After the disappearance of the extra
The press conference concluded successfully amidst flashes of light and praise. Gu Ye, full of energy, practically trotted back to the office, eager to share the joy of success with Chu Yan, and perhaps even ask for a kiss as a reward.
I pushed open the heavy wooden door, but the office was empty.
"Chu Yan?" Gu Ye called out, but the only response he got was the low hum of the air conditioning system.
He frowned, feeling a little strange, and subconsciously reached for his phone to make a call, but his eyes first caught sight of the phone lying quietly on the sofa.
Gu Ye grumbled to himself, but didn't dwell on it. Perhaps he'd just gone out for something and forgotten his phone? He consoled himself with this, suppressing his subtle unease and beginning to process the pile of documents on his desk, waiting as he did so.
However, the sky outside the window turned from bright to dark, the lights came on, and the neon lights illuminated the night sky of the entire S city, but Chu Yan never appeared.
The feeling of unease gradually grew, and eventually turned into anxiety. Gu Ye stood up suddenly and called Chen Shu.
"Where is Chu Yan?" His voice was so urgent that he didn't even notice it.
Chen Shu on the other end of the phone was silent for a moment before he cautiously replied, "Director Gu, I don't know Mr. Chu's exact whereabouts. After he arranged the follow-up work for me this afternoon, he hasn't contacted me since."
A chill crept up his spine. Gu Ye hung up the phone and rubbed his throbbing temples. An absurd thought suddenly surfaced. He practically held his breath, and with a kind of panic he didn't want to admit, he dialed the number he desperately didn't want to contact—Gu Xu.
As soon as the call was connected, he asked directly without waiting for the other party to speak: "Is Chu Yan on your side?"
"No." Gu Xu's voice came from the receiver, extremely hoarse, as if he had just experienced a huge blow, revealing deep fatigue and a kind of dead silence.
Gu Ye's heart sank instantly. The ominous premonition was like a cold tide, instantly flooding his limbs.
"Chu Yan is missing," he said very quickly, almost instinctively, "If he comes looking for you, please tell me." Before he finished speaking, he hung up the phone without even waiting for Gu Xu's response.
He strode towards the company's monitoring room with a face so gloomy that water could drip out of it.
"Get me all the surveillance footage at my office door and on my floor this afternoon!" His voice trembled slightly.
The technicians didn't dare to delay and quickly began to work. High-definition footage flashed by, clearly showing every person entering and leaving his office floor that afternoon. However, the surveillance footage showed that Chu Yan had not left his office since entering.
There is no record of leaving.
Gu Ye stared blankly at the surveillance screen, rewinding and rechecking the footage, checking every corner. But no, there was no sign of Chu Yan leaving.
How could a living person disappear from an office out of thin air under such tight surveillance?
A huge sense of absurdity and unprecedented panic instantly gripped him, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
Chu Yan... is missing?
On the other side, Gu Xu, who was abruptly hung up by Gu Ye, was holding the phone, completely dazed.
What does "Chu Yan is missing" mean?
The sting of the breakup text message hadn't yet faded, and Gu Ye's nonsensical words were like a hammer, hitting him dizzy. He subconsciously called back, but there was only a busy tone on the receiver.
Gu Xu forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to calm down. He picked up his phone and, almost instinctively, dialed Chu Yu's number. The conversation was brief and repetitive, and the answer was equally depressing. After hanging up, the feeling of unease had reached its peak.
No, he had to go find him.
He absolutely disagreed with breaking up. Why did Chu Yan unilaterally decide everything with just a few words on the phone? He had to find him and get to the bottom of it.
Gu Xu almost immediately booked the fastest flight back to City S.
At almost the same time, Chu Yu, who was far away at the A City Hospital, ignored the doctor's strong dissuasion and insisted on completing the discharge procedures. After receiving Gu Yu's call, he sat alone in the ward, replaying the video call with Chu Yan that day countless times.
At the time, I only felt that Chu Yan was exceptionally gentle, even somewhat unnaturally patient. Thinking about it now, how could there be any nervousness hidden beneath that gentle tone? It was clearly a calm farewell.
He was saying goodbye to himself.
This realization made Chu Yu's heart feel like it was being tightly gripped by an ice-cold hand.
A storm is brewing. City S, which has yet to fully recover from the shock of the power transition, is once again thrust into a fog of turmoil due to Chu Yan's mysterious disappearance.
After finishing the lengthy transcript, Gu Ye walked out rubbing his tired brows. He happened to meet Gu Xu who was rushing over and the pale-faced Chu Yu in the corridor.
The three of them looked at each other and saw the same anxiety, fatigue and deep fear in each other's eyes.
Gu Ye took a deep breath, suppressed the blockage in his throat, and said in a hoarse voice, "Come with me."
In a quiet reception room, the atmosphere was suffocatingly depressing.
Gu Ye glanced at the frail but struggling Chu Yu, then glanced at Gu Xu, whose expression was equally grim. He gritted his teeth and spoke with difficulty, "Chu Yan didn't attend the press conference with me today. He stayed in my office the whole time. But when I returned, he disappeared." He paused, his voice dry, "The surveillance footage shows that he didn't leave the office at all."
Gu Xu frowned: "Blind spot of surveillance?"
"The technical department checked countless times and there are no blind spots." Gu Ye said dejectedly, "I can't figure out why he wanted to avoid surveillance?" Or in other words, how did he manage to avoid all surveillance?
"Because he was planning to leave anyway." Chu Yu's voice was soft, but it stabbed everyone's heart like a knife. "When I spoke to him on the phone today, he was very strange. Now that I think about it, he wasn't trying to comfort me, he was saying goodbye."
"Impossible!" Gu Ye retorted without a second thought, "Where could he go?"
Yes, where can Chu Yan go?
Over the past three days, they mobilized every conceivable connection and resource, practically turning S City upside down. They questioned every place he might have been, every person who knew him. The only answer they got was: no one had ever seen him.
His phone lay quietly on the sofa, untouched. His bank account and spending records were all frozen until the afternoon he disappeared. No flight reservations, no hotel check-ins, no use of any form of transportation requiring identification... He was like a drop of water, evaporating without a trace.
As Gu Xu listened to this, his vision went black, and his breathing became rapid and labored. He kept telling himself to stay calm, but the overwhelming panic and premonition of loss overwhelmed him like a tide. Finally, his vision suddenly went black, and he lost consciousness and passed out.
When he woke up again, it was already a day later. The sunlight outside the window was glaring, but it couldn't warm the cold ward.
There is still no news about Chu Yan.
Chu Yu sat in a chair beside the bed, his expression not much better than Gu Xu's. He looked at Gu Xu, who had just woken up, and said in a calm voice, yet with a heavy sense of fatigue: "I'll be back to City A soon."
Gu Xu looked at him.
"If I can't find him in City S, I'll go back to City A." Chu Yu's eyes were filled with a hint of paranoia. "The country is so small. As long as he's still there, I'll definitely find him."
Gu Xu pursed his pale lips, did not refute, and just nodded slightly: "I understand."
At this moment, the ward door was pushed open and Gu Ye walked in. In just a few days, he seemed to have aged a lot, with dark stubble on his chin, and his eyes were full of bloodshot and dry from exhaustion.
He looked at the two people in the ward silently without saying a word, but silently handed over several documents that he had been holding tightly in his hand.
The document at the top was the one Chu Yan had coaxed him into signing in the office before he disappeared—the equity transfer agreement. The signature of "Chu Yan" below, written in a flamboyant style, was particularly glaring at this moment, like a premeditated period.
"He disappeared on purpose." Gu Ye's voice was hoarse and choked with sobs. He pointed to the other two documents under the agreement and said, "This is for you."
Gu Xu and Chu Yu took the documents, their fingertips were cold.
In Gu Xu's hand was a free transfer agreement for all the rights and interests of Jinshi Investment. Chu Yan gave him the investment company he founded in its entirety.
What Chu Yu holds in his hand is an exclusive and free transfer agreement for several of the most core scientific and technological achievements of Cloud Intelligent Control, and Chu Yu's name is clearly written as the beneficiary.
Before leaving, Chu Yan had already quietly laid out all the arrangements. He left all the things related to him to the three of them.
Then, he completely erased all traces of his existence and disappeared without a trace.
Where is Chu Yan?
This question, like a heavy rock, weighed on the hearts of the three people and sank into an endless fog.
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