My family lives in dormitories allocated by the factory, with many households in one building sharing a kitchen and a bathroom.

The front door of the house is like a decoration, always left open for ventilation, especially in the summer.

After Uncle's family moved in, my parents' people-pleasing personalities reached their peak.

My mom cooks all three meals, and she even has to personally deliver them to Uncle's family.

She wakes up at 5:30 in the morning when it's still dark to cook, making dumplings and stir-frying dishes.

She does all this just to make Uncle's family look up to us.

She works hard and even blames me for things.

If I try to tell her there's no need to cook for Uncle's family, she would scold me, saying, "You don't understand? He's your dad's real brother, we're family! Don't you have a conscience?"

If I ignore her, she would still scold me, saying, "You don't care about your parents, watching them suffer without any reaction, it's better to raise a dog than you!"

My dad even uses half of his salary to subsidize Uncle's family, calling him "big brother" affectionately, but then he takes out his anger on me.

Sometimes when he drinks too much, he would use a belt to hit me, first scolding me for being incompetent and then saying they have to please others.

They sacrifice themselves and me to please others, even though no one asks them to do so.

Uncle's family doesn't appreciate it much, after the initial warmth wore off, they started taking things for granted.

Sometimes Uncle would speak ill of my parents to others.

Once after school, I happened to see Uncle in a crowd, jokingly saying to someone, "He only has me as a brother, if they don't support me, who will?"

"His monthly salary is so low, he can't even afford a good cigarette, the whole family is poor."

Look, my parents try so hard to please others, but in the end, they only receive ridicule and mockery.

I told my parents about this, hoping they would realize and stop sacrificing themselves.

But when my parents heard that Uncle spoke ill of them, they became even more enthusiastic towards him.

Seeing my parents' reaction, it seemed like they already knew Uncle was talking behind our backs.

So once again, my parents blamed me for everything, saying, "If you had better grades, if you were more obedient, people wouldn't look down on us."

They blamed me for others looking down on them, saying it was because I wasn't capable or hardworking enough.

I had no ability to resist, any hint of disagreement would lead to endless beatings.

I felt like a piece of meat being grilled between two hot plates, with no chance to catch my breath.

I have to call Uncle's daughter "sister."

She's two years older than me, when I was in eighth grade, she was already in eleventh grade.

Under my parents' strong urging, they managed to transfer her to my school.

I was in middle school, she was in high school.

Her transfer was all thanks to my parents' money and efforts.

After finally getting her in, Uncle was still not satisfied, demanding she be placed in a top-tier class.

During that time, my parents tried everything, spending money and putting on smiles, but in the end, they could only manage to get her into the best regular class.

Even then, Uncle was picky, thinking my parents were incompetent, and he sulked for days.

Since my cousin and I were in the same school, my parents always mentioned her, constantly asking me to follow her example.

But there was nothing worth learning from her.

Her grades were poor, she seemed to be at the bottom of the class in exams, didn't pay attention in class, and fighting seemed to be a common occurrence.

All these facts were clear to my parents, but they still kept saying, "Learn from your cousin."