In the middle of the night around 12:00 a.m., Lu Lu was staring at the computer screen, not daring to believe that what it displayed was a list of her husband’s expenses from the last few months: a few hundred yuan on women’s clothing at a department store, over a thousand yuan on a bottle of imported alcohol from a high-end liquor store … Seeing this list of numbers, Lu Lu collapsed into the chair and felt a taste of despair for the first time in her life. She never could have imagined that her husband who had been through thick and thin with her would suddenly betray her. Her sister-in-law’s kind warning came to mind: “Lu Lu, aren’t you afraid that my brother will do something disrespectful to you while he’s away?” Her response was, “I couldn’t say what others might do, but your brother isn’t that kind of person.” Her air of confidence at that time surfaced in her memory—faced with the bitter truth in that moment, it really felt like a mockery. The truth, hard as nails, completely obliterated the last line of defense in Lu Lu’s heart, and tears rolled down her cheek one after another, like a string of pearls. She hoped so fervently that this was a delusion and so longed to return to the wonderful times of the past, to the nostalgia of their innocent love. …
