I'm so sick of this. I'm going mad.

It's Children's Day. Last night Dad and I had World War Three again. Calling it war flatters me. At home I can't fight back. I just get crushed.

All he thinks about is admission to sports school! At 5:30, before dawn, he drags me out of bed with an icy wet towel and makes me run with sandbags. The autumn wind cuts my face. If I slow for a second or gasp for breath, his metal stopwatch hits my back. I'm not his son. I'm an animal meant to earn an admission letter!

I don't like running. Not at all. I like looking at the sky.

Only nebulae, black holes and galaxies millions of light-years away make me feel alive in that suffocating house. I bought those books by skipping breakfast and saving for half a year. I treasured them in a shoebox under my bed.

Yesterday, cleaning the house, he found them.

He dumped the magazines on the floor. "Will this junk get you under eleven seconds? Get you into sports school? Useless waste!" He screamed and tore them apart one by one.

I tried to save the collector's edition with the 3D star chart. It was out of print! He kicked me away and stamped on my Orion Nebula picture with his stinking shoes until it was scraps. I'd looked at it every night. Sitting there, I hurt so much I couldn't breathe.

Now he's stopped my pocket money. Three yuan for the bus, not even extra for water. But next week the newsstand gets the tenth-anniversary UFO Exploration special, with a new dark matter chart. Thirty-eight yuan!

I have to buy it. It's the only thing that makes me feel alive. He tore up my sky. I'll buy it back, whatever it takes. I'll get money by "borrowing" or making people pay protection money. I will get enough.

The new book won't go home. The abandoned equipment room upstairs in the gym is my secret base. Filthy and broken, somewhere even teachers won't go. I'll hide everything there. That old bastard will never find it.

Speaking of trouble, someone in the club wrote insults about us in a notebook. Called me all muscle and no brain. I'm furious. Whatever, I'm too generous to bother. Guess I was stupid to help move his desks and chairs!

Anyway, I joined for the astronomy website, but coding turned out to be fun too. I've chosen my next diary password. Haha! I'll hide it in a classmate's drawings. Not one picture: read eight of them together!

The day before yesterday, some club members called me to the roof. I knew why, but Coach kept me for extra starting practice, so I was late.

When I pushed open the iron door, everyone had gone except the beaten boy, curled in a corner, bruised and dusty.

His kicked-over bag lay open. There were crumpled banknotes inside. I counted: seven yuan fifty! I was thrilled and took the money. Looking at him, I felt guilty for a second. After all, I hadn't hit him.

Then I remembered he'd insulted me behind my back. No guilt left. Finally enough for the special edition!

He said nothing, struggled to his feet and limped downstairs. I stayed to calm down. Then I noticed a battered black notebook on the ground.

I picked it up. It really was the diary full of insults!

I was reading when the iron door creaked. Liu Shu came up!

I broke into a cold sweat. If she told a teacher and they investigated, my sports admission would be gone! I forced myself to look calm and sat pretending to daydream.

She marched over, all righteous, asking why we'd bullied him.

I was panicking inside, but I sneered and handed her the black notebook.

As her calm face turned to shock, I borrowed a line from a movie villain:
"He's a twisted freak. He holds grudges and insults us behind our backs. We were just teaching him a lesson for everyone."

The diary shocked her into minding her own business. I escaped that one.

From now on, we'll only discuss the bullying in that hidden forum. No evidence on QQ or anywhere else.