amaotonovel Chapter 1371 Bad News
Chapter 1371 Bad News
"Commander! Commander! Wake up!!"
The anxious calls and the feeling of being gently shaken came again.
Gu Chengyuan suddenly opened his eyes, coughed violently, his heart was pounding as if it were about to explode, and his whole body was soaked in cold sweat, feeling icy and sticky.
He was still hunched over his desk, covered with a casual overcoat, his cheek pressed against the cold, smooth mahogany surface. The logistics list was crumpled under his arm, next to an overturned pen and dried ink.
Upon closer inspection, Chief of Staff Wu Bin and bodyguard Pu Guangqiang appeared before him, standing around the table with concerned expressions.
Pu Guangqiang was carrying a tray with two glasses of water on it, clearly having rushed in after hearing the commotion.
However, Gu Chengyuan had no time to pay attention to all that at the moment. After wiping his face hard with his hand, he finally recovered a little from the nightmare.
'Was that... a dream?'
"It was a dream... thank goodness it was a dream."
He repeated it in a low voice, like a spell, each repetition making his breathing a little more even:
"They say dreams are the opposite of reality, and yes, it must be. Chengyun will definitely be alright, he'll definitely..."
Thinking about all this, he quickly calmed himself down, took a deep breath, raised his head, his gaze regaining its usual composure, and looked directly at Chief of Staff Wu Bin, his voice still hoarse from just waking up:
"Chief of Staff Wu, when did you arrive? What's the latest situation on the Nanjing front? Has the western wall defense held? How are the air support and the advance team of the Sixth Army Group faring?"
His series of questions were clear and swift, attempting to completely dispel the shadow of that nightmare with his busy military duties.
However, Wu Bin's reaction made Gu Chengyuan's breathing, which had just calmed down, suddenly stop.
This veteran chief of staff, who was known for his composure and competence, lowered his eyes in an extremely unnatural and almost hasty manner the moment he met Gu Chengyuan's gaze.
His lips were pressed together until they turned white, and his knuckles, which were gripping the folder, bulged from the force and trembled slightly.
He didn't answer immediately; his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as if he were swallowing something extremely bitter.
The air in the entire office seemed to freeze for a moment, becoming heavy and viscous.
Upon seeing this, the color drained from Gu Chengyuan's face at a visible speed.
A clear crack appeared in the newly established psychological defense that "dreams are the opposite of reality."
A chilling coldness crept up my spine...
"Wu Bin?"
Gu Chengyuan did not address him by his title as usual, but instead called him by his first name. His voice unconsciously tightened and changed tone, with a tremor he himself was unaware of:
"What's going on at the front? Speak up!"
The last two words were almost a growl, breaking the suffocating silence in the room.
Wu Bin's body trembled almost imperceptibly. He slowly and with great difficulty raised his head, and this time, he did not avoid Gu Chengyuan's gaze.
But those usually wise and resolute eyes were now bloodshot, filled with deep sorrow, helplessness, and... a kind of cruel guilt that he had to deliver the bad news.
He opened his mouth, his voice dry and hoarse, like the friction of sand and gravel:
"Commander... Nanjing front..."
He paused, as if gathering the courage to continue, each word carrying immense weight:
"...The spore cloud underwent a dramatic change around 5:00 AM, with its concentration and corrosiveness increasing exponentially, and its settling rate far exceeding expectations..."
"The defending troops... all of their defensive measures failed in a very short time, and they... did not launch any effective counterattack."
Upon hearing this, Gu Chengyuan's pupils suddenly contracted, and his hand on the edge of the table clenched tightly, his nails almost digging into the mahogany.
Wu Bin's voice continued, as if he wanted to press on with all his might:
"The main defensive line on the west wall of Gucheng Lake... was confirmed to have been quickly breached at around 5:25 a.m. under the cover of spore clouds."
"In the last moments before the collapse of the defense line, a large-scale ammunition explosion occurred in the area where the reconnaissance battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade of Yezhou was stationed... No one survived in that area."
No one survived?!
These four words were like four ice picks, piercing Gu Chengyuan's eardrums and breaking through the defenses he had just built.
He felt a "buzz" in his brain, and then he couldn't control himself and fell backward. Seeing this, Pu Guangqiang quickly reached out to support him.
So? My brother really sacrificed himself??
'That dream I just had....'
Seeing this, Chief of Staff Wu Bin closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to look at Gu Chengyuan's expression any longer, but his words continued cruelly:
"In the next five minutes, a high-concentration cloud of spores, along with the remnants of the fungal swarm, swept across the core area of the Gucheng Lake settlement..."
Next, he rattled off a long string of cold unit designations and numbers, each representing the complete annihilation of an entire organized unit:
"The First Infantry Brigade of Yezhou...confirmed to have all officers and soldiers...killed in action."
"The 3rd and 4th Battalions of the 1st Regiment of the Gucheng Lake Garrison Brigade... were all killed in action."
"The first and fourth battalions of the second regiment... were all killed in action."
"Comrade Zhao Jie, the supreme commander of the western defense of Gucheng Lake and commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade of Yezhou, was confirmed to have sacrificed his life at his command post on the second echelon of defense."
"As of the last effective communication time... no organized resistance has been confirmed in the western line of Gucheng Lake and the core defense area... preliminary assessment..."
Wu Bin's voice choked; he used all his strength to utter the last few words:
"...not a single one survived..."
Dead silence.
A near-vacuum silence lasting for more than ten seconds.
Gu Chengyuan froze in his chair, the last trace of color draining from his face, leaving him as pale as a crumpled and then flattened piece of paper.
His eyes were fixed on Wu Bin, as if through him he could see the ruins swallowed by the spore cloud and soaked in fire and blood, and behind the cold, dead numbers in the reports, the once vibrant faces.
He heard "reconnaissance battalion," he heard "self-destruction," and he heard "no one survived."
He heard that "the entire First Infantry Brigade of Yezhou was killed in action."
He heard that "Zhao Jie sacrificed his life."
Finally, he heard those five words—"No one survived."
Every piece of information was like a heavy hammer, slamming into his heart.
At first, it was a numb, dull pain. Then, the immense panic and grief that had been warned by the dream and forcibly suppressed by self-comfort, like a breached dam, mixed with icy despair, crashed down on all his reason and composure.
My brother's radiant smile, his words of farewell, the spilled honey water...
The roar from the city wall, the flames of the explosion, Zhao Jie's last figure standing on the battlefield...
"Not a single person survived"...
All these images and sounds collided, shattered, and reformed wildly in his mind, eventually coalescing into a boundless, dark, and deathly nothingness.
"In a single day, he lost two of his closest loved ones... one who held his familial love, and the other who held his cherished memories of his student days..."
It's all gone...
Uh... heh...
A very faint sound, as if squeezed from the deepest part of his lungs, escaped from Gu Chengyuan's throat.
He suddenly raised his hand and covered his mouth tightly, while his other hand braced against the table. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, and his whole body began to tremble violently uncontrollably, as if he had suddenly contracted a severe cold.
"Commander!" Wu Bin and Pu Guangqiang rushed forward at the same time, their faces filled with shock.
Gu Chengyuan suddenly waved his hand to stop them, the force of which almost knocked Wu Bin over.
He kept his head down, his shoulders shrugged, and a suppressed, painful gurgling sound came from his throat, as if something was shattering inside him.
He didn't cry, not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't...
With the situation in Nanjing deteriorating to this point, as the backbone of the entire war zone, everyone else could express their grief, but he alone could not...
Outside the office, the sky was just before dawn; the darkest part of the night had passed, but what shone through the window was not the light of day, but a cold, leaden-gray gloom.
He remained in that position for a very, very long time...
Until the violent trembling gradually subsided, leaving only a slight, uncontrollable shiver.
He slowly, extremely slowly, removed his hand from his mouth and raised his head.
In those bloodshot eyes, all emotions seemed to have been briefly frozen by the extreme impact, leaving only a bottomless, heart-palpitating emptiness and deathly silence.
He looked at Wu Bin, his voice so hoarse it was almost unrecognizable, yet eerily calm—a calmness that was terrifying.
"understood."
"Pass down the notice... to prepare... the memorial service according to... the highest standards."
"All fallen soldiers... compensation... shall be initiated immediately, and the standard... shall be the highest level I previously approved."
"besides……"
His gaze lingered on a point in the void for a few seconds before he continued, each word seeming to be dug out of frozen ground:
"Stop spreading the news... don't let it get out... to avoid causing unnecessary panic..."
After saying this, Gu Chengyuan lowered his head again, his gaze falling on the creases of the documents on the table. He no longer looked at anyone or spoke.
"Yes!"
Seeing this, Wu Bin knew that the leader needed time to process the situation, so even though there was still work to report, he understood and gestured to Pu Guangqiang, who was standing next to him, to leave together.
Kacha——
The soft sound of the door closing was like a gate falling, completely isolating Gu Chengyuan from the outside world, leaving him all alone.