Return of the Antagonistic Lady Boss

Chapter 1131: Chapter 1103: Emotional Detachment Disorder

”What do I have to cry about? If I hadn’t taken Balan down back then, our side would’ve suffered heavy losses. I have nothing to cry over.”

”You’re lying! You feel guilty for driving Balan into a corner, otherwise how would you have developed post‑traumatic stress disorder? The trembling in your hands now is purely psychological. You can string fine pearls with no trouble at all, which means the dexterity in your fingers is fine, the nerves aren’t damaged. But you can’t even pull the trigger on a toy gun—that’s obviously a reaction that only shows up with firearms. I’m guessing the first thing that flashes through your mind when you hold a gun is Balan’s expression right before he died, isn’t it?”

His expression told Qian she was right.

”You keep stressing how you’ve lived up to your mission—that’s actually a symptom of emotional detachment in PTSD. What you need most right now is to vent your emotions. Whether it’s anger or grief, as long as you let it all out, it will be good for you. You don’t need to feel guilty for being the one who survived. Think back to when Balan died—what you really felt guilty about was that you were still alive. Your sense of duty makes you believe you did the right thing, but emotionally you can’t hide your guilt toward your friend. Husband, you need to release it.”

Qian blurted out her assessment in one breath. As a top‑tier psychologist, how could she not see how abnormal he was acting?

”Can you cure it?” he asked.

Qian wanted to shout ”yes.” She was the best doctor; she had saved so many people—there was no reason she couldn’t save her own husband.

But she couldn’t say it. Faced with Yu Minglang’s clear eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to lie.

Setting aside their relationship and just looking at Yu Minglang’s personality, she was already at her wits’ end.

From the incident up to now, he hadn’t shown a single normal emotional reaction. He was using god‑like self‑discipline to suppress his own consciousness. Just like Qian had joked before, a man like him either stays invincibly strong for life, immune to all poison, or, if he ever develops a psychological problem—even a simple one—it’ll be the death of him.

Qian’s expression betrayed her heart. Yu Minglang tugged at the corner of his mouth again and reached out to rub her hair.

”Silly girl, if you can’t cure it, then I don’t have an illness. It’s fine, I’ll be okay.”

Looking at his overly calm expression, Qian finally found the answer to a puzzle that had been haunting her ever since her rebirth.

The thought struck Qian’s heart like a bolt of lightning, shocking her, stirring up a tidal wave of guilt and self‑reproach.

She finally understood why in her past life Xiaoqiang had that kind of personality, while in this life he’d been like an overgrown boy for so long. So that’s it—every puzzle suddenly made sense.

An answer so heartbreaking it was almost unbearable was already on the verge of surfacing.

In this world, there has never been a change without cause. Qian could never figure out the reason for the personality gap in Yu Minglang before and after, until this moment, when she saw him suppressing his emotions, and at last understood.

In his past life, he must have gone through the exact same thing, and that’s what caused such a drastic change in his personality.

In his past life, Yu Minglang had also been a sunny, cheerful big boy, cold on the outside and warm on the inside just like he is now. But then one day, he personally eliminated the invading Balan, and that guilt gave him PTSD and knocked him down for good.

Yet he was a very special case. His powerful self‑control made his reactions different from other people with this condition. The common PTSD symptoms like nightmares, irritability, hypervigilance, and memory loss—he didn’t have those. Instead, he developed another symptom of PTSD: a complete personality shift.

This trauma stayed lodged in his heart ever since. He never once forgot the dead Balan, and he never stopped punishing himself.

On the one hand, he clung to his mission; on the other, he couldn’t forget his guilt toward Balan. On the surface he acted indifferent, constantly stressing his mission—but the more he emphasized it, the more his heart hurt.

And so, for years, he never climbed out of it.

The bright, sunlit Yu Minglang ceased to exist the moment he watched Balan die.

What remained was a man who looked strong, but inside was already burdened with a heavy, profound weight.

From a broader perspective, Yu Minglang had matured. In his past life, he acted more like a fully grown man: no foolishness, calm, taciturn yet with worlds hidden in his heart. He wouldn’t express feelings to anyone—not even to the woman he loved, Qian.

She thought back to the scene of her death in her past life, when he held her and sobbed—that was probably the only emotional outburst he had after Balan died.

They always say growing up comes with pain, but Yu Minglang’s growth was so painful it made people want to die rather than endure it. Qian’s first reaction upon realizing this was a sudden blackout—she fainted.

The pain she couldn’t even bear, he had covered up with the lightest, most offhand attitude—that was what made it truly terrifying.

While she was unconscious, Qian had a long, long dream.

The deep, brooding Yu Minglang of her past life and the cute, boyish Yu Minglang of this life took turns appearing. She dreamed of the two of them in the past life sitting face‑to‑face, drinking together. She downed cup after cup, while he watched her with those unfathomably deep eyes as she drank, until in the end she pushed him down. She had already forgotten what his eyes looked like back then, but in the dream, those memories she’d lost suddenly became sharp and vivid.

She finally remembered what he had whispered in her ear when she was in agony, in that past life.

He’d said, Don’t leave me.

Back then, he must have already loved her deeply. For him to say something like that was actually his most primal fear speaking.

Already suffering from PTSD, Yu Minglang must have subconsciously believed that everything he loved would eventually leave him, just like his beloved gun.

Qian’s soul floated in midair, watching all of this unfold, and in the dream her tears fell like rain. She regretted it.

She really regretted it.

In her past life, she didn’t understand him at all. She blamed him for loving his work more than her. She hated his calmness, hated his silence, hated the way he always looked at her with those heavy, deep eyes. So she developed pre‑marital anxiety, and she ran off, leaving him behind.

If she had noticed his abnormality sooner, seen the fragility behind his strength, would she still have developed pre‑marital anxiety and become a runaway bride? Would she still have handed the two of them such a shattered life?

Qian’s dream was fragmented and broken. She saw the things she’d overlooked in her past life, and she also saw the warmth Xiaoqiang had given her in this life. She saw how, just after she came back, that silly guy brought her carnations thinking they were roses, and she saw him take her to a muddy pit to fish, leaving her covered in mud.

She saw, even more clearly, the deep, steadfast love that had been hidden behind the brooding silence she’d hated in his past life.

So love had always been there. The way it was expressed differed, but the one thing that never changed was the feelings he had for her. Whatever he could give her, he gave without holding anything back. Even when she turned into a runaway bride out of pre‑marital anxiety, he still never gave up searching for her.

If she hadn’t been so stubborn, and he hadn’t acted so tough, would the two of them still have ended up in such an irreparable, heartbreaking place?