Parents and Son Under Attack Chapter 6

At seven years old, I retained the intelligence of my previous life's twenties. In academics, I was far ahead of Ethan Grant. Ethan's tea-boy act worked on my saint-like family but not on school teachers. Failing was failing.

During finals, I ranked first in my grade while Ethan ranked last. Every time he was called in for parent-teacher conferences due to poor grades, Ethan would cry that he was under too much stress and his eyes were acting up, but he stubbornly refused to transfer to a special needs school. Every exam season, he threw the house into chaos.

To be considerate of Ethan's feelings and prevent him from being looked down on by classmates for being adopted, my saint-like parents decided to both attend Ethan's parent-teacher conference, even though our grade-level conferences were on the same day.

They couldn't have been unaware that I was mocked and bullied by classmates because of their favoritism, told I was a child with life but no love.

Every time they needed to wrong me for Ethan's sake, they pulled out the same brainwashing speech I'd heard until my ears had calluses:

"Ethan's health is poor and his background is tragic. Just accommodate him."

But I didn't care, because knowledge gave me the greatest power. I used my spare time to study ahead. At twelve years old, I skipped grades to become the youngest high school student in our city's history. Overnight, my name became a household word. Everyone knew the Grant family had a child prodigy son.

Dad's phone was blown up daily by high society wanting their children to befriend or even become engaged to me. But once again, to accommodate Ethan's feelings, Dad declined all those gatherings. He never considered how helpful these high society connections could be for my future.

Then again, how could I compare to his precious Ethan?

The day my acceptance letter arrived, the principal and newspaper reporters personally came to deliver it, but they were only met with Mom and Dad's hasty departing figures. How could Ethan allow me to attract Mom and Dad's attention? He simply claimed he had a headache, and Mom and Dad rushed him to the hospital without even time to greet the principal.

Though I'd long been disappointed in my saint-like parents, at that moment I still felt somewhat wronged and helpless. The principal looked at me deeply and said seriously:

"Our school doesn't have boarding students, but if you want to live on campus, you can apply in advance. I'll arrange it for you."

The principal's hand stroking my head was so gentle. It had been so long since I'd felt such care and concern from an elder. I couldn't help but shed tears in front of the principal.

It was because of those tears that I gained two truly important people in my life.