Can You Give Me a Little Love, No Strings Attached?

At four, he could recite Song of the Pipa. At five, he began reciting, “I’m sorry.”

At nine, he received his first certificate for being a well-rounded student. That same year, he first wanted to die.

At sixteen, he accepted an award beneath the brightest spotlight in the province. At seventeen, he hid in the laboratory building and burned his arm with an alcohol lamp because “pain is the only thing that quiets my mind.”

There were two versions of him living inside his body.

One was called worthless by his mother. The other took the top spot in the exams for her.

One wanted to jump from the 18th floor. The other locked the window and said, “Don’t ruin her reputation.”

On his 28th birthday, after washing his mother’s body, he wrote a 21-page suicide note and burned, one by one, the certificates he had earned over 21 years.

In the firelight, he heard his six-year-old self reciting a poem on a snowy balcony at night. He got one word wrong, and slaps fell like snowflakes.

The little boy turned around and smiled at his 28-year-old self:

“Don’t be afraid. No one will hit us this time.”

This isn’t someone else’s story. It is the shadow cast by 320,000 “Lin Mos” layered together.

If your chest feels tight after reading this, close the book, go hug the child in your life, and tell them:

I love you, no matter what place you come in.

“I don’t want depression to crush the children of this country.”