Daddy! Come Home for Dinner!

Zhao Dingli was quite satisfied.

On Shi Hongze’s side, instead of calling in his own assistant, he went straight to Chu Zhaoyang’s office.

Today happened to be one of the days Chu Zhaoyang came to the hospital to work.

"Lao Chu." Shi Hongze knocked and came in, saw Chu Zhaoyang, and didn’t show even a shred of proper respect due to a boss, just plopped down in the chair opposite his desk.

Chu Zhaoyang: "..."

"Zhao Dingli just called me." Shi Hongze said.

"Hm?" Chu Zhaoyang finally looked up and raised a brow. If Zhao Dingli had something, why wasn’t he coming to him? What was he looking for Shi Hongze for?

"He actually has a girlfriend!" Shi Hongze said excitedly.

"Clack!"

The fountain pen in Chu Zhaoyang’s hand practically jumped in shock.

"Girlfriend?" Chu Zhaoyang exclaimed.

"Oh, pfft! I said it wrong, missed a word. It’s a female friend." Shi Hongze corrected.

But Chu Zhaoyang was still deeply shocked.

After a while, he finally said, dragging his words, "You can just drop the word in the middle."

A woman, an opposite-sex friend, who could appear around Zhao Dingli was already practically equivalent to a girlfriend.

Seriously, opposite-sex friend?

Up until now, that species simply did not exist in Zhao Dingli’s vicinity.

"What you’re saying makes a lot of sense." Shi Hongze nodded in agreement.

"But how do you know?" Chu Zhaoyang stopped working altogether and started gossiping with Shi Hongze.

Originally, Chu Zhaoyang wasn’t much of a talker.

On WeChat, if he could get away with a punctuation mark, he wouldn’t type a word.

When speaking, if one word could do, he’d never use two.

That still had to do with his childhood experiences.

Later, after he met and married his wife, Gu Nian, under her influence he gradually got better.

By now he’d basically trended toward normal.

More like an ordinary man who doesn’t talk much, nowhere near as excessively silent as before.

"So, just now, Zhao Dingli called me and said his friend got hurt." Shi Hongze said. "And guess what happened?"

Chu Zhaoyang: "..."

No, I don’t want to guess.

"Turns out it’s just bruising. Won’t even need medicine, it’ll go away on its own in a few days." Shi Hongze said. "I’ve still got several surgeries lined up today, how could I get away?"

"And that bastard even deliberately pretended to slip up, letting me know that friend of his is a woman." Shi Hongze said.

"Lao Chu, you know what an old fox Zhao Dingli is. Literally an old fox—old and foxy." Shi Hongze said.

Chu Zhaoyang: "..."

Bro, I’d advise you to keep that to yourself and don’t let Zhao Dingli hear it.

"If he really didn’t want me to know, you think he’d slip like that? It’s obviously on purpose, pretending it was unintentional, showing off to me on the down low." Shi Hongze curled his lip. "Does he really think I’m too dumb to see through it?"

Chu Zhaoyang: "..."

If even you can see through it, then Zhao Dingli is really going out of his way.

"So that wom—friend of his." Clearly not there yet, but if he added that middle word, Chu Zhaoyang felt it was a bit redundant, so he simply omitted it.

"How old is she? Are you sure she’s a wom—friend and not some junior or elder?" Chu Zhaoyang asked.

"That I really don’t know, haven’t seen her with my own eyes, have I?" Shi Hongze said. "But my gut says she should be a young girl. If you really want to say she’s a junior, that’d also make sense. After all, Zhao Dingli is already someone of our uncles’ generation."

Chu Zhaoyang: "..."

You’re definitely going to get beaten to death by Zhao Dingli.

The only reason he hasn’t yet is probably because you’re a doctor and still somewhat useful.

"That’s why I came to you, isn’t it?" Shi Hongze added.

Chu Zhaoyang raised a brow. "What do you want with me?"

"Lend me He Haoran for a bit. Even though that friend of Zhao Dingli’s is fine, he still isn’t at ease and insists I send over some medicine." Shi Hongze said.

"I’ve got surgeries to do, how can I leave? Let He Haoran deliver the medicine for him." Shi Hongze said. "I don’t trust anyone else with this. Who’s quicker on the uptake than He Haoran?"

"Let He Haoran take the medicine over and, while he’s at it, check out that friend of Zhao Dingli’s. When he comes back and reports to us, we’ll all know, won’t we?" Shi Hongze wore a wickedly gossipy grin.

"See what kind of girl she is, roughly how old she looks, what she looks like. And if he can, have He Haoran try to find out how they met." Shi Hongze said.

Chu Zhaoyang: "..."

"Where’s your assistant?" Chu Zhaoyang asked.

"Isn’t he busy with stuff for my next surgery? You can’t have him ignore hospital business, can you?" Shi Hongze said.

Anyway, He Haoran was with Chu Zhaoyang, and the two of them technically didn’t count as hospital staff.

Chu Zhaoyang only set aside two days a week to come to the hospital.

He spent the rest of his time at Chu Tian headquarters.

And since He Haoran was his assistant, he didn’t stay at the hospital either.

Wherever Chu Zhaoyang went, He Haoran followed.

So sending He Haoran over wouldn’t delay any hospital work.

"What you’re saying makes sense." Chu Zhaoyang nodded in agreement and called He Haoran in.

"You explain the details." Chu Zhaoyang said to Shi Hongze.

So Shi Hongze went over the whole thing again for He Haoran.

He Haoran rubbed his hands excitedly. "Wow, Fourth Uncle Zhao’s got a wom—friend now?"

Even that little pause was exactly the same as Chu Zhaoyang’s.

Shi Hongze thought, what a pair of perfectly in-sync colleagues.

"We don’t know for sure yet. But judging from how Zhao Dingli reacted, my gut says that’s the case." Shi Hongze nodded. "But the specifics all depend on you to find out."

"Here’s the plan: you go over under the pretext of delivering medicine, take the opportunity to look around, and try to observe as much as you can." Shi Hongze said. "If you can directly fish out some information from her, that’s even better."

He Haoran: "..."

Is living not good enough?

"I’ll do my best." He Haoran had no choice but to say.

He was also very curious about what kind of woman Zhao Dingli’s girlfriend was.

Everyone tacitly, and very naturally, classified Li Xiaoyun as Zhao Dingli’s girlfriend already.

So He Haoran went to pick up the medicine using the prescription slip Shi Hongze had written.

***

By now, Zhao Dingli had also parked the car in the garage.

Then he took Li Xiaoyun up to his place.

Li Xiaoyun was still a bit dazed.

Thinking, I’m already walking through Zhao Dingli’s front door this fast?

This... this feels way too unreal.

Even with her feet firmly on the ground, following Zhao Dingli along, she still felt like she was dreaming.

Zhao Dingli lived on the top floor.

It was a large single-level apartment.

The entire floor belonged to him.

Zhao Dingli opened the door and invited Li Xiaoyun in.

As soon as she walked in, Li Xiaoyun felt her field of vision widen.

Right inside the entrance was an extremely spacious living room.

Two walls of the living room were huge floor-to-ceiling windows, with loads of natural light.

And because the building was so tall, and Zhao Dingli lived on the very top, there was absolutely nothing around to obstruct the view.