"Mrs. Zhuang, are you all right?"
"Mm... I... I was just heartbroken back then. I thought the boy had gone bad again. After all that trouble, after he'd finally behaved for over a year, he was back to causing trouble. I was so anxious then, terribly anxious. But no matter what I said, he wouldn't listen. His father got angry seeing him like that and wouldn't let him come back to the company. After that, there were girls accusing him of rape, and others came to the house saying they were pregnant with his child. All those things... Over those years, the more I watched him, the more I felt something was wrong. How could a good person just... He hadn't been like that before. Even when he was at his worst, he'd known where to draw the line. He didn't like working, but he hadn't caused that kind of trouble. His father was furious with him several times. Then, in 2005—I think it was 2005—he said he wanted to go to Country A. His father refused and wanted to lay down the law again, cut off his money and his cards. He and his father argued several times. Once, they even came to blows. He cursed his father, asking what gave him the right to interfere in his affairs. He said a lot more, in a foreign language, cursing his father nonstop. I... we... His father was knocked to the ground, and his eyes were swollen. The way he looked... He really wasn't, wasn't my son. He wasn't A Nan. A Nan would never act like that. Never. Sob..."
"Was that when you and Mr. Zhou began to suspect something was wrong with him?"
"Mm, no... no. Back then, we were just heartbroken. We thought our son had gone