He applied to American schools to prove he could. He told himself it was about the education, about opportunity, about building a life beyond the walls of that small apartment. But part of him knew it was about escape. About putting an ocean between himself and his father's expectations. About becoming someone his father couldn't evaluate so easily.
He got into Berkeley with a full scholarship. His father helped with the visa paperwork, which went through suspiciously fast. His mother cried at the airport. His father shook his hand and said, "Make us proud."
That was four years ago. Now Jian sits in a conference room in San Francisco, chocolate cake on his plate, a company that might actually matter, and a text from his father that says "we need to talk" like they're neighbors who borrowed a lawnmower, not like his father is a ghost from a life Jian tried to leave behind.
He looks at the phone again. The screen has timed out, but he doesn't need to see it. He knows what those four words mean. His father has been watching. Of course he has. The man who could travel to America on a moment's notice, who had "research exchanges" with Stanford professors, who carried encrypted phones and spoke in low voices.