chapter 13

Work started piling up, and I was getting home later and later.

Zhou Mu would wait up for me. The lights at home stayed on until I walked through the door.

The moment he saw me come in, he’d ask, “Are you hungry? Want a late-night snack?”

I shook my head.

I walked right past him into the bedroom.

I didn’t make small talk.

I could feel Zhou Mu’s gaze on my back.

There was confusion in it, and a grievance he couldn’t name.

But I no longer wanted to waste a shred of energy thinking about him and Chen Wei.

Things stayed like this until the night we came back from a banquet.

I held his arm as we mingled through the crowd.

Thanks to Zhou Mu, I got to make contact with several potential big clients.

When he introduced me, he said, “This is my wife.”

People would praise how well-matched we were. I’d just lean lightly against Zhou Mu’s shoulder and smile shyly.

“You two look so in love.”

I only smiled.

When the banquet ended, the second I got in the car,

I let go of Zhou Mu’s hand immediately.

His expression went blank for a moment, his arm still frozen in the position I’d been holding it in.

He stood there stunned, looking at me. “Xiao Jin…”

But when he met my calm, indifferent face, he fell silent.

I leaned wearily against the rear window.

“Why… aren’t you sitting in the front anymore?”

I rubbed my temples and gave him a perfunctory answer:

“Don’t want to.”

We were silent the whole ride home.

I changed my shoes and was about to head back to the bedroom.

“Xiao Jin.”

“Is your insomnia… any better?”

Without looking back, I replied, “No.”

But then someone grabbed my hand.

Zhou Mu’s grip was tight, his fingertips shaking from the force.

“…Xiao Jin.”

“Tell me.”

“Tell me what’s going on with you, please?”

“Why did you insist on separate rooms as soon as we got back? Why are you coming home later and later? Why do you put on an act of intimacy outside, but won’t spare a single moment to talk to me at home, why-”

“Why does it feel like you don’t love me anymore.”

“Let go,” I said evenly.

Zhou Mu released me.

My wrist bone was already flushed red.

I rubbed it, and the pain eased a little.

“Don’t you have anything you want to come clean about?”

I met Zhou Mu’s eyes and shot the question back at him.

“What?”

I stared into his eyes for a long while.

“For example…”

“That thing about kissing the person you like during the first snowfall, and being happy for the rest of your life?”

All the color drained from Zhou Mu’s face. His spine seemed to curl in on itself inch by inch. After a long time, he finally asked in a low voice, “…You saw us?”

Chen Wei had chosen the most conspicuous spot possible.

“It would’ve been hard not to.”

I smiled, but it looked uglier than crying.

“Zhou Mu.”

“That night when I got drunk and told you I’d liked you for ten years…”

“And when, in the end, you held me and said you loved me…”

“Was that the same feeling you had two years ago, when you replied to that post saying you loved Chen Wei?”

“It’s not the same!”

He blurted it out, desperate to explain.

“I just…”

I gave a small laugh.

Then I shut the bedroom door in his face.

I didn’t listen to the rest.

I’d stopped needing an answer a long time ago.

Zhou Mu.