That night, Song Xiaoyang was still doing his homework until 1 a.m.
His father, Song Jianguo, got up in the middle of the night and noticed the light still on in his son's room. He pushed the door open.
"Why aren't you asleep yet?"
His father's voice was groggy and laced with impatience.
The pen in Xiaoyang's hand left a blot of ink on the page.
This was his third time rewriting the same homework assignment—Mr. Tian had torn up the first two attempts, claiming his handwriting was "too messy."
"It's the punishment homework..." Xiaoyang replied in a small voice.
His father walked over and glanced at the paper, his brows furrowing even deeper.
"Punished again? How many times is that this term?" He picked up the notebook and flipped through it. "Did you mess around at school again?"
"I didn't!" Xiaoyang's voice suddenly rose. "Mr. Tian's targeting me on purpose! He changes my right answers to wrong ones, lets the other kids bully me. Today, Wang Lei—"
"Shut up!" his father snapped.
"There's no smoke without fire. Why would the teacher pick on you and no one else?"
He slammed the notebook down on the desk.
"When I was your age, teachers used to hit us with bamboo rulers, and we still didn't complain. Kids these days can't handle the slightest hardship!"
Xiaoyang's tears fell onto the workbook, smudging the ink.
He wanted to tell his father how his classmates spat into his water bottle, how they threw his textbooks in the toilet, how they deliberately shoved him during P.E. when he was changing clothes...
But one look at his father's expression told him none of that mattered.
"Mr. Tian is an award-winning teacher in the city," his father said, his tone softening a little. "Strict teachers produce great students. You should reflect on your own behavior instead of blaming others."
He patted his son's thin shoulder. "Finish your work and go to bed."
The door closed.
Xiaoyang stared at the blurred words on the page, soaked by tears, and remembered what Mr. Tian had said in last week's mental health class:
"These days, students like to say they're being bullied—but most of the time, it's just paranoia.
You want to know what real bullying is?
It's called competition.
And it's what you'll face for the rest of your lives."
Outside the window, a pale moon hung in the sky.
For a moment, Xiaoyang thought he saw a girl in a white dress standing beneath the tree, smiling at him from the shadows.
He blinked.
She was gone.