"Light rain fell softly.

On the muddy path in the countryside, a four or five-year-old boy was crying bitterly, running forward continuously.

As he ran, he reached out his right hand, as if trying to grab something.

"Mom... don't leave..."

Ahead, a graceful figure turned around, revealing a stunningly beautiful face. She smiled gently and comforted, "Little Hong, don't cry. Mom will be back soon... Be good at home and listen to Dad, or Mom will get angry. If Mom gets angry, she won't like Little Hong anymore..."

After speaking, she turned around and continued walking, getting farther and farther away.

"Mom... Mom..."

The little boy cried even more sadly, waving and shouting desperately, wanting to grab his mother's clothes, but his body was held back by a pair of large hands. He struggled hard but couldn't break free, only able to watch his mother's figure disappear from sight.

"Let go of me, I want to find Mom!"

The boy fiercely bit the hand that held him, finally breaking free and desperately chasing after, but accidentally slipped and fell backward, landing on his back with a thud, mud splattering.

...

The next day.

In the county hospital, in the office of the chief physician.

The doctor in a white coat sat on the office chair, taking out a medical record from the drawer and handing it to a young man in a tattered gray cotton jacket, saying:

"The child's condition is very pessimistic. When he fell, the back of his head hit a hard object. Upon examination, his occipital and parietal bones were both fractured, with obvious depression when pressure was applied to the back of the head..."

The young man's face changed slightly upon hearing this. He interjected, "Doctor, I don't understand these professional terms. Can you please explain in simpler terms?"

"Simply put, his injury is very serious, and there's a high possibility of brain tissue damage. Although his current recovery seems relatively good, I must warn you that the brain is the most complex part of the human body, and any situation can occur with a brain injury. He's only four years old, and his brain hasn't fully developed yet. This injury may affect his intellectual and physical development. You need to be prepared for this..."

The young man struggled to suppress his emotions. He bid farewell to the doctor and walked out of the office, somewhat staggering. When he reached the corridor, he finally couldn't help but crouch in a corner and cry bitterly, heartbroken.

※※※

Four years later.

Blackrock Village Elementary School, teacher's office.

A middle-aged woman sat behind the desk, knitting, and asked, "You're Lin Hong's father, right?"

"Yes, hello, Teacher Ma, my name is Lin Changming."

Lin Changming nodded quickly.

His hair and beard were long, and although he could see that he had tidied up before coming to school, he still couldn't hide his shabby appearance.

Teacher Ma frowned immediately, covering her nose. Perhaps feeling too obvious, she turned to the side, avoiding the strong smell of alcohol from the other party.

"I called you here today mainly because there's something I want to tell you."

"Alright, please go ahead."

"Take a look at this, it's Lin Hong's math test paper."

With that, Teacher Ma handed over a test paper.

Lin Changming took it and was surprised, saying, "A hundred points?"

"Hehe, you find it strange too?" Teacher Ma immediately continued, "This time in the math test, Lin Hong scored a hundred points, the only one in the class."

A very happy smile appeared on Lin Changming's face, but Teacher Ma's next words froze it in place.

"But, according to his consistent performance, it's impossible for him to score a hundred points."

Lin Changming began to realize, and he asked, "So, are you saying that he cheated?"

"Of course!" Teacher Ma said disdainfully.

Lin Changming was furious, "How dare you accuse my son of cheating? Didn't you say that he's the only one in the class who got a hundred points? Who could he have cheated from?"

Teacher Ma smirked, "Isn't it obvious? Look at what kind of child he is usually. He's always absent-minded in class, daydreaming all the time, as if he's not in his right mind. He never does the homework assigned, and he always turns in blank papers during exams..."

"Can you believe that he scored a hundred points this time? The students sitting in front of and behind him both scored ninety-nine points, so he was lucky to copy and get a hundred points."

"He's not even eight years old now, and he's developed such habits. If he's not educated and corrected, what will become of him when he grows up?"

Teacher Ma went on sharply, leaving Lin Changming speechless and unable to refute.

Lin Changming's mind went blank, staring at Teacher Ma's thin lips for a long time, tempted several times to rush over and tear them apart.

In the end, he shouted, "My son would never cheat! You're just making baseless accusations!"

His loud voice attracted the attention of the surrounding teachers, who whispered and looked over, opinions varied.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Their eyes held disdain and sympathy, but no one believed Lin Changming's words.

After speaking, unwilling to stay any longer or talk to the teacher, Lin Changming turned and left.

"Hmph, like father, like son. A rat's son knows how to dig holes. No wonder he can't even keep his own wife..."

The whispers around made Lin Changming stop in his tracks, clenching his fists, trembling with anger as he struggled to control his emotions.

The image of his son flashed through his mind, and he eventually stepped away.

After school, in the Lin family's living room.

The atmosphere was extremely heavy.

Lin Changming sat on a bench, holding a bottle of cheap liquor, drinking it sip by sip.

In front of him, his son Lin Hong was kneeling, holding his ears with both hands.

Lin Changming finished the last sip of alcohol, let out a belch, and then threw the bottle against the wall with a crash.

The glass shards splintered, startling Lin Hong, who shivered all over.

"Why... why did you copy someone else's test paper?"

Lin Changming, with a tongue-tied, pointed at his son and asked sternly.

Lin Hong remained silent, his expression stubborn.

"How... how many times have I told you... even though we're poor... our ambition can't be short! I don't... don't have any demands on you now. Turning in blank papers... no problem, but... but why did you have to copy?"

By the end, he was already shouting loudly at his son.

Lin Hong was intimidated by his father's fierceness and kept retreating, finally speaking firmly:

"I didn't copy!"

Seeing his son's resolute appearance, Lin Changming's anger grew.

"You useless thing... how dare you lie..."

Furious, he looked around, unable to find something suitable. In desperation, he pulled off his belt from his waist, grabbed the buckle, and swung it forcefully at Lin Hong.

"Ah—"

Lin Hong's slender body trembled. Though he gritted his teeth, the intense pain made him cry out.

"I didn't copy!"

Lin Hong's voice, mixed with tears, remained stubbornly firm.

Lin Changming was shocked by his son's scream, his mind clearing for a moment. A hint of regret and guilt flickered in his eyes, then he shook his head, tossed the belt aside, and grabbed Lin Hong's clothes, pushing him onto a nearby stool. He then raised his hand and began to slap Lin Hong's buttocks fiercely.

"Slap!"

"I told you not to lie... I told you not to cheat..."

"Slap!"

"You little brat... I'll teach you a lesson..."

"Slap! Slap!"

...

Late at night.

From the next room came the deafening sound of his father's snores. Lin Hong, lying on the bed, struggled to sit up.

"Ouch~~"

As he got up, he accidentally aggravated the wound on his buttocks, causing a fiery pain that made him cry out. Quickly, he covered his mouth with his hand, afraid of waking his father in the next room.

His buttocks were swollen, despite his father applying medicinal red oil to reduce the swelling. It still hurt badly.

He didn't turn on the light. Instead, he put on his coat and then pulled out a small wooden box from under the bed. From it, he took out a book and left the room.

Limping, he made his way to the courtyard, not through the front door, but through the back door, quietly untying it.

"Creak—"

The backyard door opened, and he slipped out, about to close it when he saw a yellow shadow dart out suddenly.

"Ah Huang."

Lin Hong called softly.

The yellow shadow turned out to be a yellow mongrel, skinny and patchy, with patches of fur missing like it had mange.

The mongrel bounded around Lin Hong, occasionally nudging his legs gently with its head.

Lin Hong smiled knowingly, playing with the mongrel for a while, then gently closed the back door and beckoned:

"Let's go."

One person, one dog, made their way slowly towards the bright spot across the small river.

His gait was peculiar, lurching and awkward, not due to one leg being longer than the other, but because his leg joints failed to bend when they should, giving an overall awkward impression, and his walking speed was very slow. This was one of the important reasons why he was often mocked by peers.

On the other side of the river, there was a wood factory specializing in producing wooden handles for pots, wooden handles, sickle handles, and other wooden products, the only rural enterprise in the village.

Every night, the only bright spot in the village was the wood factory. Inside the factory, there was a high-powered electric light that never went out at night, for security reasons.

In other parts of the village, lights were rarely on for long at night, as electricity was considered an expense for ordinary people, and saving as much as possible was necessary.

"Ah Huang, my butt hurts."

Lin Hong limped along in the faint moonlight.

"Teacher Ma asked me to call Dad to school. I thought she was going to praise me in front of Dad, but she actually told Dad that my test paper was copied."

Lin Hong spoke to the mongrel, not caring whether it understood his words.

"Ah Huang, I really didn't copy. For such a simple question, why would I need to copy from others? They're all so stupid, if I copied from them, how could I get a hundred? If it wasn't for Dad telling me the other day that as long as I could come first in the exam, he would take me to find Mom, I wouldn't have done such a simple question."

"Teacher Ma is really mean, she framed me. I won't listen to her lessons anymore in the future."

"The classmates are also mean. They look down on me, usually just making fun of me, saying I'm too dumb, so Mom doesn't want me anymore... Actually, they are the dumb ones. Reading is so simple, yet they waste so much time. I don't want to play with dumb people, that will make me dumb too."

"Dad even believed them, he's not trustworthy. He originally promised to take me to find Mom... Ah, Ah Huang, where exactly is Mom? Why doesn't she come back?"

...

Lin Hong kept talking as he walked until he reached a secluded spot under a big tree outside the wood factory's fence. The spot was well-hidden, with light filtering through the gaps in the leaves, creating a perfect environment.

Lin Hong gestured for Ah Huang to be quiet and obedient, and the mongrel immediately lay down quietly, ready to sleep.

Lin Hong intended to sit on the nearby tree stump as usual, but then remembered the pain in his buttocks. He leaned gently against the tree trunk and pulled out the book from under his arm.

In the faint light, the cover, carefully wrapped, had two neatly written artistic characters in the middle - "Mathematics." Below these two characters were four smaller characters, "Trigonometric Functions."

Lin Hong opened the book along the edge, revealing a brown leaf inside. He set the leaf aside and began to read from where he left off, quickly becoming absorbed in it.

If the teachers at school saw this, they would surely be astonished beyond belief.

After all, "Trigonometric Functions" were only taught in the second year of high school, and Lin Hong was only eight years old, in the second grade of elementary school.

The fact that Lin Hong, who was only in the second grade of elementary school, was now holding a high school second-year mathematics textbook and reading it with relish would be beyond belief.

Especially considering that at school, Lin Hong was synonymous with low intelligence, dazedness, and mental retardation.

The whole school, teachers and students alike

, knew of a boy named Lin Hong in the second grade, who was considered the village idiot. Due to a head injury in childhood, his intellectual development was severely affected. He walked with a slight tilt, didn't like to talk, and often sat silently in a corner during class, lost in thought. He never did his homework and often handed in blank test papers during exams.

During this period, even elementary school teachers couldn't be sure they could fully understand a high school mathematics textbook, let alone someone like Lin Hong, a top-notch mental retard.

Time passed slowly, and the village roosters began to crow.

Lin Hong, who had been immersed in the sea of knowledge, looked up, surprised by the brightness of the sky.

"So bright already?"

He moved his stiff neck a little and checked the page number of the book.

"I've read about seven or eight pages, almost done. The rest are exercises, which I can finish during the day. Ah, this is the last book. Once I finish this one, what will I read in the future?"

Lin Hong felt a bit reluctant.

This was something left behind by his mother. He usually kept it hidden in his "treasure chest". Although he had always tried to control his reading speed, carefully reading each word, he had to finish all of them by now. Even some slightly more difficult content, he had read many times, and he had done the exercises on them countless times.

Lin Hong put away the book, whistled softly to Ah Huang on the ground, and the mongrel jumped up.

"Ah Huang, let's go home."

At that moment, the sun peeked out from the east, and the whole world suddenly became bright.

The golden sunlight poured down, and on the mountain village path, a person and a dog formed a unique landscape.