Chapter 5
Mom decided to take me home the next day.
That evening, we returned to the hotel to pack.
“Tomorrow we should treat Xiaomin’s family to dinner,” she said. “Then we’ll take you girls to an amusement park.”
I had been eating at their house for days.
“Sounds good.”
We even chose the park, the rides, and the food.
Then, in the middle of the night, someone began pounding on our door.
It was my sister.
She was sobbing uncontrollably. “Dad asked around. He’s almost certainly going to be suspended.”
Even Mom was baffled.
“He assaulted a student with depression. He should have expected consequences.”
My sister could not accept it. “Depression? He was faking it!”
Mom frowned. “Wenwen! Show some respect.”
She tried to explain what depression was.
I found it almost funny. My sister was old enough to know.
Sure enough, she said, “I don’t need to understand stupid, useless people like that. Our lives will never intersect.”
Mom rubbed her temple. “Your father has poisoned your mind.”
Then my sister made her real demand.
“Mom, come back and take care of me.”
So that was why she had come. I quietly pricked up my ears.
Mom said, “Your father and I disagree on too many things. Forcing us back together would be bad for both of you.”
“Then send my sister to Grandma’s.”
Mom went silent.
My sister continued analyzing the matter as though it were obvious. “Mom, I know you only took her because I rejected you. I’ve thought it over now. I need to retake the national exam, and Dad needs to find a new job. I need you.”
I laughed. “You really think the world revolves around you.”
Mom adored me.
But my sister was even more confident than I was. She looked straight at Mom. “Well, Mom?”
Anger spread visibly across Mom’s face.
“Then you misunderstood. I have always preferred your sister.”
My sister’s expression turned icy.
“Dad says I’ll win a Nobel Prize and change the world. When that happens, your name won’t be in my acknowledgments. Don’t regret it.”
Mom ignored her and kept our plans for the next day.
The five of us—Mom, me, Xiaomin, and her parents—spent the entire day out, from morning until sunset.
Over dinner, Auntie Xiaomin finally believed that I had gotten into No. 1 High School.
“I always said this child was clever,” she declared with a laugh.
Mom said modestly, “Her greatest strength is resilience.”
When parents gather, the conversation inevitably turns to their children’s futures.
Xiaomin’s mother said proudly, “She wants to perform crosstalk comedy.”
Mom turned to me. “What about you?”
I had decided long ago. I would attend a military academy, protect the people, and serve my country.
Xiaomin’s blood surged at the idea. She slapped the table. “Do it! Go for it, Makka Pakka!”
“I will! What about you, Upsy Daisy?”
“No way. I can’t handle that kind of hardship.”
Her mother beamed. “Our daughter has such excellent self-awareness.”
Her father nodded. “Exactly. She has known what suits her since she was little.”
Mom gazed thoughtfully at the broad-minded, broad-waisted couple.
On the way home, she asked me, “When did my little Makka Pakka acquire a dream?”
“In sixth grade, when I watched the National Day military parade. Everybody has a dream, Mom. What was yours? Did you want to be a teacher?”
Her face twisted as though she were constipated. “Ha.”
Clearly, she had not.
“Then quit if you don’t like it.”
She stared at me. “You’re starting high school, and I still have to pay half of your sister’s expenses. I want to start a business, but if it fails, everyone will laugh at me.”
“People have laughed at me since I was little. It isn’t scary.”
She had no answer.
I continued my analysis. “I get along well with my tutor, and all my sister wants is money. You have plenty of time and energy.”
Mom saw my point, but she was still hesitant.
“Do I look like someone who can run a company?”
I was shocked. “Why not? You’re amazing, Mom. You’re so smart!”
Not long afterward, she resigned.
She contacted former classmates and launched a media company.
The first person to oppose her was Dad.
Under pressure from the university, he had apologized, paid compensation, and been suspended. He was struggling to find a new job while arranging for my sister to repeat her final year of high school.
He wanted jobs that would not take him and despised the jobs that would. Life was a mess.
When he heard that Mom was starting a company, he called to berate her.
“What kind of business can a literature person run?”
There it was again: his deranged academic hierarchy.
Mom no longer swallowed it.
“You despise people in literature, but what great discovery have you made?”
That struck his deepest wound.
“I’m trying to help you! You had a respectable job, and now you’re quitting to make a fool of yourself. You’ll embarrass Wenwen too!”
Mom hit back without mercy. “Could I embarrass her more than you have? You reached middle age without breaking through your research bottleneck, and now you’ve lost your university job. Your research dream is dead. Is there anything else you can do?”
Then she blocked him before he could answer.
Dad was miserable, and whenever his own life collapsed, he could not bear to see his ex-wife thrive.
So he hatched another wicked little plan and told my sister to call Mom.
“Mom, can you stop this business? I’m at a crucial stage of repeating my final year. Our family should unite and support Dad’s career…”
Mom refused.
But my sister’s words left a foul taste in her mouth. Starting a company was already stressful. She spent every day sighing, and her hair came out by the handful.