Chapter 3: Short-Tempered

Qian Cangyi did not answer immediately. He thought of what had happened when he and Eagle Eye participated in Dead Silence. At that time, the two of them were discussing something when Eagle Eye suddenly changed the topic. The reason was that Shi Xingyun was eavesdropping outside, and now, Qian Cangyi had the exact same feeling.

Thus, he turned around and opened the door, only to find Chen Simin's mother standing outside, hunched over with her ear pressed close to the door panel.

"Ahem, ahem!" Qian Cangyi made a fist with his right hand, placed it in front of his mouth, and coughed twice.

"Um..." Chen Simin's mother wore a deeply embarrassed expression. "I..."

"Auntie, although it might not be polite of me to say this, please forgive my candor, but what you are doing is very likely to worsen your daughter's condition." Qian Cangyi stared directly into her eyes to project a sense of authority.

"Doctor Qian, can my daughter's illness be cured?" Chen Simin's mother quickly changed the subject.

"Auntie, your daughter's condition has probably been seen by many doctors, and she has been prescribed various medications as well. But you already know the outcome, so for now, I cannot answer that question." Qian Cangyi shook his head.

"Oh, well, Doctor, please go ahead with whatever you need to do. Just call us directly if anything comes up." Chen Simin's mother let out an awkward laugh and turned to leave.

Qian Cangyi stepped out of the room and watched Chen Simin's mother depart. Making sure she was not continuing to eavesdrop, he stepped back inside and closed the door properly.

"Alright, I am indeed not a doctor. Does your mother frequently eavesdrop on your conversations?" Qian Cangyi pulled back a corner of the curtain to let the sunlight stream into the room.

Chen Simin ignored Qian Cangyi, pulled the quilt—which had been kicked halfway open—back over herself, and continued to sleep.

"Alright, let's not dwell on this; it doesn't hold much meaning. My goal is not to cure your depression, but rather to make your parents believe that your depression is already cured. So, let's talk about what you actually need." With that, Qian Cangyi pulled the curtains all the way open, flooding the room with bright sunlight.

"You are so annoying, get out!" Chen Simin shouted. It seemed she hadn't taken in a single word Qian Cangyi said; instead, his actions had only provoked her aversion.

"Huh? I'm sorry, but my purpose for coming here isn't to get myself thrown out, but rather to get you to walk out of this room. That's why I did some research before coming. As I said, I am not a doctor, but precisely because I am not a doctor, I might be able to solve problems that others cannot." After pulling the curtains open, Qian Cangyi also opened the window.

The breeze from outside rushed into the room like a playful sprite, flipping open a book on the desk.

"Quite a strong breeze..." Qian Cangyi looked down and saw Chen Simin's own name written on the second page of the book in neat, standard print.

"As far as I know, when you were in the first year of junior high, your grades were always in the top five of your class, and you could even rank in the top thirty of the entire grade. But by the second year, your grades plummeted. No, that description isn't quite apt; to be precise, it was a cliff-like drop. From that moment on, your entire demeanor changed. Your state worsened day by day, to the point where you almost had to suspend your studies." Qian Cangyi picked up the book—it was an eighth-grade physics textbook published by the People's Education Press. He flipped through it casually and saw that key test points throughout the book were filled with notes.

"You studied so hard, yet why were your grades such a mess?" Qian Cangyi put the book down. Seeing that Chen Simin still ignored him, he shrugged and continued, "Why? I refuse to attribute the cause to genetics, because if that were the case, there would be nothing I could do. Therefore, my first focus was on your surrounding environment."

"For a normal junior high school student, the environment consists of nothing more than home, school, and scattered leisure time. First, home: based on what I just observed, your parents have a strong desire to control you, yet they refuse to communicate with you. They do what they consider to be the most 'normal' things, while you are currently in adolescence—a rebellious period. Consequently, the pressure coming from your family is actually quite substantial."

"Next is school. Without a doubt, no matter what a person's personality is like, under identical circumstances, getting good grades will always make someone more popular than getting poor grades. Your precipitous drop in grades would inevitably have a major impact on your interpersonal relationships. Aside from classmates, there must have been immense pressure from teachers and parents as well."

"Finally, the scattered leisure time, which mainly falls into a few periods: the time between the end of school and returning home, and vacation time. Most students choose to relax during these times—some play, some go shopping, some watch TV shows, and so on. However, for someone like you who suffers from pressure both at school and at home, these fragmented moments offer no relaxation whatsoever..."

"If humans are self-regulating systems, then your regulatory system has already malfunctioned. Once things start heading in a bad direction, the ultimate outcome only gets worse and worse. That is your current situation."

"If I'm not mistaken, your depression might have started out simply as low spirits—a bad mood. But driven by various compounding factors, your bad mood gradually evolved into a psychological disorder. And that's not even the worst outcome; if your body maintains this state for a long time, let alone you, even a professional athlete probably wouldn't be able to endure it for very long."

"It might not be entirely correct, but the situation is more or less like this." Qian Cangyi took a deep breath, summarizing his thoughts.

"So what if it is?" Chen Simin replied impatiently.

"I bet you haven't taken a single pill of the medication the prescribed to you. Just thinking about it, those anti-depressants have severe side effects. Perhaps you took one and stopped; after all, even people who want to commit suicide don't want to suffer immensely while dying." Qian Cangyi spoke up again, as if his words would never run out.

"It has nothing to do with you, right? You're just trying to swindle money, and I won't let you succeed. I advise you to leave my home right now, or else I'll scream that you're harassing me!" Chen Simin unexpectedly uttered a long string of words.

"Sigh, well then. This could have been a win-win outcome; why on earth do you insist on choosing this path? Let me continue with what I was saying earlier. As a self-regulating system, instead of recovering when things turned sour, you got even worse. There must have been a trigger far more significant than the two sources of pressure I mentioned. So, I kept pondering: what could this trigger possibly be?"

"I looked at your first-year grades and found something very peculiar. For a girl, your math grades were exceptionally good. Of course, it was only the first year of junior high, so the gap between boys and girls hadn't widened yet. However, I also checked your elementary school grades, and that's where things got strange. Among Chinese, math, and English, math was always your weakest subject. Therefore, I turned my attention to the teacher who taught you math in the first year..." Right as he reached this point, Qian Cangyi was interrupted by Chen Simin.

"Get out!" Chen Simin climbed up from the bed and hurled her pillow straight at Qian Cangyi.