Chapter 62: The Aftermath

On the way, Xiao Liu handed Gu Yunjing, who was sitting in the back seat, a bottle of water.

Not long after Gu Yunjing drank it, he fell asleep; when he woke again, he was lying on a hospital bed.

And right beside him was his own mother, who had nearly cried herself into a faint.

"What happened to me?"

Gu Yunjing was about to sit up, but the moment he moved, he felt a sharp, violent pain on the left side of his abdomen.

"Hiss—!"

The pain drained the color from his face; cold sweat broke out all over his body, and he collapsed back down.

"A Jing, how do you feel?"

Hearing the movement, Gu Madam opened her eyes, saw his pained expression, her face full of heartache and worry, and scolded him.

"You child—didn't I tell you to leave quickly? Why did you go running to the hospital on your own?"

"Mom, what are you saying? Wasn't it you who told me to—"

Halfway through his words, Gu Yunjing's eyes suddenly went wide.

He flung off the blanket in one motion, only to see that his tailored suit had been replaced by a hospital gown.

"A Jing, what are you doing?"

Gu Madam was startled by his sudden movement.

"Shut up!"

Gu Yunjing roared at her, then with trembling hands pulled open the hospital gown and stared in disbelief at the bandages wrapped around his body.

"What is this?"

"How—how could this be?!"

He frantically tore at the bandages, as if he had to see the wound with his own eyes before he would believe it.

The moment Gu Madam saw what he was doing, her heart nearly leaped out of her chest in fright.

This would never do!

She rushed over and pressed down hard on Gu Yunjing's hands.

"A Jing, don't do this! The wound was just stitched up—you can't tear it open, you'll get an infection!"

"Let go of me!"

Gu Yunjing shoved her hard onto the floor, his eyes blood-red, veins bulging at his neck, letting out a string of roars.

"Why?!"

"Why would you do this to me? Am I really your biological son or not?!"

Gu Madam sat there on the floor where she'd fallen, staring at him in a daze.

"Wasn't it you yourself who volunteered to come?"

The struggle just now had caused the stitches at his wound to pop open; Gu Yunjing clutched his waist, his face turning another shade paler, and looked down to see that the bandages were indeed soaked red over a large area.

"Impossible! I still have my whole youth ahead of me—how could I have thrown myself away to save that old fossil!"

Suddenly, his eyes went cold, and he gritted his teeth.

"It was Xiao Liu! Xiao Liu was the one who took the call back then—where is he?!"

Gu Madam dabbed at her tears with a tissue.

"Xiao Liu brought you to the hospital, then said there was something at home he had to rush back and deal with."

She bit down hard on her teeth, seething.

"A Jing, don't worry about that for now—recovering is what matters. We'll have plenty of time to deal with him later!"

Gu Yunjing slammed his fist hard against the bed board.

"That bastard!"

"If he dares show his face in front of me again, I'll make him pay!"

"You'll be seeing him very soon."

The doctor didn't come; instead, Officer Lu walked up to the hospital room door with two colleagues.

Looking at Gu Yunjing propped up on the hospital bed, he sighed inwardly.

He had thought Gu Yunjing must truly love his father, Chairman Gu—after all, to get a kidney for his dear old dad, he'd even gone so far as to drug and kidnap his own half-sister.

But judging by the scene before him, the man had only been doing it for himself.

Unfortunately, after committing every evil deed under the sun, he still hadn't escaped his own father's scheming.

Seeing them, Gu Yunjing frowned, and a bad premonition rose in his heart.

"What do you mean by that?"

Officer Lu took two steps closer.

"Your bodyguard Xiao Liu has already turned himself in. He says that on your orders he found A Biao and Skinny Guy, drugged An Luo, and tried to kidnap her to forcibly give your father a kidney transplant."

Hearing this, Gu Yunjing's expression changed; panic flickered in his eyes, and he quickly turned his head to look away.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand a single word!"

Officer Lu let out a cold laugh.

"Then let me say something you will understand, to help you jog your memory—for instance, the reason you and your sister hurried abroad back then was because of something that happened five years ago."

"You two, drunk, drove wildly down the road, ran a red light, and hit a mother and her daughter. Both died on the spot. That child wasn't even three years old yet…"

The more they listened, the more panicked the expressions of mother and son of the Gu Family became.

Gu Yunjing kept shaking his head in denial.

"I don't understand."

"You must have gotten it wrong. My children went abroad to finish their studies!"

But no matter how they argued and denied it, Gu Yunjing was eventually taken away.

"No! Ajing just had surgery — he can't be discharged!"

"Ajing!"

After watching her daughter taken away right before her eyes last time, Gu Madam collapsed against the hospital room door in despair, once again forced to watch her son being seized.

Her eyes were bloodshot, her body slowly slid downward, and she finally crumpled to the floor, covering her face as she sobbed.

How had it come to this?

She had no idea that even worse was yet to come.

Meanwhile, in a luxurious hospital room on the other side, the moment Gu Chairman opened his eyes, before he could even savor the joy of his new lease on life,

he heard from Gu Madam the news that both his son and daughter had been arrested.

"Those two good-for-nothing idiots — they can't accomplish anything but ruin everything!"

Before he could finish cursing, he himself was taken away for investigation.

The Gu Group had risen to prominence through real estate in its early years, and had done plenty of things like brawls, fighting over territory, and violent forced demolitions — even causing quite a few deaths.

Although they had paid a hefty price to suppress it, once certain things have been done, one shouldn't expect them to stay secret forever.

One scandal after another from the Gu Family was exposed. Within just a few hours, Gu Group's stock price plummeted, shareholders scrambled to dump their stocks, and every company that had previously shown interest in cooperation canceled their deals.

But many of Gu Group's current projects had only been pushed forward by bank loans.

With no new orders coming in and capital unable to circulate, they couldn't repay the loans. In the end, every house, car, and piece of jewelry under the Gu Family's name was sold off, and the hole still couldn't be filled.

Yet Gu Madam was the only one left, with not a single person by her side to help think things through. With no other choice, she could only sell off the shares in her hands.

Wrapped up in worry over her husband and children, and overwhelmed by the company's crisis, Gu Madam failed to notice that the shares dumped by the other shareholders, along with the portion she herself had sold, had all ended up flowing to one person.

By the time she realized, it was already too late.

In the end, Gu Group was acquired by a mysterious figure, and the vast family fortune fell into another's hands.

After decades of struggle, the building crumbled in an instant.

In less than a month, Gu Madam went from a glamorous, dazzling rich wife of a powerful family to a rat that everyone wanted to beat, with nowhere to call home.

Before she could even grieve for herself, she received some news.

Xiaoxiao had been arrested. Knowing full well that in the Gu Family's current state they couldn't possibly protect her, she turned herself in and gave Xiaoxiao up.

And so, the Gu Family was reunited in prison…