amaotonovel Chapter 1390 Powerless
Chapter 1390 Powerless
9:10 PM.
Kacha——
The sound of the key turning the lock, ten minutes later than scheduled, was exceptionally clear and exceptionally... heavy in the extremely tense silence inside the house.
The door was pulled open a crack from the outside, and the stagnant air in the living room, a mixture of grief, fear, and the last glimmer of hope, seemed to come alive and rushed in heavily.
Gu Chengyuan stood at the door, and before he had even fully opened it, he could feel the oppressive atmosphere that seemed to threaten to push him out.
He was dressed in a crisp, dark green general's uniform, the stars on his epaulets gleaming coldly in the hallway's motion-activated lights. But this uniform, a symbol of power and responsibility, felt like an overly heavy suit of armor, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
He looked visibly tired, with sunken eyes and stubble on his chin.
He seemed to have been standing outside the door for a while, mentally preparing himself countless times, but at this moment, when the door opened and five pairs of eyes inside, seemingly frozen with all sorrow, turned to look at him, he felt that the fragile psychological dam he had painstakingly built instantly cracked.
Father Gu Jianguo stood in the center of the living room, his back to him, his shoulders slightly slumped; Mother Wenwan sat on the edge of the sofa, looking as if her soul had been ripped away; the three sisters-in-law stood side by side, their faces still wet with tears and their eyes filled with a sense of impending collapse, a mixture of fear and last hope.
They were all looking at him as if he were bringing not news, but a final verdict.
The room was dimly lit, yet it revealed him completely.
He didn't change his shoes as usual when he came in, nor did he greet anyone.
He didn't even come all the way in; he just pressed his body against the door, as if ready to escape this realm about to be overwhelmed by sorrow at any moment.
His gaze swept laboriously over each face, his throat feeling dry and burning as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper.
The silence lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
Finally, Gu Chengyuan avoided his mother's piercing gaze, lowered his eyes, stared at the tips of his gleaming but slightly dusty military boots, and, in a voice terribly hoarse and suppressed, forced out the devastating news that had tormented him for days and nights:
"Dad, Mom, Wanying, Xueli, Miaomiao..."
He paused, took a deep breath, his breath trembling:
"He was killed in action during the blocking battle at Gucheng Lake... along with his entire reconnaissance battalion."
"Jinling direction...confirmed...no survivors."
The final four words, "No one survived," were so soft they were almost inaudible, yet as heavy as four mountains crashing down!
Om-! ! !
It was as if something had exploded in Wenwan's mind.
Her body, which she had been holding together with the last shred of her sanity, suddenly lurched backward, collapsing straight onto the back of the sofa. Her eyes instantly lost all their light, her mouth was open but she couldn't make a sound, only large tears, like beads from a broken string, gushed out and instantly soaked her clothes.
"Cheng Yun—!! My youngest child—!!! Waaaaaah—"
A piercing wail, as if torn from the deepest part of her soul, finally broke through her tightly clenched teeth and echoed throughout the entire room!
"Mother!"
"Mother!!"
Du Wanying and Yang Xueli cried out at the same time and rushed over to support Wen Wan, but their own legs had already gone weak and tears were streaming down their faces.
Du Wanying bit her lip hard until she tasted blood, then let out a suppressed, painful whimper; Yang Xueli completely collapsed, kneeling down beside the sofa, hugging Wenwan's legs, and crying loudly, her cries filled with unbelievable despair and the panic of losing her support.
When Lin Miaomiao heard the word "killed in action," her body stiffened abruptly, and the hand protecting her lower abdomen tightened suddenly, her nails almost digging into her flesh.
The color drained from her face instantly, her lips trembled, and her eyes were wide open, filled with an empty, bewildered helplessness.
Unlike her two older sisters, she didn't cry out loud. She just stood there blankly, tears streaming down her face silently and frantically, as if her soul had been taken away by those words, leaving only a numbed shell of a person shaken by the devastating news.
Her body began to sway slightly. Yang Xueli, who was next to her, noticed something was wrong and quickly turned around to hug her. The two sisters burst into tears.
With his back to everyone, Gu Jianguo's shoulders trembled violently the moment Gu Chengyuan uttered those words, as if struck by an invisible hammer.
He didn't turn back, nor did he break down like his wife. Instead, his once straight back hunched over even more at a visible rate.
This head of the family and governor of a province, who has always presented himself as calm and composed, now looked as desolate as the last withered leaf about to fall in the autumn wind.
In an instant, the once oppressive living room transformed into a sea of overwhelming sorrow. Cries of anguish, wails, and suppressed sobs mingled together, crashing against the walls and echoing endlessly.
A heartbreaking despair filled the air...
At this moment, Gu Chengyuan was still standing at the door, not daring to step inside.
He looked at the scene before him, a scene that resembled hell on earth, at his mother's heart-wrenching cries, at his father's silent, trembling back, and at his sisters-in-law's broken, tearful faces...
An unprecedented, chilling sense of powerlessness, like the deepest cold wave, instantly swept over his limbs and bones, freezing all his thoughts and movements.
Who is he? He is the commander of the Central Plains War Zone, the chairman of the Zhou Bang's Last Military Commission, the "leader" in the eyes of millions of soldiers and civilians, and the "chosen one" selected by the system!
He can rebuild order from ruins, command thousands of troops in desperate situations, skillfully negotiate at the negotiating table, and decide the life, death, and future of countless people.
But at this moment, here, in this home completely overwhelmed by grief, he is just an older brother who has lost his younger brother, the “culprit” who caused this tragedy, and a bystander who is helpless in the face of a broken family!
He was utterly at a loss; he didn't even know where to put his hands and feet, which step to take, or which word to say.
comfort?
How to comfort them?
At this moment, any words of comfort seem insignificant and would make him appear extremely cold-blooded!
Moreover, wasn't he himself, to some extent, the one who started all of this?
If he hadn't sent his younger brother to Jinling in the first place...
If it weren't for his chilling, ultimate order to "hold out until the last man is gone"...
If... if I had listened to my mother and let Chengyun stay in the relatively safe Ye Province, even if it was just to "drift along"...
Countless "what ifs" were like venomous snakes, frantically gnawing at his heart at this moment.
Self-blame, regret, and a pain bordering on self-loathing, mixed with deep sorrow for his brother, nearly consumed him.
He stood there, his military uniform crisp and clear, yet he felt like a naked sinner standing on an icy plain, being slowly tortured by the unconscious, sorrowful gazes of his loved ones.
Gu Chengyuan opened his mouth, a muffled, almost choked sound escaping his throat, but he couldn't say anything.
He wanted to go over, support his mother, hug his father, and pat his sisters-in-law on the shoulders, even if it was just to offer a tiny bit of support.
But his feet seemed nailed to the spot, too heavy to lift, and his outstretched hand, suspended in mid-air, trembled slightly before finally falling limply to the ground.
He had never felt so powerless, so insignificant, so...disqualified.
As a son, he caused his parents the extreme pain of outliving their child.
As the elder brother, he failed to protect his younger brother and may even have personally led him to his death.
As the eldest son who was once the family's pillar of support, he is now unable to offer even the most basic comfort.
The crying inside the house continued, like an unending tide, pounding against his already fragile nerves.
He stood frozen in the doorway, so close to the grief inside, yet seemingly separated by an invisible, insurmountable abyss.
The lamplight cast his lonely and heavy shadow long on the floor inside the door, completely out of place with the sea of sorrow.