Faced with Lin Fan’s concern, the girl simply lowered her head and wept silently. From her eyes, Lin Fan could perceive a deep sorrow, a sadness that seemingly shouldn’t be seen in the eyes of a blossoming young lady.

So young, what has this girl gone through?

Lin Fan sat down in front of the girl and didn’t press further, just silently accompanying her. Giving her some time, she would open up. She surely had a lot on her mind but lacked someone to confide in, and Lin Fan was a good listener.

Sure enough, after a while, the girl raised her head, looked at Lin Fan, and hesitated as if she wanted to say something.

Lin Fan smiled warmly and proactively said, "My name is Lin Fan, what’s your name?"

The girl said, "I am Zou Xiaosheng." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Lin Fan asked, "Where are you from?"

The girl said, "I... I don’t even know where to consider myself from..."

Lin Fan asked curiously, "What do you mean? Wherever your home is, that’s where you’re from, right?"

The girl lowered her head, wiped her tears, and said, "I don’t have a home... I once did, but I don’t anymore."

Zou Xiaosheng then told Lin Fan about her background. She said she had a home before she was five. In that year, both of her parents died in a car accident, making her an orphan. From then on, she was taken care of by relatives from both sides of the family. At such a young age, she couldn’t feel parental love. Although the relatives were kind to her, nothing could compare to the love of a father and mother. Without her parents’ protection, she was a poor orphan. No matter how good her relatives were, they could never care for her like her parents would.

"Since I started school, it became my nightmare because classmates, knowing I was an orphan, thought I was easy to bully. Even if they bullied me, unlike others, I had no parents to stand up for me. So they often teamed up to bully me, unscrupulously heckling me. They blocked me at the bathroom door, splashed water on my head and body; they would often catch me off guard, push me to the ground, and then laugh at my disgraceful appearance." Zou Xiaosheng said.

Lin Fan’s fists clenched hard: "Didn’t you tell the teacher?"

Zou Xiaosheng said, "At first, I told the teachers, but they would only give them a half-hearted scolding, not taking it seriously. Sometimes, when I was falsely accused, the teachers didn’t distinguish right from wrong, blamed me, and scolded me. When I told the teachers about the bullying, it only brought more retaliatory bullying from my peers. I later realized the teachers couldn’t help and only caused me more harm, so I stopped telling them and silently endured it by myself."

Lin Fan said, "Just a bunch of elementary school brats?"

Zou Xiaosheng said, "Yes, mostly from the same village. They bullied me at school, and in the village, their parents often ridiculed me and told them not to play with me."

Lin Fan: "..."

The opening line of the Three Character Classic, ’At the beginning, people are inherently good,’ is pure nonsense. Look at these little brats, not fully grown, yet already showcasing the evilness of human nature to the fullest. Human nature tends to bully the weak and fear the strong. A five-year-old orphan like Zou Xiaosheng was a weakling everyone could and dared to bully.

"When I started junior high and went to study in town, my peers’ backgrounds were unknown to me, so they didn’t know my story, and such incidents lessened. I also grew up and learned to protect myself, but in junior high, I faced an even more horrifying nightmare!" Zou Xiaosheng said, wiping away tears again, her eyes showing signs of pain as if recalling something dreadful.

Lin Fan didn’t question further or rather didn’t have the heart to. At this moment, he didn’t even want to hear these tragic stories, let alone that this girl experienced them herself.

He couldn’t imagine how a five-year-old girl, after the death of her parents, grew amidst prolonged bullying. The thought of such an environment was suffocating.

And for this child, it was merely the tip of the iceberg of her nightmares.

Zou Xiaosheng calmed herself and continued, "In junior high, there was a perverted male teacher... Once, he claimed to help me with my assignment, asking me to his dorm room. Then I saw him drinking alcohol until his face was flushed red, and he suddenly embraced me. I was terrified and struggled hard. Luckily, I had been helping my grandmother with farm work in the village over the years, so I had physical strength. I broke free and escaped... During that time, I was on the brink of collapse every day, crying whenever reminded of it. But I didn’t dare tell anyone about this; he even threatened me, leaving me to endure it all alone."

Lin Fan wished dearly that this child was deceiving him. Such an experience was terrifying for a child, yet Lin Fan could tell she was telling the truth.

Lin Fan was genuinely angry, a fire rising from his heart.

"What was this teacher’s name?" Lin Fan asked, staring into the girl’s eyes.

For a moment, from Lin Fan’s eyes, the girl saw a murderous intent. Instinctively, she didn’t dare to hide it and said, "His name is Chen Dongxing."

Chen Dongxing! Lin Fan remembered this name.

Lin Fan said, "Please go on."

Zou Xiaosheng said, "Since I was young, people in the village said I was a wild child picked up by my parents. Back then, I was too young to understand what ’wild child’ meant, so I didn’t mind it since the village kids frequently teased me about having no parents and being an orphan. I assumed ’wild child’ had the same meaning. It wasn’t until I grew up that I began to care. So one day, I asked my grandmother whether I was really picked up by my parents, as people in the village said. In response, my grandmother admitted it and said I was indeed not my parents’ biological child. They were only my foster parents. In this world, I had biological parents... Do you know how excited I was upon hearing this?"

Lin Fan nodded. He could understand how a child who had been lacking parental love would feel upon discovering that she still had biological parents alive, potentially able to regain the parental love she most desperately craved.

"At first, although I was very excited, I was also very afraid. I was terrified that my biological parents might also no longer be alive, so I didn’t dare to seek them out. It was better not to, maintaining some fantasies in my heart. But recently, a news story touched me: a father searched for his son for twenty years and finally found him, reuniting the family, and he loved his son so much. That scene touched me deeply; I cried for half a day in front of my phone. I thought maybe my biological parents were also like that, diligently searching for me. I couldn’t let them struggle so hard, so I made a decision: to seek help online and find my biological parents." Zou Xiaosheng said.

Lin Fan hadn’t had time to browse the internet lately and knew nothing of this news, so he asked, "Did you find them?"

Zou Xiaosheng nodded, "Yes, I found them."

Lin Fan was curious. Finding biological parents should be a reason for joy, so why did he attempt to commit suicide?

Zou Xiaosheng then gave a bitter smile and said, "I’d have been better off not finding them."