20. Low pressure

As Ding Xiaojuan pushed open the door, a familiar sense of oppression washed over her.

She understood instantly. This was the third time this week. The fuse called "homework" between Gao Sheng and Haha had once again reached a breaking point. She had thought that her conversation during her trip to the United States would have some effect, but it seemed to have little to no effect.

She put down her briefcase and rubbed her throbbing temples. A day of heated debates and complex case files at the law firm hadn't left her this tired. This kind of exhaustion was sticky, heavy even in the air at home, weighing down her lungs.

In the kitchen, the mother-in-law lowered her voice and quickly explained: "It's all because of English words. He copied a few wrong, so I made him rewrite them. He refused and talked back... The punishment was even worse. He made him copy them fifty times. Haha cried, and he yelled even louder... I just coaxed Haha into the house."

As Ding Xiaojuan listened, a surge of anger mixed with helplessness rose within her. In the six months since Gao Sheng returned to China, everything else had been fine, except for Haha's education—he was like a firecracker ready to explode at any moment. He couldn't tolerate any "lack of seriousness" or "improper conduct," as if a single mistake in his son's homework was a harbinger of his future collapse.

"Mom, please eat first, don't wait up for me." Ding Xiaojuan forced a smile at her mother-in-law.

"I've eaten. Your food is still warming up in the pot." The mother-in-law wiped her hands, hesitated, and said, "Xiaojuan... talk to Gaosheng nicely. The child is still young, teach him slowly."

She walked to the door of Haha's room, knocked gently, and then pushed it open.

Under the desk lamp, Haha's small shoulders slumped, a pen clutched in his hand. The English notebook in front of him was covered in crooked letters, some blurred by water droplets. Hearing the sound, he looked up, his eyes and nose red, like a pitiful little rabbit, but his lips stubbornly pursed.

Ding Xiaojuan's heart softened instantly. She walked over, said nothing, and gently patted his head.

"Mom..." Haha's voice was nasal, but he didn't cry. "I've finished writing." He pushed the notebook over.

Ding Xiaojuan took it, looked at the dense, clearly emotionally charged handwriting, and sighed. "Is your hand tired?"

Haha nodded, then quickly shook his head.

She knew her son was putting on a brave face. She sat down beside him and put her arm around him: "Dad wants you to remember this so you won't make the same mistake again. But the way he did it... scared you, didn't it?"

Haha buried her head in her arms and whispered "Mmm".

Are you still angry?

“…A little,” Haha said sullenly.

"Let's eat first and replenish our energy. Getting angry takes energy, right?" Ding Xiaojuan said, trying to lighten the mood.

Haha was coaxed to the dining room, where her mother-in-law had already served the rice. At that moment, the study door opened, and Gao Sheng walked out with a sullen face. He saw Ding Xiaojuan and Haha sitting together, his brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, but he didn't say anything and went straight to the other end of the dining table to sit down.

The air suddenly felt even heavier. Haha shoveled rice into her mouth with extreme care, afraid to make a sound.

Ding Xiaojuan cleared her throat, trying to break the silence: "The office got a pretty interesting case today..."

"Don't talk while eating." Gao Sheng bluntly uttered the three words without even lifting his eyelids.

Ding Xiaojuan's words caught in her throat. Looking at Gao Sheng's tense profile, the suppressed anger resurfaced. She put down her chopsticks, her voice still relatively calm, but clearly tinged with displeasure: "Gao Sheng, home isn't a military camp. Chatting a bit during a meal isn't against the rules."

Gao Sheng raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping over her before landing on Haha, who was engrossed in counting grains of rice. His tone was even colder: "Rules are rules. Focus on eating when you're eating; talking affects digestion. What will you be like when you grow up if you don't have manners from a young age?"

“Rules also include respect and communication.” Ding Xiaojuan met his gaze. “You are using rules to create oppression. This is not education, it is pressure.”

"I put pressure on him?" Gao Sheng seemed to have been hit where it hurt, his tone suddenly rising. "I made him memorize the words he misspelled a few more times, and that's putting pressure on him? Look at him now, he has no resilience at all! He cries after a few words of criticism, and acts like the whole world is bullying him after being punished with a few copies! What kind of boy is this, so delicate!"

“He’s only seven years old!” Ding Xiaojuan raised her voice. “A seven-year-old child needs guidance and encouragement, not military-style management! Do you treat him like a soldier under your command, or like code in your project? He’s a person, your son!”

"Precisely because he's my son, I can't let him go astray! If I'm not strict now, society will teach him a lesson in the future, and then it will be too late!" Gao Sheng tapped his knuckles on the table. "Look at him now, his attitude towards learning is lax, he's just getting by! If he doesn't build a solid foundation now, how will he compete with others in the future?"

“Competition, competition! All you see is competition!” Ding Xiaojuan felt there was no way to communicate with him. “He’s only in first grade! Life isn’t a marathon where you start sprinting from the starting line! Can’t you see his strengths? He’s kind, curious, and helpful. Are those things less important to you than getting a few words right?”

"Can kindness feed you? Can curiosity get you high scores? This society only values ​​grades and hard skills!" Gao Sheng stood up abruptly, his chest heaving. "What have I been working so hard for all these years? Wasn't it to create better conditions for him, to make his future easier? But what about him? Does he cherish it? Does he work hard?"

Haha was so frightened that he trembled, his mouth twitched, and he looked like he was about to cry again. His mother-in-law quickly hugged him.

Ding Xiaojuan also stood up, unyielding: "Just because you create the conditions, does that mean he has to live according to the program you've set? Gao Sheng, all these years you've been absent, you're not here to be a master of correction! You're here to be a father! A father is someone who accompanies and supports, not a supervisor or judge!"

"If I don't supervise, will he suddenly become self-reliant? Your current protectiveness and indulgence are actually harming him!" Gao Sheng's face flushed with emotion. "A doting mother spoils her son! I think it's because you've always been like this that he..."

"Promotion!" Ding Xiaojuan interrupted him sharply, her eyes as sharp as knives. "If you keep talking, we really can't talk anymore."

After the words were spoken, the living room fell into a deathly silence. Only the ticking of the clock on the wall was particularly clear and jarring.

Gao Sheng seemed to realize he had misspoke. He opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing. He turned around abruptly, grabbed his coat from the sofa, and slammed the door shut as he left.

The enormous sound sent shivers down one's spine.

Haha finally burst into tears. Her mother-in-law sighed repeatedly. Ding Xiaojuan stood there, looking at the still slightly trembling door, feeling a deep sense of powerlessness and icy disappointment. This wasn't the first time she and Gao Sheng had argued about the child, but this time, his words had truly wounded her.

She had always thought they were partners fighting side by side. But just now, in his eyes, she seemed to have become a "stumbling block" on his path to his educational ideals.

She walked to the window, watching Gao Sheng's figure disappear quickly into the night below. Why did that man, who was so shrewd in the business world and gentle and considerate to her, become so unfamiliar, impatient, and unreasonable when facing their son?

Is it his anxiety about his own absence as a "father" that's causing this? Is it the hidden pressures of his career that are causing him to transfer his controlling nature to the weakest link in his family? Or is it that deep down, he simply cannot accept the fact that his son might just be an "ordinary child"?

She didn't know the answer.

After soothing Haha to sleep and persuading her mother-in-law to rest, Ding Xiaojuan sat alone in the dark living room. Her phone screen lit up briefly; it was a message from Gao Sheng: "I'm staying at the company tonight."

No apology, no explanation. A cold, declarative statement.

Ding Xiaojuan didn't reply. She suddenly remembered the weariness and emptiness that Yi Yi occasionally revealed. She hadn't quite understood it before, thinking Yi Yi overthought things. But now, she seemed to have touched upon something common beneath that barrier.

Marriage is like a ship; children are the ballast, but also the source of storms. When the two closest people can't even agree on how to position this ballast, the ship will creak and groan unsettlingly.

She looked at Haha's tightly closed door. Tonight, her husband had stormed out in a huff, and her son had fallen asleep with tears in his eyes. This home, which she had single-handedly supported for ten years and had eagerly awaited the return of her husband, had not become better because of the "reunion." Instead, it had fallen into a new and more complicated quagmire.

Outside the window, the city lights still shone brightly, but they couldn't penetrate the low-pressure area in her heart at that moment.

She knew that when the sun rose tomorrow, she would still be the calm and professional Attorney Ding, the all-powerful mother in Haha's eyes, and the daughter-in-law trusted by her mother-in-law. But only she knew that somewhere in her heart, a crack had quietly appeared because of tonight's conflict and that unfinished accusation.

Repairing it might be more difficult than winning any case in court.