No one to talk to anymore. I hope the teachers passing by can take a look.

I am 18 years old this year. After this year is over, I will be 19. My family isn’t in a good situation. My parents divorced when I was very young. When I was in kindergarten, I saw them fight with my own eyes. Back then, our family ran a business selling snacks, and we lived in a rented small house. There was a loft above it, and the floor was made of wooden boards. I lived on the first floor; my mother was on the second floor and the first floor, arguing with my father. My mom was holding a clothes hanger to hit my dad, and my dad kept saying filthy things. I was so scared that I burst into tears right away.

At that time, my maternal grandmother was in the shop, helping run that little store together with my parents. I ran out immediately, went to the shop to find my grandma, and said that my parents were fighting. I cried while saying it. My grandmother just said something淡淡的: “If your parents fight, go tell your grandpa, don’t tell me.” I didn’t really understand. I just wanted my parents to stop fighting.

Later, my parents divorced. My grandmother and I lived together for a while, until second grade. My grandmother had to go back to Chongqing, and my dad and mom also didn’t want to keep me by their side. Maybe they thought I was a nuisance. My father then had me live with my aunt’s household. At that time, my grades were still decent. A lot of people said I was smart, but only I knew that I was very lonely. I often wondered why I ended up like this. Yes, when I was in third grade, I thought this way too.

Later, I got in touch with my phone and started playing games. The happiness you can feel in the games, and that sense of achievement, fascinated me. My friends in the games were also easy to get along with. Slowly, I started to become addicted—so much so that by fifth grade I was wearing glasses as well. I also turned into what people in the family would call a “bad kid.” But I was just trying to be happier.

(Why not go out for a walk, or exercise? I just want to play games. Don’t say “you” to who?)

When I was little, I didn’t have much ability to clearly distinguish right from wrong. My family’s educational level was also relatively low. It wasn’t just that they scolded me—sometimes it was like shouting, or taking things. I understood this was for my own good, but what about it? What else could I do? I had nowhere to play, no friends, and nobody wanted to communicate with me properly. I was just a child living off others, passed back and forth by my parents. Other than being able to feel a little happiness in games, what else could I do?

One time, because I was angry, I didn’t go to school. My father specifically came back from somewhere else. He was very furious and cursed me, saying what I was supposed to do. He kept telling me foul words in Minnan dialect, and told me that if I acted like this again, I shouldn’t follow him. He told me to go find my mother. I tried to explain my thoughts to him, but he kept interrupting. At my age, it’s enough to study well, and don’t think so much. But how could you not think?

I really wanted to cry. I was in so much pain… Everyone told me to study hard. But what could I do after I studied well? And what could I do if I didn’t study well—bricklaying? Picking up trash? Studying well would mean working in an office? I didn’t understand. Didn’t they want to read good books? Did they want to move bricks and pick up trash? Could sitting in an office really make life better?

When I graduated from primary school, my grades were neither high nor low. The middle school in our town wasn’t good—most of the students who went there had poor grades. My dad, after hearing what my uncle said, sent me to a private middle school. In seventh grade, I lived at my uncle’s house. The tuition was over 10,000, and that wasn’t including living expenses and food expenses. In the private school, it was mostly the sons of well-off families. Slowly, I got influenced by them. I started to not study properly and developed a desire to compare myself with others. My grades also gradually dropped.

I’m not going to lie to you: in the year of eighth grade, I thought about suicide countless times. In eighth grade, I lived at my grandma’s house. My grandma didn’t really like me because my grades weren’t good, I loved playing with my phone, and she also thought I was useless. At home, she constantly criticized me, saying that this wasn’t okay and that wasn’t okay. One time, my cash was in the backpack in the cabinet in the dormitory, but someone stole it. I went home and told my grandma about it. My grandma’s words made me really angry, but I had no choice.

It was like: “Why do other people only steal from you and not from anyone else?” and “In school, are you the one who gets bullied all the time?”

Yes—even if you already thought I would get bullied, why would you still talk to me like that? I was very sad. But what made me the most sad was that the money I saved myself—I took a taxi home myself. After I got home, my dad asked where the money came from, if I got it from my mom. He was extremely angry. He told me to give him my phone. At first, I didn’t want to. I stayed silent. Then he picked up a cleaver and pointed it at me, demanding that I hand it over. And he kept saying filthy things. My grandma beside him also said nothing. While he spoke, he used the cleaver to chop that phone to pieces. I remember it clearly—the phone was smoking. I didn’t cry out loud. I didn’t dare. I just kept crying, and tears kept flowing down.

When my father saw me crying, he told me not to cry. He cursed me while doing it, and then told me to go find my mother. He said it was better to raise a dog than to raise me. I didn’t dare say anything. I didn’t dare feel wronged. Everything was my fault. I shouldn’t play with my phone. I shouldn’t save money and come home. That night, I thought a lot—so much, so much. But I still chose to keep living.

That’s how I got through eighth grade in the days without a phone. They thought that once I didn’t have a phone, I would study properly. But I already didn’t have the will to keep going to school. I went home and slept. Going to school was the same as usual. No one talked to me, and nobody played with me. That’s how I spent eighth grade.

Even though I had a sense of comparison, I didn’t go ask my father or grandma for money. After eighth grade ended, I had summer vacation. I hugged my luggage and made my father’s phone call from the public phone booth at the school, asking when my father could come pick me up. My father was very impatient. He told me not to study. Whoever wanted to pick me up could pick me up. He didn’t want to pick me up. He yelled at me, then hung up.

My heart was filled with mixed feelings. Maybe I really should work hard to study… In the end, it was my uncle who came to pick me up and take me back home. Then they discussed it and decided to send me to my maternal grandmother’s place to go to school—meaning Chongqing. Before I went to my grandmother’s place, my mom should also have known I was going to Chongqing. So she told my grandmother to let me go find her and play first.

My mother was good to me, but maybe it was also because she didn’t have to be responsible for my tuition and other expenses. She bought me a new phone and took me to eat good food, took me out to play, and bought me a few sets of new clothes. Then we set off for Chongqing.

My uncle and my grandmother were pretty good to me, and they talked more gently. But my bad habit of playing games was something I couldn’t change. In Chongqing, I also couldn’t study well. My uncle had thought a few times about communicating with me. He felt the age gap wasn’t that big. Also, when he was young, he often went to internet cafes to play games, so he understood me to some extent. But I already lost the desire to communicate with people. I didn’t dare. I was afraid. I was afraid that once I said it, people would ignore me. I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to see me clearly.

I stayed silent. My uncle probably also knew that communication wouldn’t work, so later he didn’t say much anymore either. They would just call me along when they went out to play, but I preferred staying at home alone. Speaking of it, it’s kind of funny.

There were two times when I said I wanted to go eat with classmates. He was actually happy. He asked if the money was enough. I had a total of 200 yuan and I went out. This was the first time I asked my family for money to go out and play. It was also the first time I went out and someone asked if the money was enough. But because I was more withdrawn and didn’t like talking to people, those villagers in Chongqing didn’t really like me either. They just knew that I was my mom’s son.

Later, when I finished third year of middle school, I didn’t get into the regular high school. Naturally, I went to a vocational high school. Originally, my father didn’t plan to let me keep studying. But maybe because my uncle and my maternal grandmother told him the reason that it was too early for me to go work somewhere else, he let me study at that vocational high school. I was assigned to a good class. People there didn’t have the stereotypical impression that people usually associate with vocational high school. You could say that besides not having good grades, there were no problems with their character. Everyone in there also wanted to study, and my grades that term somehow climbed to fifth place in the class.

But good days didn’t last long. After finishing that semester, my father stopped providing the money for me to keep studying. I had no choice but to sign the withdrawal application, and then I went back to Fujian. Because I was young and because it was a small town, I couldn’t find a job. I stayed at my grandma’s place all the time.

My grandma probably hated me too. After living there for not long, she started saying that I couldn’t do anything, that I hadn’t learned well, and all that. But I was already used to it. Like they say, “what goes into the left ear stays in the left ear, and what goes into the right ear stays in the right ear.” Hahaha. But one time, I couldn’t take it anymore. I packed my things and walked out.

Why? It’s ridiculous to say. The water cup I had been drinking from—just because I hadn’t put it all the way inside, I left it out on the edge of the table, but it wasn’t even to the point where it would just easily fall. Still, my grandma started blaming me. She said I couldn’t even drink water properly, and asked where all my studying had gone. I started arguing with her, and she began to complain to my father that I was talking back. When I received the call, my father started cursing me too. He said I had nowhere to go.

My grandma let me stay because she felt sorry for me—otherwise I wouldn’t even have a place to sleep. I didn’t say anything. I silently packed and left. There was nowhere to live. I also didn’t have a phone card. I thought about finding some place where others might leave a table outside and you could sleep there for a bit—but there were too many mosquitoes. In the end, I stayed up until around 2 a.m. and still went back to my grandma’s house.

When my grandma saw me, she said things like, “Aren’t you the one who said you wouldn’t come back?” and “Your wings are hardened,” and so on. I didn’t argue with her again. The next day, my father came back and started scolding me again, saying it was better to raise a dog than to raise me. He told me that if I went out, I shouldn’t say I was his son. I just walked out quietly, without speaking.

I have a home—my grandpa built that self-built house. Nobody lives there. One time, I argued with my grandma again, so I went to that house to stay. I only had about 100 yuan on me. I ate instant noodles for almost a month in that house. Every day I ate those packaged noodles. Even the neighbors asked me if I wanted to go eat at their place. I said no. I knew they would definitely just feel sorry for me and then afterward my father and grandma would say other things again.

That month, one of the times I was on the road, I even felt like I was going to pass out. It was really that feeling—like you might die. I slowly forced myself to walk back. I drank a bit of water and then fell asleep. That month is absolutely something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.

There’s another thing I’ll never forget too. Because whenever our family got together to eat, it was always in the house my grandpa built. I was in my room watching videos. A child from my aunt’s family told me one sentence: “You’re a useless person.” My heart jolted, but I didn’t say anything. My aunt heard it and quickly told him not to talk nonsense. But I knew what was going on in my heart…

There are still a lot of things I didn’t say, but I’ve already been typing for a long time. My fingers are a bit tired. Thank you very much to the teachers who saw this. Thank you for being willing to spend time reading all my nonsense. Thank you so much! I wish the teachers good health and all the best, and may stocks keep rising all the way!