Chapter 59: The Depth of My Love, The Depth of My Hate

2022-05-20

The more I once loved you, the deeper my hatred became.

When love turns into hate, it only grows more intense—a kind of resentment that seeps into your very bones.

Li Taida can’t even remember when he started hating his father. Maybe it began with Li Xian’s first bottle of liquor. Maybe it was the first time Li Xian threw a pair of dice. Maybe it was just another day that everyone thought was ordinary.

Li Xian walked out that day and never came back the same.

Li Taida was still a little kid back then. But he remembers: from that day on, they moved out of the big house, and his father—who never used to drink—started coming home drunk every single night. The family everyone once envied soon became the sort you wanted to avoid.

At thirty, Li Xian was nothing short of a legend. He built a fortune in Dongxing City from the ground up, turning nothing into millions.

At twenty, Li Xian met the woman he wanted to care for his entire life—Li Taida’s mother, Du Meier. Back then Li Xian had nothing, while Du Meier earned six thousand a month. It’s a kind of heartbreak when you meet the woman you want to protect for life at your weakest.

But Du Meier never minded, because she saw hope and ambition in Li Xian.

Three years after their marriage, Du Meier scraped together her savings and gave them to Li Xian for his first business venture. They were dirt poor, so poor Du Meier even severed ties with her own family to marry him. They only ate one meal a day; tears welled up in Li Xian’s eyes.

Li Xian promised her, “I’ll buy you a big house someday. I’ll make sure you count money at home every day and never have to put up with another boss’s attitude.”

Du Meier replied, “I’ll wait for that day.”

Two years later, Li Xian struck it rich in business. He started his own company and bought his wife a giant diamond ring.

That night, the couple collapsed into each other’s arms and wept.

Neither of them could forget how, when they first got married, Li Xian couldn’t even afford the cheapest ring. They couldn’t host a banquet; their wedding was held in a shabby rental apartment that cost 300 a month. Li Xian made a dish called “Dragon Crossing the Sea”—just a handful of greens in a pot.

There were no witnesses, just the two of them. They discovered what true marriage meant—all for love.

Du Meier spent the whole night staring at her diamond ring. After crying, they felt a kind of wild excitement. They watched the diamond sparkle until dawn. Du Meier felt lucky. Not everyone marries for love, and few entrepreneurs make it big by the second year.

Du Meier decided she’d chosen well.

Two years later, their son, Li Taida, was born. By then, Li Xian’s business was booming. He fulfilled his promise from four years earlier: Du Meier got her big house, lived a life counting money, and never had to answer to a boss again. She became a full-time wife—the woman behind a so-called successful man.

Three years after that, Li Xian spent millions on a villa in Dongxing City.

By then, Li Xian was thirty.

Suddenly, all those people who once looked down on him were calling him ‘Brother Li’ left and right, acting like they’d been close since birth.

Li Taida was four, just starting to understand the world.

Building a family is like stacking dirt with a needle; losing one is like sand sluicing away in water.

Back when they had nothing, no one cared about Li Xian. But the moment his name hit Dongxing City’s newspapers, friends seemed to crawl out of the woodwork. Like they say: ‘No one asks about you when you’re poor, but when you hit it big, relatives show up from the hills.’

Distant relatives showed up in droves.

Growing up with nothing, Li Xian’s greatest fear was being looked down on. But now, everyone respected him, treated him as a role model.

Sometimes, pride is a double-edged sword.

Whenever Li Xian set his mind to something, he had to see it through. He was stubborn—even a team of oxen couldn’t pull him back once he’d made up his mind.

But the more he struggled, the deeper he sank—like getting caught in a mud pit. One foot stuck deeper as he tried to pull the other free, but never realized he was already trapped.

The more you try to turn your fate around, the deeper you fall.

Even having a fortune couldn’t save him.

Li Xian’s heart was no longer in business. Every night he came home with a dark, sullen face.

He started drinking every night. The first time he hit Du Meier was a turning point.

Li Taida was six years old.

Once you cross the line of violence, that bottom line only drops lower. Li Xian grew unpredictable, flying into rages after drinking. He started with his fists, then kicked, and finally pulled off his belt.

Bruises and welts covered Du Meier’s body. Li Taida was just a kid—all he knew how to do was cry.

Du Meier cried with him, but Li Taida didn’t yet understand that the pain in your heart hurts far more than the pain in your body.

A year later, Li Xian’s company went bankrupt. The villa was repossessed by the bank. They moved back to their old, tiny apartment. Du Meier tried to comfort her husband, “We survived those hard days ten years ago; if we have to start from scratch again, so be it. If we managed it before, we can manage it again.”

Li Xian answered with another savage beating.

Li Xian’s pride had already been crushed underfoot. The ‘brothers’ vanished, the distant relatives disappeared too. Now, nobody called him ‘Brother Li’—just ‘look at that loser.’

For the next five years, Li Taida and his mother lived in what felt like hell.

Their hallway was splashed with red paint: ‘Pay your debts.’ Harassing phone calls came at all hours of the night. Out on the street, they were often surrounded by debt collectors. These men hurled insults at his mother, and every time, Li Taida would stand up to them.

But at eleven, he was still just a kid—no match for grown men.

They shoved him to the ground. “Tell your dad—if the money isn’t paid back, it’ll be you and your mother paying the price.”

Li Xian lost his dignity after thirty, but for Li Taida, who’d understood things since childhood, dignity hardly existed at all. And the irony was, his sense of worth depended on another man.

Most days, Li Taida never saw his father’s face. Li Xian darted in and out, hiding from his creditors.

But the debts still needed to be paid. Even after selling the house, Du Meier still owed over a hundred thousand.

Li Taida will never forget those days—living with his mother in a rundown rental.

They were so poor they couldn’t afford a penny. Li Taida had to go to school, but even with discounts, Du Meier couldn’t manage. After becoming a housewife, she could never find another job paying six thousand. She worked as a waitress, making just a thousand a month—barely enough for rent and loan payments.

But the loan sharks never let up.

Li Taida will always remember that day—Du Meier handed him twenty yuan and told him to go out and play.

When he came home, she held him and murmured, “They won’t bother us anymore. You just focus on your studies.”

That year, Li Taida turned fourteen.

Li Xian was still the same—borrowing money by day, coming back drunk and violent at night.

Li Taida cried to his mother, “Get a divorce. Just leave. Go somewhere Li Xian can never find you.”

Du Meier nodded.

From then on, Li Taida never saw his mother again.

Two years later, Du Meier paid off the debts and bought an apartment in Li Taida’s name—the very one we investigated earlier.

Li Taida never knew how his mother came up with the money, but he knew she must have suffered more than he could ever imagine.

But Li Xian moved into that apartment. Every time he got drunk, he’d trash the place and turn their home into chaos.

At sixteen, Li Taida finally made up his mind to kill his own father.