Chapter 1
“Your son is seven years old now, and he’s only 3 feet 4 inches tall. He’s severely stunted.
If you don’t intervene with growth hormone treatments in time, you’ll miss his growth spurt, and it’ll be much harder later on.”
Listening to the doctor’s patient explanation, I felt a moment of dizzying confusion.
I wasn’t barely clinging to life, hooked up to machines in the ICU anymore. My body felt light, a sensation I hadn’t experienced in years.
I… had actually been reborn?
Despite the disbelief, my body trembled with excitement.
The doctor thought I was too upset and told me to calm down. Using that as an excuse, I rushed out and crouched by the wall.
“I told you you were making a fuss. My mom was raising the kid just fine, but you insisted he was sick. Now look, you’re happy that he’s diagnosed with dwarfism, aren’t you? You believe everything the doctor says, even if it’s just nonsense. They’re only after your money.”
“Yeah, Dad, Grandma said I’d be a late bloomer, just like Mom.
I’m so smart, I’ll definitely get into college and be successful. You just can’t stand us being comfortable, always messing things up.”
Even though I’d heard it once before, facing such doubt and mockery from my own flesh and blood still sent a sharp ache through my chest.
I had tirelessly raised him until he was three. My mother-in-law only started helping out when he began preschool, under the guise of lending a hand.
She brainwashed him daily, telling him I didn’t love him, and now she was openly accusing me of messing things up right in front of him.
In my previous life, he inherited my mother-in-law’s side of the family’s dwarfism. I quit my job and poured all my time into him. I traveled the world to find him treatment.
Each shot cost $200, given weekly, for years on end. My wife thought I was wasting money and simply washed her hands of it. I gritted my teeth and persevered through everything alone.
I also exercised with him every day, and eventually, he was indistinguishable from his peers
In fact, his consistent training gave him exceptional physical fitness, and he was chosen by a coach.
After two years of training, he became the youngest long-distance running champion at the Junior World Championship.
Yet, despite all that, he hated me.
He believed I had tormented him all those years, preventing him from seeing his mother and grandmother, and robbing him of a happy childhood.
The most agonizing part was that in my previous life, he already knew about my wife’s affair but helped her conceal it.
I only found out when I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and wanted to see him one last time.
Instead, I saw him excitedly stuffing his championship trophy and prize money into that lowlife’s hands. They… they had already been a cozy, harmonious “family” for a long time.
And I, the one he accused of being a lunatic and a control freak, was subjected to overwhelming online abuse even in my final, dying days.
Remembering the pain and despair of my deathbed in the previous life, I absolutely refused to be a foolish martyr this time.
Since he also thought I was “messing things up,” then I’d just completely pull away and let things fall apart.
Let’s see. Without me.
Could he still become a world champion?