At dawn, Xiao Chen arrived at the inpatient department of the Hewan New District Hospital, where the wounded from the attack were placed. Mei did not come with him, but went to inspect the city's defenses.
He had been fighting for half a day and busy all night. If it weren't for his mental and physical strength far exceeding that of ordinary people, he would definitely not have been able to hold on until now. The cool breeze in the early morning blew in from the gap between the two buildings of the discharge department and the outpatient department, making him feel very comfortable, and a feeling of exhaustion blowing away with the wind.
There are still many people in this city who don’t know what happened yesterday. For them, it was just the beginning of another ordinary day, but for others, their world has been turned upside down.
Xiao Chen felt that life was always like this. At any time, you could be picked up and thrown onto a departing train, heading in a completely different direction. The so-called strong were just people who had learned how to hop on and off trains. But what about him? It seemed that he was once again being pushed onto a whistling train without realizing it.
Guo Qian's ward was on the third floor. When Xiao Chen knocked on the door and entered, he was sitting on the bed, staring blankly at the sunset outside the window. Guo Qian was not seriously injured. He was protected by several special agents of the Intelligence Department during the attack. The shield cast by the magician and the defensive props he carried helped him resist several attacks. In the end, he only broke his thigh bone and had a burn on his waist. He was one of the lucky ones among the committee members. However, the blow he received from this incident made him feel much more depressed.
Guo Qian noticed Xiao Chen coming in, but he didn't turn around, still looking out the window, "Xiao Chen, do you think I'm not suitable to lead everyone forward in this world?"
Xiao Chen took a few steps forward to Guo Qian's bedside and looked out along his line of sight. There were red clouds all over the sky on one side of the outpatient building, and above the red clouds was a cyan sky. The scene was beautiful, but it was hard to tell whether it was morning glow or evening glow.
"Chairman Guo, what are you talking about? If you hadn't led us, we wouldn't be where we are today." Xiao Chen said.
Guo Qian shook his head, "No, I don't think so. I haven't fallen asleep since I came here yesterday. I seemed to have returned to the very beginning in a daze. I began to recall many things that happened here. In fact, I could have done better.
I actually lived a very simple life. I studied very hard when I was young, went abroad to study when I had the chance in college, and returned to teach when the country had the policy, and finally was placed in this position of vice president. This is not necessarily an expectation of my ability, but it just happened that I was a person with the right qualifications. In school, things were not that difficult, and the work I was in charge of was not too stressful. Some unexpected things could be solved through the connections of old classmates and old friends, so these years were smooth sailing.
But here... It is really too difficult to lead a group of people to build a territory, or even a country from scratch. I used to have this feeling, and I would just keep it to myself and try to work hard. But I know very well that my ability is limited, and I have been forced to do this. This is the limit. Today's incident, the people who died today..." Guo Qian's eyes turned red when he said this, and tears could not stop flowing down his wrinkled face.
Xiao Chen suddenly realized that Guo Qian had aged a lot compared to when he came here two years ago. He comforted him, "Chairman Guo, what happened today is not your fault."
"Excuse me." Guo Qian wiped his tears and said, "How can it not matter? Think about it, is the cause of this incident the imperialists? No! Flies don't bite seamless eggs. If we can handle the internal relations well and unite everyone, this situation will not happen."
"Principal Guo, you can't ask that of yourself. Cliques and factions can occur anywhere in the world, and it's not surprising that we have people like Chang Lin, Jiang Yitian, and Zhang Hong here. Introducing external forces to break the internal balance has also been happening. As long as there are interests, there will be conflicts over interests," said Xiao Chen.
Guo Qian said: "But they do this because their interests are inconsistent with ours. We have developed over this period of time, but we don't have enough common interests with these people, so these things happened, right?"
"It's desire, not interest." Xiao Chen argued, "Interest can be distributed and coordinated, but desire...desire is hard to satisfy. For such people, can you really satisfy them no matter how much interest you give them?"
Guo Qian's eyes met Xiao Chen's. "I'm sorry. I've been thinking about these things from yesterday to this morning. Maybe I've been thinking too much. But I must admit that I'm not good at dealing with these things. I can be a scholar, and I can lead a team steadily. But I'm really not suitable to be a pioneering leader. This time something like this happened again, so I have a decision..."
"Principal Guo, what are you doing..." Xiao Chen had a premonition of what the other party was going to say.
"It's time for me to step down. After something like this happened, I should have resigned as the committee chairman. The senior members of the committee are either dead, injured, or no longer in Riverbend New City. But we can't be without someone to take charge of affairs here. I would like to ask you to take charge of the affairs of the committee temporarily and serve as the acting chairman of the committee."
"Me? Chairman Guo, now is the time to stabilize people's hearts. Please don't do this. It may cause unrest in the entire territory." Xiao Chen said seriously.
"I know. So for now I will announce to the public that I am just recovering from an injury. You will take over my work on the committee temporarily, and I will stand behind you." Guo Qian looked very calm, and it was obvious that this plan was not made on impulse. "But the people of this city have to get used to a new face leading everyone forward. You should also know that apart from you, there is no more suitable candidate in terms of qualifications, strength, and character. I hope you will not refuse and take on the responsibilities that you should bear."
Xiao Chen suddenly remembered what Metatron had said to him before. Was this the opportunity for change that she had mentioned? She would be happy to see him take on such a position. Not only her, but many tribes related to him in the territory would be happy to see this.
"I realize that my role is to lay a solid foundation for you latecomers, and now it seems it's time to pass the baton." Guo Qian shook his hand and patted it.
"I understand. I will try my best to do it well." Xiao Chen nodded solemnly. (To be continued)