After Zhou Mingrui finished his call and returned to the living room, he found his father sitting blankly on the sofa, neither watching TV nor playing on his phone, looking completely lost as to what he should do. Meanwhile, laughter and chatter from his mother and the three ladies drifted out of the kitchen from time to time. For some reason, though, that cheerful conversation made Zhou Mingrui's spine tingle.
"Son, sit. Let's have a chat, just the two of us." Father Zhou patted the seat beside him on the sofa, lifted his tea mug, and took a gulp. His expression was deeply weathered. Seeing that look on his face, Zhou Mingrui immediately felt an urge to run, but he still sat down and waited for his father to continue.
Unexpectedly, Father Zhou did not bring up the subject of the three prospective daughters-in-law. Instead, he picked up his phone, pointed at the page for the novel Lord of the Mysteries, and said:
"Mingrui, do you know this book's author?"
"Huh? Why would you ask that?" Zhou Mingrui tilted his head. Father Zhou wore an expression that plainly said, "Don't even think about hiding it from me."
"Do I even need to think about it? The protagonist is called Zhou Mingrui. And those three in the kitchen—one foreigner named Sharron, one writer named Fors, and one teacher named Adwina. I'd have to be an idiot not to notice! No wonder you looked so strange when I mentioned this novel earlier. The author didn't use you all as prototypes, did they?"
"Ahaha... yeah!" Zhou Mingrui gave a dry laugh, feeling that he had overthought things. Right, even if normal people saw someone resembling a character in a novel or sharing the same name, they would not suspect the novel was real,