Five years after they married, their son, Antoine Girard, was born.
Their son was intelligent, too.
They should have been a happy family of three.
But when Antoine Girard was five, God played a cruel joke on them.
Antoine Girard was diagnosed with early-stage Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
He began showing some of the early symptoms, including difficulty swallowing and weakness in his limbs.
His parents were devastated.
As everyone knew, there was no effective treatment for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
The great physicist Stephen Hawking had suffered from it, and in the end, only one of his fingers could move.
After their initial grief, Antoine Girard's parents regained their composure. They couldn't bear the thought of their son's life ending almost as soon as it had begun, so they made a decision.
They would use their expertise in Genetic Engineering Technology and Bioinformatics Technology to try to suppress their son's ALS.
At first, they used laboratory resources to conduct their research. They even drew on their academic influence and their mentors' connections to find investors.
But everyone knew that investors expected returns, and their research was unlikely to produce any in the short term.
Two years later, the investors pulled out.
The couple pressed on.
They were determined to conduct extensive research into ALS.
But after the laboratory changed leadership, its research priorities shifted, and the two of them were fired.
They could only fund their research with their savings. Eventually, they took out bank loans, then borrowed money from relatives and friends wherever they could.
By the time their son was thirteen, the muscles in his lower body had completely atrophied. He could only use a wheelchair, and the muscles in his upper body had atrophied severely as well.
He could barely speak.
By then, they had developed a drug