Volume One Chapter One His Betrayal

"Yixiao, you’re amazing, I love you!"
"Be good, wrap your arms around my waist."
...

I sat quietly in the living room, listening to the sounds of passion filtering out from the bedroom.

Today was my wedding anniversary with Shen Yixiao. He’d called me last minute to say he was caught up with work.

After hanging up, I drove alone to this apartment.

They were so lost in their frenzy they didn’t even notice when I unlocked the door and entered. Clothes were strewn chaotically across the floor, and the blue box of condoms was impossible to ignore.

They hadn’t even bothered to close the bedroom door.

I got up and walked to the TV stand. There, a pair of small clay figurines stood—ones Shen Yixiao and I had shaped together at a roadside stall, back when we first got together. They represented the two of us.

I picked them up and slipped them into my bag.

"You’re so naughty! Don’t touch me there, it tickles! Hahaha..."
"Is it as ticklish as my heart? Don’t you know what day it is? Wearing black stockings to seduce me—when I get home, I’ll have to explain myself. You’d better make it up to me!"
"Come on then, devour me~"

As I passed the bedroom door, Shen Yixiao’s voice was thick with desire.

Once, he’d been this wild with me, too.

I didn’t disturb them. I left the apartment.

On my way downstairs, I posted online: “After being reborn, is it normal that I eavesdrop on my husband and his mistress having sex?”

A few minutes later, only a handful of replies popped up.

"Such a niche post."
"Definitely a clickbait post!"
"Isn’t this a novel? Who actually gets reborn? No one’s even sure if ghosts are real."

I chuckled and deleted the post. Only I knew that my rebirth was real.

I’d met Shen Yixiao at seventeen, walked from the schoolyard to our wedding altar over seven long years.

Back then, he was the school’s infamous troublemaker, skipping classes and getting into fights every day. I was the model student—the good girl in everyone’s eyes.

Maybe it was the allure of two worlds colliding that pulled us together. For him, I dropped out of school, cut ties with my family, picked up smoking and drinking—they became routine.

I fully immersed myself in his world; we became the same kind. And that’s when he started to long for the pure, kind girl I once was, searching for her shadow in other women. The one tangled up with him just now—that was the one most like me.

Her name was Lu Xiaoyun.

She was also the one who, in my last life, sent me to my death.

—

Back home, I took my usual antidepressants, then sat on the sofa and turned on the TV. It was replaying a variety show Shen Yixiao and I had appeared on a month ago.

On the show, he treated me with utmost gentleness, the picture-perfect, handsome husband completely under his wife’s thumb. If I so much as uttered a word, he’d do anything for me.

In truth, he was the same way at home. There was no difference.

The comment feed was flooded with envy.

"If only heaven would grant me a man like Mr. Shen, I wouldn’t even mind living in a villa and driving a luxury car!"
"Every time Shen Yixiao looks at Li Yue, it’s like his eyes are about to melt."
"This can’t be scripted, right? If it is, their acting is too good."
"I heard Li Yue stood by Shen Yixiao through the hardest times. No wonder their relationship is so strong."
"Little Moon—ugh, that pet name is too saccharine."

Reading those comments, I couldn’t help but laugh until tears spilled down my cheeks. I kept dabbing at them with tissues.

At that moment, Shen Yixiao came home. As soon as he saw me on the sofa, laughing with tears streaming down my face, his eyes softened immediately.

He didn’t interrupt me. Instead, he fetched a pair of socks, knelt down in front of me, and carefully helped me put them on. "Why aren’t you wearing socks again? It’s getting cold—don’t catch a chill."

I lowered my gaze to him. Faint marks of kisses lingered on his neck.

Those were Lu Xiaoyun’s marks—meant for me to discover, so I’d take the hint and ask for a divorce.

In my previous life, I’d done just that—found out, fought with Shen Yixiao, demanded a divorce. But he refused, even kept me under house arrest.

He said he missed the girl I used to be, and that Lu Xiaoyun, who looked a little like me, even shared the same personality as my former self. That’s why, when hiring a secretary, he’d chosen her at first glance.

He said, drunk and out of control, he’d mistaken Lu Xiaoyun for me. That one misstep led to another, but his love had always been for me alone.

He told me Lu Xiaoyun was pregnant. “Didn’t we want a child? Let her be the surrogate, keep her at home as a nanny.”

He said so many things, and I believed them all.

My tears fell again, dropping onto Shen Yixiao’s hand. He looked up in alarm. "Honey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying all of a sudden? Did someone bully you? Tell me, I’ll never let them off!"

"Shen Yixiao, you see? Everyone envies our love. These are tears of joy," I said, pointing at the flashing barrage of comments on the big TV screen.

He let out a quiet sigh of relief, sat down beside me, and pulled me into his arms, doting as ever. "As long as you’re happy, my love, we’ll always be the couple everyone envies."

I breathed in the faint scent of perfume on his suit, pretending not to know a thing. Today was our second wedding anniversary, and yet he’d still found time to lose himself in Lu Xiaoyun’s arms. Clearly, he no longer cared to hide it.

In my previous life, he’d told me everything about his affair with Lu Xiaoyun. About half a year after our wedding, she became his secretary. Less than three months later, they crossed the line.

So by now, they’d been together a year and a half—and until this moment, I’d known nothing.

The air hung heavy with silence, broken only by the sound of the variety show on TV.

At a funny moment, Shen Yixiao let out a low laugh, clearly in high spirits.

He tightened his hold around my waist and kissed my forehead. "Honey, today’s our anniversary. Come, let me show you your present."

He took my hand and led me to the rooftop terrace.

Brilliant fireworks burst across the night sky. Drones hovered above, forming the shape of a giant blue moon.

"Honey, you’re my moon—the one no star could ever replace." Shen Yixiao stood behind me, arms protectively around me, whispering tenderly in my ear.

Was this his way of hinting? That even if Lu Xiaoyun existed, she was just an insignificant star, never able to replace me.

I gazed at the fireworks, entranced. After a long silence, I finally spoke. "Shen Yixiao, let’s get a divorce, shall we?"

In the next instant, Shen Yixiao seemed to snap, his emotions flaring wildly. "Honey, what are you saying? Divorce? Why?!"

I looked at his flushed face, saw the genuine anxiety in his eyes. Over the years, we’d been each other’s emotional anchor, weathered so much together. No one else had ever truly entered his world—only me.

"I can’t have children. I don’t want to hold you back." I touched my abdomen, where a scar remained from when I’d taken a knife for him.

The price had been my ability to have children.