amaotonovel Chapter 1388
Chapter 1388
"Click".
With a soft click as he put down the communicator, all the strength in Gu Jianguo's body was instantly drained.
The back, which had been straight all day and symbolized responsibility, began to hunch uncontrollably.
He released his grip on the table, leaned back, and slumped heavily into the large leather sofa like a puppet with its strings cut. He tilted his head back, resting his head against the sofa back, and stared intently at the simple chandelier on the ceiling.
The light was blinding, but he couldn't feel the light; he only felt a cold, blurry white.
The heavy, hoarse voice of his eldest son still seemed to echo in his ears, while scenes of his youngest son, Gu Chengyun, from childhood to adulthood kept flashing before his eyes—his clumsy steps as a toddler, his cunning hiding behind him when he got into trouble as a teenager, and his forced mature yet undeniably naive smile when he left home in his military uniform…
It’s over.
It's all over.
The youngest son they had doted on for over twenty years, the mischievous boy who brought life and laughter to their home, the child they never spoke of but inwardly held high hopes for... was gone.
The immense, belated grief, like a black tide that had been held back by a dam for a long time, burst forth in the instant of certainty, completely engulfing him.
But what seized him even before the grief was a numbness and powerlessness that felt almost like a vacuum.
As a father, he lost his son; as an official, he knew something terrible was happening but was powerless to stop it; as the head of the family, he was about to face the devastating tears of his wife and daughters-in-law…
And with what kind of extreme pain will his eldest son, the son who now carries the hopes of the entire war zone and even half of the civilization's revival on his shoulders, personally "announce" all of this?
Gu Jianguo raised a trembling hand and weakly covered his eyes.
Between his fingers, the scalding liquid finally gushed out uncontrollably, running down his aged cheeks, past the white hair at his temples, and silently seeping into the fabric of the sofa.
In the office, only his suppressed, almost inaudible gasps and the distant, indifferent roar of machinery from the night market construction site outside the window could be heard.
Night had completely fallen.
But what's even darker than the night is the unbearable farewell this family is about to face.
...
At 8:45 p.m., the Provincial Party Committee Family Compound (adjacent to the Nanming District Office Area, formerly a cadre retirement home of a certain unit of the Internal Security Department) was located.
The family compound is small but quiet amidst the hustle and bustle. It consists of several six-story gray and white slab buildings. The trees in the compound are quite old and rustle softly in the evening breeze.
The streetlights are newly installed solar lights, and their light is cool and clear.
At the entrance guard post, two internal security soldiers, dressed in crisp black uniforms and carrying QBZ-191 assault rifles, stood tall and alert.
As the familiar Mengshi 3 armored assault vehicle with the provincial party committee's small license plate slowed down and approached, the soldiers simultaneously gave a standard rifle salute with a "whoosh".
Inside the car, Gu Jianguo, sitting in the back seat, seemed oblivious. He just stared blankly at the rows of windows with scattered lights flashing by outside the car window, his eyes empty, as if his soul had been ripped away.
The guard in the driver's seat and Zhang Wei, the secretary in the passenger seat, exchanged a worried glance.
"Di-"
The driver gave a brief honking in return, and the vehicle smoothly entered the courtyard, turning left and right along the clean cement road before finally stopping in front of a unit on the inner side.
The engine was turned off, and the surroundings suddenly became quiet, with only the faint sound of a television and children playing coming from deep within the residential compound.
Secretary Zhang Wei nimbly pushed open the car door and got out, quickly walked around to the back, and gently opened the heavy car door.
In the dim light shining from the stairwell, he saw that Gu Jianguo was still in that absent-minded posture, motionless.
"Leader?" Zhang Wei bowed slightly, his voice low, a cautious reminder.
As Gu Jianguo's personal secretary, he was intimately familiar with the leader's work habits, personality, and even subtle emotional changes.
The leader has been acting strangely these past two days. His brow has never truly relaxed, he often gets distracted when approving documents, and sometimes he only responds after being called twice.
He guessed it was probably unrelated to work and mostly a family matter, but he didn't dare to ask. He could only keep these worries to himself and try to arrange his daily work more properly.
Gu Jianguo seemed to be pulled back from his distant thoughts by this soft call, and his body trembled almost imperceptibly.
He slowly turned his head, his gaze first falling blankly on Zhang Wei's face, pausing for a second or two before he seemed to recognize him, his focus slowly converging.
He glanced at the familiar entrance to the building outside the car door, and at the warm light shining from a window on the first floor—the light that belonged to his home. But now, that light seemed glaring to him, even carrying an invisible pressure.
He took a deep breath, the air seemingly carrying the coolness of the night and the smell of earth, as if drawing upon the last bit of strength to sustain him.
Then, he moved his body somewhat hesitantly and stepped out of the car.
His feet swayed slightly as he stepped onto the solid cement ground. Zhang Wei instinctively reached out to help him, but he gently waved his hand to stop him.
After regaining his balance, Gu Jianguo habitually raised his hand to tidy up the executive jacket he had worn all day, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles on his chest and straightening his collar.
This small gesture was an unconscious behavior he had developed over the years to maintain his dignity and demeanor, but now it revealed a tiredness from forcing himself to be energetic.
He looked at Zhang Wei, whose face was full of concern, and tried to force a faint smile to show that he was fine, but his lips only twitched slightly and he did not succeed.
"Xiao Zhang," his voice was a little hoarse, much lower than usual:
"It's getting late. You've been working non-stop with me lately, you must be exhausted. That's enough for today, go home and get some rest."
His tone was calm, even carrying a hint of gentle concern from an elder to a younger person, but Zhang Wei felt a pang of sadness upon hearing it.
Deep in the leader's eyes, there was an inescapable heaviness and... something almost tragic, something Zhang Wei had never seen before.
"Boss, shall I see you to the door?" Zhang Wei asked, still feeling uneasy.
“No need, it’s just a few steps.” Gu Jianguo shook his head, his tone gentle but firm: “Go back, there are still many things to do tomorrow.”
After saying that, he didn't linger. He turned around, his steps slightly heavy but still maintaining his usual pace, and walked straight into the building entrance.
The dim, old-fashioned motion-activated light turned on with his footsteps, elongating his somewhat lonely shadow and casting it onto the mottled stairwell wall.
Zhang Wei stood beside the car, watching the familiar figure climb the stairs step by step, pause briefly at the corner, and then disappear.
For some reason, watching his boss's figure disappear around the corner of the stairs, Zhang Wei felt a surge of indescribable emotion.
The figure, under the dim yellow light, appeared somewhat... desolate.
It felt not like stepping into a warm home, but into a cold and difficult battlefield that one had to face alone.
Zhang Wei stood there for a while, until the motion-activated lights went out and the surroundings fell into darkness again, before he sighed softly, turned around and got into the car.
The Mengshi 3 started up with a low rumble and slowly drove away from the residential compound...