A Single Father’s Troubles - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Pursuing His Wife

In a private boxing gym.

A man, bare-chested and drenched in sweat, tilted his neck back and gulped down several mouthfuls of water. Droplets slid slowly down his throat, and his eight-pack abs were lined up neatly on his bronze abdomen the visual was incredibly impactful.

However, not a single spectator below the stage had the mind to appreciate such a view.

The man tossed the water bottle aside, extended his toes, and kicked the guy playing dead on the ground. “Get up.”

The one playing corpse remained indifferent, wearing a “salty fish” expression that said: Even if you kick me to death, I’m still not fighting.

“Is that all the backbone you have!” the man barked coldly, his icy gaze flashing as he pointed randomly into the crowd.

“You, come up.”

The one pointed out had a long face and pleaded for mercy: “Brother, I have to go home and ‘hand in my homework’ to your sister-in-law tonight. If you kick my waist into pieces, I’m finished. How about you pick someone else?”

Mentioning a wife only made Kuang Ye more irritable. He stared at him coldly and said brookingly, “Get up here!”

The one playing dead on the ground sprang up instantly, quickly pulled off his gloves, and threw them to the other man. His movements were incredibly agile: “Dong-zi, hurry up, stop talking nonsense!”

The one who sprang up was Hu Fan, and the one Kuang Ye had pointed out was Shen Zhidong. Both were Kuang Ye’s childhood friends.

Shen Zhidong came from a military compound. You could tell from his name that his family held high hopes for him—Zhidong, a pillar of the nation. He had lived up to it too; he had loved the military since he was a child, soaking in the battalion with his father since he was in diapers. After years of training, his skills were quite excellent compared to ordinary people.

But it was truly f**king supernatural. Among their group, there were national defense students, graduates from the Public Security University, and those from military compounds. Whether it was professional training or a “wild” background, when it came to fighting, almost no one could beat Kuang Ye.

Shen Zhidong stepped onto the ring with a resentful expression. Just as he got ready, Kuang Ye’s fist rushed toward his face without mercy, swift and fierce.

Kuang Ye’s style of boxing was already a desperate, life-risking approach, and his temper today was exceptionally large. He fought savagely, and within a few moves, Shen Zhidong fell into a disadvantage.

Kuang Ye smashed out a heavy hook, and Shen Zhidong immediately bent his arms to block. Before he could even cry out, a sharp pain shot up from his forearm.

Shen Zhidong let out a strange yelp: “Shit! Timeout! Timeout! My arm is definitely broken!”

Shen Zhidong immediately started shouting for a “doctor.”

Kuang Ye was forced to stop, looking with disdain at Shen Zhidong, who was complaining to the doctor. He had just started to get into the zone and was impatient at being interrupted. His gaze swept around, preparing to seize another “volunteer.”

The backs of those he scanned tensed up.

Just then, Kuang Ye’s phone resting nearby buzzed with a vibration.

Hu Fan quickly handed him the phone: “Brother Ye! New message!”

Kuang Ye took it and looked; his face darkened slightly.

It was the new project work group chat that Pei Shaoyu had just created.

He casually swiped past the red envelopes flooding the screen and clicked on the group member list. With a sweep of his eyes, he found the person he wanted.

He looked at that string of unfamiliar numbers and let out a cold laugh. Sure enough, even the WeChat ID had been changed to a new one.

Kuang Ye exited, expressionlessly unpinning a certain WeChat contact he had kept at the top for years. His finger hovered over the red “Delete Friend” button. He waited a moment, but still couldn’t harden his heart. His finger swiped, and he re-opened Lin Tingwan’s new WeChat profile.

The Moments were not locked; he could see the content even without being friends. However, the owner didn’t post often—only a few posts over two or three years, and they were all f**king photos of a kid.

The moment Kuang Ye saw the kid, he thought of the kid’s mother. The more he looked, the angrier he got. He tossed the phone aside and roared, “Again!”

Hu Fan and Shen Zhidong couldn’t understand why Kuang Ye looked at a message and suddenly acted like he’d been doused in gasoline, exploding instantly.

The two of them, in perfect harmony, lay on the ground and played dead. No matter how much Kuang Ye shouted, they refused to get up. Playing dead was better than being beaten to death by Kuang Ye.

Just as the exasperated Kuang Ye was planning to give them both a beating, a man rushed in from outside like a gust of wind.

“It’s all wrong! Everything is wrong!”

Shen Zhidong and Hu Fan did a “carp skip” and sprang from the ground, loudly greeting the newcomer, “Xu-zi, you came at the right time! Quick, come box with Brother Ye!”

Feng Xu had graduated from the Public Security University—a proper people’s policeman from a family of Sanda fighters. He was definitely durable.

“Box my ass,” Feng Xu pushed away the gloves Shen Zhidong eagerly handed over, his eyes shining as he looked at Kuang Ye. “Kuang Ye, I have a piece of heavenly good news to tell you!”

He turned his head to Shen Zhidong and Hu Fan. “You guys are truly a bunch of geniuses. You helped Kuang Ye investigate the Little Sister-in-law for so many days, and all you found was his address? You couldn’t find a single other piece of useful information?!”

“Stop beating around the bush,” Kuang Ye said expressionlessly.

Feng Xu didn’t dare act smart in front of him and quickly said, “Wasn’t I on closed-off duty for the past half month? I only saw the messages in the group and realized you guys found Little Sister-in-law’s address…”

“Get to the point!” Shen Zhidong and Hu Fan said in unison.

Feng Xu silently swallowed a large pile of words meant for claiming credit and spoke at a very fast speed: “The point is, I used internal authority to check Lin Tingwan’s child registered under his household. His marital status column says ‘Unmarried’!”

The hand Kuang Ye was using to wipe sweat paused, and he suddenly turned his head to look at him: “What do you mean?”

Feng Xu, facing that hawk-like sharp gaze, thought to himself: My buddy really has his brain muddled by love; he’s lost even basic comprehension skills.

He patiently explained: “It means Lin Tingwan doesn’t have a wife! He hasn’t married at all!”

Shen Zhidong and Hu Fan looked at each other, both in a daze.

Shen Zhidong was stunned for a long while before saying, “But, that day Brother Ye went to find him, Little Sister-in-law said with his own mouth that he was married…”

“He says so, so it is? Everything I checked is linked to the public security system. Can that be faked?!”

Feng Xu did things steadily; he would absolutely not speak of something he wasn’t sure about.

Lin Tingwan wasn’t married and had no wife? He lied to him?

Kuang Ye: “I saw a woman go find Lin Tingwan with my own eyes.”

Feng Xu: “Are you sure that woman is Lin Tingwan’s wife?”

Hu Fan: “You went to see Lin Tingwan secretly again?!”

Feng Xu and Hu Fan spoke at the same time.

Kuang Ye glared fiercely at Hu Fan, then turned his face to look at Feng Xu. “I saw that woman enter Lin Tingwan’s home.”

Feng Xu saw his certain look and sighed in his heart. Lin Tingwan, you really are a piece of work, turning a perfectly good buddy of mine into a miserable little stray dog.

Feng Xu patiently analyzed for the logic-deprived Kuang Ye: “A female going to another male’s house, it’s plausible they are husband and wife…”

“However, that’s not necessarily absolute. And given Lin Tingwan’s current income level and his personal character, is he the type who would let the woman he deeply loves—who bore his child—squeeze into a rented apartment less than 70 square meters with him? He wouldn’t be willing to rent a better house within his means?”

Kuang Ye frowned and interrupted him dissatisfied: “What’s all this about love or not? Didn’t you say Lin Tingwan has no wife?!”

Feng Xu saw his face full of rage and quickly raised his hands in surrender: “Fine, fine, fine, I misspoke.”

A “love-brain” is truly someone you can’t mess with.

Feng Xu continued, “Anyway, analyzing from the professional perspective of a criminal investigator with nearly ten years of experience, the possibility that the woman you mentioned is Lin Tingwan’s wife is very small. She’s more like a friend or a relative.”

Kuang Ye was just suffering from a love-brain episode, not actual stupidity. He closed his eyes and recalled carefully: the woman he met in the elevator was dressed very exquisitely. The Bvlgari necklace around her neck and the LV bag in her hand were both new models for this year.

Lin Tingwan couldn’t possibly buy her those things while not thinking about improving their living environment.

A woman with such a financial foundation made more sense as his friend.

Kuang Ye figured out the logic, his face turning ashen as he squeezed a sentence through his teeth: “He’s lying to me again?!”

Shen Zhidong saw his look like he was about to hit someone and blocked Kuang Ye as he tried to walk out, advising, “Buddy, don’t worry about the lying for now. Whatever you do, don’t use force. Coax the Little Sister-in-law back first.”

Hu Fan became unhappy upon hearing this. “Why should Brother Ye be the one coaxing? Lin Tingwan has no wife, but he still has a child. Is Brother Ye really going to become a ‘painless father’ for someone else’s kid just like that?”

Kuang Ye’s face remained sunken as he took off his sweat-soaked gloves and tossed them to Hu Fan. Without a word, he turned and left.

The few people in the boxing gym looked at each other. Hu Fan recalled Kuang Ye’s expression just now, which looked like he wanted to kill someone, and felt a wave of lingering fear. He looked guiltily at Feng Xu: “I say… should we follow him and see? Nothing bad will happen, right?”

Feng Xu’s expression was hesitant.

According to their understanding of Kuang Ye, if someone dared to play him like this, he would definitely play that person to death.

However, they still underestimated Kuang Ye’s love-brain. Kuang Ye intended to “play” the person to death, but in a different way.

Kuang Ye first rushed home to take a shower and put on a dark gray slim-fit shirt, unbuttoned to the second button, aptly revealing his bulging chest muscles. Lin Tingwan used to love sleeping while lying on his chest.

After tidying himself up, Kuang Ye drove more than twenty kilometers to the cake shop near their university that Lin Tingwan liked best and bought the last strawberry cake in the shop.

While the clerk was packing the cake, he casually bought some milk, candy, and other things children like from a nearby convenience store.

After buying the items, Kuang Ye drove toward Lin Tingwan’s home.

At the entrance of the old residential compound, a low-key luxury Aston Martin DBX slowly came to a stop, causing passing pedestrians to pause.

Then, the car door rose, and a handsome man comparable to a star stepped out. The man was in an iron-gray custom suit. With one hand in his pocket, he stood by the car, his leather shoes polished to a shine, looking completely out of place in the somewhat dilapidated surroundings.

Kuang Ye raised his wrist to check the time: 7:12 PM.

Usually at this time, Lin Tingwan would bring his stepson down to play.

Don’t ask him why he knew so clearly; some things hurt if explained too clearly.

Calculating that Lin Tingwan should be coming down soon, Kuang Ye took out the 99 “Liberty Spirit” roses he had prepared from the trunk. These were also a favorite of Lin Tingwan’s. Lin Tingwan loved roses the most; he even had to buy rose-scented body wash. Every time he took a shower, the sweet scent would linger around Kuang Ye for several days.

Although standing under a building holding such a large bouquet of flowers was a bit silly, thinking that he would soon see Lin Tingwan’s surprised eyes and brows made Kuang Ye feel it was worth it.

Support A Single Father’s Troubles