One hundred thousand spectators sat in hushed silence, their eyes fixed on the enormous screen above the stage.
What they were watching was not a performance, but a memory—the recreation of a song born thirteen years ago, a song that had changed the course of literature and music.
But what the world was only now discovering was that the creation of this masterpiece had been no simple act of genius. It had been forged in the crucible of despair.
It was the story of a man.
A man struck down again and again.
A man who wavered between life and death, who walked to the edge of the sea with no one beside him.
And it was in that darkness that he began to realize the song that would live forever.
---
In the online forums and program discussion groups, messages scrolled rapidly across the screen.
"No wonder he's sick… He must have carried all that pain silently, and this was how he released it again and again."
Professor Carter, his voice heavy with emotion, muttered, "This man… he was wronged everywhere he went. For the sake of his child, he swallowed all his feelings. And when he could no longer bear it, he went to Erhai Lake—not to die, but to wrestle with death."
He paused, trembling slightly.
"But he never gave in. Because of his daughter, he gritted his teeth and lived. Countless nights, countless moments when he told himself: 'Hold on. Survive.' With stars and moonlight reflecting in his eyes, he carried on. That's what made him the man we see in this playback."
Carter's voice grew thick. "How can such a person be ordinary? How can such a person's child be anything but extraordinary?"
At his side, Professor Tian said nothing. The weight of truth hung too heavily.
Every scholar watching felt the same. This was not a story of mediocrity. This was the story of a man who had lived on the edge of collapse, and somehow, through his suffering, handed the world something eternal.
But then came the question that cut the air like a knife:
Why did Sophia hate him so much?
---
On stage, the screen replayed the haunting image of Victor's thin back as he walked into the sea. His white shirt clung to his skin, his hair plastered to his forehead.
For the first time, Sophia admitted aloud, her voice low and trembling:
"Yes… I was sad when I saw that. But sadness wasn't all I felt. Because after that night, something changed. When he came home, he wasn't the same."
Her words echoed through the stadium.
"He became grumpy, short-tempered. He started drinking more. He gained weight. He stopped moving with energy, stopped responding with care. He shouted in his sleep, woke with nightmares, fought with himself in ways I couldn't understand. They said it was schizophrenia. Later, it was called multiple personality disorder."
Sophia's eyes darkened.
"This was my life from age six to ten. This was my father. Tell me—what could I do?"
Her voice cracked.
On the screen, Victor was still alive, still walking in the waves. But everyone now understood what Sophia meant.
He hadn't died that night. He came home. And what came home was not the man they admired on the beach, but the broken shell of him.
Sophia was robbed of her hobbies. Robbed of laughter. Robbed of peace. Every day, she was scolded, ordered, burdened. Every spark she created was dragged down into endless reprimands.
The audience wavered between pity and bitterness.
---
"Yes…" murmured the male host, Hai Tao, as he adjusted his microphone. "I think all his strength collapsed after that night. He went to the beach to give up rationality itself. From then on, he let go of ambition and lived like so many old men in the slums—idle, bitter, reprimanding their children while sinking further."
Charles, Principal Carter, and host Nana all nodded in agreement.
Yes. Victor had been admirable, once. But after the sea, he was undone. His resolve broke. His spirit fractured.
The screen of the live broadcast filled with sighs from female viewers:
"The more helpless the family, the more the children suffer."
"Exactly. She said he became fat from laziness, but he was so thin before. That just shows how completely he collapsed."
"He had nothing left to hold on to."
---
But the playback did not stop.
On screen, Victor continued forward into the freezing water. The waves rose to his chest, lapping at his neck. The moonlight slipped between clouds, illuminating his face—a face carved with loneliness so deep it seemed to belong to no world.
No one of his age, no neighbor, no friend—no one had ever understood him.
The water surged against him, urging him back. But he did not stop.
Scars lined his hands, split from labor, sun, and wind. The waves washed them open again, bleeding red into the tide.
And then—his voice broke the silence.
He began to hum, barely above a whisper.
Listen to the depths of the sea…
Whose wailing calls…
The soul lies silent…
And no one wakes you up…
---
His head tilted back as the water swallowed him.
The ocean, the spray, the clouds, the song—all fused together in that moment.
Everyone watching knew it instantly.
This was the origin. The true source of the song Under the Sea.
It had nothing to do with Grace, nothing to do with influence or privilege.
It was a man who had carried despair into the waves and sung back against the silence. A man who let the ocean devour him and turned the drowning into melody.
His blood mingled with the water, faint red spreading into the black tide. His body rolled with the current. His soul—lonely, desperate—seemed for an instant to escape.
It was not performance. It was not invention.
It was lived despair.
---
Clara White gasped on stage, covering her mouth with her trembling hands.
"So this is the background of the song," she whispered. "I see it now… more than ten years ago, that well-dressed, handsome man told me about the sea. He wasn't inventing. He was reliving it. He was the true experiencer."
Her tears fell freely.
In her mind, she began pulling the story apart—the painting, the narration, the fragments Sophia had built into the song. It all came from Victor.
Without the replay, no one would have believed it.
No one could have imagined that a masterpiece which had inspired millions was born not in joy, not in genius, but in a father's quiet descent into the sea.
---
The playback froze.
The screen showed only that lonely night: a man in a patched white shirt, chest-deep in the waves, face hollow, eyes full of despair.
Back in the slums, his little daughter still practiced notes, her tiny hands striking at her instrument.
The lights of Iron City's countless homes glowed warmly in the distance. None of them knew.
No one saw him.
No one heard him.
But the song he carried would live on.
---
On stage, Clara White sobbed openly now, wiping her cheeks.
"No wonder," she cried, "no wonder when he once explained the song, I felt resonance in my heart. It wasn't theory. It was truth. It was what he lived."
The truth weighed on every spectator.
And for the first time, they understood:
The song was not simply Sophia's. It was Victor's pain, transmuted into music. It was his burden—and hers.
---
---------------------------------------------------
Get membership in patreon to read more chapters
Extra chapters available in patreon
patreon.com/Dragonscribe31
-----------------------------------------------------