The scent of braised pork belly and simmering mushroom soup hung heavy and comforting in the air of the small apartment.
Lin Yue smoothed down the apron tied around her thin waist and stepped back to survey the dining table.
A simple white linen cloth, two carefully polished wine glasses (the ones they only used for Chinese New Year), and a small vase holding five perfect crimson roses, one for each year. It was their fifth wedding anniversary.
Lin Yue was twenty-nine, yet the relentless grind of caring for the home, managing finances, and always putting, her husband, Chen Hao's needs first had etched lines of exhaustion around her eyes that made her look older, perhaps thirty-five.
Her usually neat hair was escaping its clip, and the soft beige dress she had worn specially for the evening already felt slightly damp with kitchen heat. She was haggard, a woman worn thin by invisible labor, and she knew it.
She glanced at the wall clock. 9:15 PM.
The dinner had been ready since seven. The food was covered, the apartment spotless.
She picked up her phone, resisting the urge to call again. Chen Hao had simply texted at 5 PM: "Big meeting. Running late. Don't wait up."
Don't wait up. On their anniversary?
Lin Yue's heart, which had been performing a slow, anxious drumbeat all evening, quickened its pace. He was a sales director; busy was normal. But today felt different.
Today, she had prepared his favorite dishes—the complex, time-consuming ones he usually only requested from his mother.
She paced to the window, watching the streetlights illuminate the humid night. The excitement and anticipation she'd felt earlier had curdled into a cold, metallic taste of dread.
~10:30 PM.
The braised pork, once glistening with fresh heat, was now merely warm, its surface slightly solidified. The roses seemed to mock her with their perfection.
She could no longer bear the silence. Her hand trembled as she unlocked her phone and found Chen Hao's contact, the one marked with a small heart emoji she'd added five years ago.
She pressed the call button, listening to the agonizingly slow ringing. It went to voicemail.
Maybe he's driving. Maybe he left his phone in the office.
She rationalized desperately, her fingernails digging into her palm.
She tried again, and this time, on the third ring, the line clicked, and the call was answered. "Hello?"
Lin Yue froze. It was a woman's voice. High-pitched, slightly breathy, and dripping with an unfamiliar, honeyed sweetness. It was the sound of a voice well-rested and utterly unburdened.
The voice. It struck Lin Yue not with complete shock, but with a jarring sense of recognition—like a half-remembered tune played on a different instrument.
It was a woman's voice who was not Lin Yue, and it resonated with a familiarity that sickened her.
She frantically searched the archives of her memory, trying to place the cheerful, light tone.
A colleague? A client's secretary?
No, the familiarity felt closer, more personal, yet she couldn't grasp the name or the face.
A suffocating silence stretched between them before the voice spoke again, sounding mildly concerned, yet maintaining a note of forced innocence.
The woman said with feigning innocence and with calculative concern hidden behind her words "Oh dear, this is awkward. You must be… calling for Chen Hao? He's quite tied up right now. Who is this, please? Are you his family?"
The world tilted. Lin Yue felt the blood drain from her face, replaced by a cold fire that started in her chest and spread outward.
The phone felt heavy, like a chunk of lead. Her mind struggled to assemble the necessary words, but her throat was constricted. Lin Yue said with great difficulty "Who... who are you?"
Lin Yue's voice was a rough, unfamiliar croak, barely audible above the dull roar in her ears.
The woman on the other side of call sighed, a theatrical sound thick with manufactured sympathy and fake guilt. "Oh, I truly don't think I should say. It would only complicate things for Chen Hao, and he really is so exhausted from work lately. Please, I'm sure you understand."
The casual use of her husband's name, the possessive sympathy, shattered Lin Yue's last barrier of disbelief. Her fifth anniversary, her feast, her life—it was all dissolving into this agonizing, crystal-clear moment of betrayal.
Lin Yue took a deep, shuddering breath, her entire body rigid with shock and said while controlling her emotions "No... I am not a colleague... I'm her...Wife...Who are you... Where is Chen Hao... give him his phone back!"
There was a slight pause on the other end, the briefest moment of calculated cruelty.
The woman's voice became softer, almost a conspiratorial whisper, but carrying a chilling edge of triumph.
She didn't offer her name or told Lin Yue who is she, but said with feigned reluctance and obvious triumph. "If you truly can't wait for him to come home, then you can come and ask him yourself. It's the Regal Grand Hotel, downtown. Room 1089."
The line went dead.
Lin Yue stood there, her entire body numb, the phone still pressed to her ear.
Regal Grand. Room 1089...
The address was a lightning strike, burning away the façade of her life. She looked at the meticulously set table, the five crimson roses, the cooling, congealed feast.
Chen Hao had not been stuck in a big meeting. He had been planning a different kind of anniversary celebration, and she was only now being invited to witness the bitter end of it.
Without a word, without a tear, Lin Yue dropped the phone onto the plush dining chair. It bounced silently.
Her heart was in turmoil, pain of betrayal is seething in her heart.
She close her eyes and took a deep breath, stabilising her emotions and then open her eyes. Her eyes now seems cold without any emotions.
She walked past the ruined dinner and the mocking flowers, her gaze fixed and empty, straight toward the front door.