Rebirth: My Mother, My Hero

A Lesson From the Past

Helen Chung led her daughter to the classroom door, gently holding Mia’s hand. She pulled out a few small bills and handed them over with a soft farewell, “Mia, here’s some pocket money. I’ll discuss the tutoring arrangements with your teacher. You just focus on your class.”

Mia Lin had never received pocket money before. It was only after starting boarding school in high school that she’d had a little allowance of her own.

She blinked, hesitating to take the money. “Mom, why are you suddenly giving me pocket money?”

Helen paused, then smiled, her eyes warm. “Because things are different now.”

Different how?

Was it because she wouldn’t be going to Grandma’s after school, meaning she’d have to spend the whole day alone and needed money just in case? Or did it signify something more?

Mia didn’t voice her thoughts. Her mother slipped the money into her pocket, patting it gently. “Keep it safe. I still have other things to do after talking to your teacher, so I’ll pick you up tonight.”

With that, Helen briskly walked off in the direction of the office.

Mia felt the bills through the fabric of her pocket, smiled slightly, and made her way to the last row by the window, retracing her steps from yesterday.

In a class of 51 students, Mia was the odd one out. Her solitary desk sat in the far-right corner of the classroom, right beside a broom and dustpan. She had no desk mate, and after transferring schools, her shy, withdrawn nature kept her from making friends.

Even Sunny Zhou, who always walked her home after school, kept some distance during school hours.

Sunny was outgoing and popular, always surrounded by friends. Mia, quiet and introverted, couldn’t fit into her world. Every time Sunny called out to her, Mia would find an excuse—claiming she had homework to do, staying glued to her seat.

Eventually, Sunny stopped calling her, and they developed an understanding: at school, they wouldn’t bother each other, but they would still walk to and from school together.

Yet today, perhaps because Mia had splurged fifteen yuan on an album yesterday and treated Sunny to diamond candy, Sunny ran over as soon as Mia sat down.

“Mia! Just in time!” Sunny leaned in close, whispering, “Can I borrow your homework to copy? Last night, I went to the revolving restaurant with my dad, and then we spent ages at the Cultural Palace. I was so tired I fell asleep before I even got home. I didn’t do it.”

Mia blinked. She had been reborn into this life, and everything had gone smoothly so far. She had never imagined that her first crisis would be... elementary school homework.

It was so real—too real—for a ten-year-old. She no longer doubted whether she was dreaming!

“Uh...” Mia paused for a moment, awkwardly asking, “What was the homework again?”

“Huh?”

Sunny was dumbfounded. Although Mia hadn’t done well on the last midterm, she was always the most diligent student. Every time Sunny went to find her, she was either doing homework or on her way to do it.

But Mia didn’t have time to care about Sunny’s bewilderment. She quickly pulled all her workbooks from her bag, laying them on her desk.

She hoped Sunny could point out the questions so she could write them on the spot.

But then she remembered those tricky elementary school math problems she’d once seen online. At the time, she was transitioning to becoming an internet influencer, and she had taken a serious look at them—only to be thoroughly stumped by elementary-level math.

Half-lying, she said, “Uh, my parents had an argument last night. I was so upset that I forgot to do it. Maybe you could borrow someone else’s, and we can copy it together.”

“Sure!”

In times of crisis, Sunny didn’t ask too many questions. She immediately went to find someone else.

Two minutes later, Mia, nervous and ready to copy, finally saw what the homework entailed:

"How many 0.1s are there in 0.8?"

"How many 1/100s are there in 0.32?"

The hardest questions, at a glance, were probably the estimation problems:

“428 x 57 ≈ ?”

“454 ÷ 87 ≈ ?”

Mia blinked. Was this really what elementary school math had been like twenty years ago??? And how had she, as a child, only managed to score 66 points on problems like these?

Shame and pride mixed together as Mia quickly wrote down the answers, thinking to herself: Returning to ten years old, I must be a genius!

In under ten minutes, both she and Sunny had finished copying the work.

“Hey—” Sunny pointed to the two estimation problems. “Mia, you got these two wrong.”

Mia pointed at the original homework. “She got them wrong.”

Sunny gave her a skeptical look.

Mia raised an eyebrow, a hint of arrogance in her voice. “Who do you trust more, her or me?”

Sunny seemed to find this incredibly amusing. “You tell me—she’s tenth in the class, from the top!”

And Mia... she was last.

“The teacher’s coming.” Sunny stuck her tongue out at Mia before darting back to her seat.

Watching the energetic girl’s retreating figure, Mia felt no offense—instead, she felt a surge of warmth. How wonderful childhood was.

On her first day back to being a child, everything felt new.

Arithmetic problems she could solve in seconds, the familiar "Three Flavors Book House" passage, music class with the teacher playing piano, gym class jumping rope with her classmates...

Everything was both strange and familiar. Blending in with a group of elementary school students, Mia actually felt a sense of innocence return.

After so many years of adulthood, who wouldn’t be charmed by such a simple, carefree life?

Until—

Mia found herself at her homeroom teacher’s house for lunch.

Shredded pork with garlic sauce, mapo tofu, salty pork belly, and a cucumber and preserved egg soup.

The homeroom teacher, Mia, and two other girls who boarded at the teacher’s house—four people, three dishes, and a soup. All were authentic Sichuan homestyle dishes.

In her previous life, after starting work, Mia had lived alone in Hangzhou for years. It had been such a long time since she’d eaten with others like this. Just smelling the aroma of the food made her mouth water.

Unable to wait, Mia eagerly ran to the kitchen to serve rice even before the last dish was finished.

Only to be shooed out by one of the boarders.

“No need, Mia, go sit. It’s my turn to serve today!”

At the dinner table, another girl smiled kindly at her. “On our first day here, we were just like you—eagerly rushing to serve the rice. Then Teacher Li assigned us to take turns.”

With the rule already set, Mia Lin could only sit and wait, her mouth watering as her eyes lingered longingly on the food.