chapter 2

The night we became a couple was also the celebration for the launch of our branch office.

By then, Xie Chen had moved our headquarters to City Square and bought me the large apartment he had once promised. A company of five had grown into a staff of several hundred.

At the celebration, he put an arm around my shoulders in front of everyone.

“Without Ji Mo, this company would never have reached its present scale, and I would never have become the man I am today. This toast is to her.”

He exaggerated, but not by much.

Whenever he had wanted to give up, I had been the one who stayed and struggled beside him. I had practically built the branch office myself—financing, investors, location, all of it.

After the party, he was so excited that he insisted on coming home with me to discuss the company’s next twenty years.

We ended up discussing them in bed.

When he woke and offered to take responsibility, I felt nervous and uncertain.

He saw my hesitation. “Momo, I’ve liked you for a long time. I’ll never find another woman willing to stand beside me for as long as you have.”

During our two years together, I knew he had an ex-girlfriend named Lin Yue.

She was my age, his junior at university, and his first love. They had dated for three years. After graduation she left City A, while he refused to follow her, so they separated amicably.

The money he used to start his company had actually been meant for her bride price and their marital home.

He told me that one drunken night beneath the stars.

“If I’d married Lin Yue back then, I’d probably be another office drone working nine to five.”

There had been regret in his voice, but also candor.

That was why I never cared about her. Even when she returned to City A a year earlier and secretly followed my social-media account, I merely followed her back. I did not even mention it to Xie Chen.

I believed he and I had chosen each other. Besides, what adult clung to a romance from so long ago?

It seemed I had been asking to be humiliated.

I was a woman who believed what she saw with her own eyes, so I did not confront him over the phone.

I ended the call, sent him the photograph of me in my wedding dress, and received his reply: “My Momo, you’re beautiful.”

I accepted the compliment and bought a ticket on the next flight to City B, where he was supposedly working.

After landing, I checked my feed again and saw Lin Yue’s latest update.

“Off to visit a famous restaurant.”

As luck would have it, I knew the place. Xie Chen and I had gone there soon after we started dating. It was a restaurant for couples.

When my taxi arrived, I was just in time to see him hand Lin Yue the red roses the restaurant had prepared.

They sat beside the window, plainly visible from the street.

Lin Yue wore a pale blue dress. Xie Chen wore pale blue casual clothes. Anyone with eyes could tell their outfits matched.

He had once told me couple outfits were childish and embarrassing.

Now I understood. It was not that he despised childish things; I simply was not the woman he wanted to be childish with.

I got out and leaned against a crooked tree before calling him. Without its support, I might not have been able to stand.

He glanced at his phone, declined the call again, and texted: “In a meeting.”

I could barely name what I felt—rage, heartbreak, perhaps even despair. I had to lift my face toward the sky to keep the tears from falling.

It took me a long time to regain control.

I looked at the wedding ring he had given me, took it off, and tossed it into a trash can.

Then I photographed him dining with Lin Yue and sent him the picture.

“Come outside when you’re finished. We need to discuss our divorce.”

He did not look at his phone for roughly three minutes because Lin Yue was pestering him to take photos together.

In those three minutes, they tried eight different poses, documenting their affair from every possible angle.

Yes, Xie Chen and I had registered our marriage a month earlier. The ceremony was simply scheduled for seven days from now.

When he finally read my message, he turned toward the window in panic and saw me.

He shot to his feet and hurried outside.

Lin Yue did not understand what was happening. Then she followed his gaze, saw me, and let a smile flicker across her face before trailing after him.