Early in the morning, my mother and I were woken up by a knock on the door.

I yawned and went to open the door. When I saw the person standing outside the door, I was stunned.

My father, Yoel, was sitting in a wheelchair, looking at me in surprise. He said in a cheerful tone, "Xavier, I miss you!"

He was old and his face was full of wrinkles. Only his narrow and long eyes still revealed the same scheming and ruthlessness as before.

I felt nauseous.

He and my mother had divorced for 15 years. During these 15 years, he had not given me a penny, nor come to see me once, as if he were dead. There was no news about him at all. Who was he putting on an act for at this point?

"Yoel, don't be sad. You see your daughter this time!" The girl in blue sportswear next to him quickly comforted him.

"You must be Xavier. I'm Jasmin Zimmerman, a family adviser of Station A. Your father entrusted me to mediate your family conflict. I've learned about his situation. I think even though he was wrong in the past, it has been over a long time ago. Besides, he’s in poor health now. Without your care, he can’t survive!"

"You are his closest people in the world!"

Jasmin said word by word, aggressive. I had no chance to talk her back. In her eyes, I abandoned my father, which made me a cruel and ungrateful person.

I saw that Yoel pretended to wipe his tears behind her, but a smug smile appeared on his face.

He seemed to be sure to convince me.

I saw the purpose of their visit.

I suddenly found it a little absurd.

Yoel knew that if he came alone, I wouldn't be nice to him, so he called the TV station's mediator to force me to bow my head!

But why should we take care of him?

Should I thank him for causing my mother’s miscarriage or selling me for money?

He had never done what a father should do, and he wanted me to take care of him?

"Does he deserve it?"

"Xavier, who's there?" As soon as my mother walked to the door, she was stunned.

When Yoel saw my mother, his eyes suddenly lit up. He wriggled his plump body and waved to her, "Janetta, I'm back!"

My mother’s face suddenly turned pale. She widened her eyes and looked out of him in horror, but her body couldn't help trembling.

It wasn’t easy for her to get rid of this nightmare for more than ten years, but he was again! How could she not be afraid?

I supported my mother and said to them, "Fuck off."

Yoel’s face darkened. I recalled how he had hit me with a belt, after getting drunk more than a decade ago.

This was his true color. Sure enough, he hadn't changed at all!

"Miss Johnson, after all, he is your father. How can you say that to him? He will be disappointed!" Standing next to Yoel, Jasmin frowned and was slightly angry.

Oh, I recognized her. She was a top-notch family mediator at Station A. She could solve any problem. So she became a top-notch mediator at such a young age.

"But why should an outsider like her interfere in our family's affairs?"

Who does she think she is?

Has she ever experienced my childhood nightmare?”

“Does she know what Yoel has done to me and my mother?”

A loser abused his wife and daughter at will. At this point, she just wanted us to forgive him with a few words! And then we could take care of him for the rest of his life?

What a joke!

Put up or shut up!

If she pitied this old man, she might take care of him herself!

I coughed lightly. "It seems that I didn't make myself clear just now."

“Both of you, get out of my face!"

Yoel's face turned livid with anger.

But he was old after all, and his legs were paralyzed. He could only sit in a wheelchair and stare at me with his turbid eyes to vent his dissatisfaction and anger.

"Xavier, how dare you! You think you’re big enough to go against me, huh?" Yoel was so angry that he wanted to punch me, but I dodged. He almost fell off the wheelchair.

Jasmin opened her mouth and wanted to say something for Yoel, before I shut the door directly.

What bad luck! I didn't want to see these two people at all!

There was some noise in the corridor again. Seeing that persuasion didn't work, Yoel directly used force.

"Xavier, you're a money-losing thing! I've worked so hard to raise you. Don’t you have respect for me? I'll wait here today. I want to see if the two of you will never go out for the rest of your lives!"

The curses outside the door were getting louder and louder, and Yoel was exasperated. Jasmin persuaded him softly not to be so angry, for it was harmful to his health.

"Money-losing?"

I hadn’t heard that word for years!.

They were too noisy. I was worried that the neighbors would be disturbed, so I called the police.

Sometime, we did need some help, and the police would teach him how to behave himself.

Not long after, the police came. Jasmin and Yoel were taken away quickly.

Yoel were supposed to be afraid.

Fifteen years ago, he wanted to abandon me, so he left me in a wilderness. Now that the legal investigation period had not ended, he was naturally afraid that I would tell the police that he had abandoned me.

He didn't want to go to jail.

But he was lucky. It was not the time to take my revenge. I didn't want to tell anyone about what had happened more than a decade ago.

And it would be too easy for him to spend the rest of his life peacefully in prison.

I wanted him to regret it in despair! I wanted him to be condemned by everyone!

Only in this way could he atone for his sins.

I smiled, turned around, and held my mother in my arms. I kissed her gently on the forehead and promised, "Mom, he will always be punished."

Yes, what went around, came around.

I swore to God.

Before I was seven years old, I was a worthless little girl.

He didn't give me a name, but said I was a money-losing thing.

In his mind, I needn’t go to school or eat.

What I only needed was a hard bun and a bowl of swill every day.

I dragged his clothes and told him that I was hungry, but he kicked me to the corner and poured the leftovers into a dog bowl in front of me.

He said, "I won't leave it to you but the dog, you money-losing bastard!”

Sometimes, when he was in a good mood, he would push the dog bowl in front of me and tell me, "Eat."

If I didn't eat it, he would beat me hard.

I would have starved to death long ago if mother hadn't given food to me.

My mother wanted to take me away from him secretly. She said that she couldn't let me live like this anymore, but every time we tried to escape, he would catch us.

Then, he gave me a more violent beating.

At that time, my mother always held me in her arms. Otherwise, I would have died long ago.

In Yoel’s eyes, I was a money-losing thing, and my mother couldn’t give birth to a baby boy. Both of us were useless.

No one could help us.

Every day, there was endless domestic violence.

Until my mother got pregnant again.

Only then did my father ease his attitude toward us a little.

Later, he learned that my mother was pregnant with a girl, so he hit her hard to miscarry the baby.

In his eyes, only boys mattered to him. Girls were all money-losing goods.

When I was seven years old, my father left me in the wilderness. It was my mother who threatened him to get me back her life.

My father asked her, "She's just a girl. Why do you care so much about he?!"

Marrying my mother cost him a lot of money. He couldn't bear to divorce her.

It was not until my father cheated on my mother that we knew he had a love daughter at the same age as me.

It turned out that my father had more than one daughter, and that he had a mistress a long time ago.

I held the broken bag filled with empty water bottles and stood on the bustling street uneasily. Looking at my father gently holding a girl, who was wearing a princess dress and smiling at the woman next to him, I suddenly felt ashamed.

It turned out that he just didn't love me and my mother.

However, it was Yoel who proposed to her first.

Since he didn't love her, why did he marry her?

My mother hugged me but said nothing.

Later, she finally divorced him. The price she paid was to give up all her assets.

My father with the woman and their daughter, lived in the house bought by my mother at ease.

But after leaving him, my mother and I started living a better life than before.

At the very least, no one would hit us.

I could sit at the table and have a good meal.

Fifteen years had passed. My mother and I had finally crawled out of the darkness. Why did we want to return to that dark room for him?"

We were not his slaves!

Very soon, Jasmin’s show was broadcast on TV.

She turned the facts upside down and described my mother and me as two people, who abandoned my father and only cared about ourselves.

She said that we were selfish and heinous.

As for Yoel, he was just sick and helpless. He still cared about us and had no dissatisfaction with us at all.

My mother and I were suddenly pushed into the teeth of the storm. Countless netizen cursed us on the Internet, saying that we were cruel and heartless.

My boss asked me to go home to rest for a while, and I agreed. She was a good person. She helped me when I was at my lowest. I couldn't drag her down with me.

As soon as I packed up my luggage and walked out of the company, I was blocked by a group of people.

Yoel was surrounded by a group of reporters, looking at me pitifully.

"Xavier..." We hadn't seen each other for 15 years, but he pretended to be pitiful as if it were true.

Unfortunately, he could fool everyone except me.

When the reporters saw me, they rushed over and blocked me with countless microphones.

"Miss Johnson, it's your legal duty to support your biological father. You can’t abandon him!"

"Why did you abandon your father? Is it because he's sick, and you don't want to pay for his medical bills?"

"I think, as a daughter, you are a failure..."