The woman sitting at the next table was very beautiful, and the coffee she ordered was delicious—the salty cheese aroma rising with the steam, mixed with the scent of nuts.
She lowered her eyes, stirring the hot coffee in her cup little by little, her fingertips reddened by the heat of the cup without any reaction.
Outside the window, the rain fell in fine, dense threads.
She didn't have an umbrella.
Her phone screen was lit and placed to the side, showing a message she had sent twenty minutes ago to a contact labeled "Husband."
"A Jin, are you still at work?"
[Read]
This café was located in the city center, with a quiet and elegant interior, quite the bourgeois style. Many people came here to check in.
Qi Sui rarely came; such a life seemed to belong only to hardworking industry elites, not someone like her.
Her face was haggard and pale. Before leaving, she had only had time to hastily dust on some powder to make her complexion less unsightly.
Through the drizzling rain, the magnificent company building across the street was lit up on every floor—that was where her husband worked.
She stared fixedly at the parking lot entrance, only relaxing her shoulders when she saw a familiar license plate. She raised her coffee cup to take a sip, as if to cover up her anxiety.
But instead of heading toward home, the car slowly stopped at the main entrance of the company. A man in a suit and tie stepped out, his hair neatly styled, not greasy but rather exuding a sharp and capable air, with a face Qi Sui knew well.
Her husband, gentlemanly as ever, opened the car door and invited a man to get in.
The rain grew heavier.
The warm air inside the café condensed a thin layer of mist on the floor-to-ceiling windows.
It wasn't thick, just enough to obscure the face of the man in the passenger seat.
Judging by his figure.
Tall, slender. He took off his wet suit jacket and folded it neatly over his arm, politely refusing her husband's outstretched hand, then gave a slight nod before getting into the car.
What a polite, distant man.
If she hadn't seen those ambiguous messages, Qi Sui wouldn't have held any ill will toward him.
Her phone vibrated.
The man's perfunctory reply flickered on the screen.
"Working late today, not coming back first."
Qi Sui grabbed her phone like a lifeline, hurriedly picking it up.
She wanted so badly to ask.
Who is he?
Why did he use that tone to him?
Why did he say "I miss you"?
And why did he give him a tie and drive him home?
Her fingertips trembled, wanting to type something, but she weakly put down the phone.
It seemed that what was even harder to accept than the fact that her husband never truly loved her was that she had lost to a man.
A handsome, young, and powerful man.
Her husband had hidden a photo of himself and that man in a private album. It was a group photo of their department; her husband was smiling happily, standing shoulder to shoulder with the man. If it weren't for this layer of emotion, they would seem like just good friends.
The man's eyes slanted downward in a soft, gentle curve. He wasn't smiling, but the corners of his eyes held fine laughter lines. His expression seemed somewhat aloof, his face half-turned so that his features were unclear, but his superior jawline and contour were enough to reveal—this was a handsome, even beautiful man.
Her husband had cropped out just the two of them and repeatedly replayed memories of this relationship in places she had no right to touch.
The woman clenched the small stirring spoon tightly in her fingers, her face pale and powerless, her eyes glaring at the message from her husband on the screen, on the verge of letting out a heart-wrenching roar.
So disgusting.
So disgusting.
So disgusting.
So all those years of mutual respect were a lie.
What eternal love was even more of a lie.
Qi Sui was nothing but a wretch.
She sat on edge, feeling as if the whole world was laughing at her.
She wanted to down the coffee in one gulp, but the scalding temperature burned her throat, and she could only sit there choking pathetically, her face flushed red, tears welling in her eyes.
Looking at her reflection in the glass—plain, pale, thin calluses on her fingers.
Even she found it repulsive.
No one would ever love Qi Sui again, ever since the only person in the world who loved her had passed away.
She became a woman, a wife.
Even if she craved someone's love like crazy, it was futile.