The Fatherly Love I Could Never Swallow

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After my dad broke down in tears on his livestream, he ended up trending online.

In the video, he points to the braised pork belly and sweet-and-sour fish on the table, a whole spread that looks and smells amazing, choking up until he can't speak.

I made a whole table of food for my son and he won't touch a single bite. What on earth do kids these days even like to eat?

The live chat exploded, the whole screen full of people aching for him.

Don't cry, sir, if he won't eat it, I will! I'll bring my own bowl to your door.

This son is a real ingrate. He has no idea how good he's got it.

Seeing the numbers spike, my dad just went ahead and opened a livestream.

He wiped his eyes at the camera: As a single father, it wasn't easy raising my son all these years. I knew he was busy with work, so I came all the way from back home to look after him and cook for him, and yet that whole table of food, he wouldn't touch a single bite.

Netizens piled on, calling me ungrateful, and my job and personal details all got dug up.

Even at the company, there were whispers.

I stared at my inbox stuffed with curses, then glanced down at the plate piled with green vegetables, and couldn't help a bitter smile.

Dad, I haven't been able to eat any meat for a long time now.

Why, exactly? Have you really forgotten?

...

My phone buzzed like crazy, and I numbly wiped out all the messages.

But I couldn't shake those vicious words from my mind.

Eat something good, you piece of trash. An unfilial son like you deserves to get hit by a car and die the second he steps outside.

Quit acting like some city person. Your dad came all this way to cook for you and you won't eat a single bite.

Then, one after another, verification texts started popping up. My phone number had been doxxed online and used to sign up for countless websites.

Someone even sent me a screenshot of a body-donation form with my name already filled in.

Since you don't even have a heart, you might as well donate your organs.

I watched the short video looping in front of me, my dad wailing his heart out at the camera.

I'm a single father. I rode a slow green train for twenty hours to see my son, and he wouldn't so much as glance at the table full of food... Family, they say the big city nourishes people, but he looks down even on his own father now.

That one video pulled tens of millions of views in a single night.

My dad became the saintly father the whole internet ached for.

And I became the most wicked ingrate imaginable.

Looking at his self-moved face, my stomach churned violently.

I'd spent a full ten years working three jobs a day just to get away from him.

I'd even dipped into my savings to buy a small apartment, and hadn't dared put my own name on it.

Until last night, when I got home from working overtime late.

A shadow I couldn't escape even in my dreams suddenly appeared, taking my hand: Son, done with work?

My mind went off like a bomb.

I opened the door like a walking corpse, and only snapped back when the reek of meat filled the air.

"Dad... why are you here?"

He didn't say a word, just smiled and lifted a piece of meat, jabbing it toward my lips.

In that instant it dragged me back to that afternoon fifteen years ago.

On my tenth birthday, my mom used the money from selling vegetables to buy me a little black dog.

It was the only gift I got in my whole childhood.

She gently stroked my head: Mom can't be with you every day, so from now on let Blackie look after you, okay?

But she died in an accident the very next day, without even leaving a whole body behind.

From that day on, Blackie became the only thing my mom left in this world.

Dad took Mom's settlement money and gambled it all away at cards, day after day.

He couldn't stand the sight of me, and complained Blackie was a waste of food.

Then one day, the little life that carried all my longing was chopped up by his own hands and fed into my mouth.

"You've got no one but me in this world, and you still dare to talk back?"

"You love this dog, huh?"

...

"Eat up, son. I came all this way to cook for you, why won't you eat?"

My face went deathly white. I smacked the piece of meat away and clutched my chest, retching hard.

And that was the clip my dad put online.

That night I hid in my office with my head down and cried.

The next day, I was jolted awake by countless verification codes.

I fought down the cramping in my stomach and changed into my clean work clothes.

Today was the day the project I was in charge of would get signed.

No matter what, I had to get through today.

But the moment I stepped into the company lobby, the atmosphere was strange to the extreme.

The interns, who usually called me "bro" at every turn, were clustered in twos and threes, pointing and whispering about me.

"Supervisor Fox, there's a local courier delivery for you."

The young woman at the front desk was holding a cardboard box, and she slid it toward me from a distance.

I frowned and opened it, and a bloody, mangled dead rat dropped onto the floor.

A sheet of printed paper drifted out of the box, stamped with big blood-red letters.

Eat something good, you little beast.

The horrific sight of Blackie from fifteen years ago seemed to rise up before my eyes.

My legs gave out, and I threw up everything in my stomach until it was empty.

Phone flashes were aimed at me, and the whispering never stopped.

"Supervisor Fox always seems so cold and aloof. I never thought he was this kind of person."

"What an ungrateful son. His dad's cooking smelled so good and he still won't eat it."

The more they talked, the more my mind filled with the image of Blackie lying there in a bloody heap.

"Director Fox, why don't you pack up and head home for now?"

The HR rep handed me a suspension notice, deeply awkward about it. "The front desk took over a hundred abusive calls today, and someone even mailed a funeral wreath to the office."

"The boss's idea is that you go home and rest for a few days, and the deputy director will handle the signing..."

I stood there frozen, unable to get out a single word.

I had worked on this project for a full six months. Even when I drank until I threw up blood, I never once complained.

Countless nights I stayed late until three in the morning, sometimes straight through till dawn.

The next day I'd splash some water on my face and get back to work, still full of energy.

But now the position I'd spent five years climbing to had gone up in smoke because of one video of my dad's.

I walked out of the company holding the cardboard box, and a heavy rain came pouring down.

My girlfriend Eudora's car happened to be parked at the curb, and she waved to me.

Just as I opened the door and sat in the passenger seat

There were two bottles of top-shelf whiskey and a neck massager on the back seat.

Before I could even ask, Eudora's scolding came rattling down on me.

"Will, you went way too far this time. I watched the video. It wasn't easy for your dad to come all that way."

"Do you have any idea what people online are calling you? Even my work group chat is passing your video around, and my friends are asking me if I ended up with some ungrateful monster. It's humiliating for me too."

"I already bought a gift for your dad. In a bit I'll go back with you, and as long as you apologize to him, this whole thing will be over."

I stared at her in disbelief. "But you know perfectly well I can't eat meat. Last year I accidentally ate one bite of a vegetable dish that had some meat grease on it, and I ended up straight in the ER."

She cut me off impatiently. "Didn't the doctor say it was a psychological thing? To put it plainly, you're just being precious about it."

"No parent is ever in the wrong. Even if that meat really were poisoned, you should choke it down and pretend, just to keep your dad happy."

Looking at the matter-of-fact expression on Eudora's face, my heart felt like it was being crushed in a giant fist.

What are real parents like?

I've seen it.

It's my mom, whose back was so worn out she could barely straighten up, still forcing a smile when she saw me, terrified I'd worry about her.

It's my mom, taking her hard-earned money and skimping on everything just so she could buy me candied fruit skewers.

Not like my dad, who took the compensation money from the construction site and gambled it all away, day after day.

Even my going to school, he thought that was a waste of money.

He was always going on about how Mom was gone, and now it was just the two of us left in this world, depending on each other to survive.

And I had to obey him unconditionally, do everything he said.

The moment my father saw me talk back to him over Blackie, Blackie's fate was sealed.

"Get out," I said calmly, looking at Eudora. "Take your filial devotion and get lost. We're done."

I ignored her attempts to stop me, opened the car door, and walked alone into the downpour.

I finally found an awning to shelter under, but the shopkeeper's face changed the instant he saw me.

"Out, out, out. We don't welcome ungrateful monsters here."

Countless eyes stabbed into me like needles, and the muttering rose and fell.

"Is this the ungrateful monster from the local feed?"

"What ungrateful monster?"

"You haven't heard? His dad rode twenty hours on a green-skinned train to come cook for him, and he wouldn't touch a single bite."

I shook my head miserably, wanting to explain.

In the end all I could do was type out a long clarification on my phone with shaking hands.

I attached the medical records from back when I saw the therapist, ready to lay out the whole story.

The next second the screen flashed.

Your account has received multiple complaints and is now permanently banned.

I froze for a moment as a wave of helplessness swept over me.

When everyone's decided you're wrong, no amount of explaining does any good.

When I pushed open the door to the house, soaked through, my dad was sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

The plate of braised pork knuckle on the table had gone stone cold, the white grease congealed on the surface.

"Dad, what is it you actually want?"

I braced myself weakly against the table, my face pale as I looked at him.

"That dead rat todayyou sent it, didn't you?"

The recipient's name read Little Willonly my dad ever called me that.

Back then Mom was still alive, and we were a happy family.

Dad always liked to call me Little Will, dragging out the words as he called me home to eat.

My favorite was his braised pork belly, fatty but not greasy, good enough to make me eat two bowls of rice.

"I'm being torn apart online by the whole internet, I've even lost my job. Are you really trying to drive me to my death?"

Dad jabbed at the TV remote at random and let out a cold laugh.

"Drive you to your death? Do you know how much money those users tipped for this one video alone? A hundred thousand!"

"How long would it take you to earn that kind of money?"

His eyes were full of greed. "I've already worked it out with the viewers. Tonight at eight, you're going on a livestream with me, and you'll eat this meat in front of the whole internet."

"Then kneel and apologize to me, and we'll call this whole thing done."

Looking at that dish of pork knuckle giving off its greasy stink, my stomach heaved.

"Why is it that I don't eat meat? Don't you know?"

I screamed hysterically, "How can you be this cruel?"

Crack!

A loud slap landed hard across my face.

My dad's face twisted with rage as he seized me by the collar. "Let me tell you, Will Foxif you dare cut off my money, I'll scatter your mother's ashes and make sure she never rests, even in death!"

At those words, my body, which had still been struggling, went rigid in an instant.

I knew he wasn't lying.

Back when my mother was buried, the village was superstitious and said someone who'd died a violent death couldn't be laid to rest in the family grave.

At ten years old, I kowtowed to him hundreds of times out in the mountains, until my forehead was a bloody mess.

Only then did he graciously agree to keep my mother's ashes and bury them in the empty scrubland behind the hill.

"The livestream starts at eight sharp. If you won't eat, don't blame me for not being gentle about it."

Dad tossed that out and turned away to adjust the fill lights for the stream.

"In your dreams."

I stumbled, trying to get away, but my dad shoved me straight into the bathroom.

He hummed a little tune as he warmed up the fans in his group chat: "Folks, this son of minehe insisted on running out into the pouring rain. How could I bear to stop him?"

"Truly, no love runs deeper than a parent's. Perfect timingtonight during the stream, I hope you'll all help me talk to him."

I curled up in the corner, tears dropping one after another.

If Mom were still alive, if Little Black were still alive...

At seven thirty, the doorbell rang.

Eudora came in carrying skincare products and handed them to my dad with a fawning smile: "Mr. Fox, I came to check on Will."

"Don't worry, he'll agree to the stream."

She checked her makeup in the mirror, then opened the door and looked down at me from above. "Will, look at the state of youhalf human, half ghost. You've even lost your job. Why bother?"

"I've already worked it out with your dad. In a little while, you eat the meat like a good boy, and this whole thing is over."

"You can't seriously make all my coworkers think I've got an ungrateful monster for a boyfriend, can you?"

I stared hard at this woman I'd been dating for three years, and felt cold all over.

"Eudora, you're going to help him force me to eat meat?"

"I'm helping you treat your mental illness."

Eudora's face was full of impatience, her tone all accusation: "What father on earth would want to hurt his own son? Don't drag all of us into getting cyberbullied just because you're being oversensitive."

She picked up that plate of pork knuckle with the white fat congealed on it and shoved it into the microwave.

The sound of the timer finishing was exactly like the countdown to the end of my life.

Dingand a rich aroma instantly filled the whole living room.

Eudora strode over and dragged me onto the sofa.

"Behave yourself for a bit, and after this is over I'll take you somewhere nice to eat, okay?"

A blinding white light snapped onto my face.

The instant the livestream went live, the viewer count shot up like crazy.

In just a few minutes it broke a hundred thousand.

The dense wall of live comments turned into countless sharp knives stabbing at my heart.

Is this the unfilial son? He even looks like an ungrateful monster.

It's disgusting to look at. Who doesn't like meat? I think it's just an excuse.

Watching the comments roll across the screen, my dad's eyes went red, and in an instant he put on that pitiful face.

He picked up a piece of dripping, oily pork knuckle and jammed it hard against my lips.

"Son, I can endure any hardship for your sake. I don't blame you for the stuff online."

He wept until he could barely speak: "Be good, eat this bite of meat, prove you don't look down on your dad, and our family will be just fine, all right?"

The meat juice ran down the corner of my mouth and dripped onto my shirt.

Eudora stood in the camera's blind spot, her face twisted, gritting her teeth as she warned, "Will, just take one bite! So many people are watchingdon't be so shameless when you're being handed a way out!"

In that instant, the fear that had pressed on my heart for over a decade suddenly vanished.

To protect my mother's dignity, I had given up everything.

But did backing down do any good?

Did swallowing it all do any good?

An answer was ready to burst out.

Looking at the two vicious faces in front of me, I finally made up my mind.

I stopped struggling and slowly closed my hand over my dad's handthe one holding the chopsticks.

"Dad," I said quietly, "since you enjoy performing your heaven-moving fatherly love so much."

"Then do you dare tell the viewers exactly why I don't eat meat?"