The man on the other end of the phone, Pei Yu, frowned. Her? Husband?
He suddenly looked toward the sleeping girl on the hospital bed and said coldly, “Who are you?”
“She’s drunk. She’s at ZL Club, Room 2302. Take her away.”
Pei Yu froze for a moment. Just as he was about to reply, the call had already been hung up.
Cough… cough…
The little girl on the bed suddenly coughed a few times. She opened her eyes and said in a soft, childish voice, “nana…”
Pei Yu put down his phone and went to prepare a bottle of milk. The little girl held the bottle and drank greedily, milk spilling all over her mouth.
“Nana…”
Nian Nian suddenly lifted the bottle, and milk dripped down her chubby wrist onto Pei Yu’s clothes.
“You really are a little greedy cat,” he said.
He gently wiped her sleeve, carefully avoiding the bruises from the IV on her hand.
“I want… song song…”
Under the glow of the bedside lamp, his lowered figure was wrapped in soft light. His eyelashes cast fan-shaped shadows under his eyes, and his Adam’s apple moved as he hummed a slightly off-key children’s song.
Nian Nian listened while reaching for his black-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. Pei Yu deliberately scrunched his nose to tease her, and just like that, he completely forgot the earlier phone call.
Meanwhile, Pei Yanli had already hung up and stepped outside to get some air.
The 23rd floor belonged entirely to him. It was so quiet that he couldn’t calm his thoughts.
He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit one after another.
But he still didn’t wait for the person he was expecting.
He called again, but this time the phone was already turned off.
His brows furrowed as memories flashed through his mind—how she had clung to him last night, crying and making a fuss, refusing to let go.
A drunk wife, and a husband who ignores her?
What kind of husband is that?
The manager rushed over after hearing the news. Seeing the man’s slightly disheveled suit—and especially the bite mark on his neck—he hesitated.
It looked exactly like a man who had just slept with a woman.
No wonder Miss Qin had urgently requested surveillance footage earlier.
“Why are you looking?” Pei Yanli said coldly.
The manager quickly looked away. “Mr. Pei… there’s something on your neck…”
In the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling window, Pei Yanli saw the bite mark on his neck. His gaze darkened further.
“Know what you should and shouldn’t say.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Pei. I won’t speak carelessly in front of the old master.”
“Has my grandfather left?”
“Not yet. He’s waiting for you downstairs.”
“Don’t let anyone come up.”
“Yes.”
In the downstairs private room.
As soon as Pei Yanli opened the door, a teapot flew toward him and shattered at his feet.
“Where have you been?”
A cold, authoritative voice came from inside.
Old Master Pei stood in the center with a cane, his face dark with anger.
His sharp gaze swept over Pei Yanli and finally landed on his slightly messy collar and the ambiguous bite mark on his neck.
Pei Yanli stepped over the broken porcelain calmly.
“I was handling some personal matters.”
Old Master Pei slammed his cane hard. “And you call that personal matters?”
The man’s gaze was steady. “Didn’t you always tell me to move forward, Grandfather?”
Old Master Pei stepped closer, his eyes piercing. “Pei Yanli, I will never allow what happened three years ago to destroy you again! Since you slept with the Qin family girl, you should take responsibility—not go around provoking other women! The Pei family will not tolerate such irresponsibility.”
Pei Yanli’s jaw tightened. After a pause, he said coldly, word by word:
“Do you think I should marry any woman just because I slept with her?”
He wasn’t so careless that he couldn’t even tell whether he had slept with Qin Songyin.
“You—”
Old Master Pei raised his cane in anger.
At that moment, there was a soft knock at the door.
The manager’s nervous voice came through: “Old Master, Mr. Pei… Miss Qin says she wants to see you. She said if she doesn’t get an answer tonight, she won’t leave.”
Pei Yanli’s eyes darkened with irritation.
Old Master Pei lowered his voice. “Don’t you also want to know about Jiang Zhi? Back then she left you and ran off with another man. Don’t you want to know who that man was?”
At this, the man looked at him but said nothing.
“Get along properly with the Qin girl. I can hand her over to you to deal with.”
With that, Old Master Pei turned and left.
Outside the door, Qin Songyin stood there with red eyes, chin stubbornly raised, tightly gripping her phone.
The moment she saw him, her gaze fell immediately on the bite mark on his neck, and her face turned pale.
“Pei Yanli,” she said, her voice trembling but controlled, “the woman you were holding earlier… who is she?”
Pei Yanli looked at her with cold, emotionless eyes.
Light from the hallway cast deep shadows across his face.
His thin lips parted. His voice was low, but clear enough for everyone to hear:
“None of your business.”
“…Is she your female secretary?”
“Qin Songyin, I’m not interested in you. Don’t act like you’re my wife.”
Qin Songyin bit her lip as she watched him leave without looking back, fists clenched.
Outside, a cold wind hit as he got into the car.
His eyes were fixed ahead.
If not for his grandfather’s reminder, he would have almost forgotten the man who took Jiang Zhi away.
He took out an audio file on his phone and sent it to Chen Chi.
“Find this person as soon as possible.”
The truth he had been chasing—he would uncover it at any cost, piece by piece.
The thick door was closed tightly, blocking out even the faintest morning light. Inside, there was no sense of time—no day, no night.
Chen Chi worked quickly and found 9,999 people with similar voice patterns.
After multiple rounds of filtering, only 20 people remained. Their occupations varied: hospital interns, caregivers, and patients.
“After big data comparison, these are the final candidates. But since it happened three years ago, there may still be omissions. For example, these few had thyroid surgery and lost their voices…”
Pei Yanli flipped through the list, and suddenly a name caught his attention.
Pei Yu.
“That period, he was an exchange student there.”
Pei Yu was the unofficial second young master of the Pei family—Pei Yanli’s half-brother.
However, because he was an illegitimate child, the Pei family had never acknowledged him.
“But he was still in high school at the time, so the age doesn’t quite match. I also asked the others—they all said they don’t know Jiang Zhi. A Yan, why are you suddenly investigating—”
Pei Yanli frowned, his eyes fixed on the list. Aside from Pei Yu, the other men looked ordinary.
He didn’t believe Su Yi would abandon him for men like that.
Everything seemed logical, flawless—but something still felt wrong. He just couldn’t explain it.
“Keep investigating!”
Chen Chi nodded, then glanced at his neck.
“A Yan… that mark on your neck… who left it?”
Pei Yanli touched his neck and looked at him.
“Who do you think?”
“…Don’t tell me it was Assistant Su? You two… did that?”
Pei Yanli didn’t answer. To Chen Chi, that was confirmation.
Sighing, Chen Chi said, “A Yan, even though Jiang Zhi is gone, don’t ruin yourself like this… just because of a woman like that…”
Those words struck harshly.
“Who are you talking about?” Pei Yanli’s face darkened instantly.
“Assistant Su is beautiful, but she’s married and her child is already a year and a half old. Even if she’s clean, the Pei family would never accept a married woman as your wife, let alone let you raise someone else’s child—”
“I’m not that depraved,” Pei Yanli interrupted sharply.
He turned and left.
At a corridor outside a private room, he suddenly heard chaotic shouting and crying inside.
He stopped.
The voice sounded familiar.
“Don’t hit me, don’t hit me! I know… I shouldn’t have come here, I was wrong.”