Chapter 1

On the day of our third wedding anniversary, I saw Noah from the escalator on the second floor of Macy's.

He wasn't wearing his usual, slightly frayed navy-blue suit. Instead, he had changed into a light grey cashmere coat I had never seen before. The cut was exquisite, softening his habitual melancholic air and giving him the polished look of a metropolitan elite. In the crook of his arm, a girl was intimately intertwined.

She wore a short, creamy white Moncler down jacket and had a petite frame.

It was Ivy, the new marketing assistant at Noah's company.

I looked down at the Bottega Veneta paper bag in my hand, which held a carefully selected men's cashmere scarf. I had spent nearly my entire performance bonus for the month on it.

Noah was leaning in slightly, whispering something into Ivy's ear, the line of his profile so tender it felt foreign to me. They stopped in front of the Tiffany & Co. counter.

My feet felt as though they had been Super Glued to the floor at the top of the escalator.

"Noah... is this really okay? What about Lian..." Ivy's voice wasn't loud, but against the ambient noise of the mall, it pierced my eardrums like a cold probe. Despite her verbal worry, her body honestly nestled deeper into Noah's embrace. Her slender fingers traced across the bright glass counter, eventually resting on a ring heavily encrusted with diamonds.

Noah scraped her nose affectionately—a gesture he had never once used with me. "Don't bring up that haggard housewife. As long as you like it, anything goes. Her? Does she even understand what the romance of life is?"

Haggard housewife.

Subconsciously, I touched my cheek. Before leaving the house this morning, I had specifically applied makeup, using the Tom Ford lipstick I usually couldn't bear to waste. It turned out that in Noah's eyes, three years of budgeting, scrimping to pay the mortgage on that Brooklyn apartment, and sacrificing countless personal hobbies had only earned me this contemptuous label.

Ivy let out a light laugh. As her gaze wandered, she suddenly caught sight of me frozen not far away.

Shechilling, yet it rendered me clearer-headed than ever before.

Ivy spoke then, her voice still sugary but laced with invisible poison. "Lian, what a coincidence. Noah was just helping me pick out an onboarding gift. Since we've bumped into each other, I won't hide quietly. In that moment, I thought a lava-like rage would explode from my chest, that I would rush over and slap him, or scream hysterically. But strangely, there was no volcano inside me. Instead, it felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. It was bone- of paper. His instinct was to shake off Ivy's hand, but she clung tighter, winding around him like a vine.

"Lian? You... why are you here?" Noah's voice trembled slightly—the sound of absolute guilt.

I didn't speak; I just watched him it anymore. Noah lost feelings for you a long time ago. Only when he's with me does he feel truly alive."

Passersby were casting curious or scrutinizing glances, and whispers began to drift through the air.

Although flustered, seeing that I hadn't lost control paused, a flash of panic darting through her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a look of almost innocent provocation. She tugged at Noah's sleeve, signaling him to turn around.

Our eyes met.

Noah's face drained of color instantly, turning as pale as a sheet on the spot, Noah's inexplicable, bone-deep sense of superiority quietly resurfaced. He straightened his back, seemingly wanting to salvage some shred of pathetic male dignity in front of his young lover. "Since you've seen it, I don't want to hide it either. Lian, between us... there hasn't been a common language for a long time."

I looked at this man with whom I had shared a bed for three years, the man I had naively thought was my sanctuary for the rest of my life, and a wave of intense nausea surged in my stomach.

"Common language?" The corners of my mouth twitched, and I actually smiled, my voice so calm it surprised even me. "Do you mean your annual salary of fifty thousand, which leaves almost nothing after tax? Or do you mean that apartment where you used a pre-marital 'loan' for the down payment, yet expected me to help pay the mortgage?"

Noah's expression turned even uglier.

I didn't give him a chance to formulate a rebuttal. I quickly pulled out my phone, aimed the lens at the two of them, and *click*—captured the moment clearly.

"What are you doing!" Noah roared, lunging forward to snatch it.

I took a step back, holding the phone up and shaking it slightly, my eyes as cold as the surface of the lake in Central Park in winter. "Keeping a souvenir. Noah, this scarf was originally chosen for you. Now it seems its quality is too high for you."

With that, I turned to the trash can beside the escalator and, along with the exquisite Bottega Veneta paper bag, unhesitatingly threw the expensive cashmere scarf inside.

"Lian! Are you crazy! That's money! Several hundred dollars!" Noah yelled, heartbroken over the cash. See, that was him. To his core, he was still that penny-pinching, narrow-minded pauper.

Ignoring the sounds of the argument behind me—mixed with Ivy's coquettish complaints—I walked straight to the down escalator.

As the elevator doors slowly closed, through the gap, I saw Ivy looking up, pouting and whining to Noah. And Noah, despite his ashen face, ultimately couldn't bring himself to push her away.

The elevator descended, bringing a sense of weightlessness. Leaning against the cold stainless steel wall of the car, I took out my phone. Although my fingertips trembled imperceptibly, my operations were exceptionally fast.

I opened the voice recorder app and saved the file recording the entire encounter from the moment I heard their conversation. I logged into the mobile banking app and took a screenshot of the debit notification for the purchase just made at the mall.

I opened the family location sharing app—which Noah had forced me to install to monitor my whereabouts at all times; ironically, it had now become my weapon—and screenshot his current location information near the Tiffany counter at Macy's.

I didn't cry. Tears, at a time like this, are the cheapest and most useless of consumables.