The divorce comeback system arrived right after I was born.

Time flies like an arrow, and Chen Zhi and Lin Wanwan are already in the fourth grade.

Sunlight streamed through the classroom windows, dappling the desks. The classroom of Class 2, Grade 4 was bustling with activity, filled with a unique atmosphere of excitement and tension. Today was the parent-teacher conference.

For most elementary school students, these three words are comparable to "the end of the world." But for Chen Zhi, it was just a routine "award ceremony."

Since his rebirth, Chen Zhi has used his adult mindset to outperform everyone else academically. He gets perfect scores in math, English, and science—he's practically a sitting duck for the entire school.

My two little devils, Chen Jun and Zhang Guifang, almost came to blows at home last night over the right to attend the parent-teacher conference. In the end, Zhang Guifang won with the absurd reason that "I'm a bank teller, I have strong calculation skills, and I can more accurately calculate how many points my son has over the second-place student."

Chen Zhi idly twirled the ballpoint pen in his hand, his gaze sweeping over his deskmate on the left.

Lin Wanwan was lying face down on the table, burying her head in her arms and pretending to be dead. She only scored 78 points on her midterm math exam, and it was said that Aunt Lin Jing had already said that if she was criticized by the teacher at the parent-teacher meeting, she would be deprived of snacks for a month.

"Stop pretending, you can't escape it no matter how much you pretend." Chen Zhi poked her elbow with the cap of his pen.

"Chen Zhi, you traitor!" Lin Wanwan suddenly looked up, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster's. "You got a perfect score, of course you can talk big without knowing the consequences! My mom's coming later, you'll have to help me shield her!"

Chen Zhi shrugged, looking helpless.

He turned his head and looked to his right.

Sitting there was Li Zhiyi, the new deskmate who had just transferred to the school.

Unlike the boisterous Lin Wanwan, Li Zhiyi was as quiet as air. She wore a faded school uniform with worn cuffs, and her hair was always tied low, with bangs so long they almost covered her eyes.

In the week since she transferred schools, Chen Zhi hadn't spoken a word except for her barely audible answers when the teacher called on her. Her homeroom teacher, Mr. Wang, had specifically instructed him, as the class monitor, to take extra care of the new student.

At this moment, Li Zhiyi was sitting upright, her hands neatly folded on her knees, and the table in front of her was clean and tidy, with only a Chinese textbook on it.

The students around her were all chattering about whose parents were coming, but she was completely isolated from all the noise, as if an invisible vacuum barrier had formed around her.

Chen Zhi's heart stirred. She decided to use her role as the class's academic representative to get closer to the introverted new classmate.

He cleared his throat, leaned slightly to the right, and gave a friendly smile: "Li Zhiyi?"

The girl's shoulders visibly trembled, like a frightened little animal. She slowly turned her head, her gaze timidly glancing at Chen Zhi through the thick gaps in her bangs, before quickly lowering it again.

"Um..." Chen Zhi pointed to the parents who were coming in through the classroom door, "Is your mother coming to the parent-teacher meeting today?"

This was just a very ordinary greeting.

According to Chen Zhi's script, the next step should be for the other person to answer "yes" or "no," and then he should take the opportunity to compliment them with something like "Your grades are also good," thus successfully breaking the ice.

However, the script stalled at the very first sentence.

Li Zhiyi lowered her head, almost to her chest. Her fingers, resting on her knees, were twisted together, the knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

Several seconds later, a faint, almost inaudible sound drifted into Chen Zhi's ears:

"I...don't have a mother."

Chen Zhi's smile froze instantly.

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

His adult mindset immediately made him realize he had stepped on a landmine, and a big one at that. A huge sense of guilt washed over him, and he frantically waved his hands, trying to salvage this terrible opening.

"Ah... I'm so sorry! I didn't know..." Chen Zhi's mind went blank for a moment, and her mouth spoke faster than her brain, instinctively blurting out, "Then it must be your father, right?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Chen Zhi wanted to bite his tongue off.

If you're in a single-parent family, mentioning the other parent is likely a taboo subject. What am I doing? Why am I bringing up something so sensitive?

Sure enough, Li Zhiyi lowered her head even further, shrinking into a tiny ball. Her oversized school uniform looked even more empty, as if it could engulf her at any moment.

Her voice began to tremble, carrying a suppressed sob, each word seeming to be forced out of her throat:

"I...don't have a father either."

Boom—

Chen Zhi felt a bolt of lightning strike the top of his head.

What kind of hellishly difficult dialogue is this?

Two consecutive hits! Precise explosion!

He actually rubbed salt into the most vulnerable wound of a ten-year-old girl twice, and even stomped on it twice.

Chen Zhi felt that he wasn't just socially dead, he wanted to die. If he could turn back time, he would rather go back to that night to snatch the pile of dog poop that Xiao Bai had just made than start this conversation.

Years later, whenever Chen Zhi recalls this scene late at night, he feels so ashamed that he jumps out of his 200-meter-long bed and slaps himself twice in the mirror.

No, we don't need to wait many years.

Now, immediately, right away.

Chen Zhi felt that the first thing he should do when he got home from school was to find the sturdiest crooked tree and have a tug-of-war with it to see who was stronger.

"I... um... I..."

Chen Zhi, who was usually eloquent and could easily charm his mother Zhang Guifang, was now completely speechless. All his vocabulary seemed to vanish in that instant, leaving only a flushed face and utter helplessness.

"It's okay."

Li Zhiyi suddenly spoke up.

She kept her head down, not looking at Chen Zhi. But her tightly clenched fingers slowly loosened and rested flat on her knees again.

"I'm used to it."

Her voice was soft and calm, even carrying a detachment that seemed out of place for her age.

This calmness, more so than the trembling just now, felt like a knife, piercing straight into Chen Zhi's heart.

Just then, the front door of the classroom was pushed open.

An elderly man with a hunched back, wearing a gray Zhongshan suit, walked in. His clothes were old, but very clean, and the collar was buttoned up meticulously. His wrinkled face showed a hint of unease, and he held a slightly deformed cloth hat in his hand.

The old man stood at the door, his cloudy eyes searching among the rows of well-dressed parents in the classroom, looking out of place.

"grandfather……"

Li Zhiyi whispered something, immediately stood up, quickly walked over, and took the old man's arm.

Chen Zhi watched this scene with mixed feelings.