Chapter 13: ◎You’re Quite the Homemaker◎

Zhou Hui’s pupils suddenly contracted, her throat tightening right after. “My dad? … He’s the person in charge?”

Zhao Min’s lips curved into a smile whose meaning was hard to pin down. “What? Does Officer Zhou really have no idea at all? Director Zhou never mentioned this to you?”

Zhou Hui could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her father, Zhou Boyan. Even when they did meet, a casual meal together could spark a full-blown war. Zhou Boyan had a hundred and twenty reasons to be dissatisfied with her, but the one he harped on most was her refusal to find a partner.

They didn’t even live together anymore, going months without seeing each other. Zhou Hui wished she could dodge him all the way to outer space. He kept so much from her—not just work matters, but even everyday details of his life.

Still, Zhao Min’s words caught her off guard. Zhou Hui had always paid close attention to drug-related cases, but the ones from two years ago were another story. The 725 Case had been buried so deep that even the most basic outline was impossible to piece together, and the Shao Yuan Case hadn’t leaked so much as a whisper. This level of deliberate cover-up and information lockdown was downright abnormal—unreasonably so.

Why had the Provincial Bureau sealed off the news time and again, pulling case files up the chain? What were they hiding about the 725 Case? What role had her father played in it all?

And where was Ji Shen, the former criminal investigator from the Provincial Bureau? Was his wife, Yu Bai, really as innocent as she claimed? Had she been involved back then?

These questions raced through Zhou Hui’s mind as she left the coffee shop and drove straight to Zhou Boyan’s place.

She didn’t call ahead or give him any warning. She knew her father too well for that. If she phoned him outright with these questions, he’d shut her down without a word and hang up. Hell, he might even pull a vanishing act, leaving her to search for weeks.

Besides, she’d blocked him after he’d tried to interfere with the Wu Guojiang Case. A surprise attack was the safest bet—confront him face-to-face, lay it all out, and avoid a pointless phone tirade that got her nowhere.

She pulled into the underground garage and spotted Zhou Boyan’s car right away. Looked like she’d timed it perfectly; he was home.

As she backed into her spot, Zhou Hui glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed a black SUV parked diagonally to her left. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before.

In the elevator, she mentally rehearsed how to broach the subject with him, how to maneuver the conversation to draw out answers.

Ding—

The doors opened at her floor. Zhou Hui stepped out and approached the family door, hesitating for a moment before knocking twice, steeling herself. The door swung open from inside almost immediately. “Dad—” The word had barely left her lips when she realized the person standing in the entryway wasn’t him at all.

“Holy shit! Yu Bai?”

Yu Bai was dressed in a full white suit, her feet slipped into house slippers. Clearly, she’d been there for a while. She seemed just as surprised to see Zhou Hui. They stared at each other for a long beat before Yu Bai recovered first, stepping aside to let her in. “Why don’t you come inside first?”

Zhou Hui kicked off her shoes in a rush—left foot then right—before darting into the house. As she bent to grab slippers from the cabinet, her eyes landed on the pink Peppa Pig pair on Yu Bai’s feet. A sudden toothache hit her.

Yu Bai followed her gaze down to her own feet and blinked. “Uncle found these for me. He said they were yours. I didn’t expect you back so soon… Want me to grab another pair?”

“No, keep them on.” Zhou Hui’s mouth twitched as she deliberately looked away, snatching a random pair from the cabinet and jamming them onto her feet. Her tone came out unnaturally stiff. “Uh… these were just some cheap ones I grabbed at the mall. Didn’t pick the style.”

Yu Bai: “…”

Zhou Hui: “…”

They locked eyes, and suddenly Yu Bai burst out laughing, doubling over against the wall. “Peppa’s so cute! You can admit you like her—I won’t make fun of you… hahaha!”

Zhou Hui: “…”

“Okay, fine, I’m done laughing.” Yu Bai glanced at Zhou Hui’s darkening expression and cut herself off, though she only managed to hold it together for two seconds before snorting again. “Pfft! Sorry…”

Zhou Hui embraced the virtue of silence and let it slide.

A sudden thought flashed through her mind, prompting an abrupt change of subject. “You said you were meeting someone. That was my dad?”

Yu Bai shot her an “obviously” look.

“You two know each other? What are you talking about?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Zhou Hui realized she sounded a bit nosy.

Predictably, Yu Bai jumped at the chance to tease her. She grinned wickedly. “You wanna know? Figure it out yourself. Guess right, and I’ll tell you.”

Zhou Hui pouted. “…I’m not guessing!”

As Zhou Hui stepped into the living room, she craned her neck to peer around the house. It was hard to believe that her dad, that eternal workaholic who never set foot at home, was actually in the kitchen cooking—and making dinner for Yu Bai, of all people. Tsk tsk. It had been years since she’d enjoyed treatment like that. It almost made it seem like Yu Bai was the real daughter.

Captain Zhou’s feelings of disparity peaked over the course of that meal. Listening to the sizzle of stir-frying from the kitchen, she felt an inexplicable surge of unhappiness!

Zhou Boyan’s voice drifted out from the kitchen. “Little Yu, is someone here?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Zhou Boyan—Peppa apron tied around his waist—pushed open the kitchen door and stuck his head out. He was still clutching the spatula he’d been using to stir-fry. When he saw it was Zhou Hui, his face darkened in an instant. He charged toward her in two quick strides, looking utterly ferocious as he brandished the “weapon” in his hand and bellowed, “You dared ignore my calls?”

The spectacle gave Yu Bai such a start that she jolted in place. She’d probably never witnessed a greeting quite so aggressive and found herself frozen in the middle of the living room, unsure what to do with her hands or feet.

Zhou Hui’s reaction was even more dramatic. She yanked Yu Bai in front of her as a shield, dodging left and right to evade her father’s targeted assault. Peeking out from behind Yu Bai, she plastered on a forced smile and replied to Zhou Boyan, “Dad—I didn’t ignore your calls. I was on a call right then, wasn’t I?”

“Zhou Hui! Confess and get leniency; resist and face severity. I’ve got eyewitness testimony and hard evidence—how dare you quibble!”

Zhou Hui wouldn’t cry until she saw the coffin. She pressed on with her defense. “What eyewitness and evidence? Dad, there are outsiders here. Give your daughter a little face.”

Caught in the middle with no escape, Yu Bai felt torn between laughter and tears. But at Zhou Hui’s words, she rolled her eyes hard on the inside. So she remembered there was an outsider present! From the very beginning, Zhou Hui had dragged her over as a human shield without a second thought to that fact—and now she suddenly cared about saving face.

Zhou Boyan clearly shared the sentiment. Without mercy, he shredded Zhou Hui’s flimsy attempt to wriggle free. “What are you dragging Little Yu into this for? And let me tell you—your dad has spent decades in criminal investigation. Do you think I’d accuse you without solid proof?”

Zhou Hui fell silent. She truly had no idea what to say.

Zhou Boyan pulled out his phone with a smug flourish. “Heh heh! You think you’re the only one who knows how to use a smartphone? I just checked with Little Yu—it showed the call was ongoing. High chance you blocked me. And that was confirmed by Officer Han Wei from your bureau. Now what do you have to say for yourself?”

Zhou Hui silently cursed Han Wei for his betrayal, selling her out like that. She made up her mind on the spot: no bonus for him this month, no vacation time, meal stipend cut in half—and she hoped he’d stay single forever.

Back at the office, Han Wei let out a sudden sneeze. He rubbed his nose, puzzled. Caught a cold? He had no clue that his boss had just cussed him out from head to toe and heaped such a wicked curse upon him. Reflecting later, Han Wei drew a hard lesson: you really shouldn’t mess with women. There’s truth to the old saying that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Zhou Hui was racking her brain for a way to fool her dad when she glanced up and caught Yu Bai watching her with that pitying look reserved for the simpleminded—a half-smile that seemed to say, “You actually thought that lame excuse would work?”

Zhou Hui couldn’t bear to meet Yu Bai’s gaze. She’d lost all face in front of her today. So she made a snap decision: dignity was expendable; survival came first. Officer Zhou—who feared neither heaven nor earth and could take down armed thugs with her bare hands—did a complete one-eighty in attitude. “Dad, I’m sorry. I was wrong. It won’t happen again.”

Her sincerity rang true, and the turnaround was so swift it left jaws on the floor.

“?”

Yu Bai was utterly baffled by Zhou Hui’s bizarre chain of actions, even as she mentally applauded the apology’s Oscar-worthy sincerity. It was a real eye-opener.

The meal the three of them shared unfolded in a strangely delicate atmosphere—calm on the surface, but laced with the tension of drawn swords beneath. Yu Bai kept her head down and ate, half-expecting the two to come to blows at any moment. The whole experience was oddly thrilling.

To make matters worse, Zhou Boyan’s expressions shifted in a flash. Toward her, he’d beam and eagerly pile food into her bowl. “Little Yu, here—eat up.”

But when he turned to Zhou Hui, his eyes turned razor-sharp. He’d bark without hesitation, “Put it down! Still stuffing your face when you’re already so fat? Give it to Little Yu.”

Zhou Hui had just speared a chicken leg when her father’s glare made her drop it straight back onto the platter. She stared at him blankly for a second, then forced a smile. “I picked it for Yu Bai.” With that, she deposited the drumstick in Yu Bai’s bowl and added, “Dig in!”

Yu Bai stared at the unexpected chicken leg in her bowl, thoroughly perplexed. There was a faint note of grievance in Zhou Hui’s tone. She glanced up at Zhou Boyan, who flashed her another warm smile.

Yu Bai could only return the same smile. Acting talent must run in the family!

She ate this meal in utter discomfort. This pampered young lady had likely never witnessed such an unconventional family dynamic before, and in an instant, all her hard-earned social graces from the business world dropped into the negative.

After dinner, Yu Bai insisted on staying to wash the dishes. Zhou Hui helplessly discovered that this delicate heiress, who had never soiled her hands with chores, didn’t even know what dish soap was. After standing in the kitchen doorway and enduring it for two minutes, Zhou Hui strode over, snatched the plate from Yu Bai’s hands—the one still smeared with grease after five or six rinses under the faucet—and said, “I’ll handle it.”

Yu Bai handed it over, looking a bit embarrassed. “I didn’t realize washing dishes was so tricky.”

Zhou Hui shook her head in exasperation. “It might not be as tough as you think. I just didn’t expect you to be quite this spoiled.”

Yu Bai leaned against the sink and gave a quiet smile, her head lowered.

Amid the rush of running water, Yu Bai’s voice sounded close to Zhou Hui’s ear. “You’re pretty handy around the house.”

Zhou Hui paused in her scrubbing and smiled back. “Spare me that kind of praise. ‘Virtuous wife and loving mother’ couldn’t be further from who I am.”

Yu Bai nodded in agreement with her self-deprecation and continued naturally along those lines. “Hasn’t Officer Zhou ever thought about settling down?”

Zhou Hui spread her hands while holding the dishcloth, her tone wry. “Who’d want someone like me?”

Yu Bai stared at her in disbelief. “If I were a guy, you’d be at the top of my list. Don’t tell me you have zero confidence in your looks and figure!”

Zhou Hui sighed helplessly. “But the moment they hear I work in criminal investigation, nothing else matters. What man wants a wife who’s always pulling overtime, never has time to cook or spend with the kids, charges headfirst into danger, and could drag revenge from criminals right to the family’s doorstep with no guarantee of safety?”

Zhou Hui’s words rang brutally true. People bolted at the mere mention of criminal investigation work—who’d want to live every day on pins and needles?

“That’s fair enough,” Yu Bai conceded, “but even if marriage isn’t the goal, Officer Zhou should carve out some time from that packed schedule for a boyfriend. If outsiders don’t work, what about someone from the team? I hear the Criminal Investigation Team has killer gender ratios in your favor.”

Zhou Hui felt a pang of sympathy for Yu Bai’s innocent outlook—though it was mostly pity for herself.

“Name one case where colleagues actually turned into a couple.”

Yu Bai lowered her gaze, seemingly pondering Zhou Hui’s question with real seriousness. After a moment, she looked up. “Come to think of it… there aren’t any.”

Zhou Hui wrung out the dishcloth, planted her hands on her hips, and eyed Yu Bai from head to toe. “I’m starting to seriously suspect my dad sent you to nag me into marriage—or at least roped you in as a matchmaker.”

“Hm?”

Zhou Hui cut straight to it. “Out with it! How much did my dad pay you? I’ll double it—no, triple it.”

Yu Bai watched Zhou Hui solemnly hold up three fingers and burst into helpless laughter. “Officer Zhou, just how deep does your aversion to marriage run?”

“Then what did you really come to see my dad about?”

Zhou Hui’s knack for drawing out information was no boast; all that chatter had been leading up to this very question.

The sudden pivot caught Yu Bai flat-footed. Zhou Hui’s intense gaze pinned her in place. Yu Bai froze for a second, then improvised on the spot. “I was at the Provincial Department handling some business and ran into your father by chance. We chatted briefly, and when he heard I was your friend, he… Yeah, okay, you don’t buy it.”

Of course Zhou Hui didn’t. Leaving aside that they had only known each other a few days—and their first encounter had been anything but pleasant—her father, Zhou Boyan, was another story. Zhou Hui’s last memory of sharing a meal with him was the New Year’s Eve dinner earlier that year. She’d sooner believe pigs could climb trees than think Zhou Boyan had abruptly turned into a doting host who cooked personally for a near-stranger.

“Tell the truth!” Zhou Hui warned.

Yu Bai pressed her fingers to her temple and turned toward the door. “I’ve got a headache. Can’t remember.”

Zhou Hui instantly recalled Yu Bai’s prior ploy with the intermittent amnesia. She yanked the kitchen door shut, blocking her escape. “Nice try, but you haven’t had any shocks today, so no convenient memory lapse. This was only one or two hours ago.”