Chapter 82 Found
Director Li's eyes were sharp and heavy. He stared at Gu Qiuyue silently for a few seconds. His eyes were full of understanding, but more of an unquestionable rejection. "Comrade Gu Qiuyue, I admire your courage and your feelings for Comrade Shi Yu. But no."
His tone was firm. "First, search and rescue is a highly specialized and organized operation that requires unified command and dispatch. If an individual rashly enters, not only will it be inefficient, but their own safety will be completely unprotected, and they will very likely be put in danger, adding an additional burden to the search and rescue work."
He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the training ground under the scorching sun. His back seemed a little heavy. "Secondly, the environment in the area where we lost contact is extremely complex and harsh. The topography may have changed dramatically after the sandstorm. Even our experienced search team faces a huge challenge. Thirdly,"
He turned around and looked directly into Gu Qiuyue's tearful and anxious eyes. "You are Comrade Xie Shiyu's lover, his spiritual support, and one of the pillars of your entire family. Your mother-in-law needs you, your father-in-law needs you, and your two children need you even more. You stay behind, take good care of the elderly and children, stabilize the family, and let Comrade Shiyu have no worries. This is the greatest support for him, and this is what you should do most and what is most important right now."
Director Li's words were like a basin of ice water, extinguishing the desperate flame in Gu Qiuyue's heart and allowing her to clearly see the cold barrier of reality. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, only hot tears silently slid down.
In the evening, she returned home with heavy steps. The aroma of food wafted out from the courtyard gate, and the laughter of Huahua and Shuangshuang could be heard faintly. Gu's father and mother came over and were heartbroken to see their daughter's distraught look. Not long after they sat down, the black telephone in the living room rang sharply again.
Gu Qiuyue almost rushed over and grabbed the receiver: "Hello?"
"Yueyue!" The voice of the eldest brother, Gu Qiuhan, came from the receiver. It penetrated the distant radio waves, carrying the roughness of the northwest wind and sand and an unquestionable calmness. "It's me! It's something at home. Dad called me."
"Brother!" Hearing her brother's voice, Gu Qiuyue's strong will collapsed in an instant, and her voice choked with sobs, "Shi Yu..."
"I know!" Gu Qiuhan's voice was firm, interrupting his sister's sobbing. "Listen, Yueyue, I'm in the Northwest Military Region right now. The search and rescue headquarters is not far from where I'm stationed. I've received orders to bring our mobile company and be ready to send reinforcements at any time. I'm more familiar with the terrain and climate characteristics of the search and rescue area than you are. Our people are advancing inch by inch!"
His voice suddenly rose, carrying the commanding tone unique to a soldier, brooking no room for rebuttal: "You! Stay in the capital, take good care of our parents, take good care of Uncle Xie and Aunt Xie, take good care of Huahua and Shuangshuang, and don't cause any more trouble. Do you understand? Finding people is our job as soldiers. Trust the organization, trust your brother. Shi Yu is a very lucky kid, and he's waiting for news from us."
"Brother..." Gu Qiuyue held the receiver and burst into tears.
Every word of her elder brother was like a heavy anchor, pulling her heart, which was drifting in the stormy waves, back to the coastline of reality. Yes, she couldn't panic, she had her battlefield.
It was late at night. Mr. Xie's condition had temporarily stabilized, and he took his medicine and went to sleep.
Huahua and Shuangshuang also fell asleep to the gentle lullaby sung by Gu's mother. Xie's mother sat in front of Xie's father's bed, still mending the soles of the pair of shoes that seemed to never be finished, but her movements were much slower than usual and her eyes were a little empty. Gu Qiuyue brought a cup of hot water and gently placed it next to her mother-in-law.
She was not sleepy, so she returned to her room and closed the door. On the table was the thick "Science and Technology Dictionary" still spread out, and next to it was a pile of translation manuscripts waiting to be proofread.
She stared blankly for a while, and her eyes finally fell on the familiar notebook - the notebook with the "Three-Year Plan for the Future" written on it.
Slowly opening the book, she saw in the column of "Financial Independence" that next to the words "Submit articles to newspapers to earn royalties", the line of small words she had added not long ago was particularly clear under the light: Pay attention to the circulation value of old books/materials.
The calm and shrewd silhouette of the man in the gray shirt at the corner of the alley, the foreign technical book that was carefully traded... In that information-blocked era, knowledge, or the carrier of knowledge, was far more valuable than the paper itself. This idea, which had been completely shattered by the news of the sandstorm, now resurfaced in the desperate night, like a floating plank after a shipwreck, with a cold and solid touch.
She could not go to the northwest to look for her husband, but she was not without things to do, nor was she without a way out. She needed strength, the strength to support this crumbling home, and the strength to prepare for the vague but necessary "future".
Gu Qiuyue picked up the pen and drew two horizontal lines under the words "Pay attention to the circulation value of old books/materials". Then, she spread out a new piece of manuscript paper under the lamp, took a deep breath, and forced herself to temporarily lock all the panic, fear, and longing into the deepest corner of her heart. The tip of the pen fell on the paper, making a rustling sound, and she began to concentrate on translating those complex technical paragraphs.
Every precise term, every fluent sentence, is like carving out a tiny crack in this endless darkness and waiting, allowing a ray of light called "hope" to stubbornly filter in.
Outside the window, the night sky of the capital is still deep, and over the desert in the northwest, the wind and sand may still be howling, and the dawn is still in the unknown distance.
But the figure who keeps writing under the lamp, and the notebook that carries vague vitality, are silently accumulating the power of waiting and searching in the long night.
The night faded away quietly amid the rustling sound of the pen tip, and a ray of gray morning light filtered through the window lattice. Gu Qiuyue rubbed her sore eyes, put down her pen, and was about to get up to stretch her stiff shoulders and neck when she heard an extremely light but unusually clear sound of footsteps, which finally stopped outside the courtyard gate. Immediately afterwards, there were two short and restrained knocks on the door, which knocked on the heavy courtyard door, and also seemed to knock on Gu Qiuyue's heart.
Her heart suddenly stopped beating, her blood seemed to solidify instantly, fear and a faint hope tore at her nerves. She stood up suddenly, and the chair legs made a harsh scraping sound against the ground.
She almost stumbled out of the room and walked through the silent hall, her hands trembling so much that she could hardly hold the cold door bolt.
Pulling open the heavy courtyard door, a dusty soldier stood outside in the cool morning light. His face was filled with fatigue, but his eyes held a hint of relief. Seeing Gu Qiuyue, he hurriedly said, "Sister-in-law, we've found Old Xie."
Gu Qiuyue didn't have time to go home to inform others, so she followed Zhou Changzheng to the military district general hospital. It was not until she saw Xie Shiyu's pale face in the ward that she finally felt relieved.
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