CH 42.1

By the age of 36, Yang Mo’s life experience could be described as ‘rough and bumpy’.

His family wasn’t rich so Old Yang lived frugally, saving money to spend it all on Yang Mo and his mother.

Yang Mo’s mother had poor health and spent almost half of her life lying on the hospital bed.

Little Yang Mo inherited this side of his mother, having a body that was very ‘rebellious’. Not matter how much he ate, his body wouldn’t absorb it. As a result, he was still really thin to the extent where he might be blown away by the wind.

His personality was also different from children his age. Although his grades were good, he was quiet and never participated in class activities. The teachers and his classmates would sometimes forget how his voice sounded like.

Yang Mo who was in kindergarten was already a little mature. He wouldn’t wait in line for his parents to pick him up after school. Instead, he sneaked off on his own to visit his mother in the hospital. His teacher got anxious several times for being unable to find him and had to call Old Yang.

He sat on a chair by the hospital bed, his two feet barely able to reach the ground. Without saying anything, he would lie on top of the table to practice writing Arabic numbers neatly.

The nurses and patients said he was a good boy, not making a fuss and even knowing how to pour water and peel apples for his mother at such a young age.

Yang Mo’s mother was really good with kids. She would ask him every day if he had seen anything interesting at school or if he liked any classmates.

Little Yang Mo shook his head, “None.”

His mother prompted, “Didn’t your teacher teach you how to play games?”

“Yes,” Yang Mo thought about it and said in a flat tone, “We played house today. The girls played the mother role, the boys played the father role.”

“They played with their seatmate. But my seatmate is a boy.”

His mother asked with interest, “Then, how did the two of you play it out?”

Although Yang Mo didn’t like games, but he couldn’t get out of group activities. He said, “We took turns playing the mother role.”

Seeing his mother giggle, he titled his head and wondered, “What’s wrong?”

His mother patted his little head and said, “It can be two dads, too.”

Yang Mo held his pencil and shook his head, “No, it can’t be. There’s no such combinations.”

His mother pursed her lips together, “Hmm…”

“Look at this,” She started, “Boys and girls are like the opposite poles of a magnet. They are attracted to each other quite smoothly. But between two boys or two girls, they are two poles of the same end that would repel.”

She pulled out two oval-shaped black magnets from nowhere, probably toys left behind by children visiting a sick friend.

“When they are placed together, they would usually not stick together.” His mother handed one of them to Yang Mo and said, “But if you put more effort into overcoming the resistance and force, they can still touch each other.”

Yang Mo listened carefully and said, “It’ll be very hard.”

His mother laughed, “That’s why you need to put a lot of effort into it.”

He stared at her eyes, carefully writing down her words in his heart, stroke by stroke.

Yang Mo really loved listening to his mother talk. Unlike active children, he could stay all day by the beside of the hospital room.

When he was in elementary school, his mother passed away.

Old Yang could tell it was a big blow to Yang Mo, so he took a lot of time out to spend with him.

But at that time, Old Yang and Yang Mo did not get along anymore. The two of them were too stubborn and full of arguments, not to mention Old Yang was always unwilling to lower his head due to his pride as a father. Although Yang Mo was only in elementary school, he had already perfected his explosive temper and stubbornness too.

His style of handling things was still the same then. He kept to himself and only had very few people he could call friends.

Yang Mo thought that his childhood was mundane and boring. There existed only the same set of numbers and words in his life. Every time he closed and opened his eyes, the world was in the same colour.

During junior high school, Yang Mo learned how to fight.

He was a man who abided to no rules, fighting with fierce ruthlessness only. Therefore, his opponent often cowered psychologically and take a step back.

The most serious fight involved a visit to the hospital. There were still visible stitches from that time that remained on his waist today.

Due to that one time, Yang Mo was reported by the entire school in the flag-raising ceremony as the teachers and parents took turn criticizing him. They sternly asked Yang Mo the reason behind the fight, but he only answered with a light-hearted sentence, ‘he simply had the face that deserved a fucking beating’.

If he wasn’t lying in the hospital bed still, Old Yang would’ve wanted nothing more than teaching that wild, rebellious son a lesson.

Among the few friends that Yang Mo had, there weren’t many that he was close enough for them to stand up for him. Not to mention it was Yang Mo who deliberately started the fight this time too. There wasn’t really much to be said anymore.

However, in the class meeting where their teacher used Yang Mo as the counter-example of a good student, his seatmate instead said, Yang Mo was the bravest person in the world.

The teacher repeated to her the gravity of fighting with others. This was a quiet, good female student who usually never dared to talk back to the teacher. Yet, she shyly gritted her teeth before repeating what she had said earlier.

The teacher thought this was blind admiration for the opposite sex that typically happened during youth, so she switched up their seats.

The female student had a cute appearance and a small stature. She liked to act spoiled and be pampered when she interacts with her peers. She wasn’t afraid of Yang Mo’s cold personality. Instead, she was like a minefield dancer who dared to call Yang Mo as Mo Mo when he had on a cold expression.

Yang Mo was really helpless against her. Therefore, after they became seatmates, his math homework became her reference source.