Aftermath

The lawyer, disregarding her loss of composure, continued to read out the inheritance distribution word for word. Although the several female family members didn't get any company shares, they were compensated with cash and real estate. As long as they didn't squander it recklessly, it was enough for them to live the rest of their lives without worrying about food or clothing.

What Mother Gu received was no different from theirs, with no special treatment due to her status as Mrs. Gu. Probably knowing that the matter was settled, she burst into tears out of anger. Wiping her tears with a handkerchief, she said mournfully, "Old Master, I've served you for so many years. Even if I have no great merit, I have worked hard. It doesn't matter what you give me, I wouldn't mind even if you sent me away with a broken bowl and an iron basin. But you've seen with your own eyes how diligently Qingzhou has worked at the company all these years. In terms of status and performance, how is he inferior to Gu Yan?"

The rules in a large family were strict; when an elder spoke, no junior had the right to interrupt. Thus, everyone else remained silent. Logically, Gu Ting was the unluckiest one. He was clearly the eldest son of the first wife, yet he received the fewest shares. While secretly blaming the Old Master for being unfair, he said to Mother Gu in a sarcastic tone, "Aunt Liu, Father naturally has his reasons for doing this. One should be content and not be so greedy as to try and swallow an elephant!"

Mother Gu's hands were trembling with anger, but she was held back by Gu Qingzhou, who pressed on her shoulder, preventing her from lashing out. Old Master Gu's breathing had already become somewhat labored, and a rattling sound came from his heaving chest. He glanced at Mother Gu, then said with difficulty, "All of you... all of you get out... Qingzhou, stay... I have a few things to ask him..."

Upon hearing this, Gu Qingzhou's movements paused slightly. Mother Gu, however, thought things had taken a turn for the better, quickly wiped her tears, and went out with the others. In an instant, only the two of them were left in the huge hospital room.

Gu Qingzhou didn't speak. He didn't know how to address the man lying on the hospital bed. He just couldn't bring himself to say that word.

Old Master Gu took a couple of gasping breaths. "Your mother is right. Among all the brothers, you are the most promising. Although Ah Yan isn't bad, he still can't compare to you..."

In Old Master Gu's eyes, this son was not only distant but also too stubborn. When he first came to City A, he would rather work himself to death every day in a work-study program to earn his tuition than ask him for a single cent. At first, the Old Master looked down on him and didn't want to bother, but in the end, he realized that this was a tenacity the rest of his sons lacked.

He asked Gu Qingzhou, "I'm leaving the company to Ah Yan. Are you unhappy about it in your heart?"

Gu Qingzhou's attitude was distant and thorny. Perhaps because he was mindful that the man before him didn't have much time left, he refrained from any cold sarcasm and only said two words: "No."

Old Master Gu then asked about something else out of the blue, "In Hai City, are you happy there?"

Gu Qingzhou subconsciously looked at him upon hearing this, only to see a shrewdness that could see through the ways of the world faintly showing in Old Master Gu's murky eyes. His body tensed for a moment; he knew the old man had probably already investigated his and Jiang Xu's matter. After some thought, he ultimately said nothing.

Old Master Gu seemed to smile, then said with difficulty, "Don't be so nervous. I don't care about those messy affairs of yours. People live to be happy, why care so much? In this, you are better than Ah Yan. You know what you want."

Gu Qingzhou saw his eyelids drooping, his face turning ashen, and he was wheezing heavily. His condition was clearly not good. He turned and said, "I'll go get the doctor for you."

But Old Master Gu said from behind him, "You have to give something up to gain something... If you let go of that man... and come back obediently... there's still time to change the will..."

Upon hearing this, Gu Qingzhou's steps paused slightly. The hospital room was brightly lit, yet it was filled with a silent air of decay. Without turning back, he said only two words: "No need."

He pulled open the door and walked out. Everyone was waiting in the outer room. Mother Gu, who had been sitting on a bench, immediately stood up when she saw Gu Qingzhou come out. She grabbed his hand and asked urgently, "How was it? What did the Old Master call you in to talk about? Huh?"

Gu Qingzhou didn't speak. He glanced at Gu Yan, who had been standing quietly in a corner, seemingly unconcerned with the outcome. Even after obtaining the inheritance rights to the company, he showed not the slightest bit of excitement.

Gu Qingzhou stepped aside to let the doctor in, lowered his gaze, and said, "He didn't say much, just asked about some other things."

Hearing this, Mother Gu closed her eyes and angrily shoved his hand away. The force was so great that it hit the wall with a dull thud. Gu Qingzhou paid it no mind, silently straightening his cuffs. A bruise was already visible on the back of his hand.

Dejectedly, Mother Gu sat back down on the bench, holding her head with her eyes closed, not even wanting to keep up appearances anymore. The others, whether standing or sitting, were similarly in no mood for anything. Gu Ting even put on headphones and made a call, complaining about something in a low, dissatisfied voice to someone.

Birth, old age, sickness, and death—no one could escape them. For the first time, Gu Qingzhou felt that the person lying in the hospital room was also somewhat pitiful.

Early the next morning, at five o'clock, Old Master Gu passed away.

In his final moments, no one was by his bedside to attend to him except the doctor.

When the people in the outer room heard the news, they all fell silent for a moment. Gu Ting, with sleepy eyes, yawned and stretched. "Alright, time to prepare for the funeral. I'm dead tired from these past few days. I'm going back to catch up on sleep."

It was as if he was deliberately retaliating for something—retaliating for the Old Master's neglect of him, retaliating for the Old Master's infidelity to his mother—by intentionally displaying a hatefully nonchalant attitude.

After a night, Mother Gu seemed to have finally recovered a bit. She got up from her chair, took a pair of sunglasses from her bag and put them on, then told the remaining people to handle the body and instructed the driver to take her back to the old family home.

Gu Qingzhou fell behind, turning his head to glance at the people busying in and out of the hospital room. 'This is all a person's life amounts to,' he thought.

He didn't take the elevator, instead walking down the stairs step by step. He didn't expect Gu Yan to follow him. Gu Yan wiped his face and asked Gu Qingzhou in a low voice, "What did the Old Master say when he spoke to you alone?"

Mother Gu saw him as a thorn in her side, but she didn't know that Gu Qingzhou and Gu Yan's private relationship was actually quite good among the brothers.

The skylight at the turn of the stairs was a bit glaring. Gu Qingzhou squinted and realized the sun was out. He said in an emotionless tone, "It doesn't matter what he said. The matter is already settled anyway."

Gu Yan actually had a girlfriend in the entertainment industry. They had been together for several years and had a deep relationship, but for some reason, they broke up a while ago. He had since been in close contact with the eldest daughter of the Zhao family, and it looked like they were about to get engaged. He expressionlessly tugged at his tie and said with cold sarcasm, "The Old Master actually valued you more. Even if you don't say it, I know what he asked. It was nothing more than choosing between the fish and the bear's paw."

Obviously, Gu Qingzhou chose the fish, while Gu Yan chose the bear's paw.

Gu Qingzhou said, "We all choose our own paths."

Gu Yan was an ambitious person, but he had no background to speak of. If he wanted to climb higher, he could only listen to the Old Master and accept his control.

Gu Yan said self-mockingly, "Having less than fifty percent of the controlling shares is unsafe. He gave you fourteen percent, clearly to keep me in check. If you go and acquire the shares from Gu Ting and the others now, and find a few other minority shareholders, you might still be able to put up a fight against me."

Gu Qingzhou said, "Not interested."

Gu Yan said, "I know you're not interested. But being without desires is also a good thing. If Aunt Liu could learn to be even a little bit as content as you, she wouldn't be so desperately anxious at home every day."

As they spoke, they had already reached the ground floor of the hospital. The driver was waiting in the distance. Gu Yan muttered to himself, "Looks like I'll be busy for a while. I'm leaving first. We'll get together another day."

There were no longer any traces of snow on the road. Even the last remaining damp patches were gradually fading until they disappeared. The sun was warm, but the wind was cold.

Gu Qingzhou watched Gu Yan's car leave. He wanted to say that there was no such thing as being content or not in this world. He wasn't without desires either; it was just that what he sought was different from theirs.

Gu Qingzhou had also been steeped in the bitterness of unfulfilled desires for countless years. That was a period of time that no one but himself would ever know about. But now he had obtained what he wanted, so all those bitter or painful memories of the past seemed insignificant.

Withered branches were hidden under the winter snow, having survived season after season of severe cold. It was much warmer here than in Hai City, so the branches sprouted earlier. A tender speck of green was extremely eye-catching against the brown trunk.

Old Master Gu's funeral was grand and ostentatious. Countless people came to offer their condolences, their eyes more or less red from crying. Ironically, the most indifferent ones were the people closest to him, like Gu Ting.

Old Master Gu's distribution of assets satisfied no one. Everyone complained they got too little. Even Gu Yan was filled with pent-up frustration because he had to get engaged to Miss Zhao. Not to mention, on the day of the funeral, a young woman came with a seven or eight-year-old boy to claim kinship, saying he was a child the Old Master had raised on the outside. She said they could do a paternity test if they didn't believe her, the implication being that she wanted to extort some money.

Mother Gu's expression turned ugly, and she had them driven away. But she couldn't stop the woman from kneeling and crying at the gate of the Gu Family's main house every day, saying she couldn't afford to raise the child, nearly attracting the media.

"Get her out! Are the security guards useless?! How did you let that woman in?! There are plenty of illegitimate children out there, do I have to take care of every single one? The Old Master just kicked the bucket and left this mess for me to clean up. I only got this little, and now I have to be responsible for raising his illegitimate child?!"

Mother Gu had a splitting headache. For the first time, she felt that her position wasn't so comfortable. She hadn't given up and was secretly scheming. A few days ago, she privately contacted other shareholders to acquire their stocks, but unexpectedly, Gu Qingzhou found out and intercepted her. In a fit of anger, she slapped Gu Qingzhou across the face, making the already less-than-amicable relationship between mother and son even more tense.

Mother Gu was in no mood to manage affairs, and the likes of Gu Ting were even more useless. The funeral arrangements, inside and out, were all handled by Gu Qingzhou and Gu Yan. Both of them visibly lost a great deal of weight, and their faces were etched with fatigue.

Gu Qingzhou had already packed his luggage, ready to return to Hai City. When he came downstairs with his suitcase, he saw Mother Gu sitting on the sofa, waiting for him. A cup of coffee on the table was faintly steaming.

Mother Gu frowned and asked, "You're going back to Hai City again?"

Gu Qingzhou looked pale and his lips were chapped, as if he were sick. Only his pitch-black eyes remained as perceptive as ever, seeming to see through all of Mother Gu's petty schemes. He looked at her well-maintained face, then nodded and said, "Afternoon flight."

Mother Gu said coldly, "I really don't know if you're possessed or if someone put a curse on you, running to Hai City every day. Where is your real home, anyway?"

Hearing this, Gu Qingzhou gave a sarcastic twitch of his lips. He really wanted to ask what part of this place felt like a home. After the Old Master died, the children moved out of the main house in twos and threes, never to return. Mother Gu was also constantly restless, playing cards with the other wives in her circle, and after hearing a few words of instigation, she started secretly acquiring shares to fight Gu Yan. All the various pressures made it hard to breathe.

Gu Qingzhou only said, "If something comes up, call me. I'll come back."

Mother Gu didn't speak. After a long while, she finally looked up at him, only to feel that Gu Qingzhou had become so thin he was almost unrecognizable. He exuded fatigue and paleness from the inside out, and his originally well-fitting clothes now seemed a bit loose on him.

She tried hard to remember, tried so hard, but she couldn't recall what her son used to look like. In the end, she had to give up.

The auntie was busy cooking in the kitchen, making the faint sounds of clinking dishes. Mother Gu suddenly felt an inexplicable irritation. She pulled a fashion magazine from the coffee table and flipped through a few pages forcefully, saying without looking up, "If you want to go, then go. I'll just pretend I gave birth to an ungrateful wretch. If you've got the guts, don't ever come back."