Getting up from the bed, he didn’t want to turn on the TV because he knew it would definitely be overwhelmed with news about Lewis.
He turned off his phone, unplugged the telephone line, and instructed Quentin not to let anyone disturb him from sleeping; he was too tired.
The game hadn’t even finished, yet he was exhausted. The mental fatigue far exceeded the physical, and he still had to worry about Beelman.
Entering the living room, Gan Guoyang saw Quentin, Feng Peiyu, and a few bodyguards there; they all stood up.
Seeing this, Gan Guoyang said, "What’s going on? Why are you all gathered here? Is something up?"
Quentin stepped forward and said, "Sonny, an hour ago we got the news that Petrović was in a car accident and died."
Gan Guoyang froze on the spot, as if his heart was hit by an icy bullet; his mind went numb, his vision blurred, and there was a buzzing in his ears.
He shook his head, doubting he was dreaming, not yet awake from last night’s nightmare.
What was Quentin saying? It was Lewis who died, not Petrović; it was sudden cardiac arrest, not a car accident.
What was he saying? How could the Portland Trail Blazers lose two people within 24 hours?
Moreover, how could it be Petrović and Reggie Lewis? Impossible, it was a dream, it had to be a dream.
Gan Guoyang found a place to sit down, leaning on something, and looked at Quentin, repeatedly confirming, "Really? Peter is dead? A car accident? How is that possible?"
Quentin said, "We also find it hard to believe, but the news has reported it. He had a rollover accident on his way to Hude Mountain National Forest Park, was thrown out from the passenger seat, and died on the spot."
Quentin’s voice was icy, seemingly devoid of emotion, yet tears had already streamed down from the corners of his eyes.
His eyes were bloodshot; he must have cried several times.
"Why wasn’t I informed immediately?"
"You said not to disturb your sleep, we... we could only wait. Many, many people called, a lot. Including Peter’s family."
Gan Guoyang sat there, stunned. He could barely accept Lewis’s sudden death, but he never imagined Petrović would follow so soon, dying in a car accident.
His will was as strong as steel, and it was difficult to grasp and endure such an event in a short time.
"What happened, what exactly happened?"
Gan Guoyang felt a pain in his temples, an unprecedented pain.
In the face of this immense shock, he couldn’t even feel sadness, only a sense of trouble, even anger.
He was angry about why, at this moment, two close teammates, the best assistants, had to leave the court and the world in such a cruel way.
The disaster struck so suddenly, leaving no room for preparation, like a meteor falling from the sky, shattering everything.
He was outrageously angry, wanting to find someone to have a good fight. He internally and angrily questioned, "If my life is a book, who the hell wrote this! What kind of bullshit lousy writer would write such a plot, fuck you!!"
Gan Guoyang vented his uncontainable anger in his room, all stemming from immense and helpless sadness.
He cursed until his mouth was dry, babbling incoherently, exhausted from the cursing, finally collapsing into tears before calming down.
He had a lot to do, needed to help with their funeral arrangements, comfort everyone’s emotions, bury them properly, visit them every year, remember them, and then let the living continue to live well.
He washed his face, sorted everything out, plugged in the telephone line, and turned on his mobile phone, ready to get things done.
"Beep."
He turned on the TV, switched to a channel with 24-hour rolling news broadcasts.
Soon, news of Petrović’s car accident appeared.
It was true, everything was true, Petrović was in his girlfriend’s car when he got into a rollover accident trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle.
Without a seatbelt, Petrović was thrown out of the car window and died on the spot.
The television camera showed him lying on a stretcher, covered with a white cloth, devoid of life.
"That guy still didn’t buckle up."
"Beep."
He turned off the TV.
Gan Guoyang sat on the bed, staring straight at the reflection of himself on the TV screen.
He got up, left the room, and shut the door with a snap.
The room was empty.
This finals, it felt so long.
[ps: Writing this Chapter was very painful for me, so I ended up cursing myself. However, the deaths of these two are historical facts, not something I arbitrarily invented. Perhaps letting them continue having a life in the novel would have been a nice choice, but considering the plot afterwards and the build-up, they simply couldn’t survive. At least I endeavored to give them a better basketball career. Readers have always been worried about the first book ending too tragically; this Chapter indeed caused me pain, but the main theme of this book is "hope," a theme that runs throughout. In the greatest despair, you often find the greatest hope, so although there’s tragedy, there won’t be too much. Ah Gan’s life restarts with his own death, and his career also finds rebirth in this death, which is the story of the second part. Petrović and Lewis’s legacy will continue. As for everyone’s ongoing concern about Mr. Gan, I have plans and arrangements, which will be explained later, no spoilers for now. I’m not saying I wrote masterfully or ingeniously, I am just trying to let every fate naturally unfold, based on my relatively shallow knowledge and experience, avoiding major logical or emotional inconsistencies to give readers, as well as myself, a good explanation.]