I'm So Damned

Time flew by, and Chen Zhi and Lin Wanwan were already in the fourth grade.

Sunlight filtered through the classroom windows, casting dappled shadows on the desks. The Class Two, Grade Four classroom was bustling with noise and excitement, the air filled with a unique mix of thrill and tension. Today was parent-teacher meeting day.

For most elementary school students, these words were akin to the end of the world. But for Chen Zhi, it was nothing more than a routine commendation ceremony.

Ever since his rebirth, Chen Zhi had used his adult mindset to absolutely crush the competition, leaving everyone in the dust academically. Math, English, Science—as long as it was an exam, he was guaranteed a perfect score. He had sat on the throne of first place in the school so long he was practically growing calluses.

The two goofballs at home, Chen Jun and Zhang Guifang, had almost gotten into a full-blown martial arts brawl last night fighting over the right to attend this parent-teacher meeting. In the end, Zhang Guifang won with the ridiculous excuse: I am a bank teller with strong calculation skills, so I can more accurately calculate exactly how many points our son beat the second place by.

Chen Zhi spun the ballpoint pen in his hand out of sheer boredom, his gaze sweeping over his desk mate to his left.

Lin Wanwan was sprawled over her desk, burying her head in her arms and playing dead. She had only scored a seventy-eight on her math midterm, and rumor had it that Auntie Lin Jing had already laid down the law: if the teacher singled her out for criticism at this meeting, her snacks would be cut off for a month.

Stop pretending, you cannot hide from it no matter how hard you play dead, Chen Zhi poked her elbow with his pen cap.

Chen Zhi, you traitor! Lin Wanwan snapped her head up, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster. You got a perfect score, of course it is easy for you to say! When my mom gets here, you have to help cover for me!

Chen Zhi shrugged, looking entirely helpless to assist her.

He turned his head and looked to his right.

Sitting there was his new desk mate who had recently transferred, Li Zhiyi.

Completely unlike the loud and boisterous Lin Wanwan, Li Zhiyi was as quiet as air. She wore a washed-out school uniform with slightly frayed cuffs. Her hair was always tied in a low ponytail, and her bangs were so long they almost covered her eyes.

In the week since she transferred, aside from her mosquito-like whispers when called on by the teacher, Chen Zhi had not seen her speak up on her own. The homeroom teacher, Lao Wang, had specifically instructed him, as the class monitor, to take good care of the new student.

At this moment, Li Zhiyi was sitting up perfectly straight, her hands neatly folded on her lap. The desk in front of her was completely bare, save for a single Chinese textbook.

The surrounding students were all chattering away about whose parents were coming, but she seemed to have an invisible vacuum barrier around her, isolating her from all the noise.

Chen Zhi felt a stir in his heart. He decided to fulfill his duty as the study commissary and bridge the gap with his introverted new classmate.

He cleared his throat, leaned slightly to the right, and put on a friendly smile: Li Zhiyi?

The girl's shoulders visibly flinched, like a startled little animal. She slowly turned her head, her gaze peeking timidly at Chen Zhi through the gaps in her thick bangs, before quickly dropping back down.

Um... Chen Zhi pointed toward the parents trickling into the classroom from the doorway. For today's parent-teacher meeting, is your mom coming for you?

It was the most ordinary of greetings.

According to Chen Zhi's script, she was supposed to answer yes or no, and then he would casually compliment her with something like your grades are pretty good too, successfully breaking the ice.

However, the script got stuck on the very first line.

Li Zhiyi lowered her head even further, almost touching her chest. The fingers resting on her lap twisted together, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

After several seconds, a tiny, almost inaudible voice drifted into Chen Zhi's ears:

I... do not have a mom.

The smile on Chen Zhi's face instantly froze.

The air seemed to solidify for a moment.

His adult mindset made him immediately realize he had stepped on a landmine, and a massive one at that. An immense wave of guilt washed over him, and he frantically waved his hands, trying to salvage this terrible opening line.

Ah... I am sorry, I am so sorry! I did not know... Chen Zhi's brain short-circuited, and his mouth moved faster than his mind, blurting out instinctively, Then is your dad coming?

The moment the words left his mouth, Chen Zhi wanted to bite his own tongue off.

If it was a single-parent family, mentioning the other parent was highly likely to be a taboo subject as well. What was he doing? Rubbing salt in the wound?

Sure enough, Li Zhiyi's head dropped even lower, and she shrank into a tiny ball. That oversized school uniform looked even more hollow, as if it could swallow her up at any moment.

Her voice began to tremble, carrying a suppressed sob. Every word seemed to be forcefully squeezed out of her throat:

I... do not have a dad either.

Boom—

Chen Zhi felt like a bolt of heavenly lightning had struck him right on the top of his head.

What kind of hellish difficulty level conversation was this?

A double combo! Precision bombing!

He had actually sprinkled salt twice in a row on a ten-year-old girl's most vulnerable wound, and stomped on it a couple of times for good measure.

Chen Zhi felt like he was not just socially dead; he wanted to be actually dead. If time could flow backward, he would rather go back to that night and fight over the fresh pile of crap Xiaobai had just taken than start this conversation.

Years later, whenever he recalled this scene in the dead of night, Chen Zhi would shoot up from his two-hundred-meter-wide bed in shame and slap himself twice in front of the mirror.

No, he did not need to wait until years later.

Right now, immediately, at this very moment.

Chen Zhi felt that the first thing he would do when he got home from school was to find the sturdiest crooked tree and have a tug-of-war with it to see who was stronger.

I... um... I...

Chen Zhi, who was usually articulate and could sweet-talk his mom Zhang Guifang in circles, was now completely stuttering. His entire vocabulary had run away from home at this moment, leaving him with nothing but a flushed red face and complete helplessness.

It is okay.

Li Zhiyi suddenly spoke.

She kept her head down and did not look at Chen Zhi. But her tightly twisted fingers slowly loosened and rested flat on her lap once again.

I have been used to it for a long time.

Her voice was very light and calm, even carrying an indifference completely unsuited to her age.

This calmness was more like a knife than her earlier trembling, stabbing straight into Chen Zhi's heart.

Just then, the front door of the classroom was pushed open.

An old man with a hunched back, wearing a gray Mao suit, walked in. His clothes were very old but washed spotlessly clean, and his collar was buttoned up meticulously. His wrinkled face carried a hint of nervousness, and he held a slightly misshapen cloth hat in his hands.

The old man stood at the door, his cloudy eyes searching through the rows of well-dressed parents in the classroom, looking completely out of place.

Grandpa...

Li Zhiyi called out softly, immediately standing up and walking over quickly to support the old man's arm.

Watching this scene, Chen Zhi felt a complex mix of emotions in his heart.