Chapter 1 Family

• Since young, my parents would fight every day over the smallest matters. Sometimes, they would just stare at each other while arguing before suddenly smashing the pots and pans. They would even get physical sometimes.
• As a father, he was not the best since he would often get drunk and resort to expressing his frustration with me through the use of tools. At first, my mother tried to stop his actions, but after being forced into submission by my father, she also grew numb to this sight and treated it as an everyday occurrence.
• After venting his anger on me, he would then have his way with my mother. As the house in the countryside was relatively small, there was only a wall separating our rooms. Many nights, I would curl up at the edge of my bed as I endured the pain and fear while hearing the sound of the bed creaking and moans of pleasure from my parents.
• At that time, I was afraid of everything, especially when there was a thunderstorm. During then, I would even sleep under the bed as I wrapped myself up in my blanket. With the abundance of folklore in the countryside, the elderly all said that the thunder was to exterminate the lesser demons as the demons loved to hide inside houses with children, where they would then drag the said children to hell with them.
• Back then, I thought that I was a disobedient child. Otherwise, why would I be treated like this every day? So, I fostered an extremely timid personality since childhood as I grew extra sensitive, living my days in fear while not daring to contact anyone around me.
• Although I had an elder brother who was one year older than me, the contrast could not be starker with how we were treated. His glib tongue meant that he knew how to make our parents happy. He was never scolded, always enjoyed the best foods, and wore the best clothes. However, he was an incompetent individual. Thus, he would also bully me around. If it were not for the fact that us siblings looked alike, I would have highly suspected that I was adopted.
• This situation persisted until high school, which was when I went to a boarding school in the city of my district, and everything finally improved. Even though my personality made all my schoolmates practically ignore me, I was still relieved since I didn't need to relive those hellish experiences anymore.
• My classmates would all whine that the holiday was too short, as we would only get one day off every month. On the contrary, I thought that even one day off was far too long, because I did not have the guts to return home—the place that instilled fear and a sense of dread in me.
• So, every time a holiday came around, I would reach home late at night, where I would then receive my allowance from my mother first thing in the morning the next day before quickly avoiding that village and leaving by bus.
• Since my family was not well-off, I would not go to such places like internet cafes, snooker parlors, or shopping malls unlike my other schoolmates even when I was in the city. Instead, I found a bookshop by the name of Avalon Bookshop where they stocked a lot of extracurricular books that one could read for free. That quickly became my happiest time of each month, as I felt that it was only by immersing myself in the sea of books that I could find my insignificant presence in this world, the real me.
• Also, I would often bump into a beautiful woman in the bookshop. Judging by her appearance, I could tell just from one glance that she came from the city. Besides that, she was tall, fair, and had a nice fragrant scent.
• Even though we did not talk, we would often sit together and read books of our own, with her even offering me french fries one time. As that was the first time I ever had a snack, I cautiously took one out and ate it before licking my fingers for an extended period, making her laugh loudly.
• Then, I happened to chance upon a book that talked about families. As I was reading through, the tears would not stop falling from my face because I thought it was describing me with each word piercing through my heart.
• It stated that a child would be deeply hurt in a harmful family environment, and they would become weak, timid, self-abased, and have all sorts of flaws in their personalities. On top of that, these traits would stick with the child for the rest of their lives with them unable to escape or forget about it…
• I had thought that going to high school and escaping from my family would make everything better, but this book only served to plunge me into deeper despair as I discovered that the trauma caused by my parents did not dissipate the further I was away from them. On the contrary, it was still swaying my personality, behavior, and even my life.
• Blinded by my tears, I could barely see. Suddenly, a tissue was placed in front of me—it was the beautiful woman who gave it to me. Squatting beside me, she looked at me before looking at the book, saying, "There's nothing that would not pass."
• Her angelic voice instantly soothed my heart. Even though I wanted to talk to her so badly back then, my timidness and low self-esteem meant that I did not even dare to lift my head up.
• Then, she took out a ballpoint pen and wrote on my hand the name of the university of business in my district—Rullogrend Business School. She said that she was aiming to get into this university and that she would be waiting for me there to read together with her again.
• After that day, I did not see her again. Perhaps she had succeeded in her entrance exam and left the city.
• Since then, my life was still dark and lonely as I was timid and cowardly. As usual, my parents would argue while talking before fighting suddenly. I often wondered why they married each other if they hated each other so much.
• Even when covered in blood, they still sought each other's bodies as the bed would creak loudly at nightfall and sentences like 'Can you be any weaker?' and 'I'm going to f*ck you to death, you b*tch!' could be heard.
• I did not want to continue staying even one more second in this kind of environment. Giving me only the bare minimum to survive, never did they once love me or care for my feelings, as they lived very selfishly.
• There were many times when I thought of taking the easy way out, but every time I aimed the penknife at my wrist, I would remember the beautiful girl's words, 'There's nothing that would not pass' and that she would be waiting for me at the university. These became the final string of hope in my life.
• After a year had passed, I finally enrolled into Rullogrend Business School, but not because of my love for studying. Instead, it was because I did not have much to do besides learning as I did not have friends and did not dare to spend on things like entertainment either. I only escaped my parents' beatings by studying and that the teacher would protect me from bullying since I had good grades.
• The paramount motivation was that I needed to find her. I needed to find the woman who gave me hope when I needed it the most.
• One day, my high school had a celebration for the top-tier students, and they would let us go up the stage to share our experiences and tell them what dreams, goals, or even grand ambitions we harbored that made us have such outstanding results.
• When it was my turn, I did not know what to say, as I was timid by nature and could not say a basic speech to save my life. Standing on stage, I started to tremble like a ringing cell phone as fear overtook me and my mind went blank.
• Due to the host's constant urge, I finally shouted in panic, "I did it for a girl! She said that she would be waiting for me at the Rullogrend Business School and that I had to get into it too!"
• The students instantly erupted upon my words and many of them started to whistle and cheer me on.
• Clearing his throat, the principal then looked like someone had attacked his soft spot with him snatching the microphone from me and pushing me to the ground while staring at me angrily.
• Frightened, I then let out a yelp that was particularly embarrassing. Since I never dreamed of studying in a university so that I could contribute to society, bring pride to my nation, or for research purposes, I only told the truth and that I enrolled into my specified university all because I wanted to find the girl that motivated and helped me at my deepest, darkest hour.