The studio was alive with heated discussion.
The male host, Hai Tao, leaned forward with excitement in his eyes.
"Maybe Victor was only clinging to survival. Who knows if he truly lived for his daughter? After all, look at how poorly he educated her later!"
The hostess, Nana, added fuel to the fire.
"Exactly! If Sophia was such a genius, why didn't he let her become a child star? Why hold her back when the whole world could have seen her brilliance at four years old? Why keep her hidden?"
The crowd in the gymnasium stirred with emotion. Family contestants and audience members alike shouted their support for Sophia.
"Come on, Sophia! You're the best!"
"You've still got us!"
Sophia bowed slightly, acknowledging the encouragement. But inside, her heart was tangled with bitterness and memory.
---
The footage shifted again, pulling everyone back to the past.
Sophia was three years and eleven months old, nearly four, already able to sing the second verse of the song fluently. Now came the challenge of writing the ending.
It was winter. The first image was stark: five o'clock in the morning.
Victor woke silently, careful not to disturb his daughter. He tucked the quilt around her small frame and pressed a trembling hand to his throat to suppress a cough. His veins pulsed painfully at his temple as another wave of headache threatened to split his skull.
He pulled on a worn-out coat and slipped outside to prepare breakfast. The door was locked tight, alarms rigged to keep strangers from intruding. Then he climbed onto his battered electric scooter, heading to deliver food.
The icy wind whipped his face, his eyelashes quickly coated in frost. The cold itself wasn't what hurt—it was the constant dizziness, the hammering in his head, the splitting pain that made him stagger. Still, he endured.
At 8:30, after completing the morning deliveries, Victor returned home. His daughter was waiting obediently at the table. Two meals sat before them.
One plate held roast goose and rice porridge.
The other held plain porridge mixed with spicy Laoganma sauce.
Sophia naturally carried the richer dish toward her father, but Victor gently took it back, smiling.
"I can't eat meat," he said softly. "It makes me cough."
He ate the porridge with chili while she ate the goose. To her, it was normal. To the viewers watching, it was heartbreaking.
After breakfast, Victor left again for work. He labored at a construction site all day, rushing home in the evening to cook. At eight o'clock sharp, he sat beside his daughter as she wrestled with the final verse.
The first line was already written:
"Insects fly."
But then she froze. What came next? Her pen hovered helplessly.
From the present-day stage, Sophia stared at this scene with wide eyes. Even now, she asked herself: Was I truly a genius, or just a child led by invisible hands?
Victor, smiling faintly, reached down to pat her head. "What do worms eat?"
Sophia counted on her fingers. "Leaves… dirt… little bugs… flowers."
"Exactly," Victor said, pointing out the window to the dark sky. "The insects fly away, and the dirt should fall asleep too."
Sophia scribbled the words, then hesitated. She shook her head.
"It doesn't sound right. What if Mommy hears and gets angry? It's too sad. Maybe… maybe flowers should sleep instead."
From the stage, Sophia clenched her fists, her body shaking. She could still hear his voice, soft and patient, guiding every word.
Victor leaned closer, his eyes warm enough to melt the winter chill. "Then call it something else. Each line should look good."
Sophia frowned. "No, it has to be pairs—lines that balance, that are beautiful together."
And so she wrote:
"One pair after another is beautiful."
Victor added quietly, "And your mother—she's afraid of nothing. Not the dark, not heartbreak. She loves you so much she'd cross the world to find you. No exhaustion, no pain, no direction could stop her."
He whispered these ideas over and over as she scribbled, erased, and rewrote. For an entire month, she worked tirelessly, reshaping line after line, until at last, on the first day of the twelfth month, she held the complete lyrics in her tiny hands.
She sang them aloud, her childish voice ethereal, full of innocence yet threaded with grief and longing:
---
**Dark sky, bright stars follow,
Insects fly, insects fly,
Who are you missing?
The stars in the sky are crying,
Withered roses on the ground,
Cold wind, cold wind,
As long as you are with me.
Insects fly, flowers sleep,
One pair after another is beautiful.
Not afraid of dark, only afraid of heartbreak.
Whether tired or not,
No matter east, west, north, or south.**
---
The song floated through the cramped room, and in that moment it was as if two times and two worlds were joined by music—sorrow and hope interwoven.
When she finished, little Sophia clutched her father's hand.
"I wrote the lyrics! Now… when can I see Mommy?"
Victor's eyes softened. He spoke as though delivering a prophecy:
"Soon. When your song is sung by many people, when the world loves your voice, you will see her again."
Sophia nodded with childlike faith. And indeed, fifteen years later, when she turned nineteen, that prophecy would take on a new meaning—though neither of them could know it then.
---
On stage in the present, Sophia's voice broke as she whispered to herself:
"So this is how the first song of my life was created. It all felt like coincidence, but it was carefully designed by him—forcing me to complete it, making me believe I was capable, giving me confidence in my first creation."
Her chest heaved. "But the lyrics were Mother's. Father was only a messenger. And if you wanted me to create so badly, why did you deprive me of my first chance at fame when I was four? Why did you take away every opportunity afterward? Why deny every effort I made?"
Tears blurred her vision. Her voice was low, but the pain carried through the hall.
"Since I was four years old, I never called you 'Father' again. I don't regret it. You were not worth the word."
The auditorium fell silent.
Her words echoed, each syllable heavy as a stone thrown into a still pond. The grief in her tone seemed to dissolve into the air, awakening the tear ducts of the audience. Many wept openly, their hearts aching for the girl who had carried so much.
They marveled at her growth. How had she risen, step by step, from such a suffocating cage?
Others whispered in curiosity. What exactly had happened at the age of four? What had sparked this lifelong fracture between father and daughter, a wound so deep that Sophia swore never to reconcile?
It was a mystery still unsolved.
But one truth was clear to everyone watching: her success had been built through pain, struggle, and defiance.
And whether or not Victor regretted his choices, his daughter's words left no room for doubt.
She did not regret leaving him behind.
------------------------------------------------------
Get membership in patreon to read more chapters
Extra chapters available in patreon
patreon.com/Dragonscribe31
-----------------------------------------------------