The stage lights were blinding, the crowd buzzing with restless energy. The atmosphere was sharp with curiosity, like thousands of questions hanging in the air at once. Yet behind all of this noise, the story of Sophia's song traced back to a very different world—a world of broken alleys, cracked walls, and faded hopes.
Back then, on the dilapidated streets of the ghetto, it wasn't unusual to see youth gangs racing motorcycles and insulting each other late into the night. Drunkards would bang on the wrong doors, unleashing curses that started violent fights between neighbors. Chaos was a daily routine, despair a common background.
But in one tiny, decaying room, a very different scene was unfolding. Victor sat quietly with his young daughter Sophia, no more than four years old. His voice, though weakened by illness, carried a deep tenderness as he instructed her on the practice of Bel Canto.
"Work hard," he would whisper, guiding her small voice.
"Sound. Resonance. Feel it inside you, not just outside."
Sophia's childish voice, uncertain yet full of natural beauty, opened a door that neither of them had expected. The song she shaped carried a haunting mix of sadness and joy, a beauty so fragile and illusory that anyone hearing it would have been intoxicated.
At those moments, Victor no longer looked like the handsome man of years past. His body was frail, his skin pale from illness. The cheap medicine he swallowed every day barely suppressed the pain that plagued his brain. He coughed often, his frame shaking, but the moment he heard Sophia sing—even something as simple as "the insects are flying"—his eyes would light up with genuine encouragement.
"The lyrics you wrote are wonderful," he told her softly.
"I always knew my daughter was the best. If your mother could hear them from heaven, she'd be so proud."
"You must finish this song well, Sophia. Let it be sung by many voices, so that in every note, your mother's memory will live on."
Every night, no matter how lonely, Victor repeated those words with a gentle smile. And every word, every phrase, etched itself deeply into Sophia's tender heart. She was too young to understand the complexity of memory or influence. She only knew that her father said she had written the song, and so she believed it. Slowly, her young mind began to arrange the verses logically, as if she herself had authored them.
She looked at the night sky over the city and thought of the first line. She remembered the way stars were invisible in the big city but visible in the slums, and from that thought came the second line. Then she imagined her mother as a firefly taking flight, which gave birth to the third line. And because she wanted people everywhere to remember her mother, the fourth line appeared naturally in her heart.
In her memory, she had written it all, step by step, beautifully and logically.
And all the while, Victor stood quietly in the shadows, never claiming the spotlight, simply watching with gentle eyes.
Years later, standing under the brilliant lights of the stage, Sophia finally faced the truth.
"Why? WHY?" she roared, her voice carrying the weight of years. Her usually calm tone now trembled with a complicated anger, echoing through the auditorium.
She didn't understand. Or perhaps she did. She realized now why she had always felt like the song was hers—that her father had gently guided her into believing she was the creator. But the question haunted her: why hadn't he sung it himself?
Had he chosen to hide behind her image?
The male host, Hai Tao, seized the opportunity like a predator smelling blood. His eyes sparkled as he leaned forward, voice sharp and eager:
"First," he said, "it was because your father was gravely ill. He didn't have the strength or time to chase fame. And second, your image, your voice, were far more suitable. He may have used you, Sophia, shaping you into a so-called genius girl. But what he didn't expect was that you truly were a genius—one who exceeded all of his careful calculations!"
His words cut the air like knives.
The female host added fuel to the fire, her voice dripping with sarcasm:
"Your father may have been clever, but not clever enough. The truth is, he didn't dare to sing because he wasn't truly talented. This song—everyone knows it came from your mother's letter! He was afraid that if he ever tried to perform, people would discover his lack of real skill."
The two hosts' "rational analysis" brought murmurs of agreement from the crowd. Audience members in the front rows nodded vigorously, convinced.
After all, even Sophia had admitted that her father's behavior had changed drastically after she turned four. His tenderness became strictness. His encouragement turned into harsh training. And indeed, he had never displayed any musical talent of his own again.
So, the conclusion spread quickly: the true genius was not Victor at all—it was Lily, Sophia's mother.
The online chatter exploded. Barrages of comments scrolled across screens:
"The real genius is Lily! She had extraordinary talent and left that letter as guidance."
"That envelope must have contained instructions on how to train a child. No wonder Sophia's gift awakened!"
"Of course Lily left. A brilliant woman like her wouldn't want to stay with a sick man like Victor."
"Poor Sophia. Imagine if she had been raised by her mother instead—she might have been even more extraordinary!"
The popularity of the live broadcast skyrocketed past two million viewers, each one throwing their own speculation into the storm.
And yet, far away from the dazzling lights and the endless digital voices, in the last row of the cheapest seats, Victor sat silently.
"Cough… cough…" He pressed a frayed handkerchief to his lips, staining it with a dark-brown clot of blood. He wiped it away calmly, as if it were nothing. The years had carved wrinkles around his eyes, but inside those eyes still lived a warmth that time could not extinguish.
His posture was tired, his breathing shallow, but as he looked at the stage—at his daughter glowing under the spotlight—tears slid down his face without him realizing it.
His lips curved into a soft smile, one that held both pain and love. He thought of Lily.
When she left, she had taken all the money. She left him nothing but a book of debts and a tiny daughter to raise alone. The bitterness of those years had been locked away in his heart, too heavy to revisit. Yet now, in this moment, those memories returned like ghosts—harsh, unrelenting.
But as he gazed at Sophia, standing tall before the world, something inside him changed. The weight lifted. His heart burned with pride instead of sorrow.
He sat straighter in his seat, eyes shining. For him, this was enough.
The whispers around him, the mocking laughter, the accusations—they didn't matter. Life was fading quickly, but he had already chosen how to spend the last of it: not in defense, not in argument, but simply watching his daughter succeed.
He was a traveler at the end of his road, and all he wanted was reconciliation with the child he had raised, the only light left in his world.
In his heart, it felt just like returning to that old orange shack years ago—father and daughter, alone against the world, leaning on each other. And that memory, that bond, was enough to keep him warm even as the cold edge of time pressed closer.