Chapter 16: Skill Awakening

Her father hated her, hated her to the extreme.

Ever since she was born, even if her grades were good, it was a pain for her father. Because she was a girl, not a boy, every award certificate she received for her studies was a slap in her father’s face. What good was it for a daughter to be capable? It would be better if a son was that strong.

In the Old Xie Family, it wasn’t just about favoring sons over daughters, it was about men being masters and women being slaves. Xie Wanying remembered too well, every year during the family’s Spring Festival dinner, the wives and daughters of the Xie Family had to eat in the kitchen. Only the men and the sons and grandsons could eat, drink, and be merry at the main table.

She wanted to be a doctor, a surgeon, which was a job only men could do. She wanted to do it for herself, for her mother, for all the women of the Old Xie Family, for all the women in this place who were looked down upon.

“What men can do, I, as a girl, can do the same.”

Xie Wanying’s eyes met her father’s, and they were steely and unflinching.

Xie Changrong involuntarily swallowed his saliva, “You dare glare at your father!”

Without a word, Xie Wanying turned and walked away.

Seeing this, Xie Changrong raised his hand.

“Don’t hit her, what are you hitting her for!” Sun Rongfang grabbed his arm.

“You taught her this! You’ve raised a daughter who dares to glare at her father.”

“She didn’t—”

“How could she not? Let me say it clearly to you and your daughter; if she doesn’t get into university this time, she will marry as I command!”

“Why wouldn’t she get into university? Yingying has always had good grades.” Sun Rongfang was so anxious she was jumping up and down, her voice hoarse as if she was about to cry.

Xie Changrong, seeing his wife about to be driven to tears, actually felt a surge of satisfaction, feeling like he had gained an upper hand, “I know she will absolutely not get in. You’ll be crying then. And then you must obediently listen to me and my father, and go marry someone.”

After saying this, Xie Changrong lifted his head and walked out the door with a self-satisfied air.

Sun Rongfang let out a sob and sat down in a chair, her hands reaching for her eyes.

Taking out a Navel orange, Xie Wanying cut it up and offered it to her mother, “Mom, let’s eat it ourselves, no need to give it away, and there’s no need to care about what they say.”

Sun Rongfang had no appetite, only aware that everyone said her daughter wouldn’t get into university.

“Mom, take a bite, you must believe in me. If Dad doesn’t give me the money for school, it doesn’t matter, I’ll work and earn the tuition myself,” Xie Wanying squatted in front of her mother, bringing the orange to her lips.

Xie Wanying stuffed the orange into her mother’s mouth.

She knew her mother had it tough, so she had to change both her own and her mother’s fate, change her mother’s status in this household.

Seeing the look in her daughter’s eyes, Sun Rongfang took a long time to snap back to reality.

In the following days leading up to the university entrance exam, the household seemed calm, but everyone knew it was just the calm before the storm.

The night before the exam, Xie Wanying, with a flashlight in hand, flipped through a medical surgery book kept at home.

The whole book was tattered, its cover long since gnawed by insects. It was a book her mother had brought back from the countryside when she was sent down as an ‘educated youth.’ Back then, Sun Rongfang had even been dispatched to the village’s health clinic to assist as a hygienist and had considered studying medicine from that time, but her dreams were dashed after meeting her future husband.

She had decided to take this book with her to the Capital to study medicine.

When she placed the book under her pillow to sleep, she had a dream. The knowledge from the book turned into real scenes, clear images of surgery appeared before her, and the scalpel in her hand moved on its own.

When she sat up in bed in the morning, the scenes from last night’s dream were still vivid in her mind.

Was this—had her rebirth bestowed some new skill upon her? Xie Wanying looked at her hands, lost in thought.