Chapter 3

'Aside from work, your father spent all his remaining time at home, doing nothing but quietly reading books that you couldn't understand. You knew those books were related to engineering, and you also knew that your father had graduated from a prestigious university with an engineering degree.

But he never did any work related to engineering. He would rather receive government welfare and sweep the streets than look for a job.

People who knew him called him Strange Old John.

Yes, your name comes from him. You found it strange why your mother didn't want you to take your father's surname but gave you the same name as him, but you never asked, thinking that such a question would only result in a scolding or even a beating.

You remember in elementary school when your teacher asked you to write about your father. In your essay, you described your father as a gentleman from a wealthy family, cultured and knowledgeable. In your essay, your father was a bridge engineer living in a wealthy neighborhood, who loved you, showed you his bridge models, told you bedtime stories, and took you camping. That was your entire fantasy about your father, even though he never did any of those things.

You specifically asked your father to sign that essay, but he just signed it casually without reading the content.

Because of that essay, you were criticized by your teacher, ridiculed by your classmates for your wild imagination, and your mother was furious at your essay.

You got used to all of this.

You preferred staying with your father over your mother's family. Although his house was small and messy, and the bugs under the mattress at night kept you from sleeping, your father never shouted at you or smashed bottles when he was drunk. Here, you could read books that your peers couldn't understand, some on mathematics, some on physics. Your father's house was filled with countless books, most of which were tattered, and you often saw formulas that were only half complete, not knowing what the other half was.

Only when reading did you feel the long-lost joy. You knew you were smarter than most people, just like your father, who was smarter than most people. You felt that you understood him, and he understood you.

You often thought that you had no friends not because of your faded old clothes, not because of the backpack you picked from the trash, and not because of your family that relied on government subsidies by having more children, but because geniuses are always solitary.

Your father was so strange because he was a solitary genius.

Your father often sat quietly in his room, reading a book that you found incomprehensible for an entire afternoon, until dusk, when he reluctantly took his cleaning tools to work, dealing with the neighborhood's garbage. He would return in the evening, reeking of garbage, find something to eat, and continue reading his books.

When your parents still lived together, your mother often cursed him as a madman. But this madman would answer every question you had, heat up your food in the microwave, remind you to eat, tell you to go to bed, and even drop you off at the neighborhood entrance when you went to school.

You liked this madman.

You enjoyed eating with your father the most. His movements were always the most precise, even when sitting on the ground, he would sit up straight, never getting any sauce on his hands, never making a sound while chewing, and never talking while eating.

Every time you stayed at your father's house, he would buy you a bacon and egg sandwich after his morning work. Although your mother would sometimes make you a sandwich with eggs, meat, tomatoes, lettuce, and salad dressing, which was more abundant than what your father bought, you still preferred the ones your father bought. You knew your father never ate sandwiches; he bought them for you, while your mother just wanted to eat them herself.

You liked this unique feeling. Even if your father didn't like you, and he bought the sandwich just casually, it was the only privilege you had before you turned 14.

.

At 14, you moved out of your mother's house, just like your older siblings.

Your departure didn't provoke any curses or arguments from your mother. She had a new boyfriend and two more children. Becoming a mother again made her much more temperate, and she had no time to pay attention to you, unlike when you were a child and would often clean the house.

In fact, she might have been glad you moved out. With three more people in the house, the once spacious home became cramped. Your departure freed up a room, and she no longer had to bear the cost of raising you while still receiving the allowance.

When your sister, Sunny, learned that you wanted to move out, she contacted you and invited you to stay with her. She was an excellent woman who had earned a full scholarship to attend a police academy, graduated, and now worked as a police officer. She was happy to take care of her excellent younger brother.

But you refused because you wanted to live with your father.

You were surprised that your father was willing to let you live with him. Even though he said he had already paid child support and wouldn't spend any more money on you, and he only provided you with a small bed, all your expenses had to be covered by yourself, it was still a surprising thing.

You thought he accepted you because you were the one among his three children who spent the most time with him.

To earn money, you started delivering milk and newspapers every morning and worked part-time after school. Despite this, your grades remained excellent.

Over the years, your mother kept changing boyfriends and even found a job. But your father remained the same, living alone, without friends, stubbornly rooted in a wealthy neighborhood that didn't belong to him.

A few years ago, he started writing notes, filled with incomprehensible formulas and sketches. Your sister visited him several times, hoping he would change jobs and move to a better environment, but each visit ended in an argument. After he threw out everything she brought him last year, she never visited him again.

You also began to realize that you were different from your father.

You didn't understand him at all and couldn't comprehend him, but you desperately wanted to understand him, which might be why you stubbornly wanted to live with him.

But you didn't hate him because he was the only elder who attended your parent-teacher conferences, even though you only had two elders.

You found it strange that your father never mentioned his relatives. Your mother would curse her alcoholic and abusive father when drunk, but your father seemed to have come out of nowhere, with no relatives or friends.

You only knew that he was an immigrant, and you didn't even know his former country or his past. Sometimes you thought he must have come from a wealthy family with excellent upbringing, and sometimes you thought he grew up in a violent slum like your mother.

He never mentioned these things, just living alone in his small house, isolated from the world.

He was truly a strange person.

Just like you.

.

At 19, to raise money for your university tuition, you started working at a milk factory.

It was a very hard job. You had to constantly move and pour milk drums that were half as tall as a person, working ten hours a day. The noisy factory was hard to find a quiet spot in, and the crude jokes of your coworkers made it impossible for you to fit in.

You were a celebrity here because you had been accepted to Manchester University, which, though not as prestigious as your father's alma mater, was enough to make the people around you look at you differently. You knew that your life was about to change because of your extraordinary mind, the most precious thing your father had given you.

But you still couldn't understand the books your father read or the notes he wrote. His image in your mind became even more mysterious. He was smarter and more outstanding than you thought. You realized you couldn't become him, so you didn't apply for the bridge construction major you once wanted, but chose biology, the subject you truly loved.

To celebrate, you used the money you saved to buy a decent suit you could afford and gave it to your father, sharing your joy with him. Unfortunately, your father didn't like the gift. You never saw him wear the suit you carefully picked out, and he might not have even opened the gift.

From that day on, you deeply realized that he didn't love you, he didn't love anyone, and he lived in his own world. What you once thought was his special treatment of you was just an illusion, and to him, you were just a relative by blood.

After realizing all of this, you moved out and, with Sunny's help, rented a better apartment near the school, free from garbage and rats. You never gave your father anything again, just occasionally visiting him like Sunny used to.

The word "parents" finally left your life. You were no longer constrained by anything, truly began to be yourself, and started experiencing your own life.

You began a new life.'