After the leading woman finished, the other women also rushed over to thank the Doctor. It was clear that they were sincere. Fatty stood in the corner, and his eyes widened. These women were probably the mothers of the young girls from last night. There were four girls, and now, there were four women. It matched.
“Madam Qin,” Jiang Cheng put down his coffee cup and turned to regard the rich ladies, “Based on my observation of Nuan Nuan, she is not as you described.”
The leading woman was startled. Then, she probed, “Doctor Jiang, you…”
“It’s clear that even though she appears to be happy at the nightclub, that is only on the surface. As the night went on, she would subconsciously frown, move her glasses and so on,” Jiang Cheng continued, “These are all signs that she felt uncomfortable at the nightclub.
“She doesn’t like those places, but she is trying her best to make herself look like she belongs there. What she really needs is company.” Jiang Cheng concluded, “She is very lonely.”
The woman’s face shifted. Then, she opened her mouth as if to argue but she was cut off by Jiang Cheng. He looked into the woman’s eyes. “Having breakfast with her two times in a week is not company. That is more like charity.” Jiang Cheng’s voice was calm, “Just like how people would feed stray dogs several times a week as they pass them by as they go to work.
“However, she is not a stray dog.” He paused before stressing, “You are her mother.”
The woman’s expression darkened. She was rich and well-respected… To hear someone critique her like that was not comfortable. However, Jiang Cheng didn’t care about her feelings.
Jiang Cheng turned to another woman, “Madam Lu, compared to Nuan Nuan, your daughter’s conditions are more complicated.
“The cause of this can be traced back to her childhood. I believe something happened when she was very young. Primary school,” Jiang Cheng thought about it, “Or perhaps even earlier.
“In her conversations with me, she purposely blurred out this part of her childhood. However, she had clear descriptions of earlier parts of her childhood. Selective amnesia,” Jiang Cheng said, “Those with PTSD will have this symptom.”
Different from the first woman, the second lady nodded in confirmation. “When she was seven, I separated from her father. We were so caught up in the divorce that neither of us had the time to look after her, so we had to drop her off at a boarding school.”
The woman didn’t hide her past. Other than Doctor Jiang and Fatty, who looked like the cleaning guy, the other three ladies were her good friends. They knew about each other misfortunes. They had the same goal… which was for their daughters.
Due to the four mothers’ influence, the four girls formed a group. They might have fought, but they were very close to one another. Based on the woman’s appearance, the boarding school she found for her daughter must be a great private school but not everything could be solved by money.
When the girl needed her mother the most, she was left behind. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that she would feel abandoned. She would curl up in bed at night, hiding from the world. The helplessness weighed down on her.
The woman told Jiang Cheng that her daughter often threw tantrums for no reason. She barred her mother from entering her room. They had a lot of arguments because of this. After the nannies cleaned away her clothes, her daughter locked herself in her room and didn’t leave. She didn’t even want to meet the psychiatrist her mother hired.
Due to their circles, the daughter got to know Pi Wan. Then, under the latter’s recommendation, she got to know Doctor Jiang. Reality proved that Pi Wan was quite reliable… despite his bad reputation.
Then, the Doctor shared his thoughts with the other two women. The Doctor’s analysis was logical and based on facts. He also made it easy to understand. At least Fatty understood him. As he followed the Doctor’s analysis, he seemed to enter the girls’ hearts.
The leading girl’s name was Nuan Nuan. Due to a lack of company, she was very lonely. It was her habit to appease everyone she met and try to assimilate into their lives… no matter how much it inconvenienced her. She was afraid of being alone, so she tried to make herself friends with everyone.
The second girl’s name was Shi Jia. Since she was ignored by her parents when she was a child, she lacked security. Any changes in her life would unsettle her. That included the friends she had, places she had been and so on. For her, her room was her last sanctuary. Anyone who entered her territory would ruin her sense of security. The nanny who strode into her room and the psychiatrist who came to her door unsettled her.
Compared to them, this handsome young man, who called himself Pan An and who set the location of their first meeting at their favourite bar, was very cute. Plus, he loved the same kind of alcohol brand that she liked.
He was reticent. Unless someone talked to him first, he never tried to talk down to them. He understood their boundaries. He sat in the corner alone as he shook the wineglass filled with wine. The light red of the wine reflected the faces of the slightly drunk girls.