Chapter 139 Scare Yourself
Seeing this, Xie Shiyu gently stroked her shoulder with his broad palm, "Don't worry, think about it again, maybe you remembered the wrong place?"
Gu Qiuyue shook her head, "I clearly put it here." She searched again without giving up, but still could not find the anonymous letter.
Xie Shiyu pondered for a moment. "Maybe the kids rummaged through it. Didn't Huahua come to you yesterday to ask for drawing paper?" He said gently, "Don't scare yourself. Maybe it got stuck somewhere."
This explanation relaxed Gu Qiuyue's tense nerves a little. She took a deep breath and said, "Maybe." But deep in her heart, a trace of uneasiness still lingered.
Xie Shiyu put his arm around her shoulders and said, "Okay, don't think about it. We still have to go to work tomorrow. Let's rest first."
That night, Gu Qiuyue did not sleep well. She seemed to always hear subtle noises in her half-awake state. Every time she woke up, she would see her husband's peaceful sleeping face beside her and the peaceful moonlight outside the window, and then she would slowly close her eyes again.
The next morning, Xie Shiyu got up early and prepared breakfast, including golden corn porridge, a small plate of pickles, and steamed white flour buns. The aroma of the food filled the small kitchen, dispelling the uneasiness of last night.
"Eat more," Xie Shiyu handed the largest steamed bun to Gu Qiuyue, "I have to go to the division headquarters for a meeting today, and I'll take the children to kindergarten on the way."
Gu Qiuyue nodded, feeling warm at heart as she watched her two children chattering while eating breakfast. Huahua ate quickly, with porridge grains on the corners of her mouth, while Shuangshuang took small bites of the steamed buns, looking well-behaved.
After seeing her husband and children off, Gu Qiuyue packed up her things and went out on her bicycle.
The morning sun shone on the tree-lined avenue of the military family compound. Several early risers were hanging their laundry in front of the gate and greeting each other. Everything was so ordinary and peaceful.
Before Xie Shiyu went to work, he deliberately went to the security department. The section chief was a soldier he had led before. Seeing him coming, he quickly stood up and saluted. "Hello, Chief, any instructions?"
Xie Shiyu waved his hand. "It's nothing serious. It's just that there are more unfamiliar faces around the compound recently. Your sister-in-law is a little worried. I'd like to ask the brothers to pay more attention to our area."
The section chief immediately said seriously, "Don't worry, Deputy Commander. We will definitely increase patrols and report any situation to you at any time!"
Xie Shiyu patted his shoulder and said, "There's no need to make a big fuss, just pay more attention to it in your daily life." After that, he said goodbye and went to the division headquarters.
There were no classes in the morning, so Gu Qiuyue came to the school library. Teacher Zhou was tidying up the bookshelves. When he saw her coming, he pushed his reading glasses.
"Teacher Gu, I have something to tell you." Teacher Zhou lowered her voice. "Yesterday you asked about Master Qin, and then I remembered that she seemed to have a distant niece who learned embroidery from her for a few days, but later married and moved away. I heard that she was in the provincial capital, but I forgot her last name..."
Gu Qiuyue's heart moved.
The provincial capital? Wasn't that exactly where she'd received the translation invitation from the provincial Xinhua Bookstore? But she quickly suppressed the thought, thinking it was probably a coincidence.
"Thank you, Teacher Zhou. I'm just asking out of curiosity." Gu Qiuyue said with a smile.
In the afternoon, Xie Shiyu took a special leave and accompanied Gu Qiuyue to the county cultural center as promised. The bus was driving on the dusty dirt road. Gu Qiuyue leaned on her husband's shoulder, looking at the poplar trees passing by outside the window, and felt much more relaxed than last time.
In the cultural center, the embroidery exhibition was still going on. The female staff member recognized them and came over.
"Comrade, are you here to see the exhibition again?"
Gu Qiuyue smiled and nodded, "Yes, I didn't see enough last time. Oh, by the way, last time you mentioned the man and woman who came to conduct research..."
"Oh, them!" The girl remembered something. "That woman seemed particularly interested in needlework. She asked very detailed questions and even said someone in her family used to embroider... Oh, and she accidentally spilled some ink and used stationery printed with Xinhua Bookstore to soak it up."
Gu Qiuyue and Xie Shiyu exchanged glances. Xie Shiyu pondered for a moment and rationally analyzed, "Perhaps someone from the bookstore's editorial department wants to plan a related book? It's normal for researchers to inquire more carefully."
He turned to Gu Qiuyue and said, "If you're really curious, next time you write or call Manager Cheng of the provincial store, you can ask them if they have sent anyone to the local area to collect folk craft materials."
This explanation was reasonable, and Gu Qiuyue felt relieved. She took her husband's arm and concentrated on appreciating the embroidery in front of her. The peony picture was particularly vivid in the afternoon sun, and the layers of petals seemed to have a real fragrance.
"It's really exquisite," Xie Shiyu admired sincerely even though he didn't know embroidery. "No wonder you are so fascinated by it."
Gu Qiuyue nodded. "This skill should be passed down." She suddenly remembered something. "Oh, Teacher Zhou said that Master Qin might have a niece who learned embroidery in the provincial capital..."
Xie Shiyu smiled gently, "That's great, you can ask about it next time you contact the provincial store."
In the evening, the couple went to the kindergarten to pick up their children. When Huahua and Shuangshuang saw their parents coming together, they jumped for joy and kept talking about the interesting things that happened in kindergarten that day.
After returning home, Xie Shiyu put on an apron and went to cook, while Gu Qiuyue helped the children with their homework. The small house was filled with the smell of fireworks and laughter.
"Mom, did I write this well?" Shuangshuang held up her homework book, on which she had written the new Chinese characters neatly.
Gu Qiuyue was about to praise her when Huahua suddenly pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from the crack of the sofa. "Mom, what is this?"
When Gu Qiuyue took it and looked at it, she was immediately at a loss whether to laugh or cry - it was the "lost" anonymous letter, which turned out to be accidentally taken away by the child to play with and stuffed into the gap between the sofas.
"You two little rascals, did you touch your mother's drawer?" Gu Qiuyue asked in a serious tone.
Huahua blinked her big eyes and said, "I just took a piece of paper and drew..."
Xie Shiyu poked his head out of the kitchen and said with a smile, "What did I say? It was just the kids who did it. They scared themselves like that."
Gu Qiuyue smiled embarrassedly, and a stone in her heart finally fell to the ground. She carefully smoothed the letter and put it away. Although she was no longer worried, she always felt that the appearance of this letter was not accidental.
Before going to bed, Gu Qiuyue tidied up her desk, preparing to write a letter to Manager Cheng of the Provincial Store to inquire about the researcher. She opened the drawer and took out the manuscript notes on embroidery techniques - which she had compiled based on the school library information and her own research.
However, as she was flipping through the pages, she frowned slightly. The order of the manuscript seemed to have been tampered with, and the arrangement of several pages was not what she was used to.
She clearly remembered that she had sorted them by stitches, but now they were piled together by pattern type.
"Could it be that Shuangshuang is rummaging through the drawers looking for drawing paper?" Gu Qiuyue thought uncertainly.
But then she thought, although Shuangshuang is naughty, she never touches her mother's work materials, and the child prefers to draw on white paper, so why would she deliberately look for these manuscript papers full of words?
Gu Qiuyue reorganized the manuscript and decided to ask the child tomorrow.
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