Chapter 2 — Ignore the Ungrateful

I tried to control the urge to strangle Trieu Thien Long to death on the spot, slipped through the back door of the coffee shop, and went downstairs. Just then, I saw him throwing firecrackers into someone's yard on the first floor, making the dog inside bark loudly in panic.

"Who would leave a child like this? Don't you know what teaching is?"

Trieu Thien Long squeezed the fat on his face, laughed, then ran to the side and started stuffing fireworks into the gaps in the brick wall. Seeing the firecracker burst a small hole, it clapped its hands and cheered with joy. While playing hard, his foot stepped on a manhole cover, making a "creaking" sound. He lowered his head and looked down, seeing that there was also a hole in the manhole cover, so an idea flashed and he started stuffing the firecrackers inside. I know clearly, down there is a thermal well, the pressure is extremely high. If it explodes, hot water and pressure will erupt violently, strong enough to cause people to die on the spot. So, the moment I saw that scene, I immediately threw my suitcase, rushed forward, and pushed Trieu Thien Long aside. As a result, my back and his forehead were blistered by the heat. Neighbor Aunt Ly standing nearby was so scared that she screamed, and I was taken to the emergency room immediately. Luckily this time the injury was not serious. From that day on, every time she saw me, Aunt Ly would exclaim:

"Long Long is truly blessed with a great life, to have met an aunt like you. Otherwise, with such hot boiling water, if you fall into it, your life will probably be disabled."

My parents also held my hand, constantly praising me, "What a good girl", my courage completely obscured the fact that they were the ones who weren't careful with their child. Out of gratitude for saving my grandchild, my mother even tore off a chicken thigh for the first time and put it in my bowl - knowing that, until now, chicken drumsticks were always reserved for my brother, and when he had a grandchild, they became Trieu Thien Long's privilege. It was one of the very few heartwarming moments in my life. Even the doctors said that if I hadn't saved her in time, not only would the burn on her forehead have been sustained, but my grandchild's life might have been lost. My sister-in-law led Trieu Thien Long to kneel in front of me, thanking me for saving my life.

"Long Long, from now on I am your second mother, you must be filial to me like you are to your parents, do you hear?"

And Trieu Thien Long pouted his round face and seriously said to me: "I like you the most! I will love you all my life!" 02 The gratitude is as great as the hatred - no one expected that after Trieu Thien Long's burns healed, that forehead area would never grow hair again. When a child enters puberty, his psychology is especially sensitive. Because of his bald head, he was teased by his friends all the time. Not daring to protest in society, he immediately went home and got mad, destroying everything in the house, screaming like a wild animal:

"Why doesn't my hair grow anymore! Why me!"

At that time, my sister-in-law always hugged her child and cried beside her: "My poor child... If your aunt would have come back a little early and stopped you when you were about to put firecrackers into the manhole cover, you wouldn't have been injured..." Hearing those words, I was truly stunned. I went to my parents to clarify everything, but unexpectedly, they took my sister-in-law's side and tried to calm me down with a blaming tone:

“Originally it was my fault. If I had come home earlier, I would have Looking at Long Long, the boy was not injured. If I had covered his head in time, he wouldn't have gone bald, and wouldn't have been laughed at by his classmates. You owe him, understand?”

Even my brother, under the prolonged brainwashing of his wife and parents, believed that it was my fault for saving people too late.

“Tieu Nhu, I don't want to blame you, but nowadays children care a lot about their appearance. What kind of lover do you think he will find in the future? He's being bullied by his friends all the time. Think about it, should I take responsibility?"

I looked at the group of people in front of me - the so-called "relatives" - and felt ridiculously strange. Over the years, just because of Trieu Thien Long's one sentence "I love you the most in my life", I have never regretted having a thick envelope of lucky money every Tet holiday. The Lego set costs several million, if you say you buy it, you buy it. The boy failed the entrance exam at a key elementary school, so I immediately ran into a relationship and found a back door to put him in school. But now, I have become a "sinner" in the eyes of my whole family. My obedient grandchild resented me for years, causing him to go bald. My brothers and sisters blamed me for saving people too late. Even my parents hinted that what I did wasn't enough — from now on, I had to be responsible for taking care of the whole family, from housing to work... for Trieu Thien Long. I was so weighed down by pent-up resentment that I couldn't breathe. I finally decided to leave the city where I had lived for many years and go far away alone to relieve myself.