When I was a kid, the uncle who moved bricks at the construction site next door would always secretly give me an ice cream.

My dad said he was a scammer and told me to stay away.
Later, I got into college, but couldn’t gather enough tuition fees.
He lent me thirty thousand yuan, crumpled cash, and said, “Don’t tell your parents, just pretend this never happened.”
Ten years later, I started a company, and I heard he was hospitalized with cancer.
I paid all his medical bills, over three hundred thousand yuan.
After he was discharged, he insisted on coming to see the front gate of my company.
I told him, “You shouldn’t bother.”
He took out that IOU from back then, on which crookedly it was written: “Repayment date: When you become a boss.”
I was stunned.
He smiled and said, “Actually, I can’t read or write. It was an old lady selling ice cream who helped me write it. She said you’d definitely be successful someday.”
I asked where the thirty thousand yuan came from.
“From the compensation for my broken finger at the construction site. Three fingers, exactly thirty thousand.”
I looked down at his left hand, and sure enough, three fingers were missing.
Now he still watches the front gate of my company, opening it punctually every day, and telling everyone, “This boss, I’ve watched him grow up since he was a kid.”
I didn’t expose him.
Because I never paid back that thirty thousand yuan back then.
And he never asked for it.