novelraw Chapter 62 Desolation After Expectation
Chapter 62 Desolation After Expectation
Gu Yanshen opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't make a sound. His Adam's apple bobbed violently a few times before he managed to squeeze out a few words from his dry throat, his voice light yet carrying immense weight:
"...Are you done?"
"What?" Lu Xiran was even more confused.
Gu Yanshen stared intently into her eyes, trying to find a clue, a clue… he hoped it was evidence of a misunderstanding. But her confusion was so real. He heard his own voice continue, each word like sandpaper being rubbed against him: “The child… is it all done?”
Lu Xiran was completely stunned, not understanding what he was saying at all.
Gu Yanshen interpreted her momentary stunned silence as tacit agreement. The last glimmer of hope was completely extinguished. The last spark of light in his eyes vanished, leaving only endless darkness and emptiness. His tall body swayed, as if all the strength had been drained away, and he almost collapsed on the spot.
Lin Chen caught him firmly from behind in time.
Just then, the door to the consultation room behind Lu Xiran was pushed open again.
Jin Qiqi, with red eyes and a red nose, came out holding several receipts. She immediately noticed the strange and solemn scene outside the door—Gu Yanshen was pale and swaying, Lin Chen was supporting him with a serious expression, Xue Jingyan stood beside him with a complicated expression, and Lu Xiran looked bewildered.
Jin Qiqi blinked her still-wet eyes and subconsciously asked, "Why... are you all here? What happened?"
Gu Yanshen didn't look at Lu Xiran again; he didn't even dare to linger for another second. He was afraid that the despair, anger, and despair in his eyes, almost bursting forth, would uncontrollably spill out in front of her, afraid that he would say something irreversible or do something irreversible.
He turned around abruptly, his back taut like a fully drawn bow, yet with an almost panicked stagger, striding rapidly in the opposite direction from Lu Xiran.
Upon seeing this, Xue Jingyan immediately followed him and accompanied him to his private office on the top floor of the hospital.
Jin Qiqi looked at the sudden turn of events, then at Lu Xiran's pale face, and said, "I'll go with the nurse to get checked. You wait here for me."
Lu Xiran nodded blankly, her gaze still following the end of the corridor where Gu Yanshen had disappeared, her mind in turmoil.
Lin Chen and she sat down in a quiet rest area nearby.
"What's wrong with him?"
Lin Chen looked into her clear eyes and understood. He carefully spoke, "Jing Yan said on the phone just now that he saw you and mistook you for someone else... you're pregnant. Yan Shen... believed him."
Lu Xiran's pupils contracted slightly.
Lin Chen continued, his tone calm and deliberate: "But just now, when Jing Yan asked someone about the medical records, the nurse thought it was you who had scheduled the surgery. So... President Gu thought that you... decided not to have this child."
"How could he..." her voice choked with sobs, "How could he think I didn't want to..."
Lin Chen was silent for a moment. "He knows you're taking birth control pills."
"What...?!"
Lin Chen gazed out the window, as if recalling something from a long time ago. "Miss Lu, you may not be able to fully understand... the deep-seated longing and obsession a child who grew up in an orphanage has for 'home' and for 'family' connected by blood."
"An orphanage?" Lu Xiran was taken aback; she had never heard of it before.
"Yes." Lin Chen turned his gaze back to her, his eyes filled with complex emotions. "Yan Shen and I grew up in the same orphanage. He was only found by the Gu family when he was eight years old and they took him back. But in that so-called 'home,' apart from the old lady, no one truly treated him as family."
Lu Xiran's heart sank little by little.
"His mother... was Gu Qishan's former secretary, surnamed Wen." Lin Chen's voice was calm, but every word was heavy. "Gu Qishan was already engaged at the time, to Liu Lin, a woman of equal social standing. Secretary Wen's presence and pregnancy angered the Liu family. During childbirth, she suffered a difficult labor and did not survive. Her only brother, wanting to take advantage of the situation, went to the Gu family several times, but was not only humiliated and driven away, but also suffered retaliation from Liu Lin's family... Realizing there was no profit to be gained, he sent the newborn Yan Shen to the gate of an orphanage."
Lu Xiran's fingertips dug deeply into her palms, and her nose felt extremely sore.
"After returning to the Gu family, Liu Lin saw him as a thorn in her side, and Gu Qishan also felt that this illegitimate son was disgraceful and treated him very coldly. His cousins of the same generation bullied him because he was an 'outsider,' openly and secretly excluding, harassing, and even bullying him, which never stopped." Lin Chen's voice lowered, "He almost... had no childhood. He was also afraid that the only person who truly cared for him, the old lady, would worry, so he carried everything on his own and silently endured it."
That's why he so desperately longed for a warm and pure home of his own. So a child who might come into the world is to him more than just an offspring; it is a ray of light shining into his dark past, the strongest bond between him and his beloved, the cornerstone for building a complete "home," and the ultimate refuge for all his longings for "family" and "belonging."
Lu Xiran finally understood his deep and tragic expectation, as well as the immense pain he had just endured.
"Qiqi..." Lu Xiran greeted her friend who was walking over with the nurse.
Jin Qiqi touched her hand: "I'm fine, really. You should go find President Gu! Go quickly!"
Lin Chen nodded. "I'll take her home. Don't worry."
Lu Xiran no longer hesitated.
On the top floor, outside the office door at the end of the corridor.
She stopped, slightly out of breath, and could vaguely see the figure inside through the small frosted glass panel on the door.
The office was brightly lit, yet strangely cold. Gu Yanshen sat alone on the large sofa, his back slightly hunched, elbows propped on his knees, his usually meticulous black hair falling in disarray.
He lowered his head, his profile still sharp and distinct, his jawline taut, but that tautness was no longer the usual control and dominance, but a stiffness and exhaustion from forcibly suppressing huge emotional fluctuations.
Lu Xiran had never seen Gu Yanshen like this before. He wasn't the shrewd and decisive CEO who strategized and made ruthless decisions in the business world, nor the assertive and passionate man who was undeniably irresistible in their intimacy, nor the "uncle" who occasionally revealed clumsy tenderness and dependence in front of her. At this moment, he was like a child stripped of all support and suddenly exposed to the cold wind, huddled alone in a corner, building a wall of silence to isolate himself from the world. Behind that wall lay a desolate wasteland, unseen by anyone.
Lu Xiran's heart clenched with pain. She finally understood completely what a desolate past, yearning to be filled, lay behind the "hmm" in his drunken utterance, his obsession with the child, and even the occasional displays of his almost obsessive possessiveness and attachment to her.
She gently pushed the door open.