Professor Bao pondered for a moment and said, "I’ll give you a hoop, can you try to embroider something for me to see?"
Xia Chuyi nodded and replied, "I should be able to."
Although her embroidery was not exquisite and she hadn’t practiced in many years, she still remembered the basic stitches and techniques.
As expected, Professor Bao brought a hoop over, covered with a piece of white silk cloth, and said to her, "Give it a try."
"The needles and threads are in the basket."
Professor Bao pointed to a needle and thread basket inside the cupboard.
Professor Bao’s study didn’t resemble a study at all, but rather an embroidery room.
Xia Chuyi took the hoop, thought for a moment, and used the basting stitch to simply outline the contour of a leaf.
Embroidering with the basting stitch did not create delicate shapes, but because it focused on the sequence and alignment of each stitch, running from beginning to end neatly and tightly, it truly tested one’s fundamental skills.
Thus, after she finished, Professor Bao took the seemingly simple half-finished leaf.
After a long silence, Professor Bao said, "Though your stitching appears somewhat crude, it indeed bears some resemblance to Gu Embroidery."
"You must be an external disciple of Gu Embroidery who was taught just the basics," Professor Bao’s words were very straightforward.
She felt she had let down her master.
"Nevertheless, it’s quite good," Professor Bao said.
He removed the silk cloth from the hoop and said, "Come, follow me to meet someone!"
Professor Bao led her to a bedroom not far from the study.
Pushing open the door, the interior was strikingly different from the crude setup outside—filled with delicate details, much warmer and more refined, featuring orchid paintings, an embroidered wardrobe, and a carved dresser.
Further inside the room, there was a large wooden bed draped with a mosquito net.
Professor Bao approached it gently and softly called to the person on the bed, "Xiu Zhi, Xiu Zhi?"
After a while, a rustling sound came from inside, followed by a frail and weak woman’s voice, "Jiaye, you’re here?"
"I’m so tired, I fell asleep again."
Professor Bao lifted the mosquito net and, with a gentleness not seen before, softly said, "Xiu Zhi, I’ve found a successor to Gu Embroidery."
"What?" The weak voice of the woman perked up a bit, "Where?"
Professor Bao pointed towards Xia Chuyi, and the woman named Xiu Zhi immediately looked over at her.
Xia Chuyi, with some effort, adapted from being "crude" to being a "successor."
She covertly observed the woman.
The woman was very thin, with a pallid face that hardly showed any color, and hair that was dry and yellowed, clearly showing signs of long-term illness.
Xia Chuyi thought to herself: Could this woman lying on the bed be the professor’s wife ’paralyzed in bed’ that Chi Yue spoke of?
However, what Xia Chuyi did not expect was that the moment the woman saw her, she paused, then blurted out, "Aunt Ning?"
Aunt Ning? Ning Yi? Lin Yi?
Xia Chuyi was a bit confused, what exactly was the woman seeing when she looked at her?
Professor Bao held his wife’s hand and said, "She is not Aunt Ning and has no relation to Aunt Ning."
"She is an assistant I found from the academy."
"Xiu Zhi, this time, Chen Fan didn’t just do a perfunctory job, he found a real child who understands embroidery."
"The key is, she is familiar with Gu Embroidery."
Professor Bao hurriedly showed Gu Xiuji the silk cloth that Xia Chuyi had embroidered.
Upon hearing this, Gu Xiuji quickly took the embroidered piece to look, and just at a glance, her hands began to tremble, "Yes, this is the Gu Family’s stitching technique!"
"But, it’s not from ’my’ Gu Family; I no longer belong to the Gu Family."