Chapter 3

I couldn't take any more. I pulled her over and gave her two more very light swats, then said sternly:

“You’re almost four. Stop bullying other children, and stop crying and throwing tantrums all the time.”

She struggled wildly, screaming.

The moment I let go, she ran to the coffee table, grabbed the fruit knife, and lunged at me.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

She screamed as she stabbed wildly.

I was stunned.

Fortunately, a child wasn’t very strong. Instinctively, I raised a hand to protect myself.

The blade slashed the back of it.

Blood immediately welled up.

My mother-in-law rushed over in panic, snatched the knife away, and carried her off.

Yet even in her grandmother’s arms, she kept crying and screaming that she wanted to kill me.

After that, we dared not leave a single knife in the living room.

The sight of her waving a knife and screaming “I’ll kill you!” haunted me.

I went online specifically to look it up.

Everyone called it the “sensitive period for cursing,” between the ages of three and six. As children grew, they learned bad words and malicious expressions and used them indiscriminately.

They would grow out of it.

My daughter had never sworn before. Never cursed me or threatened to kill me.

This was the first time.

I thought…

Perhaps I was simply being oversensitive.

After having her palms smacked, she seemed to show a little more restraint.

Only a little.

She hated me.

Whenever my husband came home, she clung to him and complained.

“Daddy, Mommy hit me! Mommy’s bad! Divorce her. We don’t need her anymore!”

I was astonished.

Where had such a small child learned the word “divorce”?

My husband’s face darkened.

“You hurt your mother, and you still have the nerve to complain about her?”

She burst into tears and ran to her grandmother.

After that, she stayed close to Grandma and was no longer affectionate with either of us.

Soon, she turned four.

We sent her to kindergarten.

On her very first day, the teacher called me in because she had hit another child.

After that, I lost count of how many times I went to the kindergarten over her fights.

Apologizing to teachers. Apologizing to parents.

Sometimes I cried with anger.

I had always followed the parenting experts’ advice.

She had never listened.

No one at home was in the habit of hitting people. The earlier time I had hit her, I had simply been too angry.

So why did my daughter know how to hit people at such a young age?

If it had only been fighting, that would have been easier to bear.

More frightening was her fondness for knives.

I had no idea where she had learned it.

At two, she had almost blinded Grandma with chopsticks.

At three, she had almost stabbed me.

Now she was becoming increasingly skilled at attacking people with knives, sticks, and other objects.

I was truly afraid that one day she would injure someone.

Even kill someone.

We put away every knife and pair of scissors in the house.

We strictly checked cartoons and storybooks too, determined to keep her from encountering any more violent content.

The whole family took turns teaching her, combining it with punishment—smacks on the palms or bottom.

At last, she stopped using knives.

One day, Chu Viện brought her son to visit.

The children played together in the bedroom while we talked in the living room.

Suddenly, her son ran out, sobbing.

We hurried to comfort him.

My daughter called:

“Mommy!”

Busy soothing the other child, I didn’t answer at once.

The next second, she gave a piercing scream and charged furiously into the kitchen.

When she came back, she was holding a cleaver.

She flung it straight at the boy.

If Chu Viện hadn’t reacted quickly and pulled him out of the way…

There would probably have been blood on the floor.

“Mục Âm!” I screamed. “What are you doing?”

I caught her and, for the first time, spanked her hard.

She screamed pitifully and struggled wildly.

White-faced, Chu Viện picked up her son and hurried away.

When my husband and mother-in-law came home, my daughter immediately complained that I had hit her.

My husband lost his temper, pulled her over, and gave her another beating.

“I’ll kill all of you one day!” she screamed through her tears.

After that beating, she became much better behaved.

I began to doubt the parenting experts.

Teaching by word and example seemed useless.

Only violence seemed to make her understand.

If she never experienced the fear of being overpowered by violence herself, how could she understand that other people suffered when she used it against them?

After that, Chu Viện never dared let her son play with my daughter again.

The other children in the complex stayed away too.

She became terribly lonely.

Seeing her like that hurt me.

Every day, I took her out, hoping she would grow happier and more positive.

I told her fairy tales and stories about heroes, hoping she would learn from good examples.

She listened attentively.

Her behavior improved too.

We had some peace for a while.

Then one day, she came home demanding a pencil case.

She dragged me to an expensive stationery shop beside the primary school, pointed at one, and said she wanted it.

I stared at the price.

Over a thousand yuan.

Ridiculous.

More than a thousand yuan for a pencil case?

Was this daylight robbery?

I asked why she wanted it.

“Phương Phương has one. I want one too.”

“You already have two pencil cases. We’re not buying another.”

I had never let her go without the things she needed. But she already had two. I refused to buy a third.

She cried and made a scene.

In the end, I had to carry her away.

The following day, the teacher called.

My daughter had snatched another child’s pencil case and pushed the child down the stairs.

Fortunately, the stairs weren’t high, and the child wasn’t injured.

By the time I reached the kindergarten, my legs felt too weak to support me.

She insisted she hadn’t pushed anyone.

Perhaps she was too young to understand.

But the hallway camera had clearly recorded her doing it.

Even while watching the footage, my daughter refused to admit it.

At home, we gave her a beating and told her not to take other people’s things or hurt them.

My mother-in-law suggested buying her the pencil case.

My husband and I both refused.

What would become of her if we indulged everything she wanted?

Before long, she came home showing off a new pencil case.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Someone gave it to me.”

I thought children might give things away because they didn’t understand their value. The adults would certainly be angry when they found out.

So I told her to return it.

She flatly refused.

Two days later, the mother of a boy in her class called me.

Only then did I learn the truth.

My daughter had used the boy’s pocket money to buy the case.

Worse still, he hadn’t had enough.

She had encouraged him to steal.

In the end, he really had taken money from his grandmother, making up the thirteen hundred yuan needed to buy my daughter that pencil case.

She was very pretty.

She had inherited her father’s looks. Even as a small child, she promised to grow into a stunning beauty.

People liked her as soon as they met her.

Plenty of boys in her kindergarten class enjoyed playing with her too.

But I had never imagined…

That a child so young already knew how to exploit others for her own benefit.

I questioned her.

She denied it.

I was exhausted, physically and mentally.

Everything that had happened came back to me, one incident after another.

I began to wonder.

Were there really children born with an evil nature?

Children who couldn’t change, however they were raised?

My husband, my mother-in-law, and I were all gentle, mild-tempered people.

Our family lived in harmony.

No swearing.

No fighting.

We always met our daughter’s reasonable needs and gave her unconditional love.

Even when she angered me, I rarely laid a hand on her.

We took her only to healthy, positive environments.

Whenever the adults had time, we played with her.

We had never neglected her.

We weren’t rich, but we always put her material needs first.

If something was reasonable and suitable, we would buy it, however expensive it was.

We were even more careful about her education.

We taught her right from wrong.

We often told her stories about good people and encouraged her to follow their example.

And yet…

My daughter had still turned out like this.

Selfish.

Greedy.

Only ever taking.

As though those vices had come with her from the womb.