Zhou Family Old Residence in Haicheng
In the study, the tea in the cup had long since gone cold.
The Old Master stood with his hands behind his back, pacing until he had nearly worn a hole in the stone floor tiles.
Zhou Yanli’s people had finally arrived. His handsome face looked tired, and dark circles shadowed his deep-set eyes.
He hadn’t slept for several days.
A blue-and-white porcelain cup smashed at Zhou Yanli’s feet, tea splashing everywhere.
“Where is she? The news is all over the place, saying Mrs. Zhou is dead. Was the body in the morgue really hers?”
The Old Master’s reaction to the news wasn’t shock or grief, but anger.
Though Zhou Yanli looked exhausted, there was no grief on his face either.
“No.”
He had gone straight to the police station to identify the body. Of course it hadn’t been Mrs. Zhou.
The Mrs. Zhou he knew wasn’t foolish enough to sit waiting to die inside a car that had run out of gas and broken down in the freezing cold.
“Then where did she go? Turn the whole place upside down if you have to, but find her. Do you know that Mrs. Zhou now holds fifty percent of our family’s shares? If she disappears and comes back to strike at us, you, me, the whole Zhou family—we’ll be finished.”
After so many years in business, the Old Master had thought he was a good judge of people. Yet he had still misjudged Mrs. Zhou.
Come to think of it, a woman who had lost the person she loved most was capable of anything.
Zhou Yanli’s eyes reddened. The moment he got the news, all he could think was whether Mrs. Zhou was still alive.
Could fifty percent of the shares buy Mrs. Zhou’s life?
“Send that Wen Xin away as soon as you can. Our Zhou family has done everything we could for her. I, an old man, spent all this time putting on an act to help you save her. She’s alive now; that should be enough.
“If Mrs. Zhou has run off, I’m telling you, the whole family will be sleeping on the street.”
Zhou Yanli said nothing. He silently left the study.
His phone rang as soon as he had come out.
It was Zhou Shuang, calling on her watch.
“Daddy, did you find Mommy? Is Mommy really dead?”
Zhou Shuang hadn’t seen Daddy for several days. That morning, she had woken up early, happily eaten breakfast, and was about to spend some time talking with Auntie Wen Xin when she saw Auntie Wen Xin crying so sadly in her room that she hadn’t even eaten breakfast.
She had thought Mommy had called Daddy away again, and that was why Auntie Wen Xin was crying.
She was about to stand up for Auntie Wen Xin, but Auntie Wen Xin told her the police had said they’d found Mommy’s body.
Although Zhou Shuang had grown close to Wen Xin lately, Mrs. Zhou was still her own mommy. She had burst into tears, and no matter how Wen Xin tried to comfort her, she couldn’t stop.
Daddy had been unreachable for the past few days, too. Zhou Shuang was worried about Mommy and didn’t feel like playing.
At last, she got through to Zhou Yanli. She asked her question as soon as he answered, sobs still catching in her voice.
“Who told you that?”
Zhou Yanli’s expression darkened at once.
“Of course—”
She was going to say Auntie Wen Xin, but she heard how displeased Daddy sounded. Afraid he might scold Auntie Wen Xin if she gave her away, she changed her answer.
“The aunties who take care of Auntie Wen Xin told me.”
It was the first time Zhou Shuang had lied. Zhou Yanli was frantic with worry because he couldn’t find Mrs. Zhou, and didn’t notice anything amiss.
“That’s not true. Your mommy isn’t dead.”
Even if Mrs. Zhou wasn’t dead, she was still missing.
The police wouldn’t accept a missing-person report until forty-eight hours had passed, and Mrs. Zhou’s phone was unreachable. Thinking of his daughter, Zhou Yanli’s jumbled thoughts suddenly fell into place.
“Daddy has something very important to take care of out here. Call Mommy on your watch and ask where she is, then tell Daddy.”
Maybe Mrs. Zhou wasn’t answering his calls because she was angry with him, but surely she wouldn’t ignore Wen Xin’s calls.
When Zhou Shuang heard Daddy say Mommy was all right, her heart, which had been in knots for days, finally relaxed. She calmed down and stopped bursting into tears at the slightest thing.
Her sadness lasted only until Zhou Yanli told her Mrs. Zhou wasn’t dead. She did care about Mommy, but when Zhou Yanli asked her to call Mrs. Zhou, she immediately refused.
Daddy had been at home with Auntie Wen Xin, just fine, then gone out early that morning. Auntie Wen Xin had told her the police called to say Mommy had died. That meant—
Mommy was trying to trick Daddy into coming back again.
She didn’t answer Zhou Yanli right away, but asked glumly, “Daddy, are you at our house now?”
“No.”
So Daddy hadn’t been tricked, but Mommy must be hiding somewhere. Otherwise, why would Daddy ask her to call Mommy?
She wasn’t going to ask Mommy. Mommy was so scheming; she was probably trying to test whether Daddy still cared about her.
If she called and Mommy told her where she was, Daddy would surely leave Auntie Wen Xin and go to Mommy, and she’d have to go back with him too.
At Auntie Wen Xin’s place, Auntie Wen Xin was sick, so no one looked after her.
She could eat whenever she wanted and sleep whenever she wanted. She could play games all day, and even being late for school—or not going at all—was excusable because Panshan Road was too far from kindergarten. Daddy had even arranged for her to take a whole month off.
She didn’t want to contact Mommy. Mommy would definitely make her go to school, and then she wouldn’t be able to do whatever she wanted.
“Daddy, Auntie Wen Xin’s calling me. You’d better come back soon. If Auntie Wen Xin throws up blood like she did that night, I’ll be scared to death. Oh, my watch is almost out of battery too. I’m going to charge it. Bye, Daddy!”
“Shuangshuang.”
Zhou Yanli called back, but Zhou Shuang’s watch had already shut down.
Jing City
“Mrs. Zhou, I don’t care where you are. You have one day to come home.
“Yanli got a call from the police asking him to identify a body. Now every headline in Haicheng is about someone dying in your car, and the police have released your ID number. If they keep digging, sooner or later they’ll uncover that you and Yanli are married.
“Don’t forget, you were the one who shamelessly insisted on marrying into the Zhou family. At the time, Yanli and Wen Xin were already discussing marriage. You agreed to keep their relationship private after you married him. Now you’ve made such a huge mess of things. Are you trying to ruin the Zhou family?”
A phone number and name that had sat untouched in her phone for years suddenly appeared on Lin Shu’s screen.
Even when Jiang Mingling was scolding someone, she spoke slowly and with careful composure.
Each word landed with measured force.
Lin Shu listened for a long time without understanding what she meant, until she picked up her tablet and saw the headlines from Haicheng.
The Ferrari the Zhou family had bought her when they married had become a death car after someone died in it. She had no desire to drive it anymore.
“With the Zhou family’s resources, you could pay to suppress a rumor like this.”
There was no fear or unease in Lin Shu’s voice now. Her calm reply nearly left Jiang Mingling at a loss. Her lofty composure had been shattered, and her voice had unconsciously grown shrill.
“If the Zhou family gets involved, everything will be exposed.”
Lin Shu could hear just how much the Zhou family didn’t want the public to know about her and Zhou Yanli. That made sense. If people found out that the dignified president of Zhou Group had once lived off a woman, wouldn’t they laugh themselves sick?
And yet—
“The police were able to find Zhou Yanli, which proves they know I’m Madam Zhou. Can something like this really be kept secret?”