Lost

Liang An understood perfectly that if a person entered a mental hospital, and was not just temporarily admitted but stayed long-term, not only would their external behavior be somewhat baffling, but sometimes the barriers in their thought processes would be as different as heaven and earth.

Clearly, the situation Wen Yi Ting encountered fell into this category.

For a child raised in an ordinary family, despite some difficulties, encountering profound mother-son affection was, after all, his most normal expectation, but the reality was not so perfect.

It was, in fact, completely the opposite.

Wen Yi Ting's biological mother suffered from schizophrenia. Her symptoms were not like what most people imagined, like different souls residing in one body, but rather a kind of emotional inversion, combined with a distressing and very common emotional disorder.

The unimaginable aspect of emotional inversion is that if ordinary people would weep from sorrow and smile from joy, then patients with emotional inversion would display completely opposite emotions, often with an intensity equivalent to the reversed emotion.

For example, a patient who hears the news of a relative's death in a car accident might laugh loudly and candidly share their "fortuitous encounter" with neighbors and relatives; while a fortunate person who discovers they've received a promotion and raise might cry bitterly in public, with sorrow rising from within.

Liang An wasn't entirely clear to what extent the emotional system deep within the brain could become disordered, but he had always known about such situations, and the facts that seemed inexplicable in Wen Yi Ting's eyes. Perhaps similar to Jiang Qiu's unusual brain divisions, it was merely a neural pathway branching off at a certain point, making the person a different kind of anomaly in another sense.

In short, Wen Yi Ting missed his chance precisely because of this real yet absurd deviation.

When she heard that this unfamiliar man had come because of her son whom she had never met, she was initially uncertain, so her emotional fluctuations were calmer. But when Wen Yi Ting believed he had grasped the situation and, with difficulty, informed her of his true identity, she lost her reason.

"Joy" was naturally transformed into "grief," but this was only a small contributing factor.

Beyond this, the shift caused by the emotional disorder also played a role, leading to even greater confusion in the mind of a person whose condition was tending towards stability, like spices spilled and stirred into a pot. She began to cry loudly and shout, incoherently spewing words she didn't understand herself, driving the already hesitant Wen Yi Ting away.

Visiting for the first time, Wen Yi Ting naturally didn't know what would happen later, nor had he truly made up his mind to confront his origins. He was still young, with limited patience. His search for his biological mother was merely out of curiosity and a sense of obligation. Encountering such treatment, he was quite conflicted about this endeavor and naturally didn't muster the courage to try again for a very long time.

And Wen Yi Ting also happened to reach university age. His studies elsewhere made him almost forget that he had such a biological mother, but his origins remained a sapling buried in the soil, affecting him long-term.

It wasn't until after graduation, when he had matured and returned to his hometown. By this time, Wen Yi Ting was far beyond the newly adult child he once was; bad memories had faded, and he sought out his mother again, learning that she didn't have long to live.

Not only was there the inherent lament of never having experienced familial affection, but another sense of crisis immediately followed.

Only his biological mother knew the identity of his biological father. The bloodline that connected him to her would forever disappear from this world.

At this moment, Wen Yi Ting's heart was filled with the confusion of impending loss of kinship, and the urgent fear of losing this other unique path to a blood relationship. Life was fading, secrets were about to be completely buried, and the urgency to uncover his origins became one of the main focuses of his life outside of building his career.

In fact, due to his relatively flexible personality, Wen Yi Ting's achievements in his career after starting out were much smoother than his journey to find his family.

Wen Yi Ting had always been very clear about this, because his mother's friend had given him relevant information. During his mother's romantic period, several close girlfriends knew about her passionate love, but were completely unaware of who the other person was.

Beyond this, even Wen Yi Ting's maternal grandparents didn't know who their daughter's boyfriend was, but because they were both busy with work, this was a relatively natural omission in the process.

Precisely because of this, the most direct and startling situation in the entire event was that, at the end of this secret love affair, Wen Yi Ting's mother returned home with a visibly swollen belly.

Both friends and relatives were shocked by this.

Why weren't precautions taken? Why didn't she tell anyone about such a big matter?

Wen Yi Ting's mother came from a rather poor family, but her parents provided all possible living conditions for their only daughter, always protecting her closely. In their eyes, their gentle and shy daughter, who used to be too embarrassed to even speak to the opposite sex, could absolutely not have committed such a rebellious act.

Even less could she have ended up in this catastrophic situation.

Dating someone, getting pregnant, returning foolishly alone. Even at the very end, she stammered, and under urgent questioning, couldn't explain what her "boyfriend" who had made her belly big did for work, how old he was, what his family background was, or where he was from.

But the truth was precisely that. The overflowing maternal love of the new mother didn't even consider her own unclear future, and she was determined to give birth to the child despite everyone's dissuasion—even if she herself was barely getting by, only able to return and rely on her parents' support and care to live.

“The result of overprotection,” Liang An sighed. “This kind of situation often occurs, but the outcome extending to this degree is relatively rare. One can only say… all factors collided, and the timing was truly unfortunate.”

There are always such people, who before adulthood never proactively interacted with anyone or anything outside their family and friends. After being thrown into society as they aged, they became even more bewildered. They didn't know how to handle what happened to them, only standing foolishly in place, not daring to proactively do anything, even for a very long time not daring to proactively seek help.

Being unable to do the right thing was one aspect; not daring to seek help was equally due to fear of others' suspicious and contemptuous gazes.

As an older "child" who had never endured a major setback, those were gazes she had never encountered and dared not encounter.

After missing the best opportunity due to her lack of understanding, she braced herself, carrying her inherent timidity to seek out the people she instinctively relied on. However, in the vast sea of humanity, a missed encounter is an irreversible matter.

Not everyone has a kind person to guide them, and not everyone is as correct as they and others imagine. Real-life stories are more bizarre than fiction. Wen Yi Ting's mother's situation was by no means an isolated case, and it didn't distinguish between genders. It was just that so many coincidences happened to a woman, and at the same time, it involved some sensitive issues, often leading to another tragic outcome.

The result was, for example, Wen Yi Ting, such a new life requiring care, in an awkward position.

Wen's mother, pregnant with the child, went with her parents' care to search for Zhao Yi again, only to find the person gone and the house empty. The pregnancy was truly too far along; late-term abortions and their dangers made the traditional family even more hesitant. Wen's mother's overprotection had created unrealistic expectations, also causing her to sink deeper and deeper on this seemingly endless path.

Finally, Wen Yi Ting was born.

But not many years later, his two grandparents also passed away one after another, leaving the lonely and helpless Wen's mother alone. Illusions gradually vanished, money gradually ran out, and she herself was suffocated by the heavy pressure of life.

Walking through the dilapidated long corridor, entering the perpetually dark house, hearing the child's uncontrollable loud sobs.

Fate is not a panacea, and fairy tales do not exist in reality. The overprotected girl was eventually forced into this unforgiving world, and thus completely broke down.

Under such circumstances, entering an orphanage and being adopted by an innocent person, Wen Yi Ting could even be said to be the only comfort in the disaster, the sole survivor in this catastrophic upheaval.

No matter how close friends are, long periods of separation will eventually lead to estrangement, especially when one party is completely mentally unstable, making people afraid to approach. Although disappointed at not getting concrete clues, Wen Yi Ting was ultimately grateful for this effort and determined to make this final period of mother-son time beautiful for both.

It was precisely because of this that, with Wen Yi Ting's daily companionship for two months, Wen's mother, who had lost her reason and developed speech impediments, finally revealed that address and the person's name again.