“Why were you fighting?”

I kept my head down, shutting my mouth tight. Uncle didn’t push it, either, and a heavy silence stretched between us.

After a long while, he pulled me into his arms, messily ruffling my hair until it looked like a bird’s nest, and let out a tired sigh.

“Your teacher told me everything.”

I knew Uncle had always taught me one core rule: a student needs to act like one. Mind your manners at school, follow the rules, and while you don’t have to be a top scholar, you must never be a bad kid.

The fight broke out because of that stupid emergency contact form.

Under guardian details, it was noted that my uncle was disabled. I don’t know who went around blabbering about it, but almost overnight, the way people looked at me shifted. Nobody said anything to my face, but I could feel the stealthy, lingering glances and hear the quiet snickers behind my back, dripping with contempt.

I didn’t care about the gossip—I knew how amazing my uncle was. And my biological parents? They were fully able-bodied, yet in my eyes, they were worse than trash.

But school is always crawling with kids who think they’re the center of the universe. During a group discussion, one of my classmates and I got into an argument. Unable to win the debate, he turned dirty and made it personal. He sneered that my uncle was a “gimp,” broke, useless, and unwanted by everyone—then casually added, “And you’re just abandoned garbage, a little jinx.”

That was the last straw. They say you should let sleeping dogs lie, but he’d practically strolled up and opened the lion’s cage himself.

I didn’t hesitate. I slapped him twice across the face, then jammed three textbooks straight into his mouth.

“Since you’re so fond of running your mouth, swallow some knowledge to fill up that empty head!”

It felt damn good to land those hits. Scum needs to be dealt with on the spot; letting it fester only ruins your own mood.

Later, Ms. Lee looked into the whole thing and forced him to stand in front of the class to apologize to me. She also mentioned inviting both our parents in for a meeting. Hearing that, I assumed she meant during the upcoming parent-teacher conference. So, I made the executive decision not to hand over the invitation to Uncle.

A flawless plan.

Except my “flawless plan” blew up in my face when my homeroom teacher took it upon herself to show up at our doorstep instead.

“Uncle…” I sobbed out, my voice thick with tears. “Even if you have trouble walking… you’re still a hero.”

He wiped away my tears, asking absentmindedly, “What hero?”

My voice swelled with emotion. “You got hurt saving a life, and you took me in… You’re both my dad and my mom!”

Right at the peak of this tear-jerking moment… Uncle clapped his hand over my mouth, his face turning beet red. “Bui Chi! How many times have I told you to stop calling me your mom?!”

Me: “…”

Releasing me, he limped into the kitchen to cook a pot of noodles before reopening the diner for the evening.

Later that night, as I was pulling out my books to study, he suddenly dropped a bomb: “I’m hiring a tutor for you.”

I gasped, instantly objecting. We weren’t made of money, and I couldn’t let him waste a single cent on me. I figured Ms. Lee must have raised concerns about my academics. Uncle had always told me, “As long as you’re happy, grades don’t matter,” so this complete U-turn took me by surprise.

Yet I knew better than anyone why he was doing it. It was all for me. With rimmed, red eyes, I shook my head hard. “Uncle, I promise I’ll do really well on my exams.”

After that day, I really did change. I stopped drifting off in class, kicked my lazy habits, and refused to copy homework even when a subject felt impossible. During breaks, I practically relocated my permanent residence to the teachers’ office.

Ms. Lee noticed the shift immediately. She started handing me extra practice materials, cheering me on every chance she got.

“You can do it, Bui Chi. You’re brilliant, and you’re going to have such a bright future.”

She said it so often I almost started feeling like the chosen protagonist in some heroic origin story. Other teachers began paying closer attention to me, too, which meant I didn’t dare slack off for even a second.

Uncle, meanwhile, flatly banned me from helping out at the diner. “Stay home and study. Focus on getting into the best middle school first.”

“What counts as the best?” I asked.

He answered with dead seriousness, “It’s the first step to getting into a key high school. And key high schools make it easy to get into a top university.”

I nodded thoughtfully. It made sense, though he was already plotting out my path to college when I was only in fifth grade. Curiosity getting the better of me, I added, “How are you so sure I’m going to be a good student?”

He looked up toward the ceiling and offered a deeply philosophical response: “A man’s intuition.”

Me: “…”

Compared to what came later, elementary school academics were smooth sailing. In the final exams for fifth grade, I bagged first place in the entire grade. Holding that report card, a realization hit me: the thrill of proving “I can actually do this” was insanely addicting.

By sixth grade, I threw myself even deeper into my studies. My results remained rock-solid: every single exam, I locked down the top spot. It got to the point where Uncle quietly dropped the whole tutor idea altogether.

Ms. Lee stayed on as my homeroom teacher for sixth grade. She eagerly signed me up for various academic competitions, exposing me to a world of knowledge way beyond our standard textbooks. By the end of sixth grade, I had practically self-taught the entire seventh-grade curriculum. My English was already well beyond the elementary level, pushing into advanced middle-school territory.

While my classmates approached exam days like stepping onto a terrifying battlefield, I felt the exact opposite. Handing in my papers felt like a breath of fresh air; every test was just another rung up the ladder.

Throughout that year, I was constantly traveling to the City Experimental Middle School for regional competitions and talent selections. Award certificates and diplomas piled up with every trip. At first, I was thrilled, but soon enough, it just felt routine.

Uncle, on the other hand, treated every single certificate like a priceless relic, framing each one to hang on the wall. Our modest rental soon morphed into a full-blown “hall of fame.” Whenever guests came over, they’d freeze in front of that wall, dropping their jaws in awe.

In the end, all that blood, sweat, and tears paid off. I got accepted into City Experimental Middle School—the undisputed top middle school in the area. Final tally: number one in our town, rank 166 in the entire city.

It sounded incredibly prestigious on paper, but there was one massive catch: I didn’t want to go. Attending that school meant boarding there, leaving me with only one trip back home a week.

I brought my hesitations to Ms. Lee. The moment the words left my mouth, she slammed her hand on her desk in frustration. She told me in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t cling to my comfort zone, nor could I throw away an opportunity this life-changing. A person has to learn to step out into the world.

Unbeknownst to me, Ms. Lee and Uncle had somehow become total besties online. They chatted constantly, leaving zero secrets between them. The second Uncle found out I was planning to forfeit my spot, he flew off the handle. He chewed me out in a massive lecture, ending with a fierce threat:

“If you dare mess around with your future, I’ll break your legs myself!”

Of course… the threat was purely decorative. Because in the end, under the seamless tag-team effort of Ms. Lee and Uncle, I was officially “shoved” right into City Experimental Middle School.