Chapter 80 Lost Contact

Gu Qiuyue often goes to Xinhua Bookstore, which is an ocean of knowledge and an important window for her to obtain translation materials and learn information. She pays attention to which book areas are the most visited and which bookshelves are deserted. The bookstore clerks have long known this young female student with a calm temperament who often comes to take translation work.

Once, she took a break at the entrance of an alley near the side door of a bookstore and accidentally caught a glimpse of two middle-aged men talking in a low voice. One of them was wearing a washed-out Zhongshan suit and carrying a heavy sack in his hand.

The other man was wearing an ordinary gray shirt and khaki pants. He was about forty years old and wore a pair of black-framed glasses. He looked inconspicuous, but his eyes were extremely sharp and shrewd.

The man in the Zhongshan suit carefully took out several old books from the sack. The man in the gray shirt flipped through them quickly, especially a technical book with a worn cover that seemed to be in a foreign language. He paused for a long time. He lowered his voice and said a number. The man in the Zhongshan suit showed an expression of surprise and restraint on his face.

The two men quickly completed the transaction. The man in the gray shirt put the book into his canvas bag and quickly disappeared to the other end of the alley.

Gu Qiuyue's heart moved.

Buying used books? And apparently with a particular preference for technical and foreign-language books? The prices seemed quite high. She subconsciously touched the materials she'd translated. Knowledge... or rather, the carriers of knowledge, in this age of relative information isolation, does it inherently hold some kind of value?

A vague thought was like a stone thrown into the lake, creating ripples in her heart. She silently memorized the calm yet shrewd profile of the man in the gray shirt.

When she got home, she opened the "Three-Year Plan" and added a line of small words next to "Submit articles to newspapers to earn royalties" in the "Financial Independence" column: Pay attention to the circulation value of used books/materials.

Time flew by in the regular busyness, and in the blink of an eye, most of the summer vacation had passed. On a sultry afternoon, the heat was steaming. Gu Qiuyue saw that the children were listless, so she brought a large basin of warm water from the sun and placed it in the shade in the yard.

"Come, let's give the flowers and grass a bath, okay?" she greeted with a smile.

"Okay!" Huahua cheered and immediately took off her little jacket. Shuangshuang also clapped her hands excitedly. The two children took small ladles and cups, scooped water into the basin with a giggle, and then tiptoed to water the few wilted balsams and jasmine flowers at the foot of the wall. The water droplets splashed, reflecting a small rainbow in the sunlight, and also splashed the children's clothes and faces, bringing bursts of cool laughter.

Gu Qiuyue sat on a small bamboo stool beside them, looking at their innocent appearance. The fatigue of the past few days seemed to be washed away by this simple happiness. Xie's mother sat under the eaves, mending the soles of shoes and watching this heartwarming scene with a smile on her face.

The cicadas are still noisy, but they seem to have become the background music of this quiet time.

The shrill ring of the phone was like a needle, suddenly piercing the tranquility of the courtyard in the afternoon. Gu Qiuyue's heart tightened inexplicably. She put down the towel she was using to wipe the child's sweat, and quickly walked into the house to answer the phone.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"Sister-in-law! It's me, Changzheng!" The voice of Xie Shiyu's comrade Zhou Changzheng came from the other end of the line. He had lost his usual composure and was filled with a kind of panic and haste that was suppressed but still clearly audible. "Sister-in-law, something happened! It's... it's Old Xie. The military academy... can't get in touch!"

"What?!" Gu Qiuyue felt dizzy and her fingertips instantly turned cold. "Can't get in touch? What do you mean? Explain clearly!"

"The details are still unclear," Zhou Changzheng said, his voice rapid and urgent, almost tearful. "Old Xie and his group of cadets were conducting a field training exercise when they encountered sudden extreme weather, a sandstorm or something... Now... now the entire team has been missing for over a week. The military academy and local authorities are doing their best to search and rescue, but... but the situation is still unclear. When Commander Xie heard the news, his blood pressure shot up. He's now in the hospital, and his condition isn't good..."

Every word on the other end of the line was like a needle of ice-hardened steel, piercing Gu Qiuyue's eardrums and freezing her entire body through her bloodstream. "Over a week out of contact," "Commander Xie is in the hospital"... Zhou Changzheng's suppressed panic wafted through the receiver, thick and suffocating. She clung to the cold wall, barely able to stand. Her vision darkened, her throat tightened, and she could barely breathe. The chill from her fingertips quickly spread throughout her body.

"Sister-in-law? Sister-in-law, are you still listening?" Zhou Changzheng's voice was trembling with tears.

Gu Qiuyue took a deep breath, the cold air stinging her lungs. She tried her best to steady her voice, each word coming out with difficulty, "I'm listening... Changzheng, thank you for telling me, which hospital is my father-in-law in? I'll be there right away."

After hanging up the phone, the receiver slipped from her sweaty and cold hands and hit the table with a dull thud. She held onto the edge of the table, the dizziness still not completely gone. The crisp laughter of the children playing in the yard splashing water and Xie's mother's gentle questioning voice came through the door curtain: "Yueyue? Who's calling? What happened?" The voice seemed to be through a thick layer of frosted glass, blurry and distant.

Gu Qiuyue suddenly closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she forced herself to suppress the overwhelming panic and dizziness. She had to hold on.

She raised her hand, wiped her face hard, took a deep breath, turned around and lifted the door curtain. The dazzling sunlight made her squint slightly. In the yard, the small rainbow splashed by the basin had not yet dissipated. Shuangshuang was standing on tiptoe, trying hard to pour water on the highest leaf of the Impatiens. Huahua giggled and splashed water into the air. Xie's mother sat in the shadow under the eaves. She stopped sewing the soles of shoes and looked over with concern.

"Mom..." Gu Qiuyue spoke, her voice hoarse and tense without her even noticing, and she walked over with unsteady steps.

The smile on Xie's mother's face froze instantly when she saw Gu Qiuyue's pale face and eyes filled with panic and forced calmness.

She put down the soles and needle and thread in her hands and slowly stood up: "Yueyue? Why do you look so ugly? What happened?" Her sharp eyes swept over Gu Qiuyue's slightly trembling hands.

Gu Qiuyue walked over to Xie's mother and took her cool, rough hands, the hands that had given her warmth and strength countless times. Her throat was blocked, her nose was sore, and she could hardly look her mother-in-law in the eye. "Mom...it's Changzheng calling..." She paused, clearly feeling Xie's mother's hand tighten suddenly.

"...Shi Yu and his team were on a military academy training exercise...and encountered a sudden sandstorm...The entire team...had lost contact...for over a week..."

There was dead silence inside the wall.

The noisy chirping of cicadas outside the courtyard wall was suddenly amplified infinitely, sharply hitting the eardrums, and it was as if it was suddenly pinched off by an invisible hand. The whole world fell into a heart-pounding vacuum. Huahua and Shuangshuang seemed to feel the heavy and strange feeling in the air. They stopped playing and looked blankly at their mother and grandmother who had suddenly fallen silent.