Zhou Yushen said nothing.
Without the slightest politeness, he brushed past Li Che and walked into the apartment.
Li Che could only step aside and let him through.
Zhou Yushen sat down on the living room sofa without saying a word.
On the coffee table sat a laptop along with scattered documents.
At a glance, it was obvious Li Che had been working.
Seeing Zhou Yushen in such a bad mood, Li Che stopped handling his business matters as well.
He cleared his throat, sat on the opposite sofa, and looked at Zhou Yushen with mock seriousness.
“Come on, tell your big brother. What’s bothering you?”
Zhou Yushen glanced at him indifferently.
His face remained expressionless, yet he carried an invisible sense of pressure.
Li Che immediately withdrew the teasing smile from his lips and slumped back onto the sofa like he’d given up.
“Actually, you don’t even need to say anything. I can guess it’s about Shen Nanyue, right? You went to her house tonight?”
Zhou Yushen gave a faint hum in acknowledgment.
Then, as if recalling something, he said to Li Che, “Go investigate the butler named Huo Zhu.”
Hearing the unfamiliar name, Li Che was stunned for a moment before suddenly realizing.
“You mean the new butler at the Shen residence?”
“Mm.”
“I heard he was just an ordinary butler introduced by Uncle Liu. What’s there to investigate?”
Zhou Yushen turned his head to look at him, his dark eyes filled with coldness.
He had started feeling something was off about Huo Zhu during dinner with Shen Nanyue.
Huo Zhu had been standing beside the dining room the whole time, occasionally glancing at Shen Nanyue.
His movements had been extremely subtle—so subtle that Shen Nanyue herself hadn’t noticed.
But Zhou Yushen had.
Li Che could only curl his lips helplessly.
“Got it.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he reached over for the laptop on the coffee table.
After closing the work outline on the screen, he entered an interface filled entirely with code.
His fingers moved skillfully across the keyboard before finally stopping at a page.
Displayed on the screen was Huo Zhu’s profile photo and personal information.
Li Che turned the laptop toward Zhou Yushen.
“See for yourself.”
The records showed that Huo Zhu was from Lincheng.
He had started working at fourteen years old, and he had accumulated twenty years of experience as a butler.
Married, with one child.
Most of the major events of his thirty-plus years of life had taken place in Lincheng.
Everything appeared perfectly normal.
Until Zhou Yushen swiped upward with two fingers and reached the employment history section.
Huo Zhu’s previous employer was the Chen family.
Zhou Yushen narrowed his eyes.
Li Che saw it too.
“By the way, An’an also asked me to investigate this Chen family. The waters around them run deep.”
“What else did you find?” Zhou Yushen asked.
Li Che shook his head.
“The information I already had was mostly from what you asked me to investigate before. Nothing much has changed. But I did find some clues about the place where An’an was once imprisoned.”
“Where?”
“The Chen family’s old residence. 144 Dongxiang Road.”
…
The next day.
Shen Nanyue stood on the roadside not far from the Chen family’s old residence with Xiao Qi.
She wore a light gray coat and a pair of sunglasses.
The glaring sunlight filtered through the lush branches overhead, blocking out most of the harsh brightness and leaving only mottled patches of light falling across the two figures beneath the trees.
Xiao Qi crouched nearby with a small laptop in his hands.
While typing away at the keyboard, he spoke to Shen Nanyue.
“Sister Yueyue, I detected signal activity inside. That means someone’s living there.”
The Chen family’s old residence was built in an antique architectural style.
Two stone lions stood before the entrance.
It seemed abandoned for years.
The red-painted gate was covered in a thick layer of dust, and even the fallen leaves on the steps were spread so evenly that it truly looked as though no one had entered for a very long time.
Shen Nanyue glanced at the vermilion gate and said to Xiao Qi, “Wait for me here.”
With that, she started walking toward the residence.
Xiao Qi was startled and quickly shut his laptop before hurrying after her.
“Sister Yueyue, there might be people inside! It’s dangerous for you to go in alone!”
Shen Nanyue stopped and turned to look at him.
“The front gate of the Chen family’s old residence faces the main street. People pass by all the time, yet nobody has ever heard any movement coming from inside. That means the people in there have never been using the front entrance. I remember the back gate of the residence faces the mountain behind it, where nobody ever goes. Those people must be entering and leaving through the back.”
As she spoke, Shen Nanyue patted Xiao Qi on the shoulder.
The force was light, yet Xiao Qi somehow felt an invisible pressure from it.
“Since they don’t dare show themselves openly, if I walk in through the front gate fair and square, they won’t dare act recklessly once the door’s open. Stay outside and keep watch. If I’m not out within an hour, call the police for me.”
Xiao Qi didn’t know how to persuade Shen Nanyue otherwise.
He could only watch helplessly as she walked through the gate.
Left with no choice, he stayed where he was, his eyes fixed firmly on the entrance.
Shen Nanyue pushed open the heavy gate.
Dust immediately cascaded down, forcing her to quickly step back.
The dust suddenly choked her, making her cough twice as she retreated even farther from the door.
“There’s way too much dust here.”
She brushed the dust off her clothes.
Once the dust cloud around the entrance had settled somewhat, she stepped inside.
Walking inward from the main gate, wild grass grew densely on both sides of the path.
Tiny weeds stubbornly poked through the cracks between the stone slabs in the center walkway.
Shen Nanyue walked along the stone path, passed through a small garden, and crossed a long corridor.
The closer she got to the main building, the more obvious the signs of maintenance became.
The wild grass disappeared.
The corridor railings were clean as well.
Birds swooped down from the sky and landed on the lush trees beside the corridor.
As their wings fluttered, faint murmuring human voices drifted over as well.
Shen Nanyue stopped walking and turned into a room that resembled a living room.
Two people passed outside the door.
Hidden inside, she could only see their silhouettes reflected through the window lattice.
“Next week’s exchange gathering will be left to you. Make sure you arrange everything properly. If anything goes wrong, I won’t be this easygoing.”
“Yes, yes, yes, Young Master Meng, don’t worry. Leave it all to me.”
The two figures gradually moved farther away.
Hidden inside the room, Shen Nanyue frowned slightly.
Why was it Meng Yan?
And what was this exchange gathering next week?
Before she could think further, she stepped out again and continued forward.
At the other end of the corridor corner—
Chen Mu’s father was walking over while talking with a man who looked like an elite professional.
The two seemed to be having a pleasant conversation.
“Please rest assured. Following your instructions, I’ve already arranged suitable candidates. The customers will definitely be satisfied.”
The man beside Father Chen wore a perfectly tailored black suit.
His face wasn’t particularly handsome, nor was it ugly—just stern and proper.
But he possessed a pair of eagle-like eyes that made people shudder in fear.
His gaze was frighteningly sharp, filled with cold and sinister hostility.
“Of course I trust your work.”
The man deliberately lowered his voice.
It sounded like a voice crawling out from hell itself—deep and muffled.
“I suggest you pay attention to that girl from the Shen family. She seems unusually interested in the Chen family lately.”
But Father Chen looked utterly disdainful.
“She’s just a little girl. What kind of trouble could she possibly stir up? Even her father fell into my hands, let alone his daughter. Don’t worry, I know how to deal with her.”
The two men continued walking forward.
At the same time, Shen Nanyue was also walking toward the corner from the opposite side of the corridor.
The three of them were about to run straight into each other.
— The end of the Chapter–
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