When we switched shifts, she told me Grandma was more alert now. She could tell when someone was talking to her, but the stroke had left her unable to speak. She just kept gripping my hand and repeating:
“Ha, bankbook, birthday, house.”
At first, I didn’t understand what those words meant, until my mother brought my younger brother to the hospital.
After all, besides the five thousand in her bankbook, Grandma still had an old house.
I’d just finished eating and returned to the hospital room when I heard my aunt and mother start arguing. My father—the man caught between them—could only stand there awkwardly, too afraid to say a word.
I heard my mother complain about how hard she’d worked by my father’s side all these years, how having me had brought her shame, and how Song Zheming was the very root of the family, the one who gave the Song family a future. So everything belonging to the Song family ought to belong to Song Zheming.
Song Zheming just kept his head down and played games, not caring about a thing.
It was just like all the times before, when Grandma and my mother argued. My father always stayed silent, a useless man who was neither a good son nor a good husband.
Two women were fighting over him, both for his sake, yet he stood by with his arms folded, turning them against each other.
In the end, every conflict between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law comes down to a man who is powerless and irresponsible.
I hadn’t understood that before. Now, watching from the outside, I finally saw it.
They didn’t have to do a thing. My mother would naturally bring them the victory. They could even blame her for being vicious and Grandma for being too cunning.
The argument got so loud that a nurse threw them out of the room. Standing in the hallway, I suddenly heard my mother say smugly:
“That old woman hid money! She thought she could fool me by making Song Ha’s birthday the bankbook password? A foot of evil may rise, but a yard of righteousness will prevail!”
A bolt of lightning seemed to strike through me. My hands trembled so badly that I dropped my pen on the floor.
I heard the last shred of hope in my heart shatter.
They’d taken the bankbook.
The password was my birthday.
In eighteen years, they had never once celebrated my birthday.
And yet the one time they remembered my birthday was probably when they entered it as the bank password.
I remembered elementary school, when I always brought home certificates of merit, but my younger brother never did. If a whole week went by without our parents being called in, that was lucky.
“Grandma, when are Mom and Dad coming to take me home?”
“When you get a hundred in both subjects and earn lots of certificates, your parents will have worked hard enough to buy a big house, and then they’ll bring Song Ha home to live with them.”
I carefully kept those certificates at the bottom of the trunk. Every Lunar New Year, I’d take them out one by one and show them off.
I’d secretly watch their faces, hoping they’d let me come live with them.
But they were never proud of me.
They weren’t even happy that my younger brother wasn’t as good at school as I was.
Later, when I started middle school, they bought a house in the city.
Two bedrooms and a living room.
Little by little, I realized they had never wanted me to live in that house.
In middle school, my language arts teacher once went over my essay and asked:
“Why did you write that going to your parents’ house was like being a guest? Isn’t that your home?”
But it wasn’t my home.
It really wasn’t.
I sat on the floor in the hospital bathroom and cried until I couldn’t breathe, my whole body shaking.
Why? How was I any worse than my younger brother?
Why, why didn’t they want me?
Even when a math problem seems impossible, after a thousand tries, the solution still offers a little hope.
But the favoritism and prejudice in this world aren’t like math problems. No matter how hard I tried for eighteen years, I couldn’t find an answer.
And still, I was naive enough to hope, whenever I faced trouble, that I could be like my younger brother and have my parents’ favoritism and protection to fall back on.
But every time, all I got in return were painful crashes that left me battered and bleeding.
I firmly wiped away my tears and stood up.
Anger was power. I had no way back anymore.
The things that had once hurt me would now become the steps I climbed to reach the top.
5
When school started, the weather gradually grew warmer.
The third mock exam came soon after.
There was no time to feel lost, or even to grieve.
Open the test, read carefully, answer the questions, turn it in.
Our homeroom teacher announced the scores:
“The third mock exam results are in.”
“Trương Tư Kỳ, third in class and fourth in the whole grade.”
“Second place is… Huh?” The homeroom teacher adjusted his glasses in surprise. “Song Ha? 683 points? Third in the whole school.”
The class erupted, and many people turned to look at me.
“Look at you, secretly studying and then blowing everyone away.” Tiểu Quang nudged me. “Văn Văn bought milk tea. Let’s celebrate in the dorm tonight!”
“The school plans to hold a motivational parent meeting. Remember to tell your parents. They’re our strongest support.”
The parent meeting was held, and every seat was filled with parents. No one dared take lightly the exam that would decide their child’s future.
Only the seat meant for my family was empty.
“Song Ha?” My homeroom teacher tentatively called on me.
“I can handle these things myself.” From the back, I met my homeroom teacher’s eyes, my gaze calm. “Go ahead, sir. I’m listening.”
As our homeroom teacher spoke, my classmates kept glancing at me. I thought they’d probably guessed a lot from that empty seat.
After the meeting, Trương Tư Kỳ stopped me.
I recognized her. She was the one who’d made snide remarks about me when we were studying in the hallway.
“...Hey, Song Ha,” she called.
“What is it?”
“Well... I’m sorry for what I said about you before.”
She hesitated, then glanced at me:
“I used to look down on students in the regular classes, which is why I said those things.”
“But you’re not like those kids who just spend their parents’ money to get into the combined classes for fun. I’m sorry.”
“Anyway... good luck on the exam!”
After saying that, she blushed and ran off.
From that day on, my seat became a much livelier place.
Milk tea, chocolate, coffee, bottled water, tissues, handkerchiefs, and unsigned notes that read:
“Song Ha, you’ve got this!”
I wasn’t self-conscious or uncomfortable. I knew they meant well.
I stuck the notes, each in a different handwriting, into my notebook of mistakes one by one, like beacons in the vast darkness of night.
My aunt carefully placed my report cards beside Grandma’s pillow. I wanted her to know that she had never once been absent from my journey to adulthood.
As long as I had Grandma, Song Ha would always have a home.
Time flew by, the days turning like pages in a book. I bent my head through the bitter cold of winter; when I looked up, the branches outside the window were lush and green.
6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4…
678! I got in!
Song Ha, be brave and keep moving forward!
The seventh dawned bright and sunny, and not a single cicada sang.
Among the crowds seeing the examinees off were mothers dressed in qipaos, affectionate fathers, and grandparents holding drinks and asking after them with concern.
“Young lady, are you here alone?” the kind security guard asked.
“No, sir.” I smiled.
How could I be alone?
Behind me were Grandma, my friends, my teachers, and countless people waiting for me to return in triumph.
Now I’m about to head into battle. Everyone, wait for good news from me.
I was stuck on the third part of the final problem.
I couldn’t solve it.
The second hand raced around the clock as the examinees around me scribbled furiously on their scratch paper.
My palms began to sweat, and the pen in my hand grew slippery.
They can all do it. You’re the only one who can’t…
There’s no time left. Time’s almost up…
Girls only need to study humanities. The sciences aren’t for them…
Song Ha, you’re still not as good as your little brother, Song Zheming…
No!
That’s not right!
“Song Ha! Don’t just guess at the calculations. Don’t panic!”
“Song Ha! After the exam, let’s go visit Grandma together!”
“Song Ha, get into Peking University! Show them who’s really the best!”
“Song Ha! You’ve got this!”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and steadied myself to think.
What were they trying to test…
An auxiliary line…
Substitute into the formula…
Consider special multiples, like one-half and double…
I worked through each case on my scratch paper and wrote down my final answer, still unsure.
As I wrote the final period after “This proves that,” the shrill bell rang at once.
“Time is up. Examinees must stop working. Proctors, please collect the papers!”
The moment I capped my pen, a cool breeze blew in from outside.
It ruffled the hair at my temples, like a swordsman’s blade energy as he sheathed his sword.
I turned to look outside. A shaft of sunlight fell across my desk. I reached out and grasped it, feeling its warmth and radiance.
For a moment, it felt like a dream.
The moment that would decide my fate had just passed like that?
In the midst of the exuberant crowd, I stood dazed when Văn Văn suddenly hugged me from behind. She was even more excited than I was:
“How did the exam go…”
Before she could finish, Vi Vi pulled her back and covered her mouth:
“What matters is that you took it. Don’t ask.”
“Let’s go pick out a gift for Grandma!”
“Sounds good!”
Much later, I learned that when they saw me silently making my way through the cheering crowd, looking weighed down by my thoughts and utterly alone, they had been worried sick.
They were very worried, but they were afraid of making me sad, so they didn’t dare ask.
The examinees poured out of the exam rooms as if they’d gone mad. Some tore up their books; others threw their test papers.
Like snow falling in June, like wild beasts breaking free from their cages, their pent-up energy was finally released.
They cried, shouted, laughed, and carried on.
I didn’t tear up my books or throw my test paper.
I just walked quietly through the pages flying around me, as if I’d passed through a storm in my life.