My mom has an IQ of 74, I have an IQ of 142. Yet, she was obsessed with teaching me. She’d say, “Without me, you’re nothing.” “Your brain is so slow, so stupid. You’re in middle school and I still have to watch you every day! Just look at this problem, how could you get it wrong?” “How can 0.11 be less than 0.8? I, such a smart person! How did I give birth to such an idiot like you? A two-digit number, a three-digit number, you can’t even compare their sizes?” She slammed the pencil onto the floor in a fit of rage! “Teaching you is worse than me becoming a college student myself!” So, my 43-year-old mother decided to take the college entrance exams with me. She declared, “You don’t even know which is bigger, 0.11 or 0.8! I’ll show you who’s smarter with my own ability!” 1 I looked up at her, startled. She angrily slapped her cheeks, a sharp thwack each time. "Look, look! Is there writing on my face? Are you going to stare at me until you get smart yourself? Write! What are you dawdling for!" She slammed her foot into my chair. I flinched, trembling all over. Since kindergarten, she had forced me to study every single day. She'd haul home every textbook she could find. Other kids played happily outside, but I was locked in my room, practicing calligraphy. At an age when I could barely hold a pen, I had to write fifty pages of characters daily. Under such high pressure, my grades excelled once I started elementary school. Back then, the English taught in school was incredibly simple, and Mom learned a lot of it alongside me. Plus, with her constant vigilance over my Chinese and math, anyone could have been top of the class. I nervously picked up the fallen pen, but I didn't want to follow Mom's instructions to revise the solution steps. Since middle school, I’d noticed that there was a lot she didn't actually know. So, I cautiously looked up at her and said, "Mom, actually, after the decimal point, you don't look at the number of digits to compare size." Mom narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?" I thought this was my chance and quickly continued, "The teacher said that trailing zeros after the decimal point can be omitted, so you just compare the first digit. Then 0.11 is indeed less than 0.8." Mom's face instantly contorted with rage. She slapped me across the face. "You're full of it! How dare you try to use the teacher against me?! You just don't want to spend more time re-doing this problem, do you?!" She leaned in close, her eyes blazing. "Tell me! Are you dating? Have you been hanging out with delinquents?" I trembled uncontrollably, then burst into sobs. Mom grabbed my lower eyelid between her index and middle fingers, pinching it fiercely. "Do you take me for a fool? Trying to deceive me with such a pathetic lie! I just wasn't born in a good era, otherwise, I would definitely have been among the first college graduates!" She spat. "You're living in a good time and you don't even appreciate it! You're so ungrateful!" 2 I cried out, howling from Mom's pinching. The skin under my eyes was thin and tender, and the pinch sent a sharp, agonizing pain through me. I pounded the table, begging her repeatedly, "Mom, I'll change it! I'll change it! I'll change it right now!" Her expression softened slightly. But she still seemed unsatisfied. Crying, I solved the math problem again according to Mom's logic. Only then did she stand up, preparing to leave. "You're not allowed to eat dinner tonight, understand? Don't think you're better than me just because you started middle school." She sneered. "I actually went to high school back in the day. In our time, high school was the highest education you could get!" She shook her head in disgust. "With your IQ, if you were born in that era, you wouldn't even graduate elementary school. But look at you, just started middle school and you think your wings are hard. Dare to use the teacher against me? Hmph, I'm telling you, your teachers probably aren't as smart as I am!" Mom grew more and more agitated as she spoke. I hadn't actually disobeyed her again, or made any defiant gestures. But she was always like this: she'd work herself into a rage and then take it out on me. She suddenly lunged forward and punched me hard in the back. "Did you hear me?! Are you deaf?" I nodded repeatedly. "I heard you, Mom." Only then did she slam the door shut, satisfied, and leave. Mom locked me in my room, forbidding me from drinking water or eating anything. When Dad came home, he asked why I wasn't out resting. Mom snapped, "His wings are hard! He's trying to trick me so he can go sneak out and cause trouble!" Dad didn't say much, made an excuse about running an errand, and left again. Before he left, he secretly slipped fifty dollars under my door. For me, that was a huge sum. I could buy a five-dollar skewer from the school gate, two notebooks with the rest, and even a newly released mechanical pencil. I was both surprised and delighted, tucking the money into my English textbook. Mom never looked at my English book. She despised English, saying we shouldn't learn it. She said English learners were all fake foreigners, wannabe Westerners, and the most useless things! But strangely, my best subject was always English. 3 At eleven o'clock that night, Mom opened my bedroom door. "So? Do you know you were wrong?" My mind was foggy, and my eyes, still blurred, nodded. "Alright, then bring out all your homework for me to see." I neatly placed all my homework before her. She checked my math homework and seemed quite pleased. "Hmm, good. You followed my instructions." She then picked up my Chinese homework, reading my essay word by word. Then she tapped on the desk with clear dissatisfaction. "What do you mean, 'Behind red doors, wine and meat go to waste'? How can you use that idiom this way? What's a 'red door'? A red door is a big red gate, meaning the family is very rich." She explained with authority. "How rich? So rich that they have more meat than they can eat, and so much wine it spoils because they can't drink it all. This phrase encourages us to study hard, to be ambitious, to become rich people. Once we're rich, we can also build big houses, with big yards, and have a big red gate. That way, we can also 'have wine and meat go to waste behind red doors.'" She paused, staring at me. "Do you understand? What is this nonsense you wrote about 'wealth disparity'?" Her voice rose. "What is your brain doing all day? So unrealistic, off track. I'm telling you, when you study, study proper history, don't listen to all those wild, unofficial tales every day." She glared. "You're learning a bunch of unpresentable garbage and making a fool of me! Change this section immediately!" I stared at Mom, astonished. The seed of doubt in my heart quickly sprouted new shoots. Had she really gone to school? Why did she give me the impression of pretending to know things she didn't? But I knew her. I couldn't defy her edict. So I quickly revised the essay according to her instructions. She nodded. "Good. This way you can maintain your top rank in class." She sighed dramatically. "Ah, without me, you really are nothing." She clicked her tongue. "I really want to send you for an IQ test. If your IQ isn't over a hundred, I don't think you should even go to school." She shook her head. "A waste of family money! Ugh…" She grumbled to me for a long time. She talked about how so-and-so's child got into an elite university and received tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships. Tens of thousands of dollars! That child immediately bought her mother a gold necklace! Getting into a prestigious university felt like a ticket to heaven. "Counting on you is impossible! You, you can probably get into a nursing school, become a little nurse, and that's it." She clicked her tongue again. "Tsk, even a little nurse might be hard for you, with that brain of yours." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I think I'll just secretly have another baby." She eyed me askance, as if trying to scare me. But she didn't know I truly hoped she'd have another baby. Because that way, I'd have a way out. 4 The next morning, I went to school very early. Secretly, I changed my Chinese and math homework back to how the teacher had taught us. Only then did I confidently hand them in. The second period was math class. I eagerly waited for Mr. Davies to hand back the homework. I was sure I'd get a perfect score! A perfect score! Mr. Davies walked in, carrying everyone's homework notebooks. "Our class had a perfect score today!" My heart thumped. "This student is…" He was about to say the name when the classroom door was violently rattled. Mr. Davies put down his books, and I deflated. I lowered my head, looking at my newly bought mechanical pencil. How annoying. Who was it? Interrupting the teacher right after class started. But a familiar voice came from the doorway. It was my mother. What was she doing here? The hairs on the back of my neck stood up instantly. I snapped my head up and saw Mom staring at me, triumphantly. "Mr. Davies, is it? Hello, I'm Mrs. Reynolds, Willow's mother. I know this is your class right now, so I made a special trip." Her voice was firm. "There are some things I must make clear, right here, in front of you and the entire class." Mr. Davies politely nodded. "I understand, Mrs. Reynolds, but could you possibly wait until after class—" Mom gave the teacher no chance. She pushed him aside and arrogantly marched to the front of the classroom. "I can't wait! For our Willow's future, I must teach her a lesson!" Then, she picked up a piece of chalk and wrote two numbers clearly and boldly on the blackboard: 0.11, 0.8. She waved her hand grandly, as if she were the teacher. "Students, I'm sure you all know which of these two numbers is bigger or smaller!" Some students in the audience snickered, others whispered. "Of course we know, it's such a simple question." "Yeah, I knew that in first grade." "Does Willow really not know?" "Huh? The class president doesn't know? Hahahaha, that's hilarious. Why is she even class president?" "Seriously, if she doesn't even know this, she should just step down. Let's elect a new one." All eyes flickered to me. A suffocating, terrifying feeling, like storm clouds before a tempest, pressed down on me! Mr. Davies, trying to spare my embarrassment, stepped forward to pull Mom away. "Mrs. Reynolds, I think we should discuss this after class. Willow is also…" Mom gave him no face, pushing Mr. Davies back with a stumble. "I'll manage my child however I want! You're clearly setting her up for failure!" Mr. Davies's face flushed with anger. He turned and walked out of the classroom, presumably to find the head of the department. Mom looked at me triumphantly. "Do you know what our Willow told me?" The students, eager for more drama, were thrilled. "What? What did she say?" "Did she say they're both the same size? Hahahaha!" Mom waved her hand dismissively. "Her? She actually told me that 0.8 is greater than 0.11!" In that instant, the classroom fell completely silent.
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