Ten days before the SAT, my grades that should have gotten me into an Ivy League school suddenly plummeted. My mind felt foggy. I couldn't solve even the simplest formulas. I thought it was just too much pressure, until I accidentally opened my dad's phone search history. "How to make your daughter fail an exam?" "Where to buy a colorless, odorless drug that makes people stupid?" In that moment, I felt like I'd fallen into a freezing abyss. It turned out that to keep me tethered to them forever, my control-freak parents were working together to poison me. My grades had always been stable in the top three of my class. My teacher said that as long as I maintained this performance, I should be able to get into Stanford. But just two weeks before the SAT, something strange happened at home. That weekend, both my parents were out. A delivery person knocked on the door and handed me a small black package with no sender information. Only my dad's name written on it. The package felt soft when I squeezed it, like some kind of powder. I didn't think much of it and casually placed it on the living room table. My dad's old phone happened to be on the couch charging, its screen lit up with a browser notification. For some reason, I glanced at it. Just one glance, and my blood instantly froze. It was a webpage from a secret forum. My dad's account was still logged in. In the search box were several alarming entries in the history: "What if my daughter does too well on her exam and leaves us? Who will take care of us when we're old?" "How to make my daughter fail her exam without it being obvious?" "Where can I buy a real colorless, odorless drug that makes people stupid?" I stared at the screen, breathing rapidly. Below was a highly upvoted response from a user with the ID "Strange Doctor." "Making her lose her ID is too obvious. It'll make her hate you forever. The best method is to drug her and make her brain sluggish so she underperforms." "After she fails, you can brainwash her. Tell her she can't handle the pressure. Tell her she's disappointed her parents who worked so hard for her." "Make her feel guilty for life, willingly stay local working minimum wage, and take care of you." "I have a special drug here, colorless and odorless. If you're interested, DM me." And my dad's reply under this post was: "Already DM'd you. Looking to buy. Money is not an issue." I whipped my head around to look at the black unmarked package on the table. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. How could this be possible? They were my parents! I desperately tried to reassure myself that this might just be junk advertising pushed by algorithms, or maybe my dad accidentally clicked on the wrong webpage. What parents in the world would scheme against their own flesh and blood like this? I forced myself to calm down, put the phone back where it was, and pretended nothing had happened. But once the seed of suspicion was planted, it began to grow wildly.
A few days later, a test at school completely shattered all my wishful thinking. Sitting in the exam room, as soon as I got the math paper, I felt dizzy and disoriented. My head was foggy, my vision blurred. The solid geometry problems that I could usually solve at a glance now looked like gibberish to me. My brain felt like it had been filled with lead. Every thought was incredibly difficult. My hand holding the pen trembled uncontrollably, and cold sweat soaked through my uniform. That exam, I essentially turned in a blank paper. When the results came out, the whole class was in an uproar. My scores were not even enough for a decent state school! My homeroom teacher, Mr. Lee, called me to his office, his brow furrowed into a knot. "Summer, what's been going on with you lately? Is something wrong at home? Too much pressure?" I looked at the glaring numbers on the grade report, my lips trembling, unable to speak for a long time. That feeling of my brain being forcibly locked up, that sluggishness. It was too real. This wasn't just pre-exam anxiety. I'd really been drugged. When I brought the grade report home, I was met with a storm. My dad slammed the table so hard the water glasses rattled. "This is your score? How can you face us!" My mom sneered from the side, her eyes full of contempt. "She just can't handle pressure! Looks like she studies hard normally, but fails at critical moments!" "I've said it before. Just because you want to climb higher doesn't mean you have the brains for it!" "Tell the truth. Did you cheat on all those tests before?" Listening to their coordinated accusations, I stood there, chilled to the bone. The content from that secret forum post surfaced clearly in my mind again. "Take the opportunity to brainwash her..." "Tell her she can't handle pressure..." "Make her feel guilty for life..." Every word perfectly matched the faces of my parents before me!
If this had been before, hearing these words would have made me ashamed beyond belief. I would have desperately reflected on myself, feeling like I'd let down my parents' efforts in raising me. Because from childhood on, they'd been manipulating me with emotional abuse. When they made roast chicken at home, my mom would deliberately put the drumsticks on my plate. Then she'd eat only salad herself, sighing and saying, "Summer, I can't bear to eat it. I save all the good stuff for you. You'd better repay us well in the future." Back then I was so moved I cried, swearing I'd make something of myself. But the reality? Last month, when our house in the small town was demolished for a resort development, they got three hundred thousand dollars in compensation. They turned around and bought my cousin Luke a new apartment downtown! Didn't leave me a single cent! When I asked about it, my dad said matter-of-factly, "Luke is the heir to the family. You're a girl. Your job is to find a good man and get married." My high school tuition came from scholarships I earned myself. The money for my study materials came from working summer jobs at fast food restaurants. Besides giving me food to eat and a place to sleep, what exactly had they sacrificed? Thinking of this, I felt nothing but absurdity and disgust. I looked coldly at my ranting parents, my voice so calm it even scared me. "I didn't cheat. I did poorly on this test because I wasn't feeling well. I was dizzy." "If there's nothing else, I'm going to my room to study." With that, I ignored their stunned expressions, turned, and walked into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. Outside the door came my dad's furious cursing. "Unbelievable! How dare you give us attitude!" I leaned against the door, gasping for breath. I pulled out my phone again and secretly logged into that secret forum. Found that post. Just half an hour ago, my dad's account had posted a new reply: "Thanks, Strange Doctor. This drug is amazing!" "I tested it out during this exam. Just used a tiny bit and she dropped almost three hundred points!" "She originally wanted to go to an Ivy League school. Now with a brain like that, even community college would be a stretch!" People below were chiming in. "Congratulations! That's the way to do it. Girls don't need college." "Girls who read too much get crazy ideas. Then they're hard to find a husband!" "Keep her around working for money, taking care of you in old age. So much better!" Reading these comments, my stomach churned and I rushed to the bathroom to dry heave.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. "Summer, open up. I'm coming in." I quickly splashed cold water on my face, took a deep breath, and opened the door. My mom walked in carrying a steaming cup of milk. The anger had completely vanished from her face, replaced by a chillingly fake kindness. "Your dad was just upset earlier and spoke harshly. Don't take it to heart." She walked to my desk and handed me the milk. "Mom knows you're under a lot of pressure. Here, drink this hot milk. It's good for calming nerves and nourishing the brain. Drink it and get some sleep early." The pungent smell of milk hit my nostrils. I stared at the yellowish milk, my scalp tingling. "Mom, it's too hot. I'll let it cool down first." My mom's smile froze for a moment, her eyes instantly turning sharp. "Hot? What hot? It's only effective when you drink it warm. Hurry up. Mom's watching you drink it." She moved closer, clearly not leaving until I drank it. My heart pounded like a drum, my brain racing. "Mom, my stomach suddenly hurts really bad. I need to use the bathroom..." I clutched my stomach, pretending to be in pain, and bolted out. "Hey! You stubborn girl..." When I dawdled in the bathroom for ten minutes and came back, my mom was no longer in the room. That cup of milk was still on the desk. Without hesitation, I picked up the cup, walked to the window, and poured all the milk into the flower bed below. Then I put the empty cup back where it was. In the middle of the night, I lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. I quietly got up, wanting to get some water from the kitchen. Passing by the master bedroom, the door wasn't fully closed, showing a crack. Inside came my parents' hushed whispers. "Did she drink it?" It was my dad's voice. "She did. The cup's empty." My mom laughed smugly. "This drug is amazing. Seeing her looking so dazed and confused today, I almost couldn't help laughing." "Good. The SAT is in a few days. Tomorrow I'll contact that seller again and increase the dosage! We have to make absolutely sure there are no slip-ups. We absolutely cannot let her test out of here!" "Don't worry. Once she fails, I'll have someone find her a job at an electronics factory. Her salary goes straight to my card every month. In a few years, we'll have her buy a car for Luke." Hearing this, I bit my lip hard until I tasted blood. I trembled all over, backing up step by step to my room. Tears silently hit the floor. So in their eyes, I wasn't even a person. I was just an object whose intelligence could be stripped away and whose value could be drained at will!
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