I didn't tell Mom about the parent-teacher meeting and secretly called Dad.

The long silence on the other end of the phone made my heart pound.

"Alright."

Finally, I got his affirmation.

I breathed a sigh of relief and hung up the phone.

In the afternoon, Dad appeared at the school gate.

I went up to greet him.

He looked disheveled, with sweat beads on his forehead, as if he had run all the way here.

He anxiously asked as soon as he saw me.

"What happened? Why did the teacher want to call the parents?"

Just then, the class bell rang and the students in the hallway began to walk towards the classroom, and the campus instantly quieted down.

I led Dad to a bench and sat down, describing the whole situation in detail, including the long-term verbal bullying I suffered from my classmates at school.

"Did they really treat you like that?"

Dad's frowned deepened, "Then why didn't you tell your mom?"

"I did tell Mom, but she thought it was the classmates joking with me."

"That's what your mom said?" Dad looked puzzled, "Your mom said that you were naturally introverted and didn't like to play with classmates."

As my father, he had to listen to my mother's opinion on my personality. It sounded ridiculous, didn't it?

"Dad, as your daughter, don't you know what kind of person I am?"

"I don't know. Since your adolescence, I haven't understood you." Dad turned his head, his expression unnatural. "Anyway, you don't listen to anything I say, so I stopped bothering to say anything."

I don't listen?

My mind raced, but the search yielded no results.

"You don't do well in your studies. I said I would send you to cram school, but behind my back, you quietly told Mom that you don't like me, this tyrannical and dictatorial father."

"You lie all the time. The parents of your classmates have come to complain to our house, don't you know?"

"You act pitiful outside, saying that there's nothing to eat at home, causing embarrassment to our parents. Do you think you haven't done enough of these things?"

These things...

Did I do them?

"Dad, if you have so many dissatisfactions with me, why don't you just ask me directly?"

"I did ask!" Dad raised his voice. "I knocked on your bedroom door on the weekend to ask you to come out and talk to me. Did you ever respond to me?"

"Is it possible that I wasn't home on the weekend?"

"Impossible. Your mom said you were at home."

I was stunned. I never thought things would develop like this.

So it was a series of misunderstandings that pushed our father-daughter relationship into the realm of indifference.

I looked up at Dad seriously.

"Dad, so you don't like me not because of a deep-seated preference for boys over girls, but because you lost your affection for me after disappointment, right?"

"Who told you I prefer boys over girls? Our family is a member of the Communist Party, how could we favor boys over girls!"

I couldn't argue.