Chapter 66: Fire At ten o'clock in the evening, the emergency room is bright...
At ten o'clock in the evening, the emergency room was lit with a glaring red light, and people's eyes were covered with a layer of blood in their peripheral vision.
Chen Song clutched his white shirt against his chest, pressing hard against his throbbing, numb heart. Every word Gu Yiming said sank into his ears. He had once wanted to know everything about Gu Xingjue, but Gu Xingjue had never given him the chance.
Gu Xingjue was like a gust of wind he could never grasp, sometimes far away, sometimes near, carrying with it endless mysteries. Yet now that he had finally been given the chance to unravel the mystery, Chen Song didn't want to hear it.
He was even a little afraid of what Gu Yiming was going to say next, but deep down, a subtle voice in his heart was growing louder and louder, demanding he hear it. Two conflicting thoughts tangled in his mind, and Chen Song's words of refusal were stuck on his lips, unable to come out.
Seeing Chen Song's reaction, Gu Yiming gave Wen Zhuo a look. Wen Zhuo understood and immediately dismissed those who were still thinking about eating melons.
Chen Song and Gu Yiming were the only two people left outside the corridor. It was so quiet that they could hear each other's breathing. Occasionally, the sound of footsteps could be heard from the end of the corridor. The red light of the operating room was even more glaring than the incandescent light above. Gu Yiming felt dizzy after staring at it for a moment.
The two fell into silence for a long time. Gu Yiming was pondering where to start talking about his brother.
He crossed his hands in front of his knees and kneaded them for a long time before he spoke: "My brother and I are not born to the same mother, but have the same father but different mothers. I was taken into the Gu family when I was three years old."
"My brother's mother died during childbirth. The family servants said my brother had been withdrawn and aloof since childhood, never talkative and only fond of staring at the picture of his biological mother on the wall. When my brother was seven, my mother went to live with the Gu family. She coaxed my brother for half a year before he became close to her. My mother doted on him, pampering him to the point of lawlessness. At that time, my brother probably thought my mother was the best person in the world. My mother was his mother. The woman in the photo was just a stranger. The pictures of women on the wall were all removed."
"A year later, my mother took me back home. I was five years old that year, and my brother was nine. Before she took me home, my mother told my brother that she would treat us equally. But in reality, my mother doted on my brother even more, almost spoiling him. She was still very strict with me. My brother was very pleased that my mother hadn't changed."
"Until one day, my brother took me out for fun and was kidnapped by my father's business rivals. After that incident, our family gradually underwent earth-shaking changes."
"My father and his enemies were repeatedly defeated in business battles, and in the end, my father swallowed up all the companies. The enemies forced my father to spit out everything, and my father asked the Xie family for help to rescue us. When my mother arrived at the scene, she was furious and yelled at my brother, asking him why he took me out. She didn't wait for my brother to answer and took me away. I was unharmed and rested on my mother's shoulder. My father stood beside me. I watched my brother, who was falling further and further away from me, with a fresh burn mark on his eyebrow. At that time, I couldn't understand the sadness in his eyes. The bodyguard next to him picked him up. No matter how the bodyguard moved, the distance between us was still so far, and we couldn't get closer."
"That night when I got home, my parents were arguing fiercely in the room. My mom said my brother was deliberately trying to hurt me. My dad was furious, and my mom refused to back down. My brother couldn't sleep in the middle of the night and woke up to hear it. My dad left in a rage, and my mom calmed down and started to comfort my brother. My brother became his old, quiet self again, a person I had never seen him be. No matter how my mom tried to comfort him, it was useless."
"He put away his previously unruly temper at home. After entering middle school, he rarely came home. He became increasingly active outside, ignoring school, skipping classes, and getting into fights. Later, he became addicted to all kinds of dangerous sports: car racing, rock climbing, bungee jumping, diving, and wilderness exploration. He tried everything dangerous, and he nearly died several times. He did what my mother wanted and stayed away from me, and my mother secured her position as the mistress of the Gu family. But my father soon cheated on me, and the family argued constantly. My mother became increasingly insane and eventually fell ill and was sent to a mental hospital."
"My brother, who hadn't been home for a long time, rushed back as soon as he found out. My mom apologized to him, saying she was wrong and shouldn't have treated him like that. She just hoped he would take good care of me in the future."
"For the first time, I understood the loneliness in his eyes. It was the sadness that my mother had never loved him."
"My brother has been playing around outside for so many years, and everyone in North City calls him a playboy, a dissolute man who's wasted his time and energy. He'll squander the Gu family fortune sooner or later. I'm the only one who knows that it's not that my brother doesn't want to go home, but in his heart, he doesn't even have a home. Once, when he was drunk, he asked me why he didn't know the purpose of living, because it seemed like everyone liked him, and no one liked him. He asked me what it felt like to die. That's when I knew he'd been pursuing extreme sports just to find the true feeling of being alive."
"Because of my mom's illness, the relationship between my brother and dad completely broke down. They had a huge fight, and neither of them would give in. My brother never came home again. This situation continued until four years ago. My brother, who had been traveling around the world for years, came back to Beijing more often. He even stayed in Beijing every Chinese New Year. Even if he didn't go home for the New Year, he would take some time to visit me and mom. My mom's condition was sometimes good and sometimes bad, and when it was bad, it always hurt my brother."
"Later I found out that it was you who brought my brother back."
In the lonely and deserted night, the last syllable of Gu Yiming's voice still lingered in the corridor, vibrating into Chen Song's heart and stirring up waves.
Chen Song's breathing slowed down.
Gu Yiming glanced at him. The incandescent light cast an extremely bright light on Chen Song's face. His snow-like skin was a little pale, and his lifeless gray eyes rarely showed a moving ripple.
"How, could it be... because of me...?"
"Yeah," Gu Yiming sneered helplessly, "I don't know why it's because of you. I never thought that the person my brother holds in his hands is a man."
Chen Song's face looked a little unnatural, and he swallowed his dry Adam's apple: "I'm not..."
"Just listen to what I have to say next, and then consider it."
Gu Yiming fell into thought for a while, but finally, risking his brother's scolding him to death when he woke up, he said:
"A year ago, when I took my brother away from Vancouver, my dad found out he'd taken $30 million out of his account. He thought he'd finally figured out how to start a business, but when he checked, he found all the money was in a private account. So, he paid back the $30 million for you. Your mom told you a relative paid it back, but it was actually my brother who paid it back."
Chen Song's mind went blank. The huge shock made his whole body numb. He moved his mouth stiffly: "What did you say?"
"I don't care whether you believe it or not, this is an indisputable fact." Gu Yiming said in a firm tone, "When my brother rushed you to the hospital for gastric lavage, he went to your house to get you some... underwear, and ran into debt collectors. After he dealt with them, he told your mother what he said to you, and he also gave her some money and asked her not to appear in front of you again. As for your stepfather, he's been arrested, and we found a way to send him to prison."
Chen Song took a deep breath, and his bones trembled uncontrollably under his thin skin. He tried hard to calm the throbbing of his limbs, but he could not stop the tremendous momentum.
Yes, how could it be, how could that matter be resolved so easily? It came and went so quickly, so quickly that he almost thought it was all just a dream. So... So...
The huge shock made Chen Song extremely stunned, and his chest kept heaving.
"If it wasn't for that night when you and my brother completely broke up and caused him to be poisoned by alkaloids, I wouldn't have been able to bring him back given his stubborn temper. After he woke up, he didn't refute my dad's questioning at all. My dad had always turned a blind eye to his affairs with other men, always believing that my brother would get tired of playing around and would eventually find a job and start a business."
"But facing all the questions that day, my brother's only rebuttal was you. My father said he would ask you to return the 30 million and force him to get married. My brother disagreed, so my father locked him up at home. My brother wanted to see you, and he threatened my father with a hunger strike, but my father remained indifferent."
"To get out, he climbed down from the fifth-floor balcony and tied his clothes into a long rope. He didn't tie it properly, and he fell from the third floor. He broke his leg and had to go to the hospital for nails. My dad got scared and compromised with him. He said as long as my brother returned home to inherit the family business, earned back the 30 million yuan on his own, was able to take over the company independently, and trained me at the same time, he would no longer care about you."
Gu Yiming lowered his eyes and saw Chen Song's little finger move slightly.
"My brother agreed. My dad threw him into the company and started as an intern at the very bottom. My dad wanted to wait until his leg injury healed before letting him go, but my brother insisted on going in a wheelchair. He worked like crazy, hardly slept every day, and only took a nap when he was really tired. He didn't eat properly. Everyone kept telling him to rest and get some sleep. My brother said it wasn't that he didn't want to sleep, it was that he couldn't. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat, it was that he had no appetite. He was in a state of extremes, sometimes depressed and sometimes excited."
"This continued for half a year until he climbed to the top and officially took over the headquarters. Everyone said my brother was a playboy, but I knew from a young age that he was very smart. As long as he set his mind to it, he could succeed in anything."
Gu Yiming paused and smiled helplessly: "It seems that you are not included in all the things."
"In order to see you more often, he established a new branch in South City, planning to expand his business here in the future. From now on, I will be in charge of North City. I also found out that you two met again a while ago, and I thought you could reconcile. But your heart is still as cold as before."
"I don't know what happened between you and my brother. I don't know how far you want my brother to go before he's willing to forgive him. But if you ask my brother to give you his heart, he'll really do it. He's always been the eldest son of the Gu family, flattered by everyone, but he's bowed to you time and time again. And because of you, he bowed to my father for the first time."
"Chen Song, you're leaning against the fire, can't you feel it?"
Chen Song clutched the corner of his clothes, silent, and for a long time he didn't react. His brain was racing, his thoughts tangled like a thousand threads. He was thinking so hard that his brain was almost broken, and his thoughts would stop for a while.
Perhaps it was because the fire was burning too fiercely next to him, and the huge heat impacted his brain waves, causing violent shocks that paralyzed his nerves and made him lose consciousness for a while, so that when he slowly recovered, the pain was too intense and heart-wrenching.
Standing next to the raging fire, how could I remain indifferent? How could I not feel it?...
Cold sweat rolled down Chen Song's forehead, and the blood color on his face faded layer by layer.
The red light in the emergency room suddenly went out as the two of them sat in silence.
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