My mom was stunned, she stared at me blankly, her face full of confusion.

Her lips moved, but she couldn't come up with any rebuttal to my words.

I was right, I had acted on their thoughts, yet they were still unsatisfied, even angrier.

It just doesn't make sense.

My mom cried and screamed, slamming the door shut and locking it tightly.

She slapped my report card on my face, yelling that I was crazy.

She smashed everything in the house that could be smashed, but it was just some things like throw pillows that wouldn't break.

She hysterically shouted, "Your dad and I did everything for you, is this low score you got now worth it for us?"

"Outside, I'm just being modest, what do you know? Uncle is your dad's own brother, in the end, we're all family, can I even say a bad word about someone else's daughter?"

"What would others say if they knew? They'd laugh at us for treating even our own brother like this, let alone others!"

She crazily pulled at my clothes, the sound of the cotton threads snapping was particularly loud.

She started slapping herself, forcing me to apologize, to study hard.

She held my head, forcing me to open my eyes and see how she was hurting herself.

Her once neatly arranged hair became a mess, her waxen face turning bright red.

With her tears falling continuously, along with her heavy slaps.

My own mother was self-harming in front of me.

I bit my lip, feeling something inside me shaking, loosening bit by bit, crumbling, and finally dissipating.

Instead of the satisfaction after revenge, an unparalleled sense of guilt and self-blame emerged.

In the end, I couldn't resist that thing called morality, I held onto her arm to stop her, crying out, "I'll study, I understand, I'll study hard... I'll study hard."

"Please don't hit me, don't hit me anymore... I was wrong, it's all my fault."

Both my mom and I had disheveled hair, swollen eyes.

The air fell into a dead silence.

We just quietly stared at each other, weighing, calculating the rifts and estrangement between us.

I knew, this time I had lost again.

One wrong move and it's all over, but I was cautious at every step, extremely deliberate, yet still ended up defeated.

In a daze, I suddenly realized that on this chessboard where she and I were playing, we were inherently unfair.

When she revealed the card named "mother" and used "ethics and morality" as weapons, I was bound to lose.

I finally understood where the sense of powerlessness came from every time I talked to her.

What I wanted was simple, just respect, the ability to put yourself in my shoes.

But she never discussed the issues I raised, always escalating, rising to the heights of family love and morality, resolute and never yielding.

But I didn't want to compromise, I really didn't.

I could only escape, He Xiaoman was right, we could only escape.

Even if I was weak and powerless, even if the game was unfair, I still wanted to try.

Because in this war filled with smoke everywhere, I was forced to bet on my future.

After failing several times in a row, I managed to keep my grades in the middle of the pack, not high, not low, not bad but not good.

My parents were very satisfied with my recovery from rock bottom.

Only after they saw my worst, the worst of the worst grades, did they suddenly feel that as long as it was slightly better than the worst, it was good.

What brings both great joy and great dissatisfaction is the sense of contrast.

Now, I occasionally even hear a few words that could barely be considered praise from my parents.

They say, "Yuan Yuan is okay sometimes, not too bad, but definitely not an outstanding child."

"She, being ordinary all her life is already remarkable, where would we dare to expect more from her."