People always say, "A father's love is as steady as a mountain."

  But I never expected that my father—who had always been so submissive, so resigned to fate—would, in the most critical moment, show me the deepest love.

  That night, as I y in bed, I thought for a long time.

  In the end, I decided—I would go to college!

  First of all, our fish farm had already stabilized. If any problems arose in the future, I could communicate with my father by phone.

  But more importantly—this was my one and only chance to change my fate.

  I refused to spend my entire life as a farmer.

  And I refused to be a farmer looked down upon by the entire vilge.

  Just like that, I left home and traveled thousands of miles away.

  But the two things I couldn’t stop worrying about were my father and the fish farm—the one thing that could bring hope to our family.

  However, my major was in engineering, which had nothing to do with aquaculture.

  Luckily, Ocean University wasn’t far from my school. After finishing my coursework, I would go there to audit csses on aquaculture technology and engineering.

  In just one month, my notebook was filled with scribbles.

  That was when I realized—fish could actually be bred through artificial hybridization.

  And that aquaculture was an incredibly complex science.

  But international calls were expensive, and my father was barely literate.

  Some technical concepts took me ages to expin, yet he still didn’t understand.

  To save money on phone bills, I started volunteering to clean the counselor’s office.

  Whenever no one was around, I would secretly use the office phone to call my father.

  But because of this, I unknowingly made a lot of enemies.

  Many cssmates thought I was a bootlicker—that I was always running to the counselor’s office, trying to curry favor so I could join the student council.

  At first, I already had very few friends because of my poverty.

  After these rumors spread, people completely distanced themselves from me.

  Whenever my dorm mates had parties or events, they never invited me.

  When teachers changed css schedules, the dorm leader always "forgot" to inform me.

  During the student council elections, someone even pissed on my bnket, poured ink all over my pillow, and hammered nails into the soles of my shoes.

  But I just ughed it off.

  Human nature is disgusting.

  If kindness truly exists, it’s only because you haven’t touched their core interests.

  Later, the counselor personally invited me to join the student council, saying that if I performed well, I could even become the student council president.

  But I politely declined.

  I wasn’t afraid of being targeted—I had never feared anyone in my life.

  I refused because I simply didn’t have the time.

  Between auditing csses at Ocean University, working part-time, and excelling in my own major, I had no energy left to waste on the luxury of student council politics.

  Luckily, after the elections ended, the rumors about me faded.

  After all, without any direct conflict of interest, no one cared enough to pick on a poor kid like me.

  The only thing that remained deeply intertwined with my fate was my family and our fish farm.

  At the end of the semester, my father called with good news—

  Our first batch of fish was ready for sale!

  With my father’s hard work and my scientific methods, our fish farm had a great yield.

  Most importantly, demand for meat carp and fish roe was booming at the end of the year, so our fish started selling like crazy.

  That winter, my father and I worked non-stop.

  By New Year’s, we had almost completely sold out.

  After paying off all our debts, we still had over 10,000 yuan left!

  It was proof—hard work always pays off.

  Sooner or ter, if you refuse to accept fate, you will bear the fruits of your bor.

  By sophomore year, dating had become popur on campus.

  There was a girl I liked.

  But I was poor.

  And a poor man has no confidence.

  So I buried my feelings deep inside.

  Later, that girl got with someone else.

  Rumor had it they even rented a room together outside campus.

  For a while, I felt awful—I lost my appetite and barely ate.

  But there’s nothing time can’t heal.

  Once you get over it, you realize—it was nothing.

  By senior year, our fish farm was thriving.

  My father had gained status in the vilge.

  With money in his hands and a son in college, he spoke to others with more confidence than ever before.

  But—

  "Success breeds jealousy."

  Especially in rural areas, where people hate seeing others do well.

  And one of those jealous people was Jin Erban—the guy I once smashed with a brick.

  He often came to our house to "borrow" fish, taking dozens of kilos at a time, never paying a single cent.

  At first, my father put up with it.

  After all, the Jin family was rich.

  We were just a small household—we couldn’t afford to offend them.

  But one day, while at the fish market, my father saw Erban selling our fish.

  He was furious and confronted him, demanding payment.

  But that son of a bitch—

  beat my father on the spot.

  It was winter break when I got the news.

  The moment I heard, I called the police and rushed to the station with my father.

  But he was so used to being oppressed that even while giving his statement, he was wiping blood from his mouth, mumbling:

  "Maybe we should just drop it. We all live in the same vilge. We see each other every day. It’s not worth making a fuss over this."

  But how could it not be worth it?!

  First, they stole from us.

  Then, when we asked for our money, they beat my father!

  Where in the world could such a wless bastard exist?!

  I already hated the Jin family.

  When I was a child, they scammed us out of 2,000 yuan—leaving me without tuition and nearly starving to death.

  And now, they dared to y hands on my father?!

  I would never let this go!

  That same day, Erban was detained.

  But as we walked out of the police station, my father was so terrified that his legs nearly gave out.

  I told him, "This is a country ruled by w. We must learn to use the w to protect ourselves!"

  But he just sighed, shaking his head.

  "Son… you don’t understand how things work in the countryside. Not everything can be solved with what you learn from books."

  I didn’t take his words seriously.

  But I should have.

  Because that night, I learned—the hard way—what "rural justice" really meant.