The Magic City Gym was full—one hundred thousand people pressed into their seats, screens glowing, hearts tight with expectation. Online, over two million viewers watched the live broadcast on the big platforms. For a long breath, everyone was silent. Then the comments rushed like rain.
Most people thought the story of "Insect Flying" began when Sophia was four. A freelance cameraman had filmed a tiny girl in a slum, wearing a faded white dress that had been washed a hundred times but still looked clean. Her hair smelled like lavender—fresh, just washed. She stood in the sun near a broken building with yellowed walls. Somehow, she looked like the opposite of that world—like a small sunflower that still turned toward light.
The cameraman called out, "Little girl, you sing so well. Where did you learn that song?"
The child said, in her small voice, "I wrote it myself. My mother died. My father said my mother turned into a worm, and one day she will come out of the cocoon, become a butterfly, and fly into the sky to see me."
The cameraman had recorded that short talk by accident. He uploaded it. The clip blew up. Collections passed two million. Likes passed three million. Comments passed one million. Famous singers shared it. The cameraman's career took off. He opened top video studios and became known as a "magician" with a camera.
And people on the internet began to call the little girl the "future star." They said the original author of "Insect Flying" was that same child—Sophia.
—
Now, on stage, Sophia turned and stared at the screen. Her perfect posture wavered. Her eyes were glassy, almost lost.
She did not remember it that way.
"No," she thought, breathing fast. "I wrote this song when I was four, from my own memory."
But the images kept changing.
—
When children are three, they often forget what happened around that age. It was the same with little Sophia. After Victor—her father—hummed a soft song in the night, she forgot it days later. Only the search for "mother" stayed in her heart like a thorn.
Victor held her, fed her gently, and smiled.
"Your mother turned into a little bug," he said softly.
Little Sophia pushed the bowl of seafood porridge away and asked in a hurry, "What should I do then?"
"Remember her well," Victor said. "The more people remember her, the more she can break her cocoon and become a butterfly, fly across the sky and the land, and find you."
"Then how do I find my mother?" the little girl asked. She was so firm for someone so small.
"You can write a song for her," Victor said, thinking out loud. "Call it… Grasshopper Flying."
"No." Little Sophia shook her head. "That doesn't sound good. My mother is a worm. She will come out of a cocoon and turn into a butterfly. It should be called 'Insect Flying.'"
Victor smiled and nodded. They bumped their small fists together and laughed.
This memory was gone from adult Sophia's mind. Who remembers such tiny pieces from age three? She could only remember being filmed at four and going viral.
"But before that—" she thought, a sudden ache under her ribs. "How did I write this song? Where did the first words come from?"
Her chest hurt, like a door was locked inside her. She looked at the crowd with a mix of sadness and confusion. Those clear, cool eyes, which had faced so many storms, now showed real pain. People in the audience felt it too and dropped their gaze, as if they had seen something too private.
One of the hosts, Nina, tried to help. "Sophia, you wrote the song. It has nothing to do with your father."
The other host, Hector, added, "And those envelopes must have been left by your mother. Even if she divorced, she could leave letters to guide your talent. That has nothing to do with your father."
The fifty contestants of Happy Family nodded.
"Right. Even if her mother made mistakes, she still left lots of writings and helped create value."
"It's still Sophia's own talent that amazed everyone."
"Her father might have been okay at first, but later—like Sophia said—he failed as a father."
Listening to the guesses, Sophia nodded slowly. Yes, the envelopes were from Mother. Father was only the messenger. And she was filmed by chance. That is how the story went… right?
She breathed in and steadied herself. The screen moved forward.
—
Sophia, age three years and four months.
Her small hand shook as she held a pen. On a scrap of paper she wrote, in big careful letters: Insect Flying.
She bit her lip, thinking about the first line. She was so little. So serious.
Victor was cooking nearby. He coughed, often, but whenever he looked at his child, he held the cough back. He didn't want to scare her. He didn't want her to worry. He didn't read a single line she wrote; he wanted the song to belong to her.
He pointed toward the window. "It's dark now," he said with a gentle smile. "Your mother is missing you. What should the first line be?"
Sophia stared at the night. Since she was three, Victor took her along to deliver food in the day. He carried her on his back when she was tired. She had seen more of the city than most children her age. She knew the sky in many places—the dark rooftops, the broken alleys, the few stars that still dared to show.
Her small fingers moved. She wrote: Dark sky.
Victor tilted his head. "What does a dark sky look like? Maybe… 'The dark sky hangs low'?" he suggested softly, testing the sound.
She frowned, thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes. 'The dark sky hangs low.' That sounds right."
Victor smiled, pleased. He set a warm plate in front of her. "Time to eat."
"Okay," she said.
That year, in the cold nights of the slum, a father and a daughter lived side by side, feeding each other's hope.
—
On the stage now, Sophia, dressed in perfect elegance, the star who never showed fear, lost her calm again.
"Impossible," she said, voice shaking. "So the first line of 'Insect Flying' came like that?"
Even as an adult, she had sometimes wondered how she could have written such a deep, spiritual song at only three. She had always believed that maybe only the first line found her somehow, and the rest she wrote herself, word by word, over six long months. That part, she was sure of. That part was real.
The audience leaned forward. They wanted to hear more. They wanted to know how the next lines were born.
—
Sophia, age three years and six months.
Another late-night food delivery. The security guard at the gate frowned at Victor.
"Why do you bring your child out at night when it's so cold?" he asked. "You're divorced. You could leave her at home."
Victor gave a small, honest smile. The guard sighed and opened the door.
By the time they left, it was past ten. Victor offered the guard a cigarette and nodded at the sky. "Night shift is good for watching stars."
The guard looked up too. "Not like the countryside anymore," he said. "Fewer stars in the city now."
On the small electric bike, Victor glanced back at his daughter. "Your mother is about to change into a butterfly. She wants to follow us. How do we say that?" He blinked at her like it was a secret game.
In that second, many older viewers in the gym felt tears rise. They had never seen eyes that gentle—eyes that held a whole life of love. Even in sickness, even in poverty, even when the veins stood out at his temple from pain, Victor smiled.
People whispered, "If he was this kind, then why did he become so hard later? Why did he treat Sophia like that when she went to school? Did pressure break him? Did he turn his anger on the weak?"
—
On the bike seat, little Sophia hugged her father's back and hummed, "Mom became a butterfly and began to follow us…"
She remembered the stars the guard had mentioned. She remembered the rooftop of the slum. She remembered how her father held her small hand and taught her to find the bright spots in the dark.
"Bright stars follow!" she blurted, and sang it as if it had always been there.
Victor chuckled. "'Stars' might not be quite right. Think again."
"Big star?" she tried.
"Moon?"
"Pluto?"
"Starlight?"
"This one works," Victor said. The camera caught his face as he smiled. Even with sickness returning, even with lines of pain, he smiled into the wind. He rode on.
Behind him, Sophia sang:
The dark sky hangs low
Bright starlight follows
Insects fly
Insects fly
Who are you missing?
Victor called back over the rush of air, "You want to sing to many people. So how could you use 'I' in the first line?"
She blinked, thinking hard. "Then… who are you missing?" she said softly, trying on the words like a new dress.
Yes. You. The song was not only for the child who lost a mother. It was for anyone who missed someone they loved. That was how the pain became wide enough to hold everyone.
That year, three years and seven months old, Sophia reached the first full shape of "Insect Flying."
—
The big screen slowed. The hall was so quiet it felt like snow. And then, very gently, the pictures showed even more pieces the world had never seen:
Victor refusing to eat the best food, saving it for Sophia and, in those early months, even for Lily, before she left.
Victor standing guard at the door when drunk men shouted in the corridor, his body a thin wall between the world and his daughter.
Victor cutting little papers into the shape of envelopes, writing "From Mom" on the front, and slipping in short notes. Notes that praised Sophia's efforts. Notes that told her, "You are brave. You are kind. You are enough."
Victor lowering his voice to read the notes at night, as if the words really came from a mother in the sky.
Victor coughing into a towel so the child would not see the blood.
Each small act was simple. Together, they made a bridge between despair and hope.
People in the gym began to cry. Even the hosts said nothing now. The Happy Family contestants stared at the floor, their faces hot with shame for the things they had said a few minutes ago.
Sophia pressed a hand to her chest. Her makeup could not hide the red rims of her eyes. She had been so sure. So sure that the song was hers alone, and the letters were from Lily, and her father was only a messenger.
But the screen did not lie. The records did not lie. The small details no one could fake did not lie.
It was Victor who placed the first spark in her hands.
It was Victor who widened the song from "I" to "you," so that it could hold the whole world.
It was Victor who built a gentle mother out of paper and ink, so his child would grow with love and not with hate.
And the video of little Sophia in the sun? The "future star" clip? That too had roots. She had been singing because she believed her mother could hear her, because every listener was one more memory to help a caterpillar become a butterfly. Victor taught her that.
Important moments shone like lanterns:
The first title written by tiny hands: "Insect Flying."
The first line shaped together: "The dark sky hangs low."
The turn from "I" to "you," so the song could speak to everyone.
The rooftop lessons about stars.
The truth that the "letters from Mom" were a father's gift to protect a soft heart.
The viral video that carried a secret promise—every listener helps a butterfly find its way.
Sophia looked out at the sea of faces. "I thought I remembered," she whispered. "But I forgot the most important part."
She looked back at the screen, at the small figure on the bike, at the man who rode through the night and smiled through pain. The man who had taught her to turn hurt into music.
She bowed her head.
"Dad…" she said, the word catching in her throat, "I understand."
The gym breathed out as one. Somewhere, a child in the back began to hum:
The dark sky hangs low
Bright starlight follows
Insects fly
Insects fly
Who are you missing?
And across the world, people who had lost someone found themselves in the song—because Victor had once asked a little girl to change a single word. Because he had taught her that grief becomes lighter when we carry it together.