After Chen Feng got home and finished his shower, he picked up his phone and, unsurprisingly, there were still quite a lot of unread messages.

He roughly skimmed through those unread messages; as usual, they were from the same few women.

Among his WeChat contacts, there were originally very few men, and even fewer who actually messaged him.

As usual, Chen Feng basically didn't reply to most of them, just sent replies to Jin Xinyan and Wu Mengting.

Jin Xinyan had proper business, asking if he wanted her to fly to Lu City to help him register the jewelry store and handle all the preparations, since she was now his personal assistant.

She'd originally planned to fly to Shen City and go with Chen Feng to sign the contract at Zhao Shengsheng's headquarters, but he rejected that; he already had two women with him at the time, obviously no need to add her to the mix. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Same this time—Chen Feng really didn't want her coming over to his hometown side, so he turned down her request.

Wu Mengting, on the other hand, was asking how his search for a storefront went today; Chen Feng told her a bit, they exchanged a few simple lines, then he pretty much stopped replying, and seeing that, Wu Mengting tactfully stopped messaging him.

He'd basically been running around outside all day today and was a bit tired; it was already about nine‑thirty now, and health‑conscious Chen Feng was planning to go to sleep.

But he'd barely lain down when his phone started ringing—he'd forgotten to switch it to silent.

He picked it up and saw that it was actually a call from Cheng Yuhuan. Chen Feng frowned, but still answered.

"Chen Feng, come out and have late‑night snacks with me."

Cheng Yuhuan said in a light, breezy tone.

"I'm busy, next time." Chen Feng turned her down flat.

"Next time? When's that? Hurry up, I'm alone in the hotel right now, bored to death. I was going to ask Mengyao out, but she has to be with her kid. I went to ask Xiao Yue and she's actually out on a blind date. Tell me, I'm bored out of my mind here."

Chen Feng rationally offered her a suggestion: "If you're that bored, just go home, and spend some time with your kid too."

"Chen Feng, you're pissing me off on purpose, aren't you? Can you not play properly?"

Cheng Yuhuan sounded a bit angry, but Chen Feng didn't care and kept suggesting, "If you don't want to go home, then ask some other classmates out with you. I really don't have time, I was just about to sleep."

"Other classmates? The ones still in Lin Nan—besides Mengyao, Xiao Yue, and you, I don't vibe with the others. You're going to sleep now? Who are you fooling? It's not even ten yet, what are you sleeping for? If you want to turn me down, at least come up with a better excuse."

"Why would I lie to you? I really was about to sleep. Okay, I'm not talking to you anymore, I'm really sleepy."

"I don't think you're sleeping, I think you're sleeping with some woman, right? Who's with you? Mengyao, or some other woman?"

Chen Feng wanted to just hang up on her, but felt that would be like admitting it, so he argued back instead: "You just said Mengyao's at home with her kid, and as for other women, even less likely. I'm at my family home here in my old hometown."

"I don't believe you. Unless you video call me right now."

"If you don't believe me, then forget it. Even if I really were sleeping with some other woman, I don't owe you any explanation, do I? Anyway, I'm hanging up."

"You're feeling guilty. I bet there's definitely a woman with you. Otherwise, what big grown man goes to sleep before ten? Even I, a woman, don't go to bed before eleven at the earliest."

Chen Feng could only think, damn. He really didn't care much if she misunderstood him, but being falsely accused like this still annoyed him. He immediately sent a video call invite to Cheng Yuhuan.

It connected very quickly, and she appeared on the phone screen, wearing only a bathrobe, the neckline quite open, revealing a patch of snow‑white skin.

Chen Feng had no intention of enlarging the image for a closer look; he just turned the phone around in a slow circle and said, "See? I'm at my place in my countryside hometown, all by myself."

"So you are." Cheng Yuhuan said, then giggled. "But who knows if you didn't send her away first? Maybe she's hiding in the bathroom."

"Damn, believe what you want." Chen Feng was a bit pissed now and directly hung up, ending the video call.

He'd brought that on himself anyway. Why did he have to prove his innocence to her? Why care that much?

The call from Cheng Yuhuan came in again; Chen Feng declined it, then switched his phone to silent, put it on the nightstand, and fell asleep not long after lying down.

The next morning at breakfast, Chen Feng got a call from Qin Zhen, who said he'd gone to see Chen Guoxiang in person yesterday and asked about some things regarding Gao Xinfu. On the surface, Chen Guoxiang seemed quite cooperative, but was clearly hiding something from him, and when he brought up Chen Feng, it was obvious that Chen Guoxiang was not friendly toward him at all, with resentment in his tone.

So Qin Zhen was very curious what Chen Feng had done to wrong Chen Guoxiang, and asked Chen Feng about it.

At first, Chen Feng also couldn't figure out why Chen Guoxiang resented him—after all, he had once lent his wife (ex‑wife) a million to help pay off Guoxiang's gambling debts.

But he quickly more or less guessed the reason.

It was simple: Ni Yuhua and Chen Guoxiang had gotten divorced. Chen Guoxiang had obviously pinned the cause of the divorce on Chen Feng, maybe even suspected that he'd had something going on with his wife.

Otherwise, Chen Feng being so generous as to lend his wife a million would be hard to explain.

Of course, Chen Feng couldn't bring himself to tell Qin Zhen this speculation of his, so he changed the subject and asked, "You really plan on going after an armed murderer?"

"Not going after, just helping to look for useful leads."

"Isn't that the same? You don't have a gun now. If you track him down, your life might not be worth much."

"I'm not stupid, I won't tail him too closely."

"Either way, you've only got one life. Take care of yourself and don't do anything too dangerous. Even if you're a cop, that still applies."

"Ok ok, I hear you. I'll be careful, thanks for the concern. Oh, and you be careful too—don't go wandering around these next couple of days, especially not over by Bay Town. Make sure you tell your family as well, give them a heads‑up."

"Okay, got it."

"Alright, that's it then."

Qin Zhen was straightforward; once he'd said his piece, he hung up.

Chen Feng, meanwhile, ate his breakfast while casually searching online for the Lu City shooting case, and as expected, plenty of information came up.

He randomly clicked the top news link, first seeing the report on Ma Laoliu, Ma Guowang being killed, then a brief personal profile of the suspect, Gao Xinfu, including a photo from his ID card.

From his looks, Gao Xinfu had an honest, simpleminded face. He had no prior criminal record and had never done time. You really couldn't tell he'd turn out to be a killer who shot someone dead in a busy downtown area.

Where had he gotten the gun? That was a key question. For an ordinary citizen, getting a gun was pretty much impossible.

The fact that Gao Xinfu could get a gun meant he was no harmless average Joe.