On the stage, beneath the blinding lights, Sophia stood tall and calm. No matter who appeared—critics, admirers, or even family—she never flinched. She faced them all with the same quiet composure.
Except for one person.
The mention of her father always unsettled her. After she rose to fame, she had cut all ties with him. To the public, it looked like indifference. To Sophia, it was survival.
Now, the producers announced the arrival of her long-estranged mother, Grace. Even then, Sophia's face did not change. Her heart had roots buried too deep for anything to shake her. She already knew how the show would unfold.
But inside, old memories stirred.
At five years old, after her performance of Under the Sea had made her name explode across Iron City, she remembered that man—her father, Victor. He had rejected scouts and agencies one after another, dismissing the opportunities others could only dream of. And then he had looked down at her with cold eyes, using the calmest voice possible to express his disapproval of her success.
---
The screen flickered to life.
A recording began to play: Sophia at five years and twelve months old.
It was winter again. Snow blanketed the slums. She was sitting at the table, working on an odd assignment from school. The Education Bureau of Iron City had instructed the children to capture a picture of "romance". It was optional, more about building character than testing academics. Most children solved it easily—snapping photos of flowers, trees, or sunsets.
But Sophia sat there thinking carefully. What was romance, really?
The door creaked.
Victor stumbled in, shaking snow from his threadbare coat. His frame was thinner than before, his face pale and gaunt. His leather pants were stained with mud, as if he had fallen. He still smelled of alcohol. The cotton gloves on his hands were cracked open, revealing skin split by winter cold.
He sighed heavily and glanced down at her homework. Then, with drunken pride, he muttered:
"Romance? Drinking is romance."
He pulled from his pocket a cheap bottle of liquor, shaking it as if it were treasure.
Sophia frowned. "That's not romance."
Victor ignored her. "Huo Qubing was named a great general when he was young. People like him drank! And Li Bai, the poet—he drank! All the scholars and heroes drank. We're not far from Li Bai's monument. Someday, I'll go drink with him myself." His words slurred into nonsense.
Sophia shut the bedroom door, disgusted. But the words lingered in her head.
Drink with Li Bai. A general, dead young.
And then—her imagination shifted. Maybe romance wasn't just flowers and sunsets. Maybe it was history itself, carved into mountains and tombs.
That thought planted itself in her heart.
---
The recording continued.
Victor sprawled on the couch, still muttering drunkenly. Sophia, barely six, could only pick out fragments of his rambling:
"Fenglang Juxu… first general of history…"
"A superstar who never falls…"
"Drunk on the knees of beauty, awake with the killing sword…"
"The Huns have not been destroyed, why should we build a home…"
"The Hu people wept at Qilian Mountain…"
Most of it was incomprehensible to a child. But then, in a rare moment of clarity, Victor's voice softened.
"I think he was just a kid, in his twenties. He must have liked sweets. Why not… give him a piece of candy?"
For a heartbeat, the drunken haze cleared. His tone was almost gentle, almost lucid, as if he had seen straight through the centuries.
The audience in the present-day stadium gasped.
Was this man, broken and drunk as he was, really the one to plant the seed of Sophia's romantic character?
---
That night, Sophia whispered in her tiny bedroom:
"I'll give you a candy."
It was a vow, a child's pure promise.
And the world would later witness her carrying it out.
Because not long after, a six-year-old Sophia walked alone, trembling through the snow, to General Huo Qubing's tomb. She placed a piece of candy on the grave.
Reporters happened to be there. Tourists with cheap flip phones snapped blurry photos. Everyone recognized the girl—the child star who had sung Under the Sea. She wore a simple blue cotton coat, snowflakes melting into her hair.
Someone asked her softly, "Why candy?"
She smiled, her voice warm and innocent. "He was so young. He must have liked sweets."
The image went viral.
The literary and artistic circles exploded. A child had redefined romance—not as flowers or sunsets, but as empathy across centuries, as compassion for a young general who died too soon.
It became known as the birth of Yanhuang Romanticism, a style that blended history with human tenderness. Young writers wept, inspired. Critics hailed it as a new movement.
And Sophia, at only six years old, had unknowingly reshaped an era.
---
Backstage, even the crew of the present-day program was stunned. Principal Carter, who had once overseen Sophia's education, muttered in disbelief:
"This… this can't be. That contest back then—it was marked as Sophia's own idea. But now, it looks like… it was her father, indirectly, teaching her what romance is. A national form of romance, born from drunken rambling…"
He shook his head with a bitter smile. "How can that be?"
But the footage was undeniable. The broken man on screen, silent in life, had somehow carried within him fragments of poetry, history, and vision.
---
The recording moved forward again.
Sophia at six, early March. After school, she tugged on her father's sleeve.
"I want to visit Huo Qubing's tomb," she said.
Victor was dressed in grimy work clothes, stained from endless part-time jobs. Grease and oil marked his hands and face from fixing cars. He looked down at her, impatient.
"What's the point of that? You already finished your homework. Romance? Romance is giving flowers to beggars. Or planting a flower at home. That's romance."
His words were dismissive, shallow compared to the drunken vision he once spilled. Sophia's little heart hardened.
This was not romance. He didn't understand.
She grew angry, disappointed, even ashamed.
When they reached the tomb, she refused to let him come closer. Alone, she stepped forward through the snow, candy clenched in her hand.
Step by solemn step, she placed the candy on the grave.
The reporters captured it. The tourists recorded it. The world saw it.
And in that single moment, Sophia became more than a child prodigy. She became a symbol.
A little girl who carried history in her heart, who gave sweetness to the dead.
---
In the present-day stadium, as the footage ended, the audience sat frozen.
Their screens had shown not just a memory, but the exact moment when Sophia's romantic character was shaped—the moment that defined her future in literature, music, and art.
All because of a father she claimed to despise, a man she had cut from her life. A man who, even in drunken ruin, had unknowingly sown greatness in his daughter's heart.
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