Sweet Nostalgia of the 80s

”Don’t be afraid. Yan Huan, go back into your dream, seriously revisit everything you went through in the past, and then tell us exactly what you experienced. If you can say it out loud, a large part of your illness will be cured.” Ji Chuan sat next to Yan Huan, reaching out to tightly hold her hand.

Yan Huan closed her eyes.

The dream continued.

Yan Huan saw herself being put into a burlap sack, first tossed into a car, then jostled on a cart, and finally brought to a warehouse.

The warehouse was eerie and deserted, with only the sound of girls sobbing faintly.

It turns out, she wasn’t the only one who had been trafficked here.

”Who are you? Why are you crying? Were you tricked here like me?” In the dream, Yan Huan tried to ask something, but the surrounding environment was chaotic.

The dream suddenly shifted, with dust filling the sky everywhere, obscuring directions. This dream appeared not just once, but again and again...

Yan Huan had seen it countless times, but this time, she clearly saw that she was running away amidst the swirling sand.

Unable to discern directions or see the path, she cried and shouted in the dust, her face streaked with tears, but no one could hear or see her.

The wind came, and the dust scattered.

Strange faces appeared amidst the sandstorm; it turned out, there were so many people searching for her.

”Run! Run quickly! Run southeast!” Yan Huan anxiously shouted to the little girl frantically surrounded by people.

Her hands also tightened, and sweat seeped from her palms.

The little girl was caught and taken back, thrown into a farmhouse courtyard.

Yes, she was to be sold.

At this point in the dream, Yan Huan suddenly woke up, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably.

”Did you remember everything?” Ji Chuan looked at Yan Huan’s tear-filled eyes, reaching out to wipe them, ”What’s going on?”

”I do have gaps in my memory. I remembered a lot of things...”

Yan Huan recounted everything that happened in the dream to Ji Chuan and Jason, tears flowing as she spoke, her body trembling slightly and uncontrollably.

”I found the root of your illness.” Jason said happily after listening, ”I finally found the root of your illness. This past incident casts a shadow over your heart, this massive shadow has been weighing on you. Clearly, you chose to intentionally forget. Maybe the experience was too painful, so you gave yourself strong psychological cues, thinking how great it would have been if it hadn’t happened. It’s this powerful mental suggestion that made you forget the past, offering temporary relief. But memory can be forgotten. The harm it caused you hasn’t lessened! Everything you experienced manifested in some form.”

”Like the dust everywhere?” Ji Chuan quickly asked.

”Yes.” Jason answered with certainty, ”It’s a form of emotional transference. Why does she have difficulty breathing at the sight of the dust? Because the environment back then was too oppressive! So, it must have caused some discomfort at the time, leading to the difficulty in breathing.”

”Then why does she fall ill after leaving Nancheng?” This was precisely Yan Huan’s mysterious illness and her internal knot.

”Because she was taken away back then. After leaving Nancheng, everything she experienced was distressing, painful, oppressive! Only in Nancheng would those feelings dissipate.”