Chapter 4

I still lingered in the house where I had lived for eighteen years, while my former family had moved on to a new life.

Sounds came from the living room.

I drifted over and saw Dad taping an eye chart to the wall.

"Come on, Iris, let's see which line you can read," he said, his voice filled with expectation and encouragement.

Mom stood nearby, wringing her hands nervously.

Iris stepped forward and clearly read out the smallest line of symbols.

"That's wonderful!"

Mom hugged her tightly, her voice choked with emotion. "It's all right as long as you can see, it's all right..."

Dad also let out a sigh of relief, gently patting Iris's back.

I stood there, stunned.

I remembered last year after my school physical, I'd held up my 20/15 vision report, happily showing it to Dad.

He'd just given it a dismissive glance and said, "Take care of your eyes, don't stare at your phone so much."

At the time, I thought he just wasn't good at praise.

But facing a fully recovered Iris, he was like a completely different person.

After dinner, Mom brought out a brand-new photo album.

"Iris, let's organize the old photos and put new ones in later."

Mom's voice carried a lightness, a sense of starting anew.

I floated closer to look.

In that thick family album, every photo of me had been removed.

Those empty spaces were like silent, gaping holes, mocking my eighteen years of life.

Dad was organizing the bookshelves nearby. He stacked all my textbooks, leisure reading, even my award-winning essays, preparing to sell them as scrap paper.

Without a moment of hesitation.

My awards were still taped to the study wall. He reached out, tore them down, crumpled them into a ball, and tossed them into the cardboard box at his feet.

His movements were practiced, as if he were simply cleaning out a dusty old relic.

Besides the awards, there was also my first painting from kindergarten.

In that drawing, I had used childish strokes to draw our family of three.

At the time, Dad had praised my drawing and even bought a frame for it.

Now, it was casually tossed into the scrap paper box.

Every trace proving my existence was ruthlessly cleared away.

Except for the perpetually locked drawer in the study, which remained untouched.

I stood right beside Dad, watching him.

He didn't notice me at all.

An old photo album I'd never seen before fell from the highest shelf.

Dad walked over, picked up the album expressionlessly, and tossed it into the scrap paper box without even looking.

"Just some useless old photos," he said blandly, as if explaining, or perhaps talking to himself.

Mom went to prepare Iris's bedtime milk.

She opened the highest cupboard and took out that familiar white medicine bottle—

The "imported heart medication" I had taken for eight years.

"Does she still need to take this medication?" Dad asked, walking in.

"The doctor said to continue for a while to consolidate," Mom replied.

She skillfully poured out two pills, crushed them, and mixed them into the milk. "It's good for eye recovery."

I froze.

Good for eye recovery?

As Mom left with the milk, a curled label peeled off the bottle and fluttered to the floor.

I instinctively floated closer, reading the original medicine name beneath the faded cover—

Corneal Repair Agent.

So, for eight years, the medication I took diligently every day wasn't keeping me alive at all.