education scores are always perfect. Her essays are imaginative, and when she stays on topic, she scores very well. She picks up English pronunciation quickly…”

The teacher even lectured Mom.

“You have a doctorate from a famous university. It may be difficult for you to understand the pace at which ordinary children absorb knowledge.”

Mom was deeply grateful for that sentence.

“Your teacher said you’re an ordinary child,” she told me afterward.

I stared at her. Was that supposed to be praise?

From then on, Mom finally let go. She stopped tutoring me herself and hired a student from an ordinary university instead.

The tutor brought me up to a passing grade. Later, I could even score eighty.

Mom cried with satisfaction.

“Life is wonderful,” she said. “I don’t have to put in any effort, and your grades still improve.”

But the happiness belonged to her. Dad had none.

By the time I finished my high school entrance exam, my sister was about to sit the national college entrance exam. Mom was so nervous that she could not sleep.

My sister refused to answer her calls, saying they disrupted her studying.

On exam day, however, she called Mom herself.

Mom nearly lost her mind. “Wenwen, shouldn’t you be inside the examination hall right now?”

My sister sobbed over the phone. “Mom, save Dad! The police took him away!”

Apparently, Dad had attacked one of his students at school.

“That boy is a poor student. He made Dad so angry that Dad had no choice but to hit him…”

Mom decided to go back.

What normal child skipped the most important exam of her life for something like this? Her father was not dead.

We flew to T City overnight.

The old family home had changed completely. The living room was crammed with my sister’s trophies and certificates, plus photographs of her posing with famous academics and celebrities.

It was my first time seeing honors piled up like garbage.

No one had dusted in ages. The smell when we entered was indescribable.

As for my sister, she was beautiful but ghostly pale. Her brow stayed furrowed, as if she could never relax.

She stared at me and asked Mom, “Why did you bring her?”

Mom paused. “I couldn’t leave your sister home alone.”

My sister erupted. “Do you know I’m about to break down? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”

Mom grew angry too. “Whatever you’ve been through, did I cause it? Did your sister?”

My sister said we had.

“Being connected to a retard brings nothing but bad luck! Those retards ruined Dad!”

At once, I turned my attention to my own feelings.

“Don’t stoop to her level,” Mom told me.

I shook my head. “I’m fine, Mom.”

I even pitied my sister a little. Poor thing. With a father like ours, she had already become unhinged before she was grown.

“Mom, I’m going to see Xiaomin. Send me some money.”

Mom transferred it without hesitation, and I slipped away. As I left, I could still hear my sister wailing inside.

Xiaomin had been my best friend as a child. When Mom was busy working and fighting Dad for custody, I often ate at her house.

After three or four years apart, we recognized each other instantly. From far away, she came sprinting toward me and called out our secret code.

“Makka Pakka!”

“Upsy Daisy!”

We burst out laughing, grabbed hands, and spun in circles.

Then Xiaomin pushed me away. “Enough. I’m a serious person now.”

I followed her home with the confidence of someone returning to her own kitchen.

Her mother welcomed me enthusiastically.

“Little Mimi, how did your exam go?”

“Pretty well! I got into the top school!”

Auntie Xiaomin looked at me with boundless affection. “Don’t worry, Auntie knows you aren’t retarded. You don’t have to brag. Our Mimi has always been clever.”

Then she asked whether I wanted a huge pork hock or roast chicken.

After she went into the kitchen, I asked Xiaomin in confusion, “Why does she think I’m bragging? I’m not.”

Pity instantly filled Xiaomin’s eyes.

I frowned.

“Don’t you remember?” she asked. “Everyone used to say you were retarded.”

Of course I remembered. I had once been the neighborhood’s most famous retard.

The rumor began at Dad’s university, spread to Mom’s school, then infected our compound and finally the entire street.

Xiaomin said, “Every morning when we woke up, we heard you downstairs arguing that you weren’t retarded. You’d list your Good Student awards and everything.”

Her mother used to say there was no way to prove your sanity once people had locked you in the asylum.

Understanding dawned. “So she thinks I made it up?”

Xiaomin patted my head. “It’s all in the past.”

I exploded. “I’m not lying! I really got into No. 1 High School!”

My score had beaten the cutoff by one whole point.

Xiaomin looked stunned. “Really? I don’t believe you.”

We wrestled all over the living room until her mother called, “Dinner!”