Even after many years, people still remembered the episode titled "Is This a Happy Family?"—a broadcast that shook the nation. The images from that program, replayed countless times online, were etched into the collective memory.
The footage showed a scene from an old village buried inside the city, where poverty had lingered for generations. The backdrop was bleak—crumbling walls, narrow alleys, despair that seemed carved into every brick. And yet, amidst that misery stood a man.
He was dressed in nothing more than a plain black jacket, the kind anyone in the slums might wear. But as the camera lingered on him, his figure seemed to grow taller, sharper, commanding. Behind him, poverty loomed. Around him, decay whispered. Yet somehow, he radiated a force like rivers flowing, mountains rising, and flowers blooming—an indomitable human spirit.
At the end of the scene, a single word flashed across the screen in bold: FATHER.
That man was Victor.
The audience watching at home gasped when the program first aired. Even those who had mocked him, who had believed he was nothing but a burden to his daughter, couldn't help but whisper in awe:
"This man is like an undead worm. He refuses to die."
How could anyone endure what he had? Brain cancer. Hematohidrosis. Daily torment of headaches splitting the skull, dizziness that left the world spinning, auditory hallucinations that clawed at the mind. And yet Victor had resisted, choosing to stand tall.
He clung to life with one desperate cry:
"Live! Live! For my daughter. For her!"
---
At Jinling University, during a class on social pedagogy, Professor Chen Shan had been discussing the benefits of matriarchal education. But when the program was projected in her lecture hall, she faltered.
For a long moment, she stared at Victor's upright back on the screen. Even she, a woman known for her sharp critiques, was silent.
Then, one of her students—an overweight young man studying both pedagogy and medicine—stood up, his face pale with disbelief.
"How is this possible?" he asked. "How can he stay upright like that? Brain cancer isn't just pain—it's veins bulging, nausea, hallucinations, unbearable pressure inside the head. How is he still conscious, let alone firm?"
Even he, who had looked down on Victor, now regarded him with something close to respect.
Another student, a young woman, gave a measured answer:
"Maybe Victor failed as a teacher, but his willpower is undeniable."
Professor Chen Shan nodded slightly. "This student is correct. Willpower alone is not education. Victor's will may be remarkable, but he is clearly an unqualified father. Look at Sophia—her hatred for him runs bone-deep. This is proof enough. A father's duty is to guide, to nurture, not merely to endure."
Her tone hardened. "Most men from slums are unfit to educate their children. They only wish for their children to rise, but with no tools, no wisdom, how can they succeed?"
The class murmured in agreement. Chen Shan raised her hand toward the screen where Sophia's performances were being shown.
"Everything is because Sophia is a genius. She rose in spite of him, not because of him."
Her words carried weight, and many nodded. Their initial flicker of respect for Victor's willpower was smothered by the reminder of his failures as a parent.
And indeed, even Sophia herself, watching from the stage of the show, felt the same bitterness twisting inside her.
---
Her voice trembled, but she spoke.
"Not like this. You weren't like this at the start. Why did you change when I turned four? Why didn't you care about me after that?"
Her hands clenched at her sides. She was trembling, caught between anger and grief.
She remembered the early days—the patient man who guided her through music, who made her believe she was creating songs of her own. That father had seemed kind, almost noble. But then, something changed. His face grew selfish. His manner became pedantic, stubborn, ignorant.
From the age of four, she had sworn to herself: she would hate him. She would leave him. She would never look back.
Her voice cracked, raw and honest, as she declared:
"You were like a father until I was four. After that, you weren't anymore. You became like every other ghetto drunk—decayed, crawling, useless. Just another bug in the slums, arguing and destroying everything."
She didn't sugarcoat it. She didn't hide behind her polished celebrity image. She said it openly, brutally.
The audience, the hosts, even the other families competing on the program—many wiped their eyes. They weren't tears for Victor. They were tears for Sophia, for the girl who had clawed her way out of such a suffocating home.
To rise from a place like that… it was almost unimaginable.
---
Yet even as she spat those words, the footage on the screen continued. It showed how her song had been created piece by piece—not from the brilliance of a single mind, but from pain, illusion, and the desperate will of a father who refused to die.
The rose. The butterfly story. The cold wind blowing through the window. The illusion of her mother watching. All fragments woven together until Sophia believed them her own.
The truth was messy.
The truth was tragic.
But the truth was also undeniable.
The song wasn't just hers. It wasn't just her mother's. It wasn't just her father's. It was a story of all three, tangled in sorrow and love, creation and destruction.
And in the eyes of millions watching, that truth was heavier than any single judgment of "genius" or "failure."
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