Hold On · Chapter Fourteen: My Dad
“Dad, could you come to my school on Friday afternoon?”
At the breakfast table, Tiantian kept her head down, stirring her porridge with a spoon—round and round and round—never once looking up.
The chopsticks in Chen Dashan’s hand stopped midair, pickles halfway to his mouth. Friday afternoon—he flipped through the ledger in his head with a rustle: two to five, peak hours when orders piled up. Run it right, that was half a day’s usual earnings. There was still a tail left on the surgery payments, and he knew his numbers down to the penny.
“Teacher says one parent should come. Anyone will do.” Tiantian added in a small voice, “It’s fine if you can’t come. My deskmate’s dad drives an excavator, and he can’t make it either.”
A seven-year-old who’d already learned not to cling. And the less she clung, the more something gently knocked against Chen Dashan’s chest.
“I’ll come.” The words came out fast—he was afraid that half a second slower, he’d start twisting around looking for an excuse. “Dad will go. What should Dad wear?”
Tiantian’s eyes lit up instantly: “Wear your yellow one! I’ll spot you from way across the street!”
“That eye-catching?”
“Eye-catching is good!” She drained her porridge and pushed the bowl away. “So I can find you.”
Back at the station, in front of the shift schedule, Station Chief Zhou clutched his pen and scratched his head: “Ding-ge, your slot is a tough bone. Who’s going to gnaw it?”
“I’ll gnaw it.” Sister Zhao came over with her hand raised. “When Ding-ge opens his mouth even once, it’s rarer than winning the lottery. Everyone step aside.”
Station Chief Zhou didn’t argue. One stroke of the pen, and those three hours went to Sister Zhao. Ever since the night of the typhoon, the man had learned two things: keep every rider’s thermos topped off with hot water, and say “policy” less out loud while thinking “people” more in his heart.
Xiao Fei leaned in: “Bro, let me bring a phone and film it. It’d be great content—”
“Go film your own deliveries.” Chen Dashan clamped his helmet under his arm. “Some things, when you film them, they’re for other people to see. Not filming them—that’s what’s for yourself.”
Xiao Fei rubbed his nose and grinned. These days, before hitting record, the kid asked first, “Mind if I film?” Station Chief Zhou said he was a changed man.
Friday at noon, the sky turned on a dime and the rain came down in buckets. Orders sprang up like a burst dam, the system’s notification pinging again and again, relentless as a debt collector.
Chen Dashan crouched under an awning, staring at his phone screen. Rain hammered on his helmet, bang, bang. Forty-plus orders running across the city, and his finger hovered over the screen—hovered for a long, long time.
The phone rang. Sister Zhao’s big voice pushed the rain itself down half a notch: “What are you sitting there for? Go! We’ve got your zone covered! There’ll be orders every day—but your daughter’s essay? Once in a lifetime!”
”…Right.”
He finished his last three deliveries steady and clean, and the rain, as if by arrangement, stopped right at two-thirty. A crack of white split the sky, and the wet road shone like freshly wiped glass.
From his delivery box, Chen Dashan pulled out his rider’s uniform, folded into a perfect square—the cleanest of the three, scrubbed special the night before. He zipped it to the top, swapped the tissues lining his helmet for dry ones. His pant cuffs were still damp. He pedaled like the wind.
At the back of the classroom stood a row of parents.
The excavator dad cradled his hard hat, mud speckles still on it. A mom in nurse’s scrubs had come straight off her night shift, dark circles under her eyes, back ramrod straight. Chen Dashan stood at the very end of the line, and suddenly thought: this row of people carried more dignity than anyone in any boardroom.
On the blackboard, five chalk characters: My Dad and Mom.
The kids read their essays one by one. The excavator family’s boy read about his dad: “My dad’s excavator is a giant toy. What it digs out is other people’s homes.” His dad grinned and nodded along below. The nurse’s daughter read about her mom: “My mom’s hands are cold, but when they touch my forehead, it feels warm in the best way.”
Then it was Tiantian’s turn.
The little girl walked up to the front, scanned the back of the room first, spotted that flash of yellow, grinned—and only then began to read.
“My dad delivers food. His electric scooter is a big horse. The wind is its hay, and the rain is its bathwater.
“My dad doesn’t talk much. His favorite words are just two: ‘hold on.’ I used to think ‘hold on’ meant gritting your teeth and not crying out—like with a toothache.
“His hands are cold all year round, chilled by the wind. But when he grips my hand, it feels warmer than anyone’s in the world.
“This year I had heart surgery. The night before, I was scared and couldn’t sleep. A nurse told me: don’t be afraid. Your dad runs orders all day, and at night he curls up on the bench in the hallway. He’d been sleeping there like that for many days. He said, I’m afraid she’ll wake up in the middle of the night and won’t be able to find anyone.
“My dad never runs red lights on deliveries. He says a life is for saving, not for racing.
“Now I understand: ‘hold on’ isn’t about gritting through things alone. It’s about turning yourself into a wall, so other people can lean on you.
“Grandpa Kang has a five-yuan bill framed on the wall of his shop. It’s a tip a big sister once gave my dad. My dad exchanged it for a giant bottle of cola and told her to keep the money, and just take good care of herself. Grandpa Kang says those five words went on to save more than one person. That big sister still comes in for noodles all the time, and calls my dad ‘Dashan-ge.’
“My teacher asked me what I want to be when I grow up. I said, I want to be a wall.”
The classroom was silent for a second—then the applause exploded.
Chen Dashan stood at the very back, clapping with everything he had. His eyes went hot, so he looked up at the fluorescent lights—white, clean, spotless. He looked at them a while, and it passed.
Teacher Wang took off her glasses, wiped them, and put them back on. “This essay gets top marks from me. And I’d like to read it once more. Any objections?”
No objections. The excavator dad clapped loudest of all; his hard hat dropped to the floor and he didn’t even bother picking it up.
“Also,” Teacher Wang said, “I’d like to put it up on our classroom wall. Good sentences deserve to hang where everyone can see them every day.”
As the room emptied, the nurse mom made a point of coming over and said in a low voice, “Your story—our whole department has heard it. Today I finally got to meet the man himself.” She tilted her chin toward Tiantian. “Your daughter writes beautifully. You live even more beautifully.”
Words crowded Chen Dashan’s throat, and all he could manage was: “It’s nothing. It’s what anyone should do.”
After school, father and daughter went straight to Uncle Kang’s shop.
The moment Uncle Kang heard “top marks,” his voice nearly lifted the roof off: “This calls for noodles! ‘Hold On’ noodles! Double fried eggs!” He turned and hollered at the whole room of customers, “You see this? This is the daughter of our shop’s great benefactor!” And he dropped a chicken drumstick into Tiantian’s bowl.
In the corner, Wanqing had menus sketches spread across a table. She looked up at the commotion and smiled: “So it’s that big a deal? I say frame the essay and let it keep that five-yuan bill company.”
The little frame on the wall gleamed, polished bright, the five-yuan bill lying straight and proper inside. Chen Dashan walked under that frame every day, but today was the first time it felt heavy to him. Back then he’d refused that money for dear life; now it hung framed on a wall, and people stood looking at it every day. Every time Uncle Kang told the story, it grew a little rounder.
“Dad,” Tiantian said, chewing on the end of her chopsticks, “those two words of yours—where did you learn them?”
Chen Dashan stirred his noodles, stirred them for a long while before he spoke.
The year the noodle shop closed, on the night the rolling shutter rattled all the way down, he’d squatted alone on the curb, picked up half a piece of chalk, and written two characters on the door: “Hold on.”
“It was meant for me,” he said. “But as I wrote it, something dawned on me—there are plenty of people on this street who have it harder than Dad. I left the words on the door, and whoever passed by could glance at them. Maybe they’d borrow a bit of strength.”
Tiantian nodded, very solemnly: “I get it. They’re not two words. They’re a bench.”
“What bench?”
“A bench you can sit on when you’re tired.”
Chen Dashan froze for a moment, then reached over and ruffled his daughter’s hair. The words he’d been turning over half his life—and a seven-year-old had explained them in a single sentence.
Wanqing burst out laughing beside them: “Perfect—I’m keeping that one too. It’s going on the back of the menu.”
The noodles weren’t finished when his phone rang. A new order, with a note in the remarks field:
“Please prioritize if you can. My blood sugar is acting up a bit. Could you bring a bottle of cola if you’re passing by? Thank you.”
Father and daughter exchanged a look.
“I’ve got to run this one.” Chen Dashan stood up.
“I’ll walk you to the corner!”
At the convenience store cooler, Chen Dashan picked out the biggest bottle of cola. He’d just paid when Tiantian snatched the receipt and pen, sprawled over the seat, and wrote, stroke by careful stroke. Then she held it up like a treasure:
“Big sister: the cola is the big bottle. Don’t pay the money back—just take good care of yourself. —Tiantian and her dad”
The handwriting was wobbly, but not one word of it was crooked.
Beneath the office building, the young woman working overtime took the cola, looked down and saw the note—and her eyes went red in an instant. She tilted her head back for a long moment to collect herself, then called out toward the scooter: “Thank Tiantian for me!”
“Got it!” Tiantian shouted from the back seat on her dad’s behalf, her voice so bright and clear it startled a row of pigeons into the air.
The ride home came at dusk, streetlights flickering on one by one, turning the soaked road into a glowing river.
Before closing, Uncle Kang stood on a stool and printed out the photo of the essay Teacher Wang had sent, then stuck it squarely on the shop’s glass door. With a designer’s deft hand, Wanqing drew a border of vines around the paper. Under the lights, anyone passing by could see it at a glance.
The words on the shutter, the money in the frame, the essay on the glass—the walls on this street grew warmer, year after year.
“Dad,” Tiantian said, swinging her legs in the back seat, “once I learn to ride a bike, you won’t have to pick me up anymore.”
“Deal—but no crying when you fall.”
“Even if I fall I won’t cry. Hold on, right!”
They both laughed. Chen Dashan rode steady and slow. The two words he’d been turning over in his heart for half a lifetime finally settled into place today: holding on was never about one person carrying the whole sky on their back. It was you lending a hand, me offering a shoulder—holding each other up, steady.
The evening wind poured into his sleeves, carrying a hint of sweetness from the rain. The little girl in the back seat started humming a song, off-key.
Chen Dashan thought: off-key is fine.
From now on, with every single essay, he’d live well, and live it well.
(The End)
This story is adapted from real events. All names are pseudonyms.
Based on a true story