Chapter 103 Waiting
The Gu family is in turmoil, and Gu Ye and Chu Yan are watching covetously from the dark.
City A, Ruichuang Technology President's Office.
Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows is the still bustling city scene, but the scorching sunlight cannot penetrate into the dark hearts of the people inside.
Gu Xu sat at his desk in a daze, a document open before him that required his signature, his pen hovering for a long time, unable to bring it down. His gaze was unfocused, his thoughts drifting far away.
The phone continued to vibrate on the table, the screen lighting up and dimming, repeatedly flashing a number that was both familiar and unfamiliar to him - his mother.
Since he left the Gu family and parted ways with his mother on bad terms, this was the first time she had contacted him. Gu Xu's heart seemed to be tugged at by the vibration, twitching and tightening.
He took a deep breath, finally reached out for the phone and pressed the answer button.
"Hello, Mom."
What came from the other end of the phone was not the hypocritical yet respectable voice of the noble lady in my memory, but a shrill cry of near collapse, incoherent and full of panic and confusion about the future.
"Xu'er! Xu'er! What should I do? It's over! It's all over!" Gu's mother's voice was piercing. "Is the Gu family going bankrupt? Is what they said in the news true? So many women... so many bastards... How dare he! How can he be worthy of me!"
She had clearly been completely devastated by the overwhelming online negative news and the precarious state of the Gu Group. Overnight, the stable and affluent world she had imagined seemed to crumble. The value of her shares plummeted, and the wealth she relied on for survival shrank dramatically.
The husband she once thought was at least superficially glamorous and could provide her with a decent life turned out to be even more despicable than she had imagined. Overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty about her future, she finally remembered the son she had pushed away.
"Let me tell you, I've been watching the stock market these past few days. Gu's stock has been hitting the daily limit for several days now. We...we still have quite a lot in our hands. Do you think Mom should sell it quickly? The more we can save, the better. Otherwise, we're going to lose everything!" She kept rambling, her tone filled with fear of losing her wealth.
Gu Xu listened quietly, a chill spreading through his heart. He couldn't help but interrupt her endless calculations. His voice was unexpectedly calm, even a hint of fatigue: "Mom, don't touch the Gu family shares yet."
"Ah? Why? If you don't sell it, it will really become waste paper!" Gu's mother retorted anxiously.
"You only hold 1%. Selling alone won't make much sense and might even cause greater panic." Gu's voice was steady, as if he were analyzing someone else's affairs. "When the Gu Corporation holds an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, or when a collective shareholder vote is needed, write me a power of attorney and I'll handle it for you."
His calmness and orderliness seemed to infect the woman across from him. Mother Gu's voice gradually quieted down, as if she had found her bearings. She hesitantly replied, "Oh... OK, OK... Mom will listen to you, I'll listen to you..."
There was a brief silence on both ends of the phone, with only the faint crackling of electricity.
After a long while, Mother Gu's voice rang out again, this time with a distinct sense of embarrassment, even a hint of awkwardness that was difficult to speak of: "Before that, you asked me if I was willing to divorce Gu Hongyuan, and you said you would support me... Do you still mean what you said?"
Gu Xu's breathing suddenly stopped.
The silence on the other end of the phone seemed to have a substantial weight, pressing down on his chest. After a long moment, he finally managed to squeeze out a single syllable:
"...Yeah. It counts."
His voice was noticeably deeper, with an indescribable bitterness and emptiness.
However, Mother Gu on the other end of the phone seemed completely unaware of his huge emotional fluctuations, or rather, she deliberately ignored it.
After receiving a positive answer, she seemed to have unloaded all her burdens. Her tone immediately became light and even took on a certain sense of normalcy. She began to talk about how much she missed him recently, complained about the chaos in the Gu family, and recalled how good she had been to him in the past, as if all the hurt and choices she had made in the past no longer existed...
Gu Xu didn't know how he ended the call.
He put down his phone in a daze. His mother's chattering seemed to still echo in his ears, but there was only deathly silence in the office.
Obviously, his mother finally chose to return to him, but why did he feel such a deep loneliness at this moment?
It felt like floating alone on the endless cold sea, with nothing around and no one to rely on.
"Loneliness can actually be called freedom."
The words Chu Yan had said with a joking smile now flashed through his mind very clearly.
Ever since that unpleasant meeting in the study that day, he hadn't seen Chu Yan again. He should be in S City now, right?
Gu Xu leaned back in his chair tiredly and closed his sore eyes.
He no longer knew how to face Chu Yan.
Love? Hate?
His love, hate, and vengeance seemed to be controlled by that person from the very beginning. His love was not pure, and his hatred could not be completely let go. He was like a puppet, his emotions were beyond his control.
Gu Xu actually had no real objection to Chu Yan's actions against the Gu family. That family, that so-called father, had brought him far more pain than warmth. He might even have welcomed the collapse of the Gu family.
What he really couldn't accept was that he found out that from the beginning to the end, he was just an important stepping stone on the road to heaven that Chu Yan carefully paved for Gu Ye, which was easy to use and even given a bit of warmth.
Chu Yan's kindness to him, those gentle gazes, the intimate hugs, and even the ring engraved with a unique code... everything was blatantly calculated from the very beginning.
A humble and bitter arc appeared at the corner of Gu Xu's mouth.
Even though he had already seen clearly that this was a scam, he couldn't really blame Chu Yan.
After all, Chu Yan not only did not attack him, but also pulled him out of the mess of Gu's company and gave him true freedom.
So, who should he blame?
Should I blame Gu Hongyuan's coldness and selfishness? Should I blame my mother's indifference to reality? Should I blame my own foolishness and credulity? Or should I blame this absurd fate?
Gu Xu didn't know.
A sense of confusion and powerlessness washed over him. He felt as if he were trapped on an invisible island, surrounded by a sea of fog, unable to see where he had come from or where he was going back.
In the end, he had no choice but to sit here.
He did not disturb Chu Yan's final plan for Gu Ye, and like a loser who followed the rules of the game, he quietly waited for his own end.
At the same time, he was also waiting for that person to make the final judgment on him.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
