Chapter 1

There was an account on Weibo called “Have Jiang Zhi and Gu Yuancheng Divorced Today?” It posted an update every day, always the same line:

Day XX of loving Gu Yuancheng. Have Jiang Zhi and Gu Yuancheng divorced yet?

I was Jiang Zhi.

Gu Yuancheng was my secretly married husband, one of the biggest stars in the country.

The account belonged to his assistant, Li Li.

Gu Yuancheng and I had been classmates at drama school and each other’s first love. Back then, we ranked dead last and second to last in our class. After almost every lesson, we would sneak off to the little grove on campus and have a good cry together over our hopeless futures.

Naturally, we fell in love.

After graduation, we both entered show business and, just as expected, made hardly a ripple. When we were still madly in love, he proposed. I said yes.

We were happy in the beginning. I took modeling gigs at auto shows and posed for online shops, while he ran around film sets playing nameless extras. Then an agent spotted me, and my career slowly began to improve.

Once I started earning a little more, I paid for Gu Yuancheng to enter a talent show and poured money into voting so he could get some screen time.

Our careers advanced in fits and starts, but at least we could support ourselves. I became a fourth- or fifth-tier actress who played a lot of supporting roles, and I was content with that. I was neither too busy nor too idle. The pay was nothing extraordinary, but it was far better than an ordinary office salary.

Gu Yuancheng was much luckier. He landed a role in a boys’ love drama and shot straight to the top. Those dramas had a way of turning every actor in them into an overnight sensation.

But the more famous he became, the more our relationship faded.

He was absent on my birthday. On his own birthday, he had to celebrate with his fans. Then he hired an assistant: Li Li.

Li Li was in love with him. Anyone with eyes could see it.

At first, I told him to fire her. He accused me of being petty, said he could hardly avoid having women on his staff, and told me to stop competing with other women.

Then, two years ago, he got drunk and slept with Li Li.

She sent me their bed photos from an unknown number.

That day, I had failed to meet the director’s standards, stumbled through take after take, and delayed the entire crew. The director tore me apart, and even the staff rolled their eyes at me. I hid in the bathroom and cried.

That was when the pictures arrived.

After I left the bathroom and returned to the scene, I no longer had to worry about being unable to cry on cue. I even managed layers of grief.

My acting improved after that. My status rose, and people began praising me as a serious actress.

Whenever Li Li did anything with Gu Yuancheng, she sent me a message about it. Eventually, she stopped hiding her identity altogether.

I watched Gu Yuancheng hand his finances over to her. I watched her get pregnant by him, then abort his child. On my birthday, one phone call from her saying she had secured him a new opportunity was enough to make him rush away to be with her.

But I did not want a divorce.

Why should I?

Li Li wanted to be his mistress, so I let her. As long as I stayed married, she could never step into the light. She would have to keep aborting his children.

Gu Yuancheng cared too much about his career to let Li Li have a baby before I did. If I ever exposed him and the public learned he already had a child with her, his future would be ruined.

He gave me plenty of opportunities too. Every time he fooled around with Li Li, he made it up to me with an expensive present or a good part.

I loved acting. My workload kept growing, and we spent most of our marriage in different cities. Whenever we happened to be in the same place, I told him I was on my period.

I never slept with him.