Chapter 9: Fury

Night was deep, and the lights downstairs were going out one by one.

Song Zhiyao had just finished a stack of reports in the study. She stretched wearily, slipped on her slippers, and went back to her room.

She took off her coat and went into the bathroom for a hot shower.

Steam fogged the air. Her skin came out slick and gleaming under the light, her pale, long legs, taut lower belly, and proud breasts catching a soft sheen.

After washing up, Song Zhiyao came out with a towel in hand, drying her hair, her expression faintly tired.

Just as she reached the door, she was about to hang the bath towel on the hook by the frame.

Out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly noticed what looked like a small dirty patch on the inside of the doorframe.

She frowned and bent down to take a closer look.

On the wooden edge there was a small yellowish stain. The outer edges had already dried, but the middle still held a slight sticky sheen, as if it were some kind of residue.

She reached out without thinking and touched it.

Her fingertip smeared across it. The texture was a little thick, not like shampoo or lotion at all.

She lifted her hand and gave it a light sniff at the tip of her nose.

The movement froze in an instant.

That smell... a faint, fishy odor...

Her eyes jolted as if something in her mind had been yanked hard.

She had never truly "handled" it before, but as the captain of the criminal investigation unit, she had seen too many evidence reports and worked too many crime scenes.

No matter how unfamiliar it was, there was no way she could mistake that smell.

Her throat shifted slightly, her fingertips trembling.

That wasn't lotion.

It wasn't shampoo either.

That was semen.

A man's semen.

Her cool face instantly turned even colder, and a hard chill rose in her eyes.

The next second, she walked out of the bathroom, shoved open the bedroom door, and stormed inside.

Chu Fan was lying on the bed, eyes closed, sleeping soundly on his side.

The criminal investigation textbook she had personally put by his pillow hadn't even been touched.

Her fingers trembled slightly with rage, and her breathing picked up despite her trying to hold it back.

"Chu Fan!"

She barked the name, her voice icy.

The man on the bed jerked, opened his eyes, and looked at her in a daze, still carrying the blankness of someone just waking up: "...What is it?"

"What's wrong? You still have the nerve to ask what's wrong?"

Song Zhiyao stepped closer and closer, the fingertip stained with semen still held up in the air.

She looked down at him from above, her gaze ice-cold: "Were you in the bathroom... jerking off?"

Chu Fan froze in place, his mind exploding with a bang.

The first thing he thought of was his sister-in-law -

Did Song Zhiyu sell him out?

Hadn't she promised him? How had this only been a short while and...

A cold shiver shot up his back.

The color drained from his face in an instant. His throat felt like it had been blocked, and though he wanted to say something, he found his voice dry and tight.

His lips moved, but in the end nothing came out.

He didn't admit it.

But Song Zhiyao didn't need his admission at all.

She was a detective.

A look, a scent, a pause.

That was already enough for her.

"How's that?"

She said coldly, her tone pressing in hard. "Still not planning to admit it now?"

Song Zhiyao held her finger out in front of him:

"This is the evidence."

She stared at him, her gaze ice-cold.

Chu Fan's heart sank hard.

It wasn't his sister-in-law who had told on him -

she had found out herself.

Only then did he realize -

That earlier shot probably hadn't all landed on his sister-in-law; some of it had accidentally splashed onto the doorframe, and then his wife found it.

Chu Fan opened his mouth, about to explain, but before he could get a single word out, he heard her say in an icy voice:

"Chu Fan, you really... disgust me."

At those words, Chu Fan's mind exploded.

Disgusting?

This woman actually called him "disgusting"?

Since his rebirth, she'd never once given him a kind look, not even a single soft word.

She had even blamed him for not repaying his father-in-law's kindness!

That was one thing, but now... she was actually saying he was disgusting...

Chu Fan suddenly flipped over and sat up, staring at her hard:

"I'm disgusting?"

He let out a cold laugh, his voice growing darker with every word:

"I, Chu Fan, am the live-in son-in-law your Song family brought in, a useless man, a joke your 'wife' has never even looked at properly."

"But I'm also a man."

"A man with bones, blood, fire, and desire!"

"We've been married for three years - don't even talk about letting me touch you once. Even if I just tried to hold your hand, you'd look at me like I was filthy."

"I can only shut myself in a room and take care of it with my own hand. Even the most basic physical reaction isn't allowed, and now you're turning around and calling me disgusting?"

He looked at her with a cold smile, anger in his tone, his voice growing louder and louder:

"Song Zhiyao, what right do you have to look down on me?"

"Since I came back just now, you've been interrogating me, blaming me, looking down on me."

"Yes... I, Chu Fan, married into your family. I'm the live-in son-in-law. But I came here to be your husband, not to be your dog."

"If that's really how you see me - tomorrow morning, let's go to the civil affairs bureau. I don't care!"

The moment Chu Fan finished, the room was so quiet you could hear breathing.

Song Zhiyao stood there in a daze, her face turning green, then white, her expression complicated, as if she'd never expected Chu Fan to talk back to her, let alone shove back so hard.

But before she could speak, footsteps suddenly came from outside.

"Click."

The bedroom door was pushed open.

Under the dim hallway light, a familiar figure walked in wearing a silk robe, her long hair slightly mussed, sleep still on her face, yet unable to hide that gentle, graceful allure.

His mother-in-law, Shen Rulan.

"What's going on? What are you arguing about this late?"

Before Song Zhiyao could speak, another low cough sounded at the doorway.

Song Chenglan walked in, brows tightly furrowed, his face dark, his eyes cold and sharp as they landed straight on Chu Fan.

"In the middle of the night, shouting and making a scene - what exactly are you trying to do?"

Chu Fan didn't back down.

Even though the man in front of him was the real owner of this house, the city's Party secretary Song Chenglan, he answered without changing a single word:

"I want a divorce."

Four words, landing like a hammer.

Shen Rulan froze; Song Chenglan's face darkened on the spot.

"What did you say?"

Song Chenglan stared coldly at Chu Fan, his voice dropping even lower, packed with rage: "You're in my house yelling at the top of your lungs, screaming about divorce in the middle of the night, and waking up the whole family?"

He took a step forward, and the fire in him could no longer be restrained:

"Chu Fan, I think you've forgotten what surname you carry."

"Who exactly are you to the Song family? The son-in-law we begged to come in, or the one who came begging at the door in the first place?"

His gaze pressed hard as he spoke each word:

"You've been in the Song family for three years. I didn't ask you to bring in family wealth, didn't ask you to make political achievements, and didn't even ask you to do what a man should do - I only asked you to follow the rules and not embarrass yourself."

"And you can't even learn to 'shut up'?"

His eyes were cold, his tone carrying undisguised disappointment:

"If you're really dissatisfied with this marriage, tomorrow I'll prepare the divorce agreement for you myself."

"The Song family doesn't keep trash, and we won't chain up a mad dog who can't even speak properly and flies off the handle at the door just to stand there as decoration."

When he finished, the whole house was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Chu Fan stood rooted in place, and his expression changed in an instant.

His chest heaved hard, his knuckles tightening until they went white.

The look he gave Song Chenglan held no shame anymore, only a chill rising from deep in his bones.

After a few seconds, he let out a cold laugh and didn't argue further.

He only said quietly:

"Fine."

"You don't need to prepare the agreement for tomorrow morning - I'm leaving right now."

He turned around, his movements clean and decisive.