It had been three days since that night.

Three days since Bingqing had said those words. Three days since a single conversation had thoroughly dismantled my once-stable, quiet, predictable world, delivered in a calm voice and steady eyes.

An open marriage.

Even now, the words felt unreal. I sometimes found myself wondering whether the conversation had actually happened, whether my wife had really said something like that to me. The phrase still seemed to belong to someone else's life, someone else's story.

And yet, here I was, living inside it, dealing with the reality of words I had never imagined hearing from her.

The first day passed in a numb blur. The second felt heavier. By the third, I had stopped keeping track of the hours. It no longer felt as though time was moving forward. I was simply stuck somewhere between what our life had been and what it had become.

Bingqing and I barely talked anymore.

There were occasional exchanges. Small, almost meaningless sounds. "I'm going out." "There's food on the table." "You forgot your keys."

But those weren't conversations. They were just words, her words. Ordinary things that needed to be said.

For my part, I couldn't even bring myself to make those small exchanges. Looking at her long enough to say something, even a single word, had become too difficult. For three days, even saying good morning had felt like more effort than I could manage.

I never thought something invisible could hurt this much.

Work wasn't going any better.

Until recently, it had been one of the easiest parts of my life. Routine. Predictable. I knew what needed to be done, understood my responsibilities, and rarely struggled to keep up.

Now, I couldn't focus.

I would sit staring at my screen for minutes at a time, reading the same line over and over without understanding a single word. Emails began piling up in my inbox. Reports that should have taken an hour stretched into half a day. Deadlines slipped.

And then there were the mistakes.

Small mistakes started creeping in—things I never would have missed before. Sometimes I caught them late; sometimes not at all.

Chen Hao asked me on the first day if I was okay. I told him I hadn't slept well, and he laughed it off, telling me to stop staying up late watching dramas with my wife. I almost laughed too.

Sleep. That was a funny word.

I lay down every night, closed my eyes, and stayed like that for hours. But sleep wouldn't come. Because the moment everything went quiet, my mind grew louder.

Her voice. Her words.

They replayed over and over again inside me, like a recording I couldn't switch off. Clear. Sharp. Unavoidable.

Sometimes I just opened my eyes and stared at the dark ceiling. Sometimes I turned to the side—and she was there. Close enough to touch, yet far enough to feel like a complete stranger.

I didn't reach for her anymore.

Food lost its taste entirely. I ate because I had to. Because not eating would raise questions. And because routine was the only thing holding me together, though even that was slipping.

I started leaving for work earlier and coming back later. Sometimes, after work, I would just walk. No destination. No purpose. I simply kept moving, doing anything to delay returning home.

Home.

That word used to mean something. It used to mean comfort, security, a place where I wanted to be with all my being. Now it was just a place I had to endure.

The hardest part wasn't the pain itself. It was her. Or rather, the way she didn't seem affected by any of it.

She didn't seem broken. She didn't seem lost. She didn't seem like someone who had just shattered her husband's world. She seemed normal.

She still cooked. Still moved around the house the same way. Still spoke with the neighbors in that calm, measured tone, as if nothing had changed and everything was still under control.

And maybe, for her, it was.

She did try to talk to me a few times.

"Wuji… can we talk?"

"I think we should discuss this calmly."

"I don't want things to become like this between us."

I heard every word. Every single one of them. But I also heard what was behind them. Or rather, what wasn't.

No urgency. No desperation. No fear of losing me.

Just an effort. Polite, measured, controlled. Half-hearted.

That was the only way I could describe it.

That hurt more than if she had been cold or overtly hostile. It made me wonder if she had ever truly loved me, or if I had simply been convenient—a safe, stable choice for a predictable future. The uncertainty ate at me constantly. 

And I didn't think she even noticed my pain. Or maybe she did. And it just… didn't matter enough.

Because she hadn't stopped. Even after I said no. Even after I made my stance clear. She still hadn't stopped.

Her phone was always in her hand now. It hadn't been like this before. Not this often. Now it was constant.

Typing. Reading. Smiling.

That small, quiet smile she used to give me.

I didn't need to ask. I didn't need proof. I knew who she was talking to.

Sun Junfeng.

The name sat in my chest like a jagged fragment of glass.

At night, it cut deeper. She thought I didn't notice. But I heard it.

The bed shifting, her slipping out quietly, the faint sound of the balcony door opening and closing.

Then silence for a few moments. Followed by her voice.

Low and soft, carried through the night air from the balcony.

The first night, I told myself it was just a normal call.

But it kept happening. Every night. The calls grew longer, quieter, more intimate.

I couldn't make out the exact words, but I could hear the tone. And that was enough.

I lay there with my eyes closed and my breathing steady, pretending to be asleep. Pretending I didn't hear. Pretending I didn't know.

Because what else could I do?

Get up and confront her? And ask what?

I already knew.

I didn't want to know.

So I stayed still and listened.

Trying to hear something. Anything. Some sign that there was still something between us worth saving. It was humiliating, lying there in the dark, straining to hear my wife talking to her lover.

I didn't know why I kept doing it. Maybe I couldn't help myself.

Maybe I was going insane.

What sane man would lie awake trying to listen to his wife talk to another man in the middle of the night? And every night, something inside me broke a little further. 

This wasn't a misunderstanding or a phase. It was happening right in front of me, and she wasn't even trying very hard to hide it.

That disrespect—the way she went about it so openly, as if my silence meant acceptance, as if my pain didn't matter—stripped away whatever dignity I had left.

So I tried staying at work even later, taking on extra tasks and volunteering for assignments I would normally avoid, desperate for a distraction. But I couldn't focus there either.

By the fifth day, it became impossible to hide. 

“You look like hell.”

Chen Hao’s voice cut through my thoughts.

I looked up slowly. He was standing in front of my desk, arms crossed, expression unusually serious.

“I’m fine, just…” I began.

The words came automatically, but even I could hear how empty they sounded.

“No, you’re not.”

Before I could finish, another voice joined in.

“Wuji… what’s going on?”

Yue Mengli stood slightly behind him, her brows drawn together, her eyes filled with concern.

I looked away and turned my attention back to my screen.

“Just tired,” I said.

“This is not just tired,” Chen Hao replied immediately. “You’ve been messing up reports, missing deadlines, zoning out in meetings. This isn’t you.”

I didn't answer, because he was right.

"We've been watching you for days," he added, his tone softening slightly. "Something's clearly wrong."

"Did something happen?" Mengli asked gently, her voice careful.

I gripped my mouse tighter, searching for something to say. But what could I say?

The sentence formed in my head, but I pushed it down immediately. I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. Saying it would make it real in a way I couldn't undo.

Besides, how could any man say something like that to his coworkers? How could I look them in the eye and admit that the woman I married was choosing someone else right in front of me? And asking me to accept it.

I couldn't tell them. I just… couldn't.

“I'm fine,” I repeated. But even to my own ears, it didn't sound convincing.

Chen Hao let out a sharp breath. “No, you're not.” There was irritation in his voice. He had never been a particularly patient man to begin with. “Look at me, Wuji.”

I kept my eyes on the monitor.

“Look at me,” he insisted.

I finally raised my head.

“We're your friends,” he said. “Whatever it is, you don't have to carry it by yourself.”

“You can tell us,” Mengli added softly, keeping her eyes on mine.

For a brief second, I almost did. The truth rose to the tip of my tongue. But then I imagined actually saying it—the silence that would follow, the uncomfortable pity in their eyes—and that made me pull back.

I shook my head slightly.

“It's nothing.”

It was a weak lie, but it was all I had to offer.

Chen Hao stared at me for a long moment before letting out another breath.

“Fine. But we're not dropping this.”

I didn't reply. I knew they wouldn't let it go, and I knew that eventually I wouldn't be able to keep it bottled up forever. But not today. Not yet.

Right now, I was still trying to process the situation myself, something I hadn't fully accepted and wasn't ready to say out loud. The terrifying reality that the life I thought I had might already be gone.

Li Bingqing did not sleep much that night. She lay beside Feng Wuji in the darkness, her eyes open long after the lights had been turned off, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing beside her. He was turned away from her, his posture too rigid, his breathing too even. He was pretending to be asleep. She knew it, yet she said nothing.

For the first time since their marriage, the silence between them felt less like comfort and more like distance.

Morning came quietly. Soft light filtered through the curtains, painting pale gold across the bedroom floor.

Bingqing opened her eyes and lay still for a moment before turning her head.

Wuji was already awake. He sat at the edge of the bed, his back to her, his spine straight and shoulders tense. There was no lingering warmth in his movements, no trace of the man who would usually stay a little longer, exchange a few quiet words, or pull her back under the sheets for just a few more minutes in his arms.

Today, there was none of it.

He stood up without looking at her or uttering a single word, then walked straight toward the bathroom and shut the door.

The sound of running water filled the quiet room. Bingqing remained still, her fingers tightening slightly around the edge of the blanket as an uncomfortable tightness settled in her chest. Then she hurried to the kitchen to prepare his favorite breakfast.

By the time he came out into the living room, he was already fully dressed. Neat. Composed. Distant.

"Wuji…" she called softly.

He didn't respond or offer even a passing glance.

He picked up his work briefcase and walked right past her. He didn’t ask about breakfast or say he was leaving. He didn’t say goodbye or kiss her.

The front door closed gently behind him, but the sound seemed to echo through the apartment, far louder than it should have been.

Bingqing stood there for a long time after he left, staring at the closed door. The silence in the apartment felt heavy and cold.

Her gaze drifted toward the dining table, where she had prepared his favorite breakfast. It sat completely untouched.

For the first time in three years of marriage, he had left for the office without saying a word to her, without eating breakfast, and without kissing her goodbye.

A faint ache spread through her chest. It wasn't sharp or overwhelming, just persistent and uncomfortable, refusing to go away.

"He's angry…" she murmured to herself.

Of course he was. Anyone would be.

She lowered her eyes, her fingers brushing absentmindedly against the edge of the table.

"I didn't want to hurt him…"

And she meant it. She truly did.

Deep down, she knew she loved Feng Wuji. She loved his steadiness, his reliability, and the quiet way he cared for her without demanding anything in return. He was safe. He was like a home she could always return to, a place where she knew she would always be welcomed.

But Sun Junfeng was too important to let go. He was something else entirely.

Her expression shifted, the guilt giving way to something more complicated and conflicted.

If Wuji was calm water, Sun was fire. Bright. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Restless. Alive.

She really couldn't let him go.

She closed her eyes briefly, and the memories came easily.

Sun Junfeng had always been like that, ever since they were young. Restless. Always chasing something new, always moving forward, while she stayed behind, watching and following.

They had grown up side by side as neighbors, classmates, and friends. Always close. Perhaps too close.

There had been moments when something could have happened. Something should have happened.

She remembered one clearly. A late afternoon in high school. The classroom was empty except for the two of them. Sun had leaned back in his chair, watching her with that familiar, yet unreadable expression.

"You know," he had said casually, "people think we're already together."

She had looked up from her book, startled. "Do you?"

He had only smiled, leaving the question unanswered.

And she hadn't pushed.

Not long after, she found out he was dating someone else.

That was how it had always been between them. Whenever she was single, he was involved with someone else. And when he was single, she was with someone. The timing never seemed to work out. But she knew the real reason. It had become their own twisted game of revenge and torture, each taking turns making the other wait and wonder.

There had been one exception, though. A brief window in college when, for once, they were both single. Both tired of playing that game.

For the first time, it felt as though the timing had finally aligned. They spent more time together, talked more, laughed more. The tension in the air was obvious.

But ultimately, she hesitated.

She knew Sun. She knew he had feelings for her, but she also knew he wasn't someone who could settle down easily. He was too much of a free spirit for that. He loved quickly and deeply, but he grew restless just as fast. She had never believed that even she could hold him down.

And perhaps Sun had his own doubts. He hadn't pushed either. Maybe they had both been afraid of taking that final step, of discovering that what they had between them wouldn't survive a failed relationship. Maybe they'd both been afraid of losing their friendship if things went wrong.

And then—

He was accepted into a program abroad and left, just like that.

By the time he came back, she was already with Wuji.

Bingqing let out a slow breath. "That's why…" she whispered.

That's why they had never happened. Not because they hadn't felt something. But because they had never had the chance to understand what they felt.

And now—

Now that chance had returned.

When Sun came back to the city six months ago, he wasn't the same. He was quieter, more serious. There was a heaviness about him that hadn't been there before.

"Breakup," he had said lightly when she asked what happened.

But she could see beyond his casual answer. The cracks in his usual confidence. The heartbreak. The exhaustion.

And slowly, he started relying on her again. In a way she hadn't expected, he also became more attentive to her.

At first, it was just occasional messages. Then calls. Then longer conversations that stretched late into the night.

Wuji never questioned her about any of it, which made things easier.

Then came the shift in the way Sun looked at her. Not as a friend. Not just as a friend anymore.

"I regret it," he had said one day over lunch.

She had frozen. "…What?"

"Not trying," he said simply and honestly. "Back then."

Her heart had skipped a beat. Just once. But that was enough.

"I always thought we had time," he continued. "But we didn't."

She hadn't known what to say, so for a while, she said nothing.

"And now?" she finally asked.

He looked at her directly. "No one understands me like you do," he said.

Those words… She knew what they were. Dangerous. Tempting. Poisonous. 

And yet—she couldn't turn away. Because part of her wanted to believe them.

Bingqing opened her eyes. Sitting in the morning light, her resolve hardened. Wuji was right. She wanted both. She knew it was selfish and unfair, but it was the truth.

Wuji was stability and a secure future, but Sun was an unfinished chapter she couldn't bring herself to close without reading. A past she didn't want to let go of. Not again.

Her gaze drifted toward her phone on the couch. She picked it up, opened their chat, and let her fingers hover over the screen for a moment before she began to type.

"He didn't agree."

The reply came almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for her message.

"What then?"

Bingqing pressed her lips together.

"Don't worry. He'll agree."

Three dots appeared on the screen, disappeared, then appeared again.

"Are you sure?"

She hesitated for a brief moment before typing.

"He doesn't have a choice."

There was a longer pause this time.

"That's risky, Bingqing. It could backfire. Very badly."

Her expression hardened with stubborn resolve.

"I won't miss this chance again."

She continued typing.

"I want to know what we missed. What we could have been."

The reply came a few seconds later.

"And Wuji?"

Her fingers paused over the keyboard. A slight feeling of guilt stirred inside her, but she quickly pushed it aside.

Then she typed:

"I'll handle it."

A new message came shortly after.

"What if he reacts badly? Are you sure you want to burn that bridge?"

She frowned slightly, but her expression softened as she typed:

"He won't. He loves me too much."

Sun didn't reply immediately this time. When he finally did, his message was brief.

"You sound confident. Hope it goes as you said."

A small, almost unconscious smile touched Bingqing's lips. Yes, she was confident because she knew Wuji. He wasn't the type to walk away, to give up, or to choose chaos over stability. He would resist. He would make things difficult. But in the end, he would stay.

He always did.

Bingqing lowered the phone slowly.

"Open marriage…" she murmured.

An open marriage didn't feel like a betrayal to her. She was being transparent, not sneaking around or lying. She was telling him the truth, and that had to count for something.

Didn't it?

Besides, it wouldn't even be permanent.

A month. Maybe two.

She hesitated.

Okay, give it three. Yes, three months.

That should be enough. Enough to understand. Enough to experience it. Enough to… let it go.

Because in the end—

She would come back. She was sure of it. Wuji was her home. Sun… was simply someone she needed to experience once, so she wouldn't regret it later.

Because lately, her thoughts had been drifting. More than she wanted to admit.

Even when she was with Wuji… when they were having sex… she had caught herself thinking of Sun.

His voice. His presence. That intensity.

As if it were Sun who was thrusting inside her, filling her with his love stick…

The thought unsettled her. Excited her. Made things feel… different. It made her wet.

It had gone so far that Wuji's lovemaking no longer brought her to climax. No. It was the image of Sun taking Wuji's place in her imagination that brought her satisfaction.

And that was exactly why she needed to do this. To get it out of her system. To understand it. To finish it.

So she could return without any doubt or regret.

As for Wuji, she knew he wouldn't look for anyone else. That wasn't who he was. Yes, an open marriage went both ways in theory, but Wuji was too steady, too reserved, and too predictable.

And even if he tried—

She didn't think anyone would truly catch his interest. Nor would he catch anyone else's.

He wasn't the kind of man who easily attracted that sort of attention from other women. Which women would want him? Which women would want to be involved with him? The answer was none.

Which meant—there was no real risk. 

So, she would explore, he would wait, and eventually, everything would return to normal.

And that was the plan.

Bingqing leaned back on the couch, her expression settling into a calm, resolved mask. Outside, the morning traffic hummed along the street as usual. But inside the apartment, a quiet, irreversible seed of destruction had already taken root.

There are words you can never un-hear. Once spoken, they change the meaning of everything that came before them.

That night, my wife said something I never thought I would hear from her.

"Wuji…"

Bingqing’s voice was soft and careful, but this time, there was a determination in it. It was clear she had finally made up her mind to talk. I turned my head toward her on the pillow.

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking about what I said earlier," she began, her gaze lowered to our joined hands. "About us. About our marriage."

My throat tightened. "Okay..."

She took a breath before dropping the bomb. "I don't think it's working anymore."

My mind went blank. Not working? I stared at her, struggling to make sense of what she'd just said.

“What isn't working?”

“This kind of life. Our routine." She paused, searching for the right words. “It just doesn't feel right to me anymore."

A strange, unfamiliar pressure settled in my chest. I shifted against the headboard, hoping it would ease.

"Then what do you want?" I asked a few moments later, trying to keep my voice steady. But it felt strange even to my own ears.

She lowered her gaze to our joined hands. But this time, she didn't dodge the question.

"I think," she said slowly, weighing every syllable, "we should consider… an open marriage."

The world didn't shatter. It didn't explode. It just stopped.

For a moment, I was sure I had misheard her. The words made no sense together. Open and marriage didn't belong in the same sentence.

"...What?" I asked. The sound came out thin and distant, like it belonged to someone else standing on the other side of the bedroom. Her hand tightened around mine. She swallowed, her thumb rubbing nervously over the back of my hand.

"An open marriage," she repeated, her voice softer this time. "We don't have to be restricted just to each other."

The ache in my chest spiked, sharp and unbearable. My breathing hitched.

"What did you just say?" I asked, sitting up slightly. I needed to hear it again. I had to make sure I wasn't losing my mind—or perhaps I needed to hear it stated so plainly that I could no longer deny what she meant.

"I think we should try an open marriage," she said again, delivering the words slowly, as if explaining herself carefully would somehow make them easier for me to accept.

It didn’t. The air in the room felt thick, heavy, difficult to pull into my lungs. 

"...You're serious?" I heard myself ask.

She nodded. Just a single, brief tilt of her head. Something inside me shifted. The confusion began to curdle into cold disbelief. I pulled my hand free from hers and sat up further, resting my forearms against my knees. 

"You're serious," I repeated, more to myself than to her.

She watched me cautiously. "I've thought about it a lot."

A lot. That meant this wasn't some fleeting thought, born out of a momentary frustration or a passing whim. She'd been sitting with this idea for a while, turning it over in her mind, considering what it might mean for us. And now, after all that time, she'd decided to bring it to me as though it were a reasonable solution to whatever had been troubling her.

The tightness behind my ribs expanded, spreading a dull, persistent ache down my arms. I pressed a hand flat against my chest, trying to force my diaphragm to move normally.

"Why?" I asked. The word came out rough, scraped clean of any warmth.

She hesitated. It was only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough to confirm what I already suspected.

"Is it because of Sun?" I asked. The name felt foul on my tongue, heavy and bitter.

Bingqing's expression didn't crumble. She didn't look shocked or recoil as though I'd accused her of something unthinkable. Instead, her features settled into a strange, detached resolve.

"Yes." The answer came without any hesitation.

For a moment, I couldn't find anything to say. I had suspected as much, but hearing her admit it was different. I couldn't think clearly, making it difficult to focus on anything except the fact that my wife had just confirmed what I'd been afraid of.

“You're really serious about this,” I finally murmured.

“I want to understand my feelings,” she said.

A short, disbelieving laugh escaped me.

“Your feelings?”

She nodded.

“I care about you, Wuji. I really do. But I also have feelings for him, and I don't think I should keep pretending they aren't there.”

I looked at her, struggling to reconcile those words with the marriage we'd built together.

"So you're saying you want to explore your feelings for another man."

"I'm saying I want to be honest with you."

Honest.

She said it as though the word could make everything else acceptable. As though admitting she wanted another man somehow made the request fair. As though telling me before acting on those feelings transformed her betrayal into something noble, or made asking me to accept the destruction of our marriage an act of consideration. As though putting it all into words somehow made the whole thing clean and reasonable.

"Honest?" I scoffed, my voice edged with anger. "You shouldn't talk about honesty."

"Wuji... I..." she began, trying to respond.

"Why now?" I cut her off. There was no point in arguing over the word. I needed answers. "Why bring this up after we're already married?"

She met my eyes, her expression unreadable. "Because we never had the chance before."

There was no hesitation. The answer came so readily that it was clear she'd already thought about how to explain it.

"What do you mean?"

"You know our history," she said softly, her gaze moving to the wall, unfocused, as if her mind had returned to the past. "We grew up together. We were always close, but we never crossed that line."

"Why not?"

"Because the timing was never right," she said flatly, like she'd said it to herself many times. "Whenever one of us was single, the other wasn't. And when we were both free... something always came up." Her eyes returned to mine. "And then you came into my life."

Her answer wasn't cruel or malicious, but it offered no comfort, either. It was simply a brutal, matter-of-fact statement, delivered without any apparent understanding of how deeply it cut.

"I chose you," she added quickly, her voice softening.

Did you? The question burned in my throat, sharp and acidic, but I forced it down. 

"Then what's the problem?" I asked instead. "You made your choice."

"I made the best choice I could at the time," she said.

At the time.

The words lodged in my mind, and the ache in my chest sharpened. I stared at her, struggling to understand how she could say something like that so calmly, as if our marriage were merely a decision she'd made under certain circumstances, one she was now entitled to reconsider.

"So things are different now?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "That's the point."

I sat there, searching her face for some sign of the woman I'd married, trying to make sense of a logic that felt entirely alien to me.

“You don’t know…” I repeated slowly. “…if you love me enough.”

"That's not what I said."

"That's exactly what you said."

Her mouth set into a thin line, her brows pulling together. "You're twisting my words."

I let out a harsh, dry breath. "No, I'm hearing them exactly as they are."

“I'm trying to be honest with you,” she replied, her voice rising slightly. “Would you rather I hide this from you? Pretend everything is fine when it isn't?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

The answer came out before I had time to think about it.

Silence fell between us.

She stared at me, apparently waiting for me to take it back. When I didn't, she shook her head.

“That's not fair.”

“Fair?” I let out a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but came out twisted and hollow. "You're asking me to sit back while my wife sleeps with another man, and you're talking about fair?" 

“I'm not asking for permission to betray you.” Her tone sharpened. “I'm asking us to redefine our relationship in a way that's honest.”

"Honest?" I said again, the word tasting like iron. "You call this honest?" 

"Yes." She didn't hesitate. Didn't even flinch. "I'm telling you the truth before anything happens. That has to count for something."

I stared at her, temporarily robbed of a reply.

Because beneath the madness of it, beneath the humiliation and the anger, there was a terrible, unyielding logic to her argument. It was twisted and absurd, and I would never accept it, but I could see how she'd arrived at it. In her mind, she was giving me a choice. She was telling me the truth instead of sneaking around behind my back.

And what made it worse was that she genuinely seemed to believe she was taking the high road.

That didn't make the request any less insulting.

“You want to explore something you should have figured out years ago,” I said.

“It's not that simple.”

"It is that simple." My voice rose for the first time. “If you had feelings for him, you should have dealt with them before marrying me.” 

“I didn't have the chance!” she shouted back. “We never had that opportunity, Wuji! Life didn't give us a chance to find out what we could have been together.” 

“And now it suddenly does?”

“Yes.”

The answer came immediately.

I studied her face, searching for some sign that she understood how unreasonable this sounded from my side. Some hint that she'd heard herself and realized what she was asking me to accept. But there was nothing. She looked at me with the same determined expression, as though her answer settled the matter.

Suddenly, the fight drained out of me.

"And you think that makes this okay?" I asked quietly, struggling to hold myself together.

"I think it makes my feelings real."

I stared at her. She looked so foreign. 

Her feelings. Her missed opportunity. Her need to find out what might have happened between her and Sun if life had taken a different turn.

Everything seemed to revolve around what she wanted to understand, what she had missed, and what she might still experience. She'd spent all this time thinking about what she wanted, yet somehow, in all that consideration, there seemed to be no room for what this would do to me.

“What am I, then?” I asked quietly. 

She looked confused. “What do you mean?”

"If you're not sure about him… and you're not sure about me…" I swallowed, forcing the words through my dry throat. "Then what am I supposed to be to you?”

Her expression faltered. My question seemed to catch her off guard, and some of the defensiveness slipped from her face. She opened her mouth, but no answer came.

I waited. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Finally, I gave myself the answer she couldn't bring herself to give.

A safety net, I thought.

I let out a long breath and leaned back against the headboard. My chest still hurt and breathing still took effort, but the shock was wearing off, and something colder was taking its place.

"You want both," I said to the ceiling.

She protested. "That's not—"   

"You want the security of what we built," I cut her off, "while you go figure out if something else is better." 

"That's not what I'm saying."

"It is," I said, turning my head to look at her. "You just don't want to use those words because you know how bad they sound."

Her frustration was becoming harder to hide. "I'm trying to handle this in a way that doesn't ruin everything. A way that doesn't hurt you or destroy our marriage."

I produced another dry, quiet laugh. "A bit late for that." 

The silence that followed felt heavy, thick with the realization that we had crossed a line we couldn't walk back from. I closed my eyes, pressing two fingers against my temple as my head began to throb. My mind felt like a chaotic mess of memories, questions, and quiet fury. 

"So what happens if you figure it out?" Although I knew the answer in my heart, I couldn’t help asking. I needed to hear what she would say. "What happens if you decide you love him more?" 

No answer came from her side of the bed.

I opened my eyes and looked at her directly. "Well?"

She turned her gaze down toward her hands, which were resting limply in her lap. "I don't know."

Of course you don't. No—you do know. You just don't want to tell me.

Something quiet gave way inside me. It wasn't a violent break, just a thin thread snapping deep within my chest, releasing the tension all at once. 

"No," I said.

The word was quiet, clear, and completely level.

She looked back up at me, her brow furrowing. "What?"

"I said no." My voice was steady now, stripped of the strained tightness from moments ago. "I'm not doing this."

"Wuji—"

"No," I repeated, cutting her off before she could start again. "No man in his right mind would agree to this."

"I'm not asking you to step aside. I'm not asking you to become someone else." Frustration crept into her voice. "I'm asking you to try to understand—"

"I understand perfectly," I said. "You're asking me to sit in this house and wait around while my wife tests out a relationship with another man." 

"That's not—"

"That's exactly what it is."

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She closed it, looking at me for a long moment before slowly leaning back against her pillow. She didn't argue further.

I pulled the covers up, turned onto my side facing away from her, and stared at the dark wall. "I'm not doing it. That's my answer."

No more explanations were offered. No more arguments were made. The room settled into an uncomfortable, total stillness.

After a few minutes, the small table lamp on her side clicked off, plunging the bedroom into complete darkness.

I kept my eyes closed and tried to make my breathing sound even, as though I'd already fallen asleep. But sleep was nowhere near. My head was too loud. Her words kept replaying. 

I want to understand my feelings.

Each repetition felt like a slow, deliberate tear in everything I thought we had built together.

She lay beside me, quiet and still. I knew she was awake. Perhaps she could tell I was, too. But neither of us moved, and neither of us spoke.

Minutes passed. Perhaps an hour. I had no idea how long I lay there, staring into the darkness behind my closed eyelids. 

Eventually, my thoughts began to settle. The hurt remained, but beneath it, a single realization took hold. 

She hadn't really been asking me to consider an idea. She was informing me of her decision.

She had been telling me that her feelings for another man had become important enough for her to bring them into our marriage. She wanted to pursue them, and she wanted me to accept it.

Whether I agreed or not, that was where we stood now.

I'd refused her request, but I was certain my answer wouldn't change her mind. She hadn't exactly come to ask for permission. She was preparing me for what was coming.

This hadn't been a conversation, a proposal, or a debate. It was a declaration of intent, a direction she had already chosen.

And deep down, I knew that whether I agreed to it or not, the marriage we had yesterday was already gone.

There are moments in life that feel ordinary while you're living them. Quiet. Warm. Familiar. And yet, later, they become the moments you replay the most—the ones you dig up at three in the morning when sleep won't come, turning them over like stones, looking for the crack you missed.

That night was one of them.

Bingqing finally lifted her head off my chest and looked at me as the television flickered in the dark. Its glow moved across her face in slow pulses—blue, then amber, then blue again. Her body was warm against mine, her weight familiar.

"Wuji," she whispered again. Her voice was softer now, hesitant.

I turned my head. "Hmm?"

Once again, she didn't answer right away. Instead, her fingers tightened around mine. Her touch felt more deliberate than before. There was intention behind it. Not rushed. Not forced. Just decided.

I studied her face. "What is it?"

Dread was already seizing my heart. Whatever was coming, whatever she had made up her mind to say but was struggling so much to put into words, it couldn't be anything good.

She shook her head lightly, trying to form a faint smile. "Nothing. I just—"

Her voice trailed off.

Then, without finishing the sentence, she leaned in.

The kiss was soft and familiar. But it wasn't passionate. It felt more like she was trying to buy herself a little more time and weaken my defenses. Still, it meant a lot. It reminded me of all the years we'd spent together—the mornings, the quiet nights. The unspoken shorthand of two people who had learned each other's rhythms so completely they no longer had to ask.

I responded instinctively, my hand moving to her waist and cupping her butt.

For a while, nothing else existed. No thoughts. No questions. Just the quiet rhythm of something that had always been there. The fear in my heart began to loosen.

By the time we finally pulled apart, we had drifted into the bedroom, our clothes long since discarded.

We lay side by side, satisfied, the silence between us calm and unbroken.

Her head rested lightly against my chest. Her face was still flushed from our lovemaking.

I stared at the ceiling.

There was a strange peace in moments like this. The kind that makes you believe everything is exactly where it should be. That nothing could go wrong. After all, we'd just fucked, so whatever was bothering her couldn't be that serious.

That nothing had ever been wrong.

Then she spoke again, and something in her voice had changed.

"Wuji."

It wasn't the soft, breathy voice from before. It was careful now. Deliberate.

"Hmm?" I murmured, absentmindedly running my fingers through her hair.

"I want to talk about something."

So there really had been something bothering her all evening.

My hand stilled for the briefest moment before I forced it to keep moving.

"Okay."

She shifted, lifting her head from my chest to look at me. There was hesitation in her eyes. Fear, too. But there was also determination. And just like that, the dread returned to my heart.

"It's about… us," she said.

I tried for a small smile. "That sounds serious."

"I am serious."

That wiped the smile off my face pretty quickly. I turned to face her fully. "Alright. What about us?"

She didn't answer right away. Her eyes searched mine again, just like earlier on the couch. As if measuring something. Or preparing herself.

Then she took a small breath.

"Don't you think things have become a little…" She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Too routine?"

I frowned. "Routine?"

"Our life. Our marriage." She kept her voice soft, almost apologetic. "It's stable. Predictable."

There wasn't any accusation in how she said it. She was just saying what she thought, an observation, and somehow that made it harder to hear.

I let out a quiet breath. "Is that a bad thing?"

"I didn't say it was bad," she replied quickly. "It's just—"

Her fingers tightened against the bedsheet.

"It feels like something is missing."

The words hung in the air between us. Something is missing. I repeated them silently in my mind, turning them over, trying to understand what she meant.

"I thought you liked this," I said. "This kind of life."

"I do," she said immediately. Too quickly.

"But," she added, her voice lowering, "sometimes I wonder if we've stopped growing. If we've settled into something so comfortable that it's started to calcify."

I didn't respond—not because I had nothing to say, but because I didn't know which answer she wanted or which answer was the right one.

"We still talk," she went on. "We still spend time together. But it feels like we're just following a pattern now. Like we already know everything there is to know about each other."

"That's what happens when you're married," I said quietly. 

She gave me a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Is it, though?"

There was a challenge folded into that question, subtle but unmistakable, and it unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. Before I could figure out how to respond, she moved on.

"There's something else I wanted to bring up."

I felt my chest tighten slightly. Whatever was coming, this was the main reason she'd been so uneasy all evening. "What is it?"

She hesitated again before finally saying it. Just a name, spoken quietly and carefully, as if she were setting something fragile down on the table between us.

"Sun Junfeng."

The name didn't sound like much on its own. But its effect on me was immediate. A kind of stillness settled over me while my mind scrambled to catch up.

Sun Junfeng. 

Her childhood friend, though that word never quite covered what they'd actually been to each other. They'd grown up two doors down from each other, attended the same schools from elementary through high school, and eventually gone to the same college. They'd sat in the same classrooms year after year until people just assumed they were a package deal. Childhood sweethearts, some of their relatives used to call them, half-jokingly, even though the two of them had never officially dated.

I'd heard the stories plenty of times over the years—how they used to study together, eat lunch together, and walk home together every single day. They were practically inseparable. Half the neighborhood had quietly expected them to end up married eventually.

But they didn't. Because life doesn't always follow expectations. He left. Moved to America for further education.

And somewhere in the space he left behind, I'd shown up. At the time, it had felt uncomplicated. Like I'd simply stepped into a spot that was already open, and I hadn't thought much harder about it than that.

Maybe I should have.

"He's been back for a while now," Bingqing said.

"Six months," I answered, the number coming out before I'd consciously decided to say it.

She looked a little surprised. "You've been keeping track?"

I shrugged, trying to sound more casual than I felt. "Hard not to notice."

That part was true, even though I'd never brought it up before that night. It had been sitting in the background of our marriage for half a year, unspoken but always there.

"He's still adjusting," she said defensively. "Things didn't go the way he hoped over there."

I nodded slowly. Sun Junfeng had always been like that. Talented. Capable. But somehow, always caught up in problems of his own making. And somehow, Bingqing was always the one who helped him out, the one who ended up untangling the messes he created.

"He's been reaching out more," she continued.

"I know."

Again, the truth came out faster than I meant it to, and she studied my face for a second like she was recalibrating something.

"You don't like it," she said. Not a question.

I let out a breath. "It's not about liking or not liking it."

"Then what is it?"

I hesitated. Because the truth wasn't simple. Because the truth sounded ugly when spoken out loud.

"It's just—" I paused, choosing my words carefully. "A little uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable how?"

I hesitated, trying to find a softer approach. "I guess I'm just not used to you two being in touch so often. He depends on you a lot."

"He's going through a rough time," she said, a slight edge creeping into her voice as she defended him again. "His relationship in the States fell apart. That's all this is."

I nodded slowly. A breakup. That made more sense.

"And you're the one helping him through it."

"That's what friends do."

I couldn't argue with that. Because she wasn't wrong. That's what friends do. Still, I heard myself ask, "Does it have to be you, every single time?"

She went quiet. For a few seconds, neither of us said anything. Then she looked away from me. "He doesn't have a lot of people here anymore. Most of his old friends have drifted away."

"And you didn't."

Her eyes came back to mine sharply, like she'd caught something in my tone I hadn't quite intended to let slip.

"I didn't abandon him," she said harshly.

"That's not what I meant," I said, though if I was being honest with myself, some small part of me might have meant exactly that.

A silence fell between us. I stared up at the ceiling again, my thoughts picking up speed. Because, of course, I'd noticed things—the messages that came in late, the calls she'd step into another room to take, the way her attention would shift the instant his name lit up her phone screen. Nothing dramatic. Nothing I could point to and call a betrayal. But it was there, all the same—a quiet presence that had found its way into something I thought belonged only to us. 

And the worst part? I couldn't say anything about it. Because from the outside, it all looked harmless. Because questioning it would make me look insecure. Jealous. Petty.

"I just think," Bingqing said slowly, changing the subject again and pulling me back from my thoughts, "maybe we've been too closed off."

"What do you mean?"

"Our whole life revolves around the same things. The same people." Her voice dropped even further. "Maybe that's part of why it feels so stagnant."

I didn't say anything back. I was starting to see where this conversation was heading, and I didn't like it. But I didn't stop her either. I just lay there and let her keep going, watching the pieces settle into place one by one—Sun Junfeng, the word routine, the phrase something is missing—all of it circling in my head and connecting in ways I wasn't ready to face.

But deep down, I already knew.

Beside me, Bingqing took a slow, deep breath, as if gathering the courage to finally say what she'd been wanting to say all evening.

"Wuji," she whispered.

I didn't look at her. "Yeah?"

That hateful pause again. A long one. The kind that stretches just enough to make your chest tighten.

And in that silence, I could feel it. The shift. The moment when everything was about to change.

But the words didn't come. Not yet.

And so I lay there, staring into the dim light of the room, my mind filled with thoughts I couldn't quite organize. Memories. Doubts. Fragments of things I had chosen not to question before. All of it flashing through my mind in a matter of seconds.

Sun Junfeng. Her voice. Her hesitation. That feeling I couldn't ignore anymore.

Something was wrong. Something had been wrong for a while.

And I had only just begun to see it.

Beside me, Bingqing remained silent, her hand still holding mine. Her decision not yet spoken.

But I knew.

Whatever came next, nothing would stay the same.

I closed the door behind me, took off my shoes in the entryway, and slipped on my slippers. After putting down my briefcase, I followed the sound of something sizzling in a pan through the living room, past the dining table, and toward the kitchen.

And there she was, standing at the stove with her sleeves pushed up past her elbows and a loose strand of hair stuck to her cheek from the kitchen heat.

Li Bingqing.

I stopped in the kitchen doorway and let myself look for a moment.

I didn't think I would ever get used to how beautiful she looked in ordinary moments like this. Not dressed up or posing for anyone, just standing over a pan with a wooden spoon in her hand, the lamp above the table casting a warm light across one side of her face. Her skin had always had that pale, almost translucent look, as though she spent her entire life indoors, though I knew that wasn't true. Her hair was loosely tied back, with a few strands falling around her jaw. For a moment, I just stood in the doorway, watching her, afraid to interrupt.

Bingqing.

Her name meant "pure as ice." Her parents had named her well. Calm on the surface, unreadable underneath.

And to me, she had always been exactly that. Pure. Calm. Untouched by anything ugly. She was beautiful, quiet, and refined.

"You're home," she said, glancing up from the stove with the same soft smile she always wore when greeting me.

"Yeah." I took off my jacket and held it in my hand. "Smells amazing in here."

"I made your favorite." She turned back to the stove, stirring something that didn't really need stirring.

"Must be a special occasion, then."

She laughed, turning to look at me again. It was a short, quiet sound, but it didn't quite land the way it usually did. It seemed to fade before reaching her eyes, like a radio signal weakening halfway through a sentence.

I noticed it.

I had learned to read her over three years of marriage. The slight tightening at the corner of her mouth when something bothered her. The way her fingers found each other when she was nervous, interlacing and untwining in a slow, unconscious rhythm. The way she held her breath before answering a question she wasn't prepared for.

Something was bothering her. I could tell, but I didn't know what it was.

I let it go for the moment. I crossed the room and, out of habit more than thought, put my hand on her shoulder as I passed toward the sink to wash up. It was a gesture I'd made a thousand times, barely a gesture at all, really, more like breathing. She didn't pull away or flinch. But there was a brief pause, just a second, before her shoulder relaxed under my palm, as if she needed an extra moment to remember what to do with my touch.

"Long day?" she asked without turning around.

I finished washing my hands and dried them with a towel. "The usual. Meetings, reports. Hao being annoying."

That earned a more genuine smile. "That sounds about right."

"And you? How was your day here?"

"Quiet." She turned off the stove. She was done cooking. "Ran a few errands. Nothing worth talking about."

She started bringing the food to the table, and I helped her. It was something we did every day, a routine we'd repeated thousands of times. Yet tonight, even our familiar routine felt strangely unfamiliar.

She plated the food and set it down with more care than usual, making sure the chopsticks were lined up just so.

We sat down to dinner and fell into our usual pattern, or at least, I tried to. I told her about the report Hao had botched and the new noodle place that had opened near the office, the one everyone kept talking about. She nodded along, asked the usual questions, and laughed at the right moments. She even reached across the table without thinking and picked the ginger slices out of my bowl because she knew I hated them.

But something was definitely off with her that night. I just couldn't put a name to it. She ate more slowly than usual, her chopsticks pausing mid-air more than once. A few times, I caught her looking at me. Not the quick, casual glances people exchange across a table, but longer looks that lingered a little too long before she caught herself and looked back down at her bowl. Her lips would part as if she were about to say something, but then they'd press shut again, and she'd go back to picking at her rice.

"Something on your mind?" I finally asked, setting my chopsticks down.

She looked up quickly—too quickly—and shook her head. "No. It's nothing, really."

The answer came almost before I'd finished the question, which told me more than the words themselves did. I watched her for a moment, waiting to see if she'd change her mind and tell me whatever was bothering her. She didn't.

"You barely touched your food," I said.

She looked down at her bowl, as if surprised to find it still half-full. "I had a late lunch."

It was a reasonable excuse. She lowered her eyes to her bowl and kept eating, a little too focused on it now, as if the rice had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the room.

I thought about pushing. If it had been anyone else—a coworker, a friend, even my own sister—I probably would have kept asking until they finally told me what was wrong. But this was Bingqing. In all the years I'd known her, she had never once been the type to hide things out of spite or fear. If she was holding something back, it was because she wasn't ready to talk about it yet, and pushing someone before they're ready rarely does any good.

So I let the silence sit between us, unbothered because I still trusted her. Then I picked up my chopsticks again. "Alright."

She exhaled in relief, so softly I almost missed it, and returned to her meal.

————————————————————————

After dinner, we cleared the table. She washed, and I dried, another one of our small, unspoken routines. Then we ended up on the couch like we did most nights. I turned on the TV and put on some drama neither of us was really watching, just letting the dialogue play in the background while we sat together in the same room.

The overhead light stayed off. Only the blue flicker of the screen and the lamp in the corner lit the room, casting soft shadows and giving everything a warm, quiet feel.

She sat closer to me than usual that night. We weren't a clingy couple, and we both liked having our own space, so the closeness was a little unusual. But I didn't think much of it. In fact, I liked it. 

I rested my arm along the back of the sofa, and she leaned into me, her shoulder fitting against my chest as if it belonged there. Her touch was natural. Familiar. Comforting.

But then I felt it.

Her fingers brushed against mine, light as a breath. Then she pulled back. A moment later, they brushed against mine again, lingering a little longer this time. Her hand hovered over mine, palm open, as though waiting for permission.

"Bingqing?" I murmured.

She didn't answer.

Instead, she slowly turned toward me. The light from the television fell across the side of her face, highlighting the soft curve of her jaw and the slight tremble in her lower lip. Her eyes looked darker than usual, and there was something in them I couldn't quite name—a mixture of tenderness and distance, as if she were looking at me from the other end of a very long corridor.

"Wuji," she said quietly.

"Yes?"

She didn't say anything. Instead, she kept her gaze on my face, studying my features carefully, as though searching for something specific or trying to memorize every detail. It wasn't the casual way she usually looked at me. 

For a moment, it felt heavy, it felt like a farewell. Like she was looking at me the way someone looks at a person before saying goodbye.

Then she leaned in closer, removing any remaining distance between us. She rested her head against my chest again. She slipped her hand into mine, lacing our fingers together and holding on tightly. I could feel her steady breathing against my chest and collarbone.

It was a simple gesture, one we had shared countless nights.

But tonight, it carried a weight I couldn't explain.

I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her even closer. She melted into me, her body soft and yielding. The television flickered, cycling through scenes I barely paid attention to. The minutes passed quietly.

For a moment, everything felt normal.

Almost.

I rested my cheek against her hair and breathed in the familiar floral scent of her shampoo, the same one I remembered buying for her last spring. Her body rose and fell against mine with each breath. Her fingers were still intertwined with mine.

But as I sat there, holding the woman I had loved for half a decade, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had begun to change between us. I couldn't see it or put it into words, but I could feel it, like the first tremor before a building fell.

I looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were slightly parted. She looked peaceful. Vulnerable. Beautiful in a way that made my chest ache.

And yet, something didn't feel right.

I couldn't understand why I was feeling this way.

Why my stomach had tightened into a knot I couldn't loosen.

Why her silence tonight felt louder than anything she could have said.

I tried to hold her a little tighter and said nothing.

The television played on.

And somewhere in the silence between our two heartbeats, the evening settled around us like a held breath—waiting, without my permission, for something to break.

People assume contentment is something you settle for, a consolation prize for those who didn’t have the nerve to want more. I never bought that. 

My name is Feng Wuji. I'm thirty-two years old, and if you asked me to describe my life in one word, I'd say good.

Not exciting or extraordinary, nor particularly remarkable. Just good, in the way a well-made, comfortable pair of shoes is good. Nobody writes songs about shoes like that. They're not something you think about all day, but you appreciate them every time you put them on. That's the point.

My mornings rarely varied. I woke up at six-thirty; the alarm no longer startled me. I took a shower, made myself a cup of black coffee—no sugar, no milk, my one aesthetic principle in an otherwise unprincipled kitchen—then ate the breakfast my wife had prepared before heading out for work by eight.

Every day, the elevator in our building took its sweet time, stopping on almost every floor. The hallway always smelled like whatever detergent the cleaning crew had used that week.

Old Zhou, the security guard, raised two fingers from behind the front desk whenever I passed on my way to work. That was about as much conversation as either of us wanted before nine in the morning. I liked that about him. Honestly, I liked that about most of my life—the parts that didn't ask anything of me that I wasn't already prepared to give.

I worked as a project coordinator at Hengyuan Tech, a mid-sized company with a decent reputation. It was a good working environment where people took their jobs seriously. Here, ambition existed, but it hadn't turned ugly. The air conditioning worked well, the deadlines were firm but not sadistic, and management generally knew better than to push people beyond their limits.

I'd been there for nine years and had earned three promotions along the way. I knew my coworkers well enough to tell who genuinely preferred black coffee and who ordered it just to look sophisticated in the office. 

Nine years was a long time. Long enough for a workplace to stop feeling like somewhere you simply went to earn a living and start feeling like a familiar part of your life. I was satisfied with that. I knew the people, the routines, the pressures, and pretty much everything about the place.

"You're early again. It's honestly embarrassing for the rest of us. Seriously, Wuji, don't you ever sleep in? Doesn't your wife ever object?"

I didn't need to look up to know it was Chen Hao. Nobody else announced their arrival by insulting you first.

He let himself into my office, swaggering like a rapper. He grabbed the chair from across my desk, spun it around, and straddled it backward like he was fifteen.

"You're late again," I said. "As usual."

"Flexible hours, my friend."

"That phrase doesn't mean what you think it means."

"It means whatever the boss lets it mean, and the boss likes me." He grinned, completely unbothered, and stole a pen from my desk, which he had no intention of using. "Lunch. Same place?"

"Same place."

"Come on, man," he groaned. "Let's go out somewhere today. Have something good for lunch."

"Not interested."

"You're the most predictable man alive, you know that? It's actually a little impressive."

"I prefer 'reliable.'"

"Sure. Reliable. That's what boring people call themselves." He said it without any real bite. Chen Hao had been saying some version of that sentence to me since the first month we met, and by now, it was less an insult than a kind of greeting.

"Morning, you two."

The voice was quieter, and the whole room seemed to dial itself down a notch when it came. Yue Mengli stood in the open doorway, a folder held against her chest, a loose strand of hair escaping her morning braid. After a brief glance inside, she stepped into the room.

"Morning," I said.

Yue Mengli had a quiet presence. She never demanded attention, but somehow drew it anyway. People tended to lower their voices around her, as if being too loud might break something delicate.

Chen Hao, of course, had no such instinct.

"Morning, Mengli! Perfect timing. Tell Wuji he needs a personality transplant."

She laughed, a small, genuine sound, and her eyes flicked toward me for a brief second before she answered. "I think there's nothing wrong with being steady."

"See? This is favoritism. I'm reporting this to HR."

"I'm not taking sides." She looked down at the folder in her hands, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks that she was clearly hoping neither of us would notice. "I just don't think everyone needs to be exciting or dramatic to be worth something."

There was a brief pause after that, as if she'd suddenly realized she'd said more than she intended. I did what I always did in those moments. I let it pass as though I hadn't noticed the extra meaning behind her words.

"Anyway." She recovered quickly, settling back into her professional composure. "Wuji, the Q3 client report is ready for your review whenever you have time."

"I'll take a look after lunch."

She nodded, gave me one more of those small smiles, and headed back toward her desk. I watched her go for exactly as long as it was normal for a coworker to watch another coworker go, and not one second longer.

Chen Hao, damn him, had been watching me watch her. He wore that "I know everything" smile that made my skin crawl.

"You're a cruel, cruel man."

"I have no idea what you're implying."

"I'm not implying anything. I'm stating a fact. That girl has had a thing for you since the Wang account, and you walk around pretending you haven't noticed, as if it's some kind of moral achievement."

"I'm married, Hao."

"I know that. She knows that too. Doesn't stop the heart from being an idiot, though, does it?" He shrugged, already losing interest and reaching for something on his phone. "I'm just saying, most guys wouldn't be so disciplined about it."

I didn't answer that one because there wasn't really an answer that wouldn't sound either arrogant or cruel. The truth was simpler than either: I noticed everything—the glances, the pauses, and the way her sentences sometimes trailed off halfway when I was around. I noticed, then filed it away somewhere I didn't visit, because noticing wasn't the same as wanting, and I had a wife at home whom I loved wholeheartedly.

That's not a small thing, by the way. Loving someone without complication. Most people go their whole lives without it.

————————————————————————

The day went much like most of my days. There were a few meetings, a spreadsheet that fought me for twenty minutes before finally surrendering, and a coffee run with Chen Hao, during which he spent the entire walk telling me about an argument he'd had with his landlord as if he were describing a scene from a heist movie.

At lunch, the three of us took our usual table by the window. Chen Hao did most of the talking, as usual. Mengli laughed at the right moments and occasionally caught my eye across the table. It was the kind of look that could mean nothing or everything, depending on how much attention you wanted to give it. I gave it just enough attention to be kind, and not a bit more.

By six, the office had mostly emptied out, leaving only the diehards or the people with nowhere better to be. I wasn't either of those.

I grabbed my jacket, switched off the lights in my office, and stepped outside.

As I headed toward the elevators, Chen Hao looked up from his desk.

"Off to the wife," he called. It wasn't really a question.

"Off to the wife," I agreed, shrugging into my jacket.

"Living the dream, man." There was something beneath the joke in his voice. I couldn't tell if it was envy or just exhaustion, and I didn't ask. I knew their shift wouldn't end for another two hours, and this guy loved to be dramatic.

Yue Mengli glanced up from her desk. "See you tomorrow, Wuji," she said softly, her voice nearly lost beneath the scrape of Chen Hao's chair.

"See you tomorrow, Mengli," I replied with a small nod before heading for the elevators.

Outside, the city was doing its usual evening thing—horns blaring, the smell of someone's street-cart dinner, and the sun casting long orange stripes between the buildings. I wondered what Bingqing had decided to make for dinner tonight. By now, she was probably already in the kitchen.

I checked my phone out of habit. No messages. There usually weren't any; we both knew roughly when I'd be back.

I took my usual route home, stopping at the corner store to pick up the milk we had run out of. The drive took about twenty minutes, depending on traffic.

The evening traffic was as busy as usual—slow enough to be annoying if you fought it, predictable enough to stop mattering if you didn't. I waited through two red lights behind a delivery van, let a motorcycle squeeze past, and watched office workers come out of the subway station with takeaway bags in their hands.

I wasn't in a hurry. Home wasn't going anywhere.

Bingqing almost always had dinner ready by the time I got back. She'd left her job six months after we got married, deciding she'd rather take care of our home than spend another decade climbing someone else's corporate ladder. I'd told her the decision was hers to make, and she'd never once given me a reason to think she regretted it. Truth be told, I think she hated office work.

I'd offered more than once to hire someone to help with the housework, but Bingqing always refused. She said taking care of our home was what she loved.

I pulled into the building garage, eased the car into my usual parking space, and killed the engine. The familiar silence settled in as I grabbed the milk from the passenger seat, locked the car, and headed for the elevators.

The ride up was uneventful, just me and the soft hum of the elevator. By now, I could probably tell which floor we'd reached without looking at the display.

I paused outside our apartment door for a moment before unlocking it. I always did that. It was a small habit, giving myself a chance to appreciate the life waiting on the other side before I stepped inside and took it for granted again.

Inside, the apartment smelled of garlic and ginger, and I could hear something sizzling in a pan and the television playing softly in the other room. Ordinary sounds. The best sounds I knew.

I stepped inside. And in that moment, I felt completely content.