Chapter 157

"I used to wonder why I was born into such a miserable family. Why could others afford school fees while I couldn't? When the teacher came to our house to ask for the fees, and the whole town watched, do you know what I was thinking, Jen? I thought, 'It's not worth going to school.' When I told my mother that, she slapped me and said she would sell her blood to make sure I could go to school. She cried and cursed, saying, 'Remember how people bully us, you have to grow up and trample those people under your feet! You have to make me proud, do you understand?'"

"Later, when I was in middle school, though it was compulsory education, we still needed to pay for textbooks. The school knew we were poor and applied for free textbooks for me. But do you know what that meant, Jen? The textbooks had a red stamp that said 'free textbook.' The school even sent someone to our house to take pictures of us, sitting in front of our broken house with those textbooks. They told me to smile. How could